HealthyGamerGG - Dr. K and Mrs. K Relationship Advice | Community Stream
Episode Date: July 19, 2021Taken from stream dated May 15, 2021. Stream Schedule: https://www.twitch.tv/healthygamer_gg on Twitch. Youtube: https://youtu.be/s5cjlHMkOUM for VoD Archive. Support us at https://ko-fi.com/heal...thygamer if you enjoy our content and would continue helping making it accessible to everyone! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Back to you, Tom.
All right, let's get to questions.
and we're going to start with the first question
and then I'm going to go make a tasty beverage.
Okay?
I'm excited.
Let's do this.
I dress for a vacay.
I don't know if you can tell.
All right.
So, first question.
Let's see if we can present.
There we go.
Hi, Dr. Kay and Kruthi.
I hope this is relevant to the topic.
Talking with my boyfriend is very hard.
He has severe social anxiety
and so communication doesn't come easily for him.
Some days go by and he doesn't ask me
anything about my day or how I'm doing.
A lot of the time I don't feel,
I don't really feel loved.
How can we work together to find a way for me to,
for me to feel appreciated?
Asking him to talk to me more makes him upset with himself
and doesn't usually end up being productive.
So I'm not sure it's directly the solution.
I can relate to this.
I know you can.
Yeah.
Because we've been in a similar situation.
All right, what do you think?
Well, I remember I used to ask you, like, especially like during residency in medical school, you know, we'd like finally see each other and be like, so how is your day? And you would just look me dead in the eye and be like, do we really have to talk about our days? I was like, maybe. I don't know. I feel like we should.
So, I don't know, there's feeling appreciated and actually being appreciated. So I would kind of start there in my.
answer to you. What do you think?
That's a keep going, giving your answer.
Okay. So, um, if you are not appreciated, that's a different thing. But if it's a way
for you to feel more appreciated and talking, like him initiating a conversation about you
is difficult for him. I would say that like, you know, for this to work and maybe help him
find that to be more natural, like kind of model the behavior, ask him about his day.
Hopefully he doesn't shut you down the way Olob used to shut me down.
But I think even then it would be, you know, I would kind of tell Oloak like, well, yeah,
I think it would be nice if we just knew what was going on in each other's lives.
And then I think that kind of opened the door.
Also, sometimes just like, how was your day in person?
particular tends to be like a automatic it was fine the end kind of conversation where it might be
better to like have a conversation about something like hey did you see this headline what do you
think about this um i wanted to i was thinking about checking out this other place for dinner one
night what do you think about that like kind of narrow the scope a little yeah so i i think um i kind of
agree with Gruthy. So I remember specifically like when I was in residency, right? Like I,
I had seen, I had been, let's say, like on a call for 24 hours dealing with homeless people
who wanted to kill themselves and didn't want to detox off of alcohol. So like when you're
doing that for 24 hours in a row, it can feel pretty exhausting. And so I get home and, you know,
I'm actually really happy to be home because I get to see my wife whom I love. And the last thing that I
want to do is like spend time like here I am at home like with this person that I really enjoy
spending time with. The last thing that I want to do is like spend my mental energy recalling
this bruiser that I've just been through. But those were always the best stories. No, they weren't
always the best stories. Oh, they were so good. No, that's because I shared with you the ones that are
entertaining. I didn't share with you 99. I would share maybe one story a night, but there's like
23 other hours of my day
that sucked. Do you remember that one time
so there was this time where
we were, this is when we lived in Boston and it was at
Downtown Crossing and I remember
walking to work and I was like
that guy is going to end up in like
Alloaks unit and like I knew
Ollick was working and this guy was like
trying to have sex with trash can basically
in the middle of downtown crossing
So
yeah. So this is kind of a funny story.
So at Massachusetts General Hospital, we have an internal hip protected document that has, like, records for the residents.
And so, like, I don't know if you guys know this, but when you go to the, you know, when you go to the emergency room, there's something called a chief complaint.
So it's like when you walk into the emergency room, you get checked in.
Like, someone will ask you, why are you here?
And so someone will say, oh, like, I'm having chest pain or, like, I've been vomiting or I'm suicidal, right?
So people will have a chief complaint.
And so, like, that's how the emergency room doctors know, like, okay, who do I need to take care of first?
Like, if the chief complaint is, like, gunshot wound and another chief complaint is, like, my dog died, those are like, it helps us triage.
So the interesting thing is that if you're looking at the board, so as a psychiatrist working in the emergency room, you're going to get consulted for certain things.
So you can look at the board, like even before you get called by the emergency room docs, you can look at the board and say,
see like based on the chief complaints like how busy you're going to be for the next
couple of hours right so it's kind of like you like you know the ed folks see them first and
then you know who they're going to call you for so one day I was like I was this is the same
night and the chief complaint for someone was man having sex with trash can and I was like
that one's going to be mine like that's coming to us because I'm pretty sure if I'm an emergency
room doctor and I get someone who comes in is you know for having sex with a trash can
that I'm just going to call the psychiatrists and let them sort it out.
So, you know, anyway, she turned out, she turned out to be right.
And it was a bizarre coincidence that that person did wind up as my patient.
Well, I remember I was walking with, I think, my sister or a friend or someone, they were like, so what?
Your sister.
Yeah.
And they were like, well, what is emergency psychiatry?
I don't get it.
And I was like, that guy.
Yeah.
Anyway.
So going back to, yeah, so I think kind of going back to the question, I think there's an important point.
here, right, that Gruthy brought up, which is there's a difference between being appreciated
and feeling appreciated. And so I think it's hard in a relationship because, like, I know it sounds
kind of weird, but like, you know, to a certain degree, you're responsible for your feelings.
And then the other person is responsible for their actions. And a lot of conflict in relationships
come because, you know, I'm, I am trying to express appreciation, but it may not land as
appreciation on the other side.
The other interesting thing that what I was kind of thinking about, there was a point in our
relationship where we were long distance and Gruthy was just like, I need like five communications
from you every day.
Like I need five text messages or phone calls or something.
Like I need five points of contact where like, you know, like I need to be a part of your thought
process.
I need you to think about me five times a day.
And so I think that that was just kind of our way of like, you know, I, I,
I couldn't control her feelings, but I could certainly modify my actions to help fulfill
an emotional need that she was having at the time.
And so there's a part of me that just sort of says, like, you know, if you're a boyfriend,
sometimes you have to just step up, right?
Like, it's not just being a boyfriend, but like sometimes in a relationship,
you have to step up and do things that you don't want to do.
And like sometimes you just got to step up, right?
Like, and it's, it's something that I, I didn't place a whole lot of value in, but like a relationship is about, you know, you acknowledging that there are some things that you may not value or that may be hard for you that you still need to do for your partner.
And I think what's also important here is like maybe this person needs to step up too, because when you ask him to talk to you, he, like, it makes him upset.
So, like, maybe the way that you need to step up is in recognizing.
that like, you know, getting your emotional needs met in this relationship may come at the cost
of his emotional needs. So that's where you sort of have to step up and sort of figure out like,
okay, what can I actually like learn to live without because it costs my partner something to
give it to me. And at the end of the day, I don't think, I mean, I don't think there were many
days where I texted you like five times a day, right? No, I got five comms for me a day.
But not consistently.
No, because I don't know if you remember, but there was something in it for.
you.
I don't.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Because if you...
You have to take me.
No, no.
You can't say that not allowed.
No, never mind.
Not on stream.
Because there have been many things that have been in it for me.
And I don't know which one you're going to say.
And we have a particular...
I'm the cult leader.
You can't just...
I'm not just...
Okay.
No, no.
Later.
Well, the point is, like, it was somewhat reciprocated.
Well, I mean, so my recollection, my recollection was that what?
There was something in it for you.
Okay, fine.
So that, good point, right?
So, here I am talking about stepping up.
I guess I forgot that there was like, you also have to incentivize the right behavior from your partner, right?
I mean, so this is where, you know, more practically, I think, I think I think I should make a tasty beverage.
I think this is going to be more fun of the tasty beverage.
Okay.
Okay. Okay. So let's just go back to this real quick. So, hold on. Let me see. So let's just kind of take a quick look at this thing again. So talking with my boyfriend is very hard. He has severe social anxiety. So communication doesn't come easily for him.
Oh. What? Communication or talking because I think maybe that was part of what was helpful for.
for our arrangement was like you didn't we didn't have to like have a conversation it was like
just sporadic thinking about you text here like an email there like a and also allowing you to be
like hey I don't really want to have a whole conversation right now blah blah blah the end by
and it was like maybe a seventh second phone call yeah so I think that's a good point like communication
right? So communication doesn't have to be words. And I think you've got to be careful here because if someone has social anxiety, if the root of that social anxiety is that you feel inadequate, you can get into this tricky cycle where you tell your partner like, I need you to be better. And then they feel inadequate and then you tell them like, I need more from you. And then that actually causes them to feel more inadequate. They're like, oh my God, I can't step up. I'm so worthless. And then they like retreat into their shell even more.
So you have to be a little bit careful because sometimes that can happen.
So asking him to talk to me if it's hard for him makes him upset with himself.
So he's like, oh my God, like here's this person that I love and I can't even talk to them.
I'm so worthless.
Like any idiot should be able to talk to this person, especially when there's this amazing and I can't do it.
And then they get more in their head and more in their head and more in their head.
So this is a really good observation that this person made that sometimes like asking people to step up can be hard.
And so this is where I'd say, you know, like communication, like maybe there's nonverbal communication
where a lot of times, like, you know, if you need to feel appreciated, like you can just ask for a hug.
And that can work really well.
Yeah.
And yeah, so how can we work together to find a way for me to feel appreciated?
You know, I would say at the end of the day, just talk to him and say, hey, you know, sometimes I feel this way.
But like, when I, yeah.
It's really helpful, I think, if you tell them when you did this, that was really nice.
Like, give them good examples that were, like, you want more of.
And, like, in the moment, you know, you can be like, this is really nice.
I appreciate this so much.
Okay.
Yeah, great.
I forgot what I was going to say.
But I'm going to go make a tasty beverage.
Can I show you how to.
I have a high five.
Yes, of course.
I'm sorry.
You just needed a high.
high five. I just need. This is my
need. What do I get? What's
my reward? Oh, Jesus.
So
let's, can I show you how to change, operate this
while I go make you a tasty beverage? Sure.
To express my affection for you and my love.
Yeah. So sometimes instead of communications, what you need to do is make
tasty beverages and also make
delicious meats or other foods, cupcakes,
etc. But not in the tondur. Am I right?
Okay, so let's do...
Okay, so you know how to operate this.
We're going to click that.
You can just click that.
This is a PowerPoint?
Yep, this is a PowerPoint.
So you can go up and down.
Powerpoint, I know.
Okay.
Stream lab.
Stream lab.
So then when you want them to see the screen, you click teaching with chat.
And then when you want them to see your face, you click Live Plus chat.
So I think what you can do is read out the question and then move back to the face.
And then when you're ready to, if you want to read it again, you can go there.
Okay. Thanks.
Okay.
Do you want me just take this question solo?
Yeah, take it solo.
Okay.
And then you fill me in on what the questions were.
Okay.
I think Zach wanted me to do a little bit of a mini spielan.
Did you already get a spiel about the foundation versus the company?
Oh, spoiler alerts.
If y'all already know the difference between Healthy Gamer and the foundation, then I will skip it.
if there's any confusion at all, like, this is like just an intense week for us,
releasing the impact report, launching the pre-order for Dr. Kay's guide,
foundation fundraiser. So if you want me to tell you what the hell's going on, I can
say it now. Okay, nope, we are confused. Okay. Um, all right, so here,
maybe, maybe it's just my face thumb.
Is this the right one?
Hi.
Okay.
So let me...
Thanks, Tech.
Okay.
So let me start from the beginning.
All right.
In the beginning, there was you guys,
and Alloq appeared on Reddit
and was like, hey, how can I help these people?
And then we made this thing that had a loose purpose of how to help, but we kind of rolled with the punches and adapted.
So we started with video game addiction, realized it's mental health for the gaming community, for this community.
And then basically realized really it's mental health for young people.
And then we started to think, like, how can we help?
What's missing?
And we realize that what's missing is affordable, accessible, and inclusive,
subclinical mental health, this idea that, like, we can kind of help each other in a way
that, like, capital T therapy has not been able to do.
So we created, with your very generous help last May, this coaching platform and this content
platform and this community of about 55,000 of us on Discord.
And we said, here is how we think we can bundle essentially products and services that
can actually move people forward.
And that is Healthy Gamer the company, which has been honestly the hardest, best, most
challenging, funnest, craziest job I've ever had.
And I've had a couple.
My background, just as an FYI, I'm a digital marketing and media, digital media kind of startup veteran.
So my background is in content marketing, media, all that for kind of startups.
And then I went to business school and really kind of made it a point to transition to healthcare.
Healthcare has been part of my blood for my whole life.
I grew up around the health care system, and I really wanted to fix health care in some way.
Meanwhile, Alok is doing his thing.
He was supposed to be a neurosurgeon, and he's like, I just want to help people.
He's like, okay, fine.
So he was like, I just want to talk to people.
I was like, okay, fine.
So he became a psychiatrist, and then we just realized how busted mental health is.
And so we poured our talents and our skill sets and kind of everything that we knew how to do.
into this company.
Realizing, so then, sorry, I'm going to kind of bop around a little bit.
My background also before business school, I kind of switched to nonprofits and social enterprises.
So I got a really good look behind the scenes at what it really takes to operate a successful
nonprofit that is essential.
Not like one of many poverty alleviating nonprofits, not one of many like environmental nonprofits,
but like those nonprofits that really advance agendas and movements and champion people.
So a couple just for reference that I worked on that like I learned so much from and admire so much.
One was Moaz, which is Migrant Offshore Aid Station, which was really important during the Syrian refugee crisis.
And then another one is the NRDC.
And I wanted to establish the Healthy Gamer Foundation as something.
something that is very targeted.
What it is meant to do is to fund research and conduct research that affects policy, that
understands what mental health could and should look like from a systematic level,
internationally, nationally, locally, whatever, like operating at different levels of government.
So Healthy GameRat Company, products and services that can function in the subclinical
space, Healthy Gamer Foundation, just trying to blow the whole damn system up and trying to
kind of imagine what it kind of could and should be. That's the spiel. Because Healthy Gamer,
I would say we are a social enterprise. We feel like, so normally when you ask somebody for
a six-figure check to start a company, that person that writes you that check,
would be considered like an angel investor.
And so they would want to know from time to time,
hey, what are you doing with that money?
Remember when we gave you all that money?
And I kind of think of chat as our angel investor,
and I feel accountable to chat.
And so that's why we released the impact report
so that we could let you know that, like,
with the money that you gave us,
we've been able to turn it into 10 times that
to reinvest resources into
or reinvest into creating these resources that are effective, that are scalable, that work,
and that are, like, it's something that I think we can all be proud of. You guys can be proud of it as
our angel investor, essentially, and we can be proud of it as we kind of grow together. And then
the foundation, we said, you know, we can do more. We can't do more because I am tired. But like
we collectively can do more if we channel our resources and energy in the right way.
So that's why I wanted to kind of build a team around the foundation and build more of a
team around Healthy Gamer.
So that's the impact report.
Meanwhile, in Healthy Gamer, you know, the company, we realize that essentially coaching
is fantastic at so many things.
a lot of what we want to do is to package up all of the things that alok has in his head, right?
Because it kind of comes and goes in these little bursts and gems.
And we see people that are like, hey, remember, like a year ago when he was talking about this?
Where can I find that?
Or it just kind of gets buried in like these hours and hours of interviews and content.
And so we wanted to kind of have him be able to go step by step.
This is how I think about depression.
Is it clinical depression?
If so, what kind of like, how does that manifest?
If it's non-clinical depression, then what does that look like?
What are all these underlying factors?
And having, like, really put his, like, brain out there into a way that people can kind of understand and learn from.
So we created Dr. Kay's Guide to Mental Health.
Is it a pre-order live, y'all?
Okay, if it's live, you'll see it.
You'll see the link pop up.
But it's going live today.
Yes, great.
So we wanted it to supplement the coaching experience.
So all Healthy Gamer Coaching clients current and past will have access to the guide.
And then we also wanted to just make it easy.
Like if you're not ready for that step of like, oh, I really want to work with somebody,
I just want to learn a little bit more.
This is for you.
If you are in therapy and you need to be in therapy, but you wish that you could get a little bit more from Healthy Gamer, this is for you.
this is really, and we see a lot of people that are like, hey, I'm a student and I'm learning these
things, but nobody's explained this in the way that Dr. Kay has explained this. And so we're like,
well, you know, he teaches the best and brightest at Harvard Medical School. He can teach anyone.
Like, let's just put it out there. So if you just want to learn, this is for you. And I think,
I mean, this is our single largest investment to date because it really,
like, just to take, you know, six weeks out of Alloak's calendar is expensive.
And it is time-consuming, obviously.
So Dr. Kay's guide to mental health, we're really proud of this one.
We professionally filmed it.
He, like, sat there and wrote the scripts himself.
You guys might have seen some previews here and there.
But it's his answer to Dr. Kay, when are you writing a book?
And he's like, I can't just write a book.
I have to teach it to you.
So that's that.
And then the third thing is this fundraiser, right?
So we establish the foundation and here's what I'm thinking.
I'm thinking that the foundation itself can exist on external funding.
That there's always only so much we're going to ask you like a Twitch chat or Angel to contribute.
anything that we don't need, we don't ask for.
It's always like to kind of kickstart something that can then self-sustain.
And I kind of learned that in my time with nonprofits and social enterprises,
that something that kind of continuously relies on donations,
that's what you spend your energy on, not the impact part.
So we want to spend our time on the impact part.
Did I cover it all?
How would the foundation generate revenue to reinvest?
Good question.
We are pursuing research grants more than anything else.
That's kind of where we would kind of earn it in the competitive nonprofit landscape,
which is something.
It is a whole fierce process.
I do look different than Dr. Kay.
hiring for mods. Yeah, we're recruiting mods, we're recruiting community leaders, we're recruiting
tech and marketing talent, we're recruiting for new coaches, HealthyGamer.G slash careers.
Yummy drink, yeah. I feel like every other time I'm on stream, I'm just waiting for our all to make
me a margarita. You can't pay the pre-order with PayPal? We can try to... Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
Oh, with the pre-order, you can allocate however much of that sale you want to go to the foundation versus the company.
Whatever we are raising this month, whatever kind of we make is going to go into the foundation.
All of eight, how long are the modules?
They're long, man.
I think it's over a hundred individual videos.
Okay.
This is the two-handed.
Hey, those look nice and fast.
They are a festive.
Thank you.
Oh, you put chili on the rim.
Yeah, I couldn't find the right chili stuff, but I...
Tudine?
Cheers.
I think we may have left it.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Not on the mouse pad.
Your mouse pad is your whole desk.
Right here.
Why do you guys need such giant mouse pads?
I don't understand.
To make up for...
Am I just supposed to be behind this box?
No, no, you just scoot forward and you take a point.
No.
Then I don't like it.
how I look bigger than you when I'm in front.
Look.
I've always been proud of having a smaller head.
The other thing that we could do is here.
You want me to fix it?
Hold on.
I didn't answer any questions without you.
I just did spieles.
You see, I learned how to do this theoretically.
Hold on.
Where is it?
Where is it?
Where is it?
Man, never mind.
It looks like it didn't.
I thought I had figured this out.
Hold on.
Let's do this.
You all ready, chat?
You all ready for the magic?
Are you ready for the magic?
You all ready?
That's the magic.
That's the magic.
Maybe a little.
That's good.
Still got to be heurish.
There.
There.
I think it is.
Magic.
Good job.
Cheers.
Magic doer.
There's so many jokes
we could make about me doing the magic.
Would you like to make one?
No.
It's really an apprope.
I mean, the joke would really be.
be complete BS recently.
Because you don't do the magic recently?
Should we fast forward a couple questions until it's about not doing the magic?
No, we should just go.
All right.
Should you look for a relationship if you want one or is it all right to just wait for one to happen?
What do you think?
I think both.
I feel like if you don't look and you just,
go into a very passive, like wait until it happens. It's not going to happen. I think you kind of
have to like be ready and look for it to happen. I don't think relationships just like, but what do
I know? Yeah, so I'd say, I think there's a big difference between waiting for one and forcing one,
being desperate for one, not on the mouse pad.
Do you have a coaster or something?
I'll find you a coaster.
You can use my prescription pad and stuff like that.
Can I move your mouse pad? Can I fold it?
No, you can't fold the mouse pad.
This mouse pad is bigger than my desk.
So I think that there's a big difference between, you know,
in general I wouldn't advocate to wait for anything.
And at the same time, I wouldn't push too hard to try to make something work that's not working.
I think if you want a relationship, you should look for it.
And at the same time, like, you know, because I, I mean, look for one by all means.
You know, I'd make an active effort to meet people.
I'd make an active effort to date.
But I wouldn't like look too hard.
And I wouldn't try to make it work when it's not there to work.
I think part of looking for a relationship, it's like kind of being at like a yard sale or something.
You got to look.
you got to be discriminating and like that one's not going to work, that one's not going to work,
that's not going to work, that's not going to work, and like, focus.
Yeah, she found me at a flea market. It's great.
Camp, summer camp.
The secondhand store.
You were going to be a monk.
I'd say look for one, right?
Like, if that's what you want, like, look for it.
By all means.
But I wouldn't let it dominate your life.
Like, you know, you're desperate for a relationship.
That's like the only thing that's missing.
I'd continue to like grow yourself because I think sometimes looking for a relationship is not so much about the other.
Or finding a relationship is not so much about the other person.
Is it about making yourself into someone who's ready for a relationship that people are interested in engaging in a relationship with.
So the only lot, the last thing I have to say about this is that the start of a relationship is supposed to be fun.
Like dating should be fun.
If it's not fun for you, think about what it takes to kind of lighten up a little bit about the whole thing.
I hear that dating is not very fun.
I hear it too, and I feel like it's, if it's not fun, then...
If it's not fun and you're not going to meet, like, the person that you're...
It's going to make your life better, then, like, what's the point?
Don't put yourself in a situation where it's just a drag.
What do I do if I'm lone?
and when I date, I don't have fun.
I would change your ML.
Like, okay, look in different places.
If the people that you're meeting from a particular place are like exhausting all in the same way,
I would try to look in a different place.
I feel like we should bring back the blind date a little bit.
Like, oh.
Isn't Tinder just a mass blind dates?
Yeah, but the problem I think is that people treat each other like trash because there's no accountability.
But if it's like my friend saying that, hey, I want you to meet my friend, whoever,
you're not going to just ghost that person because you're accountable to your friend.
What do you think about sort of a social accountability score?
I think it's good.
When I was younger, I used to want to carry around blue ribbons so that way I could just be like,
you're a good person, blue ribbon.
I feel like there should be points for that.
Should it be tracked by the government or what?
What?
No.
How do we track your social cannibality score?
No, just informal, blue ribbon system.
The blue ribbon system?
Yeah.
I got all this ribbon.
Oh my God, I still have it.
It's, I can dress myself, and I still haven't, I got it for him like 13 years ago.
I still haven't been able to give it to him.
It's true.
Because you just wear.
It's either the fleece or the sweatshirt.
All right, next.
Next.
By the way, merch sales go to the nonprofit.
Click the teaching with chat button.
Nice.
But then I also have to push transition.
No, you don't have to.
I fix that.
Now click, click, there you go.
Nice.
You already this one?
This one's long.
You go.
Okay.
Hi, Dr. K.
and Gruti, how do you find the balance between compartmentalizing your own struggles so as to not overwhelm your
partner, but also sharing them to maintain honesty and trust? I just started dating someone and they are
very sweet, but also inexperienced. I do not want to overwhelm them with my baggage, but I also
don't want to emotionally distance myself from them either. For the past several years, I've been
getting treatment and working on my traumas. I'm also overwhelmed with work in college while also
supporting myself independently. It is very difficult to compartmentalize all of my stress while
showing up in the relationship authentically, and it keeps me from truly bonding with them.
I can tell they see it too, but the last thing I want to do is burden our relationship.
Thank you in advance. Thoughts? I feel like I've been going first. You go.
So I'd say, finding the... So it's interesting because the question is,
how do you find the balance between compartmentalizing your own struggles so as to not overwhelm your
partner, but also sharing them to maintain honesty and trust? Then if we go back to the bottom,
we see, I can tell they see it too, but the last thing that I want to do is burden our relationship.
So what I hear in this person is that you are trying to internally decide what amount of burdening to do.
And I think the whole point of the relationship is that like it's got to be a decision between the two of you.
right like that's the whole point is that like you're trying to compartmentalize it and it's showing up
it's affecting your relationship which makes sense because it sounds like you're doing a lot right
and they're inexperienced and you don't want to overwhelm them so i think like sharing those
thoughts with them about you know and sort of having like they get a say and what overwhelms them
and what doesn't because like right now what i hear that you're doing this we do this a lot in relationships
where we like
anticipate almost like
in a chess move kind of style
like if I share
he's going to be overburdened
and then it's going to be bad right
but like he gets a say in that
or I'm assuming that you're dating a dude
but
you know like your partner gets a say
in what you
they get a say
in what overwhelms them
that's not for you to decide in your head
that's something that like
they get to tell you
And that's something that you need to know about them, not assume about them.
Yeah.
Because, you know, like, I've seen this so many times where it's like, there you are not trying to burden them.
And like on the other side, they're going to send in a question that's, hey, I can tell my partner is struggling, but I want to respect their privacy.
Like, how do I do that?
And so what happens is each of you is suffering on your own.
Like, they're like, oh, like, I can see that my partner is struggling and I really want to support them.
but like I also want to respect their boundaries.
I want to respect their privacy.
I want, you know, like I don't want to push.
Like I'm new in relationships.
I'm inexperienced.
How do I find out how much I should ask?
And so it's like both of y'all are probably like thinking these thoughts and trying to like play 4D chess with each other.
When what you need to do is just have a conversation about it, right?
You can say, hey, I'm going through a lot right now.
I've dealt with a lot in the past.
I really value our relationship.
And sometimes when I've shared this with people, it's been kind of overwhelming.
I would also, like, you sound overwhelmed.
So I would love for you to get out of your day-to-day situation and, like, go on a road trip with this person or, like, just get out of, like, your everyday stress, if you can.
Like, kind of shake it up.
And I would also see what you can do to kind of, it sounds like you're getting treatment,
working on your traumas, all of that stuff is great.
But I think what you're saying is you want more support from this person.
So I don't know.
I want to see you kind of, I would love for you to go on a long drive,
like somewhere beautiful or something like that with this person.
Because sometimes experiences like that can help bring about some of these conversations.
that's harder to, like, do on a Tuesday night when you're trying to, like, prep for the next day and, like, get your dinner together and all that kind of stuff.
Like, if you can remove yourself from your routine.
Sounds good.
Cool.
I'd love to go on a road trip with Twitter chat.
Also you.
I'd love to go on a road trip for you.
Do you want...
If I go on a road trip with Twitter chat, I'll text you five times a day.
I can totally see you doing, like, a bus tour with Alloak, except for y'all aren't going anywhere.
It's just you guys on a bus driving.
her out.
It'd be fun.
No, I know.
You'll have a great time.
We'll travel across the world, meeting chatars all over the world.
We'll do it one day.
All right.
Oh, well, we have a couple of big donations.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
Just going to read out 20 minutes ago from Ivan.
Thank you for all you do behind the scenes, Guithi.
Shout out to you.
Thank you.
Goothy Pog.
anonymous. So Anonymous has been donating a ton of money to us recently. Thank you all very much.
Anonymous, thank you for all you do. Dr. Kay, I have two kids, one with bipolar and one with OCD and your
videos have helped tremendously. I'm happy to hear that and it's tough. You know, it's a struggle not
only for the person with the neurochemistry like that, but also with the parents. Also, I don't
know if you guys realize this, but like a fair number of parents who are watching her stuff now.
Say hi to everybody's mom.
Hi, Chats, Mom.
Yeah.
When we love it, I think it's been great working with parents.
Very personally gratifying.
Also, it's kind of funny because they like ask me about, you know, what should I do with my kid?
And I'm like, you know more about this than I do.
It's like 10 years from now, do you guys mind if I ask you what I do about when my daughter wants to start dating or whatever?
Because that terrifies me.
But anyway.
Um, okay, Dr. Kay and Kruthi, how do you guys overcome an argument you had with each other?
I took the last one.
Arguments are almost always rooted in love.
So our last argument was because I wanted to socialize as a couple.
And Olive was like, why would I do that when I could just hang out with you as a person, like one person.
I'm like, I need, I'm an extrovert.
and he's an introvert.
And like,
I'm like,
you never want to go out with me.
And he's like,
why would I want to spend time with anyone else?
Like,
that's sweet.
So I feel like our arguments tend to be rooted in love for each other
and also respect for how much we're each trying to juggle.
A good night's sleep will go a long way.
and also like a commitment to not wanting to be mad at each other.
I think, I mean, I've seen people that really revel in the argument and like really thrive
in the resentment and they just want to kind of load up all of the things that they can use
as ammo later.
And I feel like that spirit is never going to let you really overcome an argument.
Like you have to want to end the argument.
but you also have to get it all out there
like don't leave things unsaid
just throw it
so the next level of play is
to always turn everything into love
right
but
to help your wife think
that the reason that you guys have all
arguments is because you love them too much
I'm kidding
divorce streaming
no I think that
like Ruthie said I think there are actually a lot of practicals
that we do, that I think we've learned how to do.
One is that when we have arguments,
I've found that when we're sitting across from each other,
it makes things worse.
So I think one thing that we've learned how to do is like sit next to someone.
Like literally be on the same side.
Yeah, like sit on a couch together and like don't sit across the table.
I think for us, you know, there's a lot of communication or like,
This is going to be meming, but like a lot of the making up process is physical.
I don't mean sexual.
I mean just like like this.
No, but I mean, I think, you know, like we communicate in physical ways, right?
So like holding hands, sitting next to each other, bumping, like, you know, like nudging each other.
You know, like.
Doing the magic.
Doing the magic.
Not doing the magic.
And I think we have a couple of rules that we try to really adhere to.
One is don't go to bed mad at each other.
So I think Ruthie said it beautifully.
Like having a commitment to try to not stay mad is a huge part of it.
Because y'all can disagree.
And like, I don't know that we'll even resolve those disagreements.
Like, I don't know that those disagreements can be resolved.
Like, I don't know that she's ever going to convince me of particular things or I'm going to convince her of particular things.
But I think thinking about.
you know, what's the goal here? Like, it's not for one of us to be right or one of us to be wrong.
It's really about, like, us not being mad at each other and trying to make a successful relationship,
which involves, and I teach this to, you know, the couples that on the rare event that I counsel them is like,
don't sit across from each other, sit next to each other. If you guys have certain, like,
physical or ritualistic things that you do as part of your relationship, like, lean on those things.
so for example like gruti will you know make me a smoothie i'll make her coffee or tea and like it's
really important to lean on those rituals that y'all have developed together when y'all are fighting
to sort of remember that there's the argument and then there's the relationship
but like the relationship existed before the argument and will exist after the argument ends
and so don't lose sight of the relationship because of the argument
And I think when you do come to a closing point for that argument, it's important to kind of acknowledge the effort that somebody has put into that and be like, I'm really glad that we could come to terms on this.
And like, you kind of have to be aware of the effort like your partner is putting in into kind of meeting you halfway.
I'd say a couple of other tips.
Don't try to win.
Right?
So, like, arguments are oftentimes about winning, and it's like, even if you win, you're going to lose.
I almost never win, honestly.
And then, oh, this is kind of interesting.
So I had an interesting conversation recently with an e-sports team where I realized that, like, part of their problem is that they, one of the players does what I do, which is Socratic questioning.
So this is something just kind of a random assessment.
side, but, like, I realized I would do this thing when Gruthy and I talked, where I would, like,
make my argument in a Socratic way, because that's generally speaking how I teach.
So I'd ask her questions, and I'd be like, so, like, why do we do this? And why do we do this?
And, like, I'd sort of trap her into, like, seeing my side, and she really, really detested
it, and it pissed her off, and it was condescending. And I saw the same pattern, actually, recently,
in someone else. And the reason I recognize the pattern is because I did it in my own marriage.
And so now, like, I'd say that this is a small percentage of you that try to win your arguments or make your points through questions makes the other person feel incompetent, condescended, and tracked.
So if you want to say something, just say it.
Yeah.
Which is, you know, kind of a random thing.
I think a lot of arguments are about the way the argument is happening.
Like, you're not listening to me or, like, didn't you hear what I said?
or, you know, why now?
Why are you saying this now?
And as long as you're arguing about like that meta,
I feel like that's a little bit more fundamental to work on.
I spilled.
It wasn't on the mouse pad, so who cares?
Okay. Oh, this one's yours.
Okay.
So I said this in other channels, but I'm just throwing it
in here because I think it's interesting.
So last year, I was forced into a long-distance relationship due to COVID.
It was okay for a while, but long story short, er broke up, and I ended up finding HG.
Fast forward where I'm back at school and working on myself with help from a healthy gamer coach.
I meet someone else.
It was very nice.
Honestly, didn't expect it.
But we had to go home for the holiday and ended up going into currently temporary
long distance. But I did happen to meet her sometime before the end of the year. It was only a day
but fun, so we've been in long distance for about five to six months now, and knowing myself,
I have days where I have a hard time. There have been times where she pointed it out when I was
being paranoid or intrusive, and luckily we would still decide to stay together. Okay, I'm like
just punctuating this myself. I hope, but sometimes I fear.
that maybe I messed up too many times and that may lead to a breakup.
In the last three months, I've found myself deep in practices of stoicism and detachment.
I've learned to let go of the idea of keeping someone in love with me.
I still love her, though.
I am now in my third year, possible final year, if I don't fail or decide to register again.
And I am not sure when I'm going to be able to go back to see her.
What do I do on days where I feel like I need to talk to her more and she is unable to without trying to be intrusive or at least how I communicate it?
I do understand that we have separate lives.
I just wonder if I should work harder not to talk too much.
You don't try to summarize.
Do you?
Yeah, I can summarize.
Okay, that would be helpful.
So someone's been in a long-distance relationship due to COVID, ended up bad with them breaking up.
They came to the loving arms of Healthy Gamer.
Working on themselves.
Meet someone else.
Didn't expect it.
You know, sounds like...
I'd be curious if he was looking for a relationship or waited for the relationship.
Once again, we're not sure he's a dude.
But, you know, so didn't expect it.
Met someone.
Ended up going into temporary long distance.
met up for like a day, but now it's been like five to six months of long distance.
Sometimes it sounds like they feel like they're being like overly clingy.
Like I'd say that right.
It sounds like maybe their partner feels like they're too clingy, too paranoid, too intrusive.
And it sounds like this person has been working on themselves a lot, like trying to practice stoicism,
trying to practice detachment.
but at the end of the day
you know sometimes it sounds like this person has needs to talk to them
talk to their partner and that their partner is
either unable to meet those needs so like how do I figure out
you know what's the right balance and how to move forward
I think another key thing here is that he wants to he wants more than she does
it sounds like I think he has or he feels something
That way.
Right?
So, but there's also, I think, this important sentence.
I hope, but sometimes I fear that maybe I messed up too many times, and that may lead to a breakup.
Yeah.
So what do you think?
I feel like I need to put my phone away from myself.
Um.
And so the question that they have is I do understand that we have separate lives, but I wonder if I should work harder to not talk too much.
I really sympathize with this person because I feel like a lot of times, especially with new relationships,
friendships or romantic or otherwise,
it's kind of like, oh, I screwed up,
and then you have to explain that.
And then you're like, oh, but I screwed up the explanation
and you have to explain that.
And then you, like, are kind of constantly correcting
and, like, digging yourself into a deeper, deeper hole.
So I just, I sympathize because I tend to put my foot in my mouth a lot.
And I feel like I feel what this person might be going through.
And I know, I get it.
It's a tough spot because it's like the more you try to dig yourself out,
the kind of worse you're making it.
I feel like I'm like behind the thing again.
You're fine.
You're fine.
You look great.
So I'd say here's, so when it comes to long distance, this answer is going to be kind of weird.
But so I think about a long distance relationship is a bridge to nowhere.
So I think long distance relationships are fine, but, you know, where are they going to go?
So, and this may be just because of our own personal experience.
Like Ruthie and I were a long distance for, for what?
Years?
Really?
At least three.
Anyway, but I think that like this is where you got to think about what are you moving towards in the relationship?
Because I think that there are all these things about whether you talk too much or things like that.
But like where is this going?
And I know it's hard because early on if you have like long distance relationship and you really care about each other,
it's kind of weird to be like dating someone for three months.
But it looks like you all have been long distance for five to six months and that you ended up meeting someone like probably before that.
So it sounds like you all have been together for like maybe at least eight months, which is a long time.
And I don't think it's unreasonable to have a conversation with your partner about like where is this going.
Like are you guys, I know it's kind of weird to plan your lives around each other if you've been dating for six months.
I disagree.
I disagree so much.
I think that like, you know, like long distance.
to what? Are you guys going to be short distance at some point?
Yes.
Like isn't that important to know though?
Well, yeah, but I thought it was COVID because of COVID.
My point is that I don't know if this part, like if they've talked about it, right?
I don't know if they've like really considered what is long distance and what isn't.
Okay, I think a lot of times in early parts of relationships, you just have to make it easy for somebody to say yes.
If you ask them to like, what are we? Where is this going? Like you kind of forcing a person to decide kind of too quickly. And it sounds to me like he hasn't put his best self forward. So he like needs circumstances to change before he like gets to like really do himself justice in his eyes and also in what he thinks are her eyes.
You think if he has the conversation about where is this going, he's going to scare her away?
Yeah, I think he's like, well, I haven't put my best foot forward.
So, of course, he's going to be like, yeah, no.
Yeah, I think that's good.
I'm glad we're doing this together because I think it's a different perspective of mine and make a good point.
Right.
So I don't know, man.
I think you got to figure out a little bit of like when you are kind of your best self.
Like, when are you your funniest?
When are you more relaxed?
When are you like not, like don't reach out to her when you need her.
You know, reach out to her when you don't feel like you need her.
That's definitely, that's good advice.
So like just thinking about that, you know, it's important that like while your partner is there to help you manage your negative side,
you want to be really, really careful about not creating an experience for your partner
where all they're managing is your negative side.
Right?
And remember that there are good reasons, like, there are like positive reasons why you're
in the relationship and don't lose side those.
Yeah.
Like your partner is there to be with you through like thick and thin.
And the idea there is that there are periods that are thin, but there are also ideas,
they're like periods that are thick.
You know what I'm saying?
So like, you got to give them the thick and you got to give them the thin.
And do the magic.
All right.
Right.
Next.
So.
You got to switch the thing.
I got to switch the thing.
I'm teaching with interview.
Nope.
Teaching with chat.
Teaching with chat.
There you go.
Okay.
You read now?
You want me to go?
Yeah.
Oh.
I just read like.
Need some advice towards dating late in life.
Oh, 28 late in life.
Lulls.
After having no prior experience.
Would you recommend first focusing on myself and building a direct.
for myself and then begin dating or jumping straight in, now as I may never be ready,
it's tough because dating at this age is odd without any experience in direction in comparison
to my peers. Thank you for everything. All right, I feel like I got an answer to this,
but you can go if you want. So I don't think that, I think parallel processing, right? So I think
you should absolutely work on yourself and jump in because I don't think you're ever going to be
ready. So like don't let ready get in the way of started.
starting. And so, you know, like, it's tough because dating at this age is odd without any
experience in direction in comparison to my peers. That's true that you may be quote unquote behind,
but it's been my experience that like within one year or even less, like you can have just as much
experience as your peers, even if they've been dating their entire lives. And let me put it this way.
So there are some people
So when I was like when I used to play Dota
I mean I still do but like I remember I had a friend who told me that
Within the first six months
Of playing like starting to play Dota
You'll figure out like like the skill that people get to
Within the first six months is generally speaking
The skill that they'll be at for like the rest of their careers
And you see this right like if you play a game of Dota like
You know myself for example like if you look at my account
It's like started playing Dota in 2011
and is like in the bottom 50% of the skill pool.
So if you think about it,
it's not like more time actually leads to you being better at something.
What leads to you being better at something is intentional practice.
So you can have people who started dating at the age of 15
where like Megachad High School junior varsity captains
and they still suck at it because they never like bothered to be intentional
about understanding, like, how a relationship works.
And then you've got people who have been dating for, like, 18 months
and who are really good at it
because they actually, like, pay attention and try
and do things like self-reflection.
Like, I'll have people who will come into my office
who will be, like, 45 and have been divorced three times.
And I can imagine that if you're this person,
you're like, oh, I haven't dated anyone.
I'm 28. I'm behind.
I'm like, bro, don't worry about it,
because there are people who are 45,
and who have 25 years or 20 years of experience and are like still suck at it.
So don't confuse.
So there's a difference between like, sure, you have no prior experience, but if you're like
thoughtful about it, if you pay attention, if you iterate, if you work on your game,
like you can catch up to people within a year, no problem.
So I'd say don't wait, right?
So start getting, start putting yourself out there, like start looking for a relationship.
By all means, continue working on yourself.
This kind of goes back to the first question about like, you know, don't wait for it,
but also like don't go so like desperate that like you need to find it in the next six months.
So I'd say get started, get some experience, level up a little bit, but be intentional and you can catch up in no time.
I am very excited for you because here are a couple things that I feel like I know.
about you. You're an amazing communicator already. Like, in just these four sentences, like,
you've communicated so much, so well. And the other thing is you say no prior experience. Like,
you might not have dated somebody, but I feel like you do have experience in that. I think you
might have made a few conscious decisions on not to pursue certain things. Um, which,
is experience, like you have, like, discernment.
I think that if you, so you're posing two scenarios.
You build a direction for yourself and then begin dating, or you jump straight in now.
And here's the thing.
If you build yourself, build yourself, build yourself, and then here you are, like,
making tons of money and you have this big house and whatever, like,
The person that you attract as your best self, I'm not sure is the partner you want.
I feel like you probably want a partner that's going to support your direction for yourself.
Why are you laughing?
Dr. Gays, like, don't worry if you're inexperienced.
We'll teach you how to make the magic.
Dr. Gays guide to make it magic.
You'll get them.
Super private sessions.
Let me tell you.
Seriously, we should do one
How to make the magic
I feel like you're proposing doing porn
I don't know what you're really proposing
No
I think we'll
It's like
Only fans we can do it
No not only fans
Are you still wanting to do only fans?
Like you know there are a lot of basics about this stuff
That if you have no prior experience
It's very anxiety provoking right
Like you know
How do you have sex?
What happens if you don't orgasm?
What happens if you have difficulty with sex
you know like I you know had sex for the first time and I have vaginismos so like
oh my god there are different you know there's a lot of like basic stuff that is anxiety
provoking and you know we can we can teach people how to make the magic okay yeah you want
to do sex ed basically yeah yeah okay let's do it um
dr kate's guide to making the magic yeah no I know we have a title um
Okay, so if what you're, excuse my naivete, I thought you had no experience dating.
In donations, then he'll make a guide to the magic.
10K from now or 10K total?
I don't know, man.
I haven't thought it through.
No, you just like the title.
Okay.
I feel like I just tossed that out there because I don't think that's going to happen today,
so I have an out for not making the magic.
I'll get behind it.
I'm going to go get more tasty beverage.
Yeah. Okay, it's going to be a long afternoon.
All right, so if you have no prior experience with, like, sex and, like, initiating the magic, let's call it,
the first thing I would tell you is, like, don't take instructions from what you see on TV at all.
Just be in the moment and take your cues from your body and your partner.
that's really it um but yeah i i i am not a huge fan of like work on yourself work on yourself work on
yourself and then start dating because i feel like what happens to a lot of people is like
then they kind of tend to want more of a trophy partner or they want somebody that
has kind of also put like a ton of effort into like i don't know whatever
like self-improvement stuff, and then they don't find a natural fit for the person that's going to kind of grow with you.
That's my take.
But I'm really excited for you because I feel like I just get good vibes from your, the way you write.
Hmm.
You kept a stack of napkins, but not a coaster?
Yep.
Hi, Mrs. Kay and Dr. Kay.
My question is a but strange.
I think they mean a bit strange.
No, I think they mean a but strange.
Either they left out a tear or they misspelled the eye.
Okay.
I'm really hoping it's about strange butt.
Okay.
A happy relationship requires two happy people.
So if I am not happy, the relationship will most probably not work out.
But happiness comes from within, which takes time to cultivate.
How does one know that they are happy so that they are ready for a relationship?
or can both people work on their individual happiness while being in a relationship?
Also, coming from India, there is a lot of arranged marriage.
Mine will most probably be done in that way as well.
Since most Indian parents are miserable with each other,
and if lucky enough, some people find their soulmates,
how does one find a good relationship in an arrangement like this?
I'm not dissing, I'm genuinely asking.
I think if you are facing the prospect of,
of an arranged marriage, I think is totally, I think you're doing the right thing by asking
basically how to go about screening people. That's what I'm getting from this.
I was getting something else. So what I was getting is like, I'm not happy. So how can I be in a
relationship? And like, you know, happiness comes from within, which takes time. So how do you know,
like, like, you know, so like you have to become happy on your relationship. And like, you know, so like, like, like, you know,
So like you have to become happy on your own and then are you ready for a relationship?
Or can you work on yourself?
I got cut up in the plot twist in the second paragraph.
Yeah.
I think it's a good plot twist.
I'm really a happy actually that someone asked about arranged marriages from India.
So we have a lot of thoughts.
Please.
What are your thoughts?
You don't want to start?
Chili in my throat.
Okay.
So let's start.
with the top.
So
happy relationship
requires two people.
Where do you get that idea?
So I think there are a couple of things.
Are you suggesting an arranged threesome?
No, no.
I was suggesting that sometimes
you can have two unhappy people
that can have a good relationship.
Or one unhappy
person that can have a good relationship.
Are you suggesting a threesome?
Maybe.
That might be.
me the answer.
Did I imagine?
Okay, I'll do a better job.
Okay.
So here's what I would say.
You know, I think that like there's a
and this we're going to, I'm going to talk a little bit about arranged marriage.
But I think that one of the key things to remember is that like the measure of success
in an arranged marriage is sort of like a successful marriage as opposed to, you
to a happy marriage.
Right?
So like when we think about like when I think about the goals are different.
Yeah, the goals are different.
It's like creating like a successful life like creating a harmonious life like creating a life where your kids will have like opportunities and not be impoverished.
Right.
So I think that like when we think about, you know, the system of arranged marriage, it was it was really about the community was more important.
The family was more important than the individual.
And so I think that this idea of like romantic love marriages
Because like even in Indian culture
They'll call it like an arranged marriage and a love marriage
Like those are the two options
Which implies mutually exclusive
Which implies that an arranged marriage doesn't have love
Like it's like you married for love
Or you married for like the benefit of your people
And I think that that's not
You know as wrong as that may feel now
I think that like you know
I've had a lot of conversations with my grandmother
and like visiting like my ancestral village and stuff.
And it's just like they were playing like, you know,
the game that they were playing was just different.
So, you know, infant mortality rates are 20%,
like poverty is like nearly guaranteed if you're born in India.
You know, wealth inequality is really bad.
There are a lot of things like starvation and like death
that are way more present when it comes to things like marriage.
Like, you know, you're part of this community and like you have to lift your load
or like your family will suffer because their, you know, food isn't guaranteed.
I mean, it's crazy.
Like, my dad grew up in an 8 by 10 room with 8 people, like one room with 8 people living
in it.
And at night, what would happen was people would like, like they were in a building, and
they had one room, and then like 4 to 6 people would sleep in the room, and then like 2 to 4 people
would go and like sleep outside the house.
because it wasn't even a house, it was an apartment.
So literally what they would do is they'd sleep either on the ceiling,
like on the roof of the building,
or they'd sleep like at the entryway that,
like they'd sleep in the staircase, basically.
Right? Because if you think about when you go up a staircase,
like you climb up and then there's the flat level,
like people would sleep there.
Like every night, every landing that has,
that stairs lead up to would have people sleeping there.
And so I think the goals were different for an arranged marriage.
The goals were like,
harmony as opposed to like happiness and and the like and I think you know what what happened in
successful arranged marriage is that people would learn to love each other because it's kind of a
different attitude I don't know so you know that it's worse I mean obviously I didn't go that
route no it's about taking care of each other yeah because like it's like this is joining a family
are you going to take care of their needs great they're going to also take care of your needs
like it's more like a role that you play within that yeah it's like it's
It's kind of like, you know, when I, I don't know, Dota analogies feel strong today.
But like, when I play a game of Dota, like, you know, it's kind of an arranged marriage.
Like, I don't get to pick who's on my team.
But once you're on the team, like, you guys have to play this game.
Like, y'all are in it together.
Till death do you part.
Till, yeah.
And sometimes some fucker picks techies on your team.
And then they've just ruined your life and ruined the enemy's life.
It just ruins everyone's life.
But that's the hand that you're dealt.
So you like, you learn how to make it work.
So with arranged marriages, like, you know, you learn how to make it work, which I think is kind of interesting because I think actually a lot of times they end up like very successful because there's sort of this presumption that like I'm stuck with this person. So like we might as well figure out a way to make it work. And a lot of times what they discover, I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but I think part of the reason that arranged marriages are so successful is because your parents actually know you pretty well, hopefully. And your parents also have more experience in marriage than you do. Right? So like they kind of know your time.
temperament, they know your mentality.
Like, it's not perfect.
In fact, it's far from perfect.
But, and so they sort of pick things for you.
And, like, I'm not saying it's, you know, better than what we do here.
But, like, you know, you can't even really look at statistics.
So, for example.
I mean, but I think you're, you're assuming that the parents' motivation is happiness.
And sometimes that's not what the motivation is.
No, it's not.
That's exactly what I'm saying.
It's not happiness.
It's like survival and harmony, right?
because Indian culture doesn't care about happiness.
I don't know.
I feel like this is...
Like the central idea that we teach, right?
Which is like sort of a cultural idea is we don't teach about how to find Suk,
how to find contentment.
We teach about Dharma, like how to do your duty.
I mean, we grew up different, though.
Yeah.
Because my upbringing was much more geared around independence versus community.
S-U-K-K-H-A.
which is the opposite of duke or suffering
because I mean my family did
focus on I think things that are maybe a little atypical
but it doesn't matter
to answer this question
I think
how am I going to cheers to souk when my glass is empty
you want to get yourself
where you want me to get
you're okay
you okay
yeah
and some water out there too
Yeah, I have a lot of course.
Okay.
All right.
So two questions here.
If you're not happy, the relationship will most probably not work out.
I think so, but I feel like that is more true because of the sentiment here than because of how true that statement is objectively.
Like, I think if you go in thinking this relationship isn't going to work out, it's probably not going to work out.
I think happiness does come from within, but not necessarily the happiness itself,
but the desire and the drive to take ownership of your happiness comes from within.
But a lot of it is shaped by external factors, I think.
Like, do you have financial stability?
Do you have a place to live?
Are you eating well?
Are you sleeping well?
Like, all of that matters.
It's not just like a switch that you decide to flip.
inside. That's a key piece of it, but a lot of it is external. And that's where your partner
comes into play. What are those external factors that your partner can help with? And conversely,
what are the external factors that your partner needs that you can help with? The part about
the arranged marriage, I do think that how does one find a good relationship in an arrangement like
this, I think you need some screeners. I think you need to understand kind of your own personality
really well and to understand the kind of complementary personality that works well for you.
So I'm going to say something that's going to, I'm sure, be taken out of context, but like
All of its personality is a lot like my sister's personality, and they're some of my favorite
people in the world. I get along really well with that personality type,
Why would that be taken out of context?
I don't know.
Just be like, I love my sister, but I married Alok.
Or I don't know.
Just like that kind of thing.
I feel like it's an easy thing to distort.
Anyway, just bear with me here.
So I feel like there are certain personality types that, you know, you can gravitate towards.
And I would just think about who in your life has the right...
This is the far back of chair because you get to see what...
Sorry.
It is the better chair.
Yeah.
It is the better chair.
Because you can also like mock me without me knowing.
I'm sorry, my love you.
That's okay.
I'll ask to switch chairs soon.
Yeah, I think you need good screeners in your questions.
And I would try to think about the personalities that you get along really well with.
And like, what about those personalities?
Like, do you need somebody that's really funny?
then like I think it's totally fair on your arranged marriage date to be like tell me some jokes and see what they got you know
wait hold on what are we done yeah can I say something so here's the thing so I like this question
because there's a couple things that I think we can like take away from um you know are even our
own relationship so a happy relationship requires two happy people
so if I'm not in happy the relationship will most like most probably not work out but happiness
comes from within which takes time to cultivate how does one know that they're happy so that they're
ready for a relationship I don't know if I agree with that premise so like I think a big part of
you know our relationship was like figuring things out right so I so I don't know that I was happy
when we met and I don't know that you were happy I mean I guess you were pretty happy I guess I was
happy but I think that like a big part of this question you had decided to become a monk I know so
you were detached happiness was an abstraction for you I wasn't really detached I was egotistical
and escapist I didn't find you that way yeah but anyway so so I think it like you know I don't think
you need to be perfect before you start the relationship I actually think because we always talk about
finding the right person.
I don't know that you can find the right person.
I think you can become the right person in the relationship.
And so I'd say go ahead and get started and then like work on yourself.
Right.
Like I'm just thinking about, you know, where, you know, all of the changes we made, right?
Like we, we are completely different people from who we started out as.
I used to smoke.
Yep.
Right.
And so like the classic like I would never date a smoker.
Yeah.
So that's the other thing.
I think a lot of times we have these ideas, right?
I would never date X, Y, Z, so I would never date a smoker,
and I would also never date an Indian girl.
It's like this whole, like arranged marriage, like Indian stuff, like, ain't...
That was very anti-dating Indian guy.
Yeah.
And so I think a lot of times the best relationships are ones that, like,
sort of violate your internal set of rules.
But then that's where you kind of talk to people.
So she was smoking, and I'd never date a smoker.
What's worth, I didn't even if we realized we were dating.
apparently when we were dating.
I thought we were just hanging out.
Oh, really?
No, seriously, because I was going to be a monk,
and I was just like, hey, like, you want to hang out sometime?
And you're like, sure.
Which...
And then we, like, hung out.
Do you do that with everybody you hang out with?
I mean, I feel like that's a trap question
because either I lose the argument or I say yes,
and then you get really upset with me
because then what we have is no longer special.
No, go ahead and tell me that you do everything that...
Go ahead.
No, I really don't do that.
I know.
You lose the argument.
Okay.
Money, please.
Thank you.
You can have access to my bank account.
How about that?
You can take as much as you want.
But I think becoming the right person in the relationship.
So I think you can like, you know, if you love someone and you're unhappy, I think this is what happened with us, is still happening.
It's about, you know, having that person help you on your journey to happiness.
So when I was like, we had been dating for a couple of years and then, you know, I told her, I was like, I need to move to Boston because that's my last chance at making something of myself and it's going to be bad for the relationship.
But I think it's something I need to do for myself, even though it'll come at the cost of a relationship.
And she was like, go.
And then when it came time to residency, I did a good job in medical school and I was a competitive candidate.
And we sat down and we were like, you know, like, do you want to go back?
and she moved to Boston for my sake, right?
So she loved being in New York,
tons of opportunities, tons of friends,
and she, like, gave that all up to, like, be with me.
Listen, there's no happy hour in Boston.
Yeah, there's no happy hour in Boston.
So that's why we make it up free by the happy hour at the home.
Cheers.
Happy home.
Happy hour makes happy wife.
That's not how it goes.
Says you grinning while you hold a tasty beverage at 153.
Listen, I am just in vacation mode today.
I understand that and happy beverage has a lot to do with that.
Let me tell you why I'm in vacation mode.
We launched a fucking non-profit.
Like, oh my God, so much work.
We launched the pre-order for Dr. Kay's guide.
So much work.
I've got so much dental work done over the last couple weeks.
So much pain.
Can I go back to telling the story about how amazing you are
and how much I love you now?
Yeah, it's good.
Yeah, see, you guys learning the magic?
Yeah.
So, so, I mean, she made sacrifices, right?
Like, and, and so they didn't, they, they, they, they, I would, I would disagree.
I didn't make sacrifices.
She made investments.
I made investments in our relationship.
So then, then it was like time for residency.
I'm not giving up shit.
I am helping build something.
Yeah.
So she.
I guess dating me is like the Bitcoin or doge coin investment that you made.
More doge, I would say.
Fair.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I think that's fair.
So, but it's right.
So like when we were, when I was finishing med school, it was like I was a competitive candidate.
I was getting interviews like all over the place, right?
Like people were like, I even went to one place where they're like, we don't understand why you're interviewing here.
I was like, what do you mean?
you don't understand what I mean they're like you're you're better than we are like
you were though I mean I was like I was so clear but I mean that's that's because I mean
they could have been better but you know they weren't yeah hey this reminds me though when
you're saying I know can't tell my story you can it's gonna end up talking about how awesome
you are okay you're like channeling your inner all look and you see interrupting right
okay so so then like we had to decide
oh it's being blah blah
not the most
no yeah go ahead
I
so the point is like so she was unhappy
being in Boston
and then what happened is like we talked about
you know where do we want to wind up
like because we have the opportunity
like there's a decent chance I could end up in New York
and like gone to Columbia or something like that right
that's sort of like we had a choice it's like either we moved to the west coast
and we wind up at, you know, in San Francisco or L.A. or like, you know, Portland or Washington, Seattle.
Or we go to, like, New York, right? So, like, there are a bunch of awesome programs there and, like, Columbia is solid.
Or we stay in Boston and, you know, kind of wind up at Harvard, which I was pretty sure that, you know, I had a decent shot at.
And it would mean, like, four more years of, like, living in Boston instead of living in New York.
and like she was unhappy to a certain degree in Boston.
And so I don't know that it requires happy people to make a happy relationship.
I think it's sort of like growing into happiness and planning your lives together.
And so this person was sort of asking, can both people work on their individual happiness while being in a relationship?
I think it's absolutely a requirement.
And so when people say that can both people work on their individual happiness, I think it's the responsibility of
each partner to work on both of y'all's happiness.
Yes.
So it's my job to work on her happiness and it's her job to work on my happiness.
And so a good relationship doesn't require two happy people.
I think it hopefully requires one happy person, but even then.
I think the whole point behind a relationship is you guys are partying up and y'all are
going to build that happiness together.
You're going to build a life together.
Between the two of you, you need the capacity.
for each of you to take care of each other and yourselves.
You just need that amount of bandwidth.
And whether it's happiness or not.
Sorry.
No, go ahead.
I was just going to say, like, tactical smile, Santa says co-op.
Absolutely, dude.
Yeah.
Okay, the last thing that I was going to say is that happiness isn't really about your needs being met.
It's about your wants being met.
And so if you are trying to figure out what to basically look for in an arranged marriage match situation, I think you have to remove the needs from it.
Like, try to have your own source of income, your own thing.
So you're not like going into a marriage because you need something.
And then know what you want.
Like you want somebody that's going to travel with you.
You want somebody that's open-minded.
You want somebody that, I don't know, is super funny or can cook or loves kids, whatever it might be.
Know what your wants are as much as your needs are.
That's all I've got.
This is this.
50 bucks.
Thank you so much.
Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard.
Philosophy pog.
Philosophy pog.
Thank you so much.
All right, shall we move on your next question?
Yes, we definitely should.
Teaching with chat?
Teach you with chat.
Nice.
Up top.
Your turn?
Yeah.
Hi, Dr. and Mrs. Kay.
I'm 27 male and I have been single forever.
I recently worked through some of my shame that held me back,
and now I really like myself.
I feel confident that I deserve love and am capable of giving it.
However, I'm still anxious,
reaching out and getting to know women. In the moment, I have no idea what to say or feel scared
to introduce myself. After the opportunity passes, I think of multiple ways I could have started
a conversation or flirted, and I'll wish I did it and reassure myself that I will have courage
next time. But this pattern keeps repeating. I understand that I have to take a risk,
but is there a way I can get rid of the panic and fear of embarrassment that arises so I can be
ready for the next opportunity.
I love this question.
My answer is no.
There's not a way to get rid of the panic and fear of embarrassment?
Nope.
Really?
Yeah, did you have an answer?
I think so.
Dude, this is like, okay, then help us out.
I used to be really scared of coming on stream,
but I just blew it a couple of times and, yeah, I'm fine.
Yeah, but did you get rid of the panic?
in fear before you came on scene?
No, I just got better at preparing, I think.
That I think you can do.
Yes.
So I think there's definitely something that this person can do.
But I don't think you can get rid of the panic or fear of embarrassment.
All right, so let's, let's.
So I think you have to increase your comfort in your confidence.
There's a lot of stuff you can do, but can you get rid of the fear?
Like, there's no cheat code to get rid of fear of embarrassment.
But if all that there is.
is is fear and embarrassment, then that's the only emotion you're feeling.
But if you're also feeling excitement and confident and all these other things,
then panic and fear is just one of many things.
It's not the overwhelming thing that I think causes the paralysis.
Yeah, I think there's a lot that you can do, but I don't think you can get rid of the panic and fear.
And I think that's the problem, right?
So I think the problem here is that we think to ourselves, oh, how can I get rid of this thing?
and you can't get rid of that thing
so you end up stuck
where there's a whole lot of other stuff
you can do
to make yourself
more able to engage with other people
so for example
you can let go of like
so when you introduce yourself to someone
I imagine that you have a lot of expectations
over what is coming out of that introduction
that's true
so I think what you can do is let go of those expectations
which doesn't have anything to do with the fear of embarrassment
or panic it's just like
hey there's a person here
So here's like, you know, one tip that, you know, this doesn't...
I can give you guys tips, but they're not good ones because I tried them for a while and I ended up, you know, with me or something.
But the whole point is that I didn't use any of my tricks on you.
Like, I just was like...
What were your tricks?
I'm about to tell you.
They were ineffective.
So one is that I realized that like, so when I was in college, right, and I was like 19-year-old Dr. Chad, I was neither a doctor nor a Chad.
I had this idea and I had this revelation.
that if I make friends with a girl, she can introduce me to her friends.
So rather than trying to ask this girl out,
like if I just make friends with her, like, she'll introduce me to a bunch of her friends
and I can ask like six girls out instead.
So it increases my access to the pool of women.
That's so bad.
I'm telling you, this is shitty strategies.
So bad.
I didn't end up with any of them, right?
Is that why you wanted to come into my dorm?
No.
I'm pretty sure at the point that I was breaking into your all women's dorm,
I'm pretty sure I understood that we were dating.
Y'all, he's literally a legend because they tell stories of this guy that broke into our dorm.
Anyway, so, yeah, so it was a legend.
You were, like, literally a legend.
That's where the legend began.
Yeah.
But, you know, years before that, I had come up with all these strategies.
I was like, oh, like, I'm going to do this thing, right?
I don't think any of them work, but I'll share it anyway.
I think there's an important principle here that is accurate.
So the cool thing that that allowed me to do, I mean, the strategy is dumb, but the cool thing
that allowed me to do is, like, let go of the expectation that something has to come out
of this, and I have to get this person to like me.
Right.
And I think that this is where, if you think about, like, what is the expectation that you
have with introducing yourself?
And if you have a big expectation, that's going to create the fear of embarrassment because
you could screw up.
but it's like why would you introduce yourself to people?
There are a thousand reasons to introduce yourself to people that have nothing to do with dating or finding a relationship.
And so just cultivate or pick any of those.
Right.
So you're 27 and you're single.
And there's someone that you hang out with.
And this could be interesting because like don't just look at people that you're attracted to, right?
Just like go out and meet people.
Like getting to know women.
Like do you have to be attracted to the woman to get to know?
know her.
I was going to say, start hitting on people that you're not super, like, do some low stakes
flirting.
Just learn to, like, appreciate human beings for what they are.
And, like, the love will come.
Right?
Like, just, like, like, recognize that there are, you know, there are billion, there's seven
billion human beings on the planet.
And each one has something that is, like, incredibly interesting and fascinating about them.
That you can engage in relationships with people who, like, you guys can go watch movies
together and go play frisbee together and like do all kinds of stuff i would have never played frisbee with
you okay i mean would have we've never played frisbee well right why is it because you don't know how to
play frisbee or is it something about me i'm confused the physics of frisbee's make no sense
okay so it has nothing to do with me no it's no yeah it's more about the frisbee than
case in point right like so like this is what i'm saying is is
you know, if you guys pay attention,
she makes, I would never play frisbee with you.
Like, that sounds like it's about me.
It's, and if I'm, like, anxious, right?
I'm going to think, like, oh, my God, what's wrong with me that she would never
pray supposed to be?
But, like, this is the thing.
Like, human beings, like, she has all kinds of, like, it has nothing to do with me.
It has to suit the frisbee.
Frisbees make no sense.
So this is where, like, if you guys are worried that someone is not doing something
with you, like, just think for a second that maybe that has more to do with them than it does
with you.
Yeah, and think about, like, if the physics are weird for the things that
proposing. That's the problem with the magic. It's that the physics aren't right. That's what it is.
It's all about the angle. I knew you were going to say that. A hundred percent knew you're going to
say that. It's because we've talked about it way too much. So much. Well, it's all about the physics
for me. If you think Ollock the labor's points on stream, you have no idea. All right.
I can get wrecked shitties. Today I am the shitty that was wrecked.
I'm really excited for Buddy, though, that I think
If you...
Go back to teaching with chats.
Go back to teaching with chat.
I think they've forgotten about Buddy.
No.
Don't forget about Buddy.
Oh, is teaching what?
Yeah, you're doing it right.
Okay.
Up top.
Thanks.
See, instead of just waiting for a high-five,
you just give people a signal so that they know, right?
I gave you a signal.
You just didn't see it.
Exactly.
That's why I'm doing the verbal signal.
Right?
You see?
Communication.
Teach me about communication.
I go, okay.
Teach me about making the magic happen.
Oh, no.
Anyway, what I was going to say is it sounds like you've been on this thing, right?
You got rid of the shame and now you really like yourself.
And like you're kind of in this progression.
So what I wanted to tell you is keep going.
I think this will get easier for you as long as if there's more emotions than panic and fear.
Like, I really think this should be fun and exciting for you.
So in so much as you can kind of remember that, like, meaning somebody should be fun,
meaning somebody you should not be the scary thing, I think you'll be okay.
Yeah, I just want to say, like, buddy, dude, you're a cool dude.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, you have something to offer people.
Like, each and every one of you, like, I know it sounds weird, but like each and every one of you has something to offer people.
and so like get to know people just like try to meet them and try to like recognize that every person that you meet could be
you know your best friend could be a friend of yours for the next five years could be like a great source for like
you know a chicken soup recipe like they could teach you how to make cookies they could do all kinds of stuff like
there there are a lot of human beings out there and i think like a big part of what i've i mean like i think
the reason people think maybe I'm special is because, you know, every time someone comes on stream,
like, I recognize that there's someone here who, like, is awesome in some way, because we are all
awesome in some way. I'm not saying it, you know, because like, oh, man, like, we're all, like, we all have
a piece of the divine, man. Like, sure, that's true. But if you, like, think about it statistically,
like, there's something cool about every person. I think you should just ask women for their chicken
soup recipes.
I think that would be weird.
That sounds like something I would come up with before I met you.
Like, oh, like, I have this master plan to ask women for the chicken soup recipes.
And they would become friends of mine because I would signal to them the time of cook.
Okay.
We're going to go to the next one.
Sounds good.
Should you speak like this for the rest of it?
You can keep it gone for as long as you can, I'll joke.
I want to
So good
Yep
Nice
Okay
Read it
Read it
Hey Dr. Kay
I want to watch a TV series
With my girlfriend
Can you recommend me
Girlfriend
This is so good
The jabating dude
Like love it
Love it
I don't know many girlfriends
You're just gonna
Do props for the question
Yeah
All right
Can we recommend
I can recommend TV series.
I just finish Shadow and Bone.
I'm starting Queen of the South.
Medici.
I don't think that's what this person is looking for.
He's literally not looking for that.
That's all I've got, though.
I don't have, like, girlfriends in my back pocket.
Healthy Gamer dating service coming in 2022.
No, please God.
That sounds like a terrible idea.
I don't sign us up for anything.
No.
I mean, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Oh, I don't know how to.
Well, let's think about this for a second.
What, chat, you guys have any idea?
What do we do?
Hold on. It sounds like an impossible question to answer, right?
Wait, is this a real, like, I want to watch TV with a woman,
and he wants a woman who likes to watch TV?
Is that where we're going with this?
I mean, the question that this person is asking us is, can you recommend me a girlfriend?
And, like, let's just think about that for a second.
Can we actually recommend this person or girlfriend?
Is there any way that's possible?
Because you just think about this.
We just assume that it's impossible, right?
But the whole reason that we're here is because there were people that assumed that things were impossible that we dared to question.
And that's why we're here today.
Because we dared to question that having emotional personal conversations has to be done offline and privately.
True, true, true.
Because if we can figure this out, that'd be huge.
So let's think.
I don't know if you're proposing, like, creating a Netflix-like thing to, like, if you liked this person,
then we recommend meeting this person or if you're...
This is what I'm talking about.
Can you imagine?
Can you imagine if there was an API that connected like dating services to Netflix?
Interesting.
So like similar tastes, like find people at the same taste as you?
Yeah.
But could you do that on like, I don't know,
subredits dedicated to different shows or fan forums or is that like...
Yeah, but it's...
But here's the thing, it's about expectation, right?
Like, it's fucking weird if I'm on a subreddit and I'm like, yeah, I really love the office.
And someone is like ASL.
You know what they would call it?
What?
Netbox.
Netbox.
That's an odd time.
So like, ask impossible questions.
And when you get faced with an impossible question, don't give up on the answer.
That took all of what?
Like 90 seconds?
Yeah.
Like, that's just 90 seconds.
NetFox.com.
A dating website that is built on, like, matching entertainment preferences.
Like, it's pretty dope.
It would be.
You could channel on some Spotify.
Right?
That's interesting.
Yeah.
All right.
Drowning in Milk asks,
Why do I just can't connect to girls?
Well, I'd start by
Not drowning in milk
Or getting a Netflix account
You know
Is this a
This seems like a serious question
Yeah, of course
I think the last one was a serious question too
I thought it was a bit
More of a joke
But yeah, I can see the seriousness
Behind it, yeah
Why do I just can't connect to girls?
For what it's worth
I don't really connect to girls either
Like I always had more guy friends
than I did girlfriends
until after
you didn't have guy friends
you had guys that wanted to get with you
probably that's true
I know you don't think it's true
now I just have girls that want to get with me
no the whole point is that
I don't have as many guy friends now
yeah
because I'm married
yeah
I don't know
I have some though
you do
you do
it's been a while since I've like
anyway
let's go back to the question
With some of my friends.
Well, I was.
I can't really connect to girls.
I couldn't really connect to girls either.
So I feel like you had more girlfriends than I did.
Yeah.
Because I had built out that strategy that I was talking about,
which is that every...
The chicken soup strategy.
Every friend that I make will introduce me to six possibilities.
So I had a whole plethora of women who I was friendly with,
but had expressed no romantic interest in,
because I wasn't romantically interested.
No, you have always, like, in the hospital, like, the nurses would be all over you.
And, like, even in residency, you had two close girlfriends and one close guy friend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But my friends in residence.
I mean, the hospital thing is a different thing because that happens all the time.
No, but you've always had more women friends than guy friends.
I don't know about more.
Mm-hmm.
In a social setting?
Even at camp, you had more, like, the girl counselors were more of them.
I know you're like your boys now, like your, like, core crew.
So let me just, let me just count.
No, he's going to try to weasel his way out of this, but it's true.
Like, so if I look at my, my 12, out of these 10 closest friends are all dudes.
I know.
Those are your closest friends.
What I'm saying?
In a social situation.
you tend to get along with women.
Yeah.
So drowning in milk would like to get along with some women.
Okay, so here's the tip.
Okay?
So why can't I just connect with girls?
Stop trying to connect with girls and start trying to connect with people.
Remove gender from the equation.
Because at the end of the day, the only difference,
so like if you look at the difference between a man and a woman,
like most of our chromosomes are exactly the same.
We have one differential chromosome.
why can't why we're
listen what about my guy friends
what about your guy friends what if they
were just trying to connect with me as a person
what if they were trying to connect you
how do we explain to her chat
no I mean I think it's fine for you
I mean like like I think
you know there's different back in college
because like here's the thing right like when you're a dude
like you see the science like you know when someone's trying to like you know
What are the signs, professor?
All right, let me think about this.
Yeah.
There's a certain amount of friendliness.
Uh-huh.
Right?
There's a certain amount of like advertising that you're not interested.
That's the key thing.
It's like this kind of like, you know, like Shakespeare, like me dot think he protests too much.
So it's like the advertisement of lack of interest.
There's a difference between being interested and being interested and being
not interested. And then there's the advertising of not being interested.
I don't think any of my guy friends on the regular was like, yo, and by the way, I'm not interested.
Sure, not to you.
Then, do you?
So I'll have you know that I had a conversation with one of your closest guy friends.
Mm-hmm.
Where we like, like, we were, we had it out one day. And we were like, look, bro, like, be straight with me.
If she was single, would you ask her out? And he was like, absolutely.
and we were cool after that
because like we understood
did he come to our wedding
no comment
this is a conversation between men
all right whatever right
so and it's like
come on chat like if she was single
would you ask her out like absolutely
all right if you want to connect with girls
I would start doing the following
start faking
start going to yoga
and start making good cocktails
that's good
so I'd say I'd say yoga's definitely
a great option. But I'd say that
because here's the thing, like I
know it sounds kind of weird, but
you know, girls aren't that different
from guys. Like,
mostly the same. I have never
taken one of your girlfriends
aside and been like, yo, if he was
single, would you ask him out?
Yeah, I understand that because
they, I think it's different, right?
Because like I detected
my bullshit meter picked it up.
Oh, because your bullshit meter is so
much better.
Yes
It is way now
It wasn't before
Fair
Fair
Fair
You know
Because I have had
Professional training
But going back to this
So I think
Gruthey gives practical tips
Right
So like go to yoga class
Like
Learn how to make beverages
I think that's good
But it doesn't have to be
Alcoholic beverages
No it doesn't
I think
I mean a big foundation
Of our relationship
is caffeinated beverages
I'd say far more than alcohol.
Mm-hmm.
Making a good cup of tea.
I think having a craft...
Yeah, to twist this way.
Keep going.
Having a craft is helpful.
Having a craft.
I'm just going to twist me and...
Learn how to do that.
I'm going to bring you closer.
Thank you.
Don't go so far away from me.
I'll never leave you.
I can't believe you took one of my guy friends aside.
We...
And you never knew.
I think I know who you're talking about now.
This explains.
Oh, how would you know?
Because not him, but of you, because I know from you.
Okay.
So, I mean, it's like, you know, you just got to get it out.
And we're totally cool after that.
Like, no big deal, man.
You lost, bro.
Did you say Gigi to him?
No, because he wouldn't have understood.
Were you thinking Gigi in your head?
I can't remember that.
I bet you were.
So going back to this person's question.
So I think, you know, why can't you connect to girls?
I'd say start by connecting to people.
And if they happen to be girls, so be it.
Right.
And if, like, attraction comes or, like, if you want to ask someone out at some point, go for it.
But, like, if you can't connect to girls, that means that the girlness of them is getting in the way of the personhood of them.
So, like, connect to people first, right?
Like, don't worry about the females or the femoids or any of that stuff.
Like, like, recognize that, like, just because.
they have two X chromosomes that there are still people
and like learn how to connect to humans
and if they happen to have two X chromosomes
totally fine and if they don't
totally fine right
okay
also if you have any sisters or cousins
you might want to start spending a little bit more time around them
and try to take away
the mysticism of like
the opposite sex from this
all right next
teaching what child
You can't say things like that on Twitch, man.
What do you mean?
All right, let's just keep going.
I don't know what I did.
Hi, Leaflet.
Hi, Dr. Kay and Mrs. Kay.
As a 20-year-old guy, I find many girls attractive.
I like talking to girls at work.
I find attractive.
Sorry.
I like talking to girls at work I find attractive,
flirting with girls and forming relationships.
However, in the long term, I find no huge appeal in getting married, unlike many of my peers.
Unlike many of my peers.
Is there something wrong with me for not wanting to get married?
Is it an unhealthy thing to have no desire to get married and have kids?
You're fine.
You're 20.
You're fine.
So when he asks, is there something wrong with me?
You're saying no.
No.
Is it unhealthy to have no?
desire to get married and have kids? No. I think maybe you don't have, I would like for you to have
a true and accurate picture of what marriage could be because it can be really fun. I don't want
you to think marriage is just not fun. But other than that, I don't think anything's wrong
with you. Yeah, I agree. It's not unhealthy at all to have no desire to get married and have kids.
I mean, there's a part of me that wants to say, if you were super, super, super, super
to that, that may actually be unhealthy, but I know that there's some people who, from a very
young age, like marriage and kids and that kind of thing is very important. And I'd say that,
like, honestly, like, my diagnosis here would be like, you just haven't fallen in love yet. Like,
wait until you fall in love. Like, really? Like, you're going to get hit over the head and it's
going to change everything. And even then, it's not about, like, wanting to have kids and stuff.
It's just about meeting someone that you're like, man, like, I just don't want anyone else.
Like, this is the person that I want for, like, and that's it.
I never thought of getting married as the exclusion of other people.
It was like, I had to spend my whole life with this person.
That's so great.
Yeah.
Okay.
I don't even think about it as a whole life.
It's just...
Well, you signed up for seven lives, technically.
Technically is true.
In the Hindu wedding ceremony, when you get married, you sign up for seven lives.
Okay.
You're trying to read.
I mean, should we have spent a little bit more time on that?
Or it's like, is you're 20?
Like, don't worry about it.
You're not supposed to want to have kids yet.
It's totally cool.
Or if you, I mean, like, some people do at that point.
Some people don't.
I think just continue living your life and, like, continue, like, every day that the earth rotates, you know, you may change when you're 24, 26, 27.
You may meet someone that will change your mind.
I think all that's normal.
It sounds what I would call developmentally appropriate.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Just, I want you to have good.
marriage role models to
if you want to get married
I mean some people don't want to get married
that's fine but as long as you have like a complete
understanding of what marriage is I think for a lot of people
marriage like the idea of marriage is like oh cool
we're just going to fight and bicker and have a mortgage
dude we had no idea what marriage was
and in fact
no I know and that's why our marriage is way better than
you know what we were exposed to
like I like what we have
have way more than...
I agree.
I think marriage is about...
It's like...
The cool thing is you get to build it.
It's like Minecraft.
You can build whatever you want to.
You pick a person.
You guys build what you want.
Well, we always thought of it as lifetime of fun.
That's kind of how we always framed it.
Yeah.
Okay.
True.
No me.
Hey!
So I've never been in a relationship,
but I strongly feel the need for one.
However, I very rarely...
find myself thinking I like anyone. And most of the times I do, I then, after some thought,
realize I actually might not. How do you distinguish between sexual, intellectual, and romantic
attraction? And how do you even know you like someone? Does it just happen? Do you have to go around
and look for it? Do you have to like someone a little? Get to know them and then like them a lot. Or do you
have to like them a lot in the first place? Thanks. Good question. I feel like there's a very simple answer.
I think so, too.
What's yours?
What's yours?
No, I asked first.
So I answer first.
That is not how it works.
Ladies first, dude, come on.
No.
It's going to be the same answer.
One, two, three.
I knew you wouldn't play.
One, two, three, what?
Say your answer.
I mean, to me, it's like, does she turn you on?
That wasn't my answer.
That wasn't?
No.
What's your answer?
Okay, you do yours first.
I did already.
Can you explain it?
Intellectual and romantic attraction don't matter if there's not sexual attraction.
For a relationship, anyway.
So, does this person turn you on?
Does this person float your boat, check your boxes, flip your switch.
Make the magic happen.
What was your answer?
I mean, so I'd say like, okay, so.
Let's go back to this.
So, like, you know, I find myself thinking I like anyone, and most of the times I do,
I then, after some thought, realize I might actually not.
How do you distinguish between these three kinds of interaction?
How do you know you like someone?
So, like, this sounds to me that it'll be, like, overly intellectual.
Right?
So it's like, I find myself liking someone, and then I think through it, and then I realize I might not.
So like I think the answer here is about think less and experience more.
In your pants.
Right.
So how do you even know you like someone?
Like that's not an answer you can figure out in your head.
It's an answer that you have to figure out through experience.
In your pants.
In your pants.
Do you have to go around and look for it sometimes?
Do you have to like someone a little and get to know them sometimes?
So I'd say that I'd be careful about what your mind keeps you.
from doing. And I'd encourage you to like if you find yourself attracted to someone,
you know, try to have a relationship with them and recognize, like, watch out because then
your mind is going to like start generating certain thoughts. Like, oh, you don't like this person
for reasons like A, B, and C. But the problem is that your mind can use logic, but like the logic
that it has is going to be founded on your experience. So you need to collect more data so that
your logical function has more to work with. How do you dissoning? How do you dissoning?
between sexual, intellectual, and romantic attraction.
Like, sexual is something you feel in your pants.
Right?
Intellectual attraction, I imagine, is something that you're, like,
kind of interested in what this person, like, thinks and says.
And romantic is, like, hard to describe, because I think it's primarily emotional.
It's not going to be, like, it's not going to be something.
I mean, sure, you can learn to distinguish it.
You have to feel it.
Like, a romantic attraction is, like, you know, it's something that's felt.
Not that's, it's not something that's logic to do.
So, you know, what I'd say to this person is if you feel,
find yourself like overly thinking relationships and convincing yourself that you might not
actually like someone like just pay attention to what your mind is doing because there's a decent
chance that your mind is protecting you from or you have some kind of fear or anxiety that your
logical system is like protecting you yeah i was going to ask like do you feel like this person's
like ashamed of something or like i mean i only want a relationship with this kind of person or i mean maybe
shame, I'm not sure, but I'm just saying
like, you know, it sounds like you have
feelings towards someone and you logic your
way out of your feelings.
But why would somebody do that?
You know, we'd have to talk to them.
I think that, yeah, maybe there's some kind of fear
or, like, negative emotion, but I'd say, like,
experience more, like, level up, like,
jump into the water from time to time and just
see how you feel, you know,
have a sexual relationship, have an intellectual
relationship, and have a romantic relationship.
Then you'll be able to tell the difference.
Yeah. Okay.
Agree.
Teaching, teaching.
The chili is like really stinging now.
Teaching with chat.
Wrong one.
Teaching with chat.
Yeah, and then quick it.
You have to quick it.
Quick it.
I think you might be the one for me.
Yeah, I think so.
Hi, Dr. and Mrs. Kay.
How do you balance caring for a partner so that it doesn't come a detriment to yourself?
I have a strong impulse to always be there for a partner, but sometimes it can end up hurting
me and ultimately it feels like I'm screwed either way. Oh, perspicacity I feel for you.
I feel like I have a lot of people in my life that would relate to this. This strikes me as like
the fixer type. Yeah, so I think this is the key thing, right? I have a strong impulse to always be
there for a partner that has nothing to do with your partner. It has everything to do with you.
It's about living up to this idea of being someone who is always there for their partner.
And I know it sounds kind of weird, but at that point, it's not about you anymore.
I mean, it's not about your partner anymore.
It's all about you.
So I think part of the reason that people get into this situation is like, oh, like, I want to be a caring person.
So I have to do X, Y, and Z.
Where it's like, if you don't do those things, then you feel like you're a bad person.
So it's like you're making it sound like it's a two-player game,
but it's actually like all a one-player game.
Right?
So how do you balance caring for a partner so it doesn't come to the detriment of yourself?
That's where you like lean on your partner to let them know so that you can understand what their needs are.
And you signal to them what your needs are.
Because what I want you guys to do is like think about your relationships is like a shared resource pool.
Right?
It's like like you guys have to.
a shared resource pool. And so you should let people know, you know, how much are you spending
on this relationship? How much are they spending? How much do you need to get out? How much do they need
to get out? You all need to, like, sit down and figure out, like, what's going on? So case and point,
you know, when Krutti and I, like, you know, I was like, hey, I kind of want to go to Harvard.
And she's like, okay, fine. I'll stay in Boston for four more years, even though I hate it here.
And then, like, after that, she's like, I've decided to get an MBA. And I was like, okay, fine.
Right? And it's like...
We're stuck here and all their...
And I was like, couldn't you've done that the two years?
Like, couldn't you've decided that two years ago so we could leave Boston sooner?
No, because I was too busy having all of your babies.
Yeah, well...
Yeah, so, right, so like, it's a shared resource pool.
And that, like, that's what I wanted.
And later, that's what she wanted.
And, like...
And so if you have a strong impulse to always be there for someone,
why are you actually being there for them?
Are you being there for them, for them?
Or for yourself?
because a lot of times what ends up happening
is that we do a lot of things for ourselves
and then we think we're doing it for them
and then it leaves us feeling really resentful
because I did this for you
I did all this stuff for you
and you don't appreciate me
it's like this is classic nice guy syndrome
I've done everything for you
and you don't appreciate what I've done for you
did you read this as a male
writing this? Maybe
I read this completely as a woman writing this
I feel like a lot of
I know a lot of
really wonderful women
who feel the need to fix
people
and they put so much into it
they put so much to it
they put so much into it
and then they're like
well I never even got around
to making my needs met
oh so look like
chat is like
obviously a woman
obviously a man like
oh my God chat
it's almost as if
men and women can share
common problems
and that gender is like
sure it like is a big part of our
identity, but that both men and women can experience the same things.
Shocking.
I think I did read it as a man.
I read it as a woman.
I'm not surprised at all.
Me neither.
So yeah, it seems like a fairly universal thing.
I think the main thing is to remember that relationships are there.
The ideal relationship helps you become your best self.
and if you feel like that is not happening now,
it is not going to be possible that like
really all you can do is help this other person level up
at the expense of you leveling up,
that's not going to be the best relationship.
The best relationships you both level up.
Yeah, I was reading chat.
I have to find, I make an attempt to kind of like
try to make it like know how to have to remember it.
Go down.
teaching with chat
sorry guys I can't get the clicks right
that's why the magic doesn't happen
because I can't get the clicks right
I don't know
should we stop with the magic comments
we should we
stop with the magic comments
yes I think we
could tone it down a little bit
but also we don't have to
if we don't want to
All right, let's keep going.
This is your question.
Hello, Dr. Kay.
Currently going through a breakup with someone who has low self-worth,
story cut short, she decided to let her abuse of X back into her life,
despite the fact that she pretty much told everyone that she was done with him
and there wouldn't be anything with the guy again
and dropped me off in a heartbeat despite her showing
and telling me about her deep interest in what I was offering in the relationship.
My question is, how does one tread in a relationship like this?
Since I'm someone who usually offers a more easygoing lifestyle and usually offer peace of mind over large-scale adventures and extroverted outings, I have a feeling that I might attract more broken people over those who aren't undergoing hardships in their life.
This is kind of what we were starting to talk about.
Right.
So the first thing is I know it feels like you've invested a lot in like if only this was different, only that was different.
different than this could really be the right person for you, but I don't think you should put
anything more into this relationship. So my opinion, this relationship is over. And anything more you
put into it will be to her benefit and there's nothing in it for you. So if you want to be her
friend. You can, but I feel like your time is better spent elsewhere and she has friends that
can help her more with other things. Why we date broken people. I was literally writing
about this like yesterday. So like we're making a doctor's cake to Kay's guide in relationships
and and we were the magic you mean? I thought we were not going to make comments about
magic anymore. Oh we we aren't you're right?
But I think you could make a guide to sex if you wanted to.
Okay.
I think it would be good.
Okay.
Anyway, keep going.
Nope, I'm just thinking about sex.
Okay, so a couple things.
So one is that, you know, a lot of people are saying bail, right?
And it's easy to tell someone to bail.
But like, there's a, like, it's hard to bail.
So let's just acknowledge it.
that. Even then, and then, like, we have to be careful because the more people that tell you to bail,
and the harder it is for you to bail, the more stupid you're going to feel. So this is where,
you know, you have to understand that she let this exit back into her life because of,
let's try to be optimistic and compassionate about it, like, due to her own, like, vulnerabilities,
right? And at the same time, is this where you're going to find happiness? It sounds like probably
not because you can be patient with her.
And this is where
I know it sounds kind of weird, but a lot of people are telling
you to bail, but like, I've actually
seen a lot of fair relationship, I mean, a lot of good
relationships where people
didn't bail.
And like, you give your partner
another chance and another chance and another
chance. And eventually, like, they come around
and they begin to realize like, oh, wow,
like, I was so stupid and cruel
to you, whereas, like, you're the one that I've loved all
along. Well,
the question is, how does one try to
a relationship like this.
There is no relationship.
I mean, sure.
It's just you trying and her picking someone else.
So I'm kind of of the mind of, you know, it's hard to, like, it's hard to make this
relationship work for the reasons that you said is it doesn't seem like it's a mutual
relationship.
I think there's, so the one thing is that, you know, I'm sort of aligned with people that
are saying kind of bail because, um,
you know, I don't know how much you want to invest in a relationship where someone is not investing the same amount you are.
So, like, I advocate that, you know, it's fine to sacrifice in a relationship.
It's fine to put a lot into a relationship.
But there should be reciprocity.
And I think the main thing here is that I'm not seeing a whole lot of reciprocity.
And now we get to, you know, the notes that I was making, which is like, since I'm someone who usually offers a more easygoing lifestyle and usually
offer peace of mind
over large-scale
adventures and extroverted things,
I have a feeling that I might attract
more broken people over those
who aren't undergoing hardships in their life.
And that's fine.
I mean, so if you attract broken people,
like there's a differential diagnosis for that.
There are a lot of reasons for that.
And one thing that I encourage you to think about
is it may not be so much about like,
you're like, oh, I offer an easygoing lifestyle,
but like, I'm not as fun as other people.
people are. And if you kind of think about it, like there's insecurity there, which is
and like sometimes the reason that we date broken people is because we instinctively bat
at our level. So it may sound weird, but the more you feel worse about yourself, the more
you may feel like the only people that would like you are people who you can see flaws in.
And you have to be really, really careful about that line of thinking. And so, like,
Because I see this a lot.
There's a pattern of people who date broken people.
And if we really look at like, why do people consistently date broken people?
A lot of it is because they think on some level,
the only person that's going to like me is someone who's a little bit messed up
because I'm someone who's a little bit messed up.
And that actually has to do with your perspective of yourself.
And you may be surprised that, you know, like love is weird.
Like love's not logical.
Like love is, and you may be able to, you know,
date and fall in love and have someone fall in love with you who's like way above your level.
Like happened right here, right? And and so it happens, chat. So don't sell yourself short.
And so be careful. Like, because here's what I found when I, when I work with people like,
we talk about online dating, you know, what happens if you pay attention, if you see someone and
you're attracted to them, but do you have this thought, oh, this person would never date me?
And then you keep scrolling. And then you're like, oh, this person,
would date me because they're a little bit broken.
If you have that thought, you've got to be really careful.
Because that's coming from you.
Like, you're not even giving the first person the choice of rejecting you.
And that may be because you're afraid you're going to get rejected, which is, you know, fair.
Like, you may have that fear.
I'm not saying it's going to happen.
But be careful about why you date broken people.
And be careful about, like, you know, pay attention to your mindset and become aware of, like,
if I'm really attracted to this person.
but I think to myself,
oh,
this person would never date me,
that's a problem.
Don't sell yourself short.
I also...
Oh.
Yeah.
There's another piece of this.
You guys want to read the...
You all want to hear the notes?
Yeah.
Okay.
You want to show them?
So, if we fix them,
we can demonstrate our value.
So this is another big piece of it, right?
That's what I was going to get at, yeah.
And then there's, like, a fear because, like,
if I can, like, if I don't have intrinsic value
and there's someone broken,
and I can be there for that.
Like this goes back to this one.
Hold on.
Okay.
I feel like there was one where I can't find it.
Anyway.
Yeah.
So this is where you guys have to be careful because sometimes the reason that we will date people who are broken is because we can help fix them.
Right?
So I'm someone who cares about other people.
Like I can help this person be happy.
I can take care of them.
I can sacrifice my own emotional needs.
So it's sort of like, and some people feel like the only or the clearest value that you bring to the relationship is actually in fixing the other person.
So like if someone's broken, then you know you can do something to help them.
Like you can help them feel better.
You can fix them.
You can save them.
You can like show them what love means, right?
And then you kind of get yourself into a little bit of a trap there because if what you bring to the relationship is the ability to fix them, then what happens when they're fixed?
Do they need you anymore?
And so what we find in fixers is actually a fear that once they do their job,
the person whom they fixed will leave them behind.
And we'll go find a healthy person because I don't need you anymore because you've done your job.
You fixed me.
And so now I'm going to move on to better people.
So be careful about that.
Okay.
And so be careful about, you know, if you find yourself dating broken people over and over and over again,
like be a little bit careful about
don't worry about the person
pay attention to yourself and what
drives you to like date a broken
person. But also like how
can you like what is the
value you can bring to somebody
that's not broken?
Yeah and that's where like it's like you have intrinsic value.
You don't need to fix people to like be good in a relationship
like you can just be good in a relationship
which you may not understand about yourself
but that kind of goes back to this whole theme of like
we're all people that have value.
okay so never help anyone no i'm not saying never help anyone i'm saying be careful about
whether helping someone is the primary reason why you feel comfortable engaging in a relationship
fixing another person should not be the thing that overcomes your social anxiety in the relationship
yeah because there's something easy about that right absolutely right it's like oh like
they're so broken, like, I can, I can show them my value.
Where it's like, you don't need to show anyone of your value.
There.
Me do I think he protests too much.
Are you going to get Shakespearean for the rest of the day?
Probably not for the rest of the day.
Okay.
Okay.
How does one keep realistic expectations standards for love?
I didn't grow up with any healthy examples of love, and I have a hard time with the post-Honeymoon period of a relationship.
Great question.
I think it's a good question, too.
I didn't, I have never, like, I didn't grow up seeing a couple like us.
I think our ability to create the thing that we wanted to create in our life is kind of the only reason why we have our relationship.
I kind of zoned down.
That's hard for me to attend to things.
Not to lean on you.
You're going to have to carry from here on out.
Oh, from here?
What I was saying.
So did you have any great examples of relationships when you were growing up?
Nothing like ours.
Exactly.
I don't think you have to see it to do it.
So it's not about realistic.
It's about your own ability to create the thing that you want.
Yeah, because that's what's realistic, right?
It's like expectation is based on everything outside of you.
But here's the thing.
You are a unique person.
Like your partner is a unique person.
And the relationship that the two of you have has never existed in the history of humanity.
So, you know, don't let your expectations get in the way.
There's something weird about this, isn't there?
There's no water in this room.
Go get some water.
I think we need some
Can we get some food at some point?
Yeah, I see for the pringles.
Look, I just thought chat would like
I'm gonna go get water, but here I want to pull a later.
Back to this.
So this is the thing.
I mean, look, so I think both my wife and I have had,
you know, to a certain degree, like healthy parents.
And at the same time, I think, you know,
you have to remember that like I was saying,
you have never existed before.
Your partner has never existed before.
Y'all's relationship has never existed before.
So I think creating a healthy relationship is recognizing that, like, this is an entirely new game that's being played.
And there's only so much you can understand and learn from prior games that have existed.
So this is where, you know, what I would really advocate for is, like, you know, what are realistic expectations?
That's a conversation you needed to have with your partner.
This is what I want from the relationship.
This is what you want from the relationship.
Can I expect and rely on you to provide me with this thing that you don't want to give me, but that I want?
And ultimately, like, communication is the most important thing.
Because it's like, you guys are playing a multiplayer game, but if you're not communicating, then it's like you're just all in your head.
So, like, learn how to talk to each other.
And when you say, I have a hard time with post-honeymoon periods of the relationship, yeah, like you and everyone else.
Because the honeymoon period is like when your hormones are going great.
And it's like, oh my God, I love you so much.
And then it's like, how are we going to pay the internet bill?
You know, what are we going to be about finances?
What are we going to do about kids?
Where are we going to live?
How are we going to deal with rent?
Those are all the things that are boring and terrible.
And are also like, you know, part of the, part of the relationship.
I mean, depending on what kind of relationship you have, right?
And so I'd say that set your own expectations.
determine your own standards of love.
Like don't rely on whether it's realistic or not.
Like, F that.
I mean, there have been so many times where
Kruthi and I have been like, oh my God,
like this is unrealistic what we're doing.
And I was like, screw that.
And she was too.
I was like, we're not realistic.
Like, we don't do things like other people.
We're not, you know, we're not the regular humans.
We're us.
And it's our lifetime of fun.
So this is what we're going to do,
even if it's a bad idea.
And so the cool thing about a relationship is that ultimately you're the one that gets to write the rules.
Like you and your partner get to write the rules together and you guys write whatever rules you want.
If like, you know, every Friday is crazy fun Friday where like no one gets to wear clothes, like that's fine.
Right?
You know, you have to watch out about, you know, work and things like that.
But you guys get to determine the rules.
You get to determine what are realistic expectations.
And whether they're realistic or unrealistic, I think the best parts of our relationships,
are the things where we've had unrealistic expectations,
and we've managed to fulfill them anyway.
It's like, I have a completely unrealistic expectation.
And it's like, cool, let's make that happen.
I want spicy, puffy Cheetos and margaritas and like a new TV show,
and you do it because you're the best.
Yeah, and she's like, oh my God, is this hard for you?
And I'm like, of course it's hard for me.
But we shouldn't let that get in the way of your indulgent enjoyment.
That's true.
Unless it looks like you're ordering food.
I feel like I have too.
We should get some for them to you, okay?
Yeah, yeah, okay.
I need to make them coffee.
Okay.
Okay.
They said they want burgers, you want burgers?
Sure.
Okay.
Oh.
Wait, let this one already.
Okay.
Oh, is that it?
That's changing colors.
Okay, chat.
Looks like that's it.
We did it.
We did it.
You want to do questions for your chat?
Or how are we feeling? What are we doing?
I mean, I'm feeling arguably too good.
I feel like I can keep going.
I feel like I want to keep going, but there are parts of my body that I'm telling me not to.
Which parts?
Nothing.
The magic parts?
No.
No?
I'm older than 35 and my GI system is not what it used to be parts.
Guess who's not older than 35?
Up top.
Nice.
date an older man
date an older woman chat
I see you
okay
I think I've scrolled too far
it's like cracker barrel
okay
we'll figure this out
so I think we've gotten through all our questions
um hold on
there's a message
at Kruthy full stream
screen screen
okay that looks like it's two hours old
okay
Oh, there's a 10,000.
Ah.
No, wait, what?
That's too many zeros.
How many?
What was that for real, though?
Sneaky.
What?
This name is familiar.
You don't remember we turned this down?
We didn't turn it down.
Yes, we did.
We asked if we were sure.
He turned it down.
He's snuck in.
It's okay.
You want to say thank you?
Thank you.
Almost.
No, no, no.
I mean, I think, you know, I'm still waiting on an email is what I'll say to this person.
Oh.
The ball's in their court.
That's incredibly generous.
It's very generous.
Yeah, sorry, I should have been grateful.
But I was just stunned by the name.
I think there was an ethical issue earlier.
But they can donate.
I feel like you're just digging holes.
Sorry.
Thank you very much for the $10,000 donation.
It means a lot.
And now we're making Dr. K's Guide to Magic.
Yes, we are.
Okay.
But also, we're making Dr. K's Guide to Magic.
This person is a longtime supporter, and I think it deserves to be thanked properly.
Long-time supporter of the stream.
Every step of the way, I feel good that, like, we have been able to give something back in a more tangible way.
So thank you very much.
It means a lot.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much.
Obviously, guys, thank you guys very much.
I think it helps us do.
I don't know if I think Ruthie shared the impact report with you guys.
So for those of you don't know, I think we tried to be somewhat transparent in terms of like what we put money to, what our mission is.
We're really, really grateful for all the support.
And yeah, thank you so much.
I think it helps us do the work that we do.
Um
His message is really funny
Healthy Gamer taught me that the only way money makes you happy is if you give it away
So thanks for letting me buy happiness
Classic cult
Joking aside thanks for everything you do and keep it up
Thanks a lot man
We really appreciate it
We appreciate the donation
I will just accept it gratefully
Unlike what my previous response was
So I will learn how to accept it grateful
All of the problem is he can't take compliments or donations well
and he like can never ask people for money.
People will be like, okay, so send me the bill.
He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe one day.
And he never...
No, I can take people's money.
It's just...
There's some situations in which I refuse to take people's money.
And I stand behind those.
I don't challenge those.
I just think you're really...
Oh, look, I like your hair today.
What do you...
I'm trying to get you to take...
See, he can't take a compliment.
No, look so good today.
I mean, I know I look good today.
I look good every day.
Come on.
No, you don't.
Don't you?
No, not every day.
Don't you know who I am?
Haven't you seen me?
Oh, give me a break.
I don't know why you think that's so funny.
All right, chat.
So thank you guys very much.
Thank you for the gigantic donation.
Thank you for everyone.
We've had a ton of donations.
Just a reminder that all of the donations that we're collecting right now are all for the
Healthy Gamer nonprofit, the Healthy Gamer Foundation, which we support people,
services for people who can't afford.
them. You know, I don't think a lot of people realize this. I think probably something like
80% of our viewership and our audience comes from the Americas and the EU or North America and
EU. But we offer services to a lot of people in countries that, you know, the USD price
doesn't translate really well. And I'm really, really grateful for all of y'all's support because
it allows us to provide services for people in like, you know, the Middle East and Southeast Asia
and places where our services are actually expensive for them.
So I'm really grateful for the support.
I guess I'm going to have to make.
So what did I say that I was going to make if we hit $10,000?
I'm not going to tell you.
Dr. K's Guide to the Magic?
Is that what we're going to call it?
Sex and sexuality, practically.
Remind me, I need your help, please.
This is going to be like sex ed, basically.
Sex ed. Okay, sure. We can do that.
But you can call it Guide to Magic if you want to.
Sure, so we can do something on sex and sexuality.
Would you like to show what we've already made?
For sex and sexuality?
I thought we wouldn't show that.
The guys.
Get wrecked.
What am I high-fiving to? I don't get it.
When somebody says get wrecked and gives you a high-five or a fist,
but what do you do with that?
Wrecked is something that we do together, hon.
I don't know.
Okay.
Well, we already showed this.
They know.
This is at the beginning, but we can do it again.
Okay, hold on, hold on the chat.
Hold on.
Okay, this is what we're, we'll do this.
It takes us a while, okay?
Y'all got to give us some, oh, no today.
Oh, okay, so here, we can do this.
Oh, video is unplayable.
It's private.
The video is private.
Hold on.
Wait, do you guys want to see one now?
Well, now you check DMs.
Yeah, man, I've been streaming, bro.
Okay, hold on.
There's a lot happening.
I like how there's, like, just an extra second to throw in some sass.
Don't lie.
Yeah, sure, trailer.
Let's do trailer.
Chat, we're going to show you now.
Oh, God, it's leaked.
Everything's leaked.
Oh, my God.
I didn't realize.
Rob, bro.
Okay.
Okay, here we go.
All right.
It's a picture of myself.
By there.
Okay. Wait, are you...
Hold on, I gotta just do this alone.
Yeah, yeah, stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go.
So if you really want to take control of your life, the first thing that you have to understand is how does my mind work?
These modules are a distillation, the essence of my personal journey to understand myself over the last two decades.
They're kind of like a choose-your-own adventure of understanding a particular topic.
Because in my experience as a psychiatrist, the best...
Outcomes come from educated patients and you are ultimately going to be the most important part of your treatment
Okay, fine, I'm in this place and this place sucks. What am I gonna do about it now?
Focus on building a healthy identity of yourself where you can learn to unconditionally love yourself
If meditation has one good effect on the brain, it's actually strengthens the hell out of your frontal lobes
You have to let go of the entire construction, right? Because what does it mean to have fallen?
It's a construct of the mind.
What does it mean to catch up?
It's a construct of the mind.
Because think what you're doing here, right?
You're doing so much problem solving.
There's a certain method.
There's a certain secret.
There's a certain technique to being able to find that piece
in spite of the emotion.
We can go to the birth of that scar,
and we can actually try to rewrite history a little bit,
change our mind's conceptualization of the truths
that we learned in the past that cause us suffering today.
Okay, that looks really amazing.
I'm so proud of you.
I've never seen that for.
I'm actually like tearing up.
That was legit, chat.
Okay, that sounds really good.
I'm actually optimistic that this will help people.
No, I mean, it's interesting, right?
Because I mean, like, sure, like I made it all.
You have spent years thinking about this and writing it and charting it and thinking, like, what's the best format?
I don't want people to just read words.
I want to teach them.
I want to do this.
I want to do that.
there to be worksheets and I think it's going to be just incredible.
I'm so excited about it.
And now we're going to make one about the magic.
Okay.
That trailer is going to look pretty different.
Seriously, though.
So, you know, I think we've spent a lot of time.
You know, just a quick kind of heads up.
You know, that trailer absolutely was hype.
Don't get me wrong.
But it's a lot of work.
And a lot of people have been working really, really hard.
hard to get there.
You know, this has been now, we're on seven months in.
And so we really hope it helps you guys.
I think it's like, you know, it's our attempt to help y'all in a way that, you know,
we try.
What?
And I'm just saying stupid things.
Just underselling the crap out of it.
All right.
Here's what I saw.
I saw Hulloch being offered book deals.
I saw him being offered show deals.
I saw him being offered faculty positions.
And I saw him turn it all down and say, no, this is the way I want to teach this material.
And this is who I'm making it for.
And him trying to put pen to paper for years thinking about
what exactly he's going to teach, what the sequencing is going to be, what the themes are going to be,
what, you know, if this isn't all universally applicable. So like, what does this kind of person
need to know? What does that kind of person need to know? What is the person who needs to know this,
but does it need to know that? Like, I don't want to just write a book where only three chapters
are going to be relevant. How do I make this for, like, work for?
people. And so he's been writing this for a long time. We put an incredible technology team behind
it to try to make it's inspired by Final Fantasy, the sphere grid. So where you can kind of like
choose your own adventure to it. And you have so many kind of paths and some branching logic
to where it's really, you're learning the things that you want to learn and you're kind of taking
the steps that you want to take.
So it's very cool.
If you want to show the map with that context, that's great.
But we started with depression, with anxiety, and with meditation.
And the next modules that will be released are apparently the magic.
But the guide to relationships.
Yeah, relationships is like as big as all the others combined.
Yeah.
But this is like 25 hours or so of context.
Here's the question for y'all. Okay? So like, we're trying something new that I haven't seen done elsewhere. And this is the problem is that when we think about learning, we think about learning linearly. And so the big challenge and what's, you know, our devs are working like over time and working really hard to like structure like the logic and everything. Like everyone is putting in so much effort. I don't think you guys, you know, you all don't realize. I mean, sure, like, Gruthy makes it sound like, oh, I've been trying for all these years and all that stuff.
is true.
It makes me sound amazing.
Literally he has.
It's fine.
But I think that there's so many people working so hard to make this happen.
And what we really want to know from y'all is like, does it help?
And is this, like, is it useful to you?
Right?
Because we can, I can be as brilliant as I want to be.
And like, we can work be really hard.
But the reason we're making this honestly is because we have new opportunities to learn about how we work.
Like we have these resources like the internet and programming.
We have outcome measures and like the world, the tools at our disposal are entirely new.
And the challenges that we face are entirely new.
Every other discipline of medicine is getting better.
People who have heart transplants are surviving longer and longer and longer because our immunosuppressive
medication is getting better and better and better.
HIV used to be a terminal diagnosis and now has close to a normal life expectancy.
depression and anxiety were 300% worse in 2020.
It's the only discipline of medicine that is actually getting worse.
It's the only war that we're actually losing as medical doctors, psychologists, whatever.
And so I think that like the old systems just aren't working, right?
If you guys go see a psychiatrist and they prescribe you an antidepressant, like that can help.
But it's only one piece of the puzzle.
And the problem is that the puzzle is huge.
There are a lot of pieces to it.
And so what I want to know from y'all and really like this, like I don't think you guys understand, you know, how big of an experiment this is.
And so what I want you guys to do is tell us, like, does this actually help you?
I mean, we joke about, I mean, now that I said I'm going to do something, I got to do it.
So we got to make one about the magic.
But what I really want to know is like, you know, if this is the way that we're going to teach about trauma, if this is the way that we're going to teach about addictions.
if this is the way that we're going to teach advanced meditation,
if this is the way that we're going to teach about relationships,
like, is that what we should do?
Because ultimately our compass is not what I envision.
It's what y'all need.
And it's my job, it's my Dharma,
to fulfill whatever it is that you guys need.
I've spent years, decades, studying this stuff.
And so now you guys need to tell me,
I'm not the leader, I'm the resource, I'm the reference.
y'all are the leaders you guys need to tell me like this is what we need from you and we'll make it
that's what we're about it healthy gamer like you guys tell us what you need this entire organization
started out from an a m a and then like so many people reached out and then i asked a question like
what do you guys need and people were like we're not sure so we started meeting once a week on
thursday nights where like 30 randos from the internet would show up and and it was during bath time do you
remember? Yeah, I remember during the kids back time. It was such a disaster. And so you guys need to tell
us like, hey, this grand experiment that we've invested tons of money and time into, like, this is
actually helping me. Or it's not so much about sales and stuff like that. It's like, is this the way
that we're going to start to like make the world a better place? Is this the way that we're
going to learn about ourselves a little bit more? Is this the way that we're going to develop a process
so that all of the questions that we asked about today,
we can equip each and every one of those people
to be a little bit more self-aware,
to be a little bit more compassionate,
to be a little bit more understanding.
Is this the solution to the problems that we face?
That's not an answer I can give you guys.
That's one that y'all have to give us.
This is our best guess at what is missing,
because we know coaching helps,
but maybe coaching, so this will be free
for all Healthy Gamer Coaching Clients
because there's a knowledge component to this.
There are people that if you're already in therapy
and therapy is where you belong, amazing.
But maybe you could learn a little too.
And maybe for you, this is a standalone resource.
I think this is...
Yeah, so someone's asking,
can I get the product but pass some coaching?
Absolutely.
So this is the other thing that we're trying to figure out, right?
So there's like the whole point of the guides
is because some people don't need coaching.
Well, the whole point of what we do is,
Like, we make things that just meet you where you are.
If you want the thing by itself and you don't need coaching, yes, you can totally get it.
Stand alone.
Yeah.
So, yeah, we're just including it for free for all coaching clients.
And I think for all past clients, is that fair to say?
Yeah.
So if you sign up for coaching, if you've completed coaching, you're going to get an access code for free.
Because, like, you know, it's the fees that you guys paid that funded this project.
so like and and you know you guys can get it on your own gift to you like I feel like
no it's a lot of people you guys took a chance on us when we were just starting this thing
before we knew does it really work and thank you yeah I mean you say it's it's our gift to you
I sort of feel like it's the other way around like this thing is the product of your gift to us
this is what we did with the money you guys gave us we hired an 11 9 to 11.9 to 11
person production crew, you know, found a nice venue, like flew people in from all over the
country. You didn't eat carbs for a week? I adjusted my diet for a week so that I would be my Vata
would be good so I could like film for like 10 hours a day or eight hours a day. And, you know,
it took months and months. For those of you guys, it may be crazy, but I wrote essentially the
equivalent of two nonfiction books, almost 180,000 words over the course of six months to
The production crew was like, so you're telling me that you want to shoot four feature length
films worth of content in one week.
Nine days.
In nine days.
And we're like, let's be clear.
I had one day off in that.
Because they were like every day of production costs X and we're like, can we do it faster?
And they were like, no, you're trying to shoot four feature length films.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So look, what I have to say at this point is thank you.
And this is not about, you know, us creating something.
It's about whether it helps you guys and girls.
You know, I use guys in the gender neutral.
But, you know, so y'all tell us and you all tell us what you need.
If you guys need a guide to the magic, then that's what we'll devote our resources to.
All I ask for is that y'all be patient with us because this stuff takes a while.
The magic takes time.
I mean, it took probably 10 people, you know, a significant, like, eight months of our lives to build this kind of thing.
So, like, it's going to take probably, I imagine, eight months to produce a new guide.
So there's, like, writing, there's editing, there's scripting, there's, you know, testing, there's all kinds of stuff that goes into it.
So you all tell us what you need.
We'll do our best to give it to you.
So thank you all very much for all of the help, all the support.
Yeah.
I wanted to ask Moses if I think he had a.
thing or two that he wanted us to play that might
you guys want to watch one now
it's it's blocked
it's private
can you just type anything else to show today
um I feel like if you were to go
can you type
exclamation guide and chat and click on that link
and just show
so that's the pre-order link
um
and you can even allocate
how much of the purchase you want to go to the foundation
Oh my God
Let me just lock these widgets
Widgets
Wegets
That's you
That is me
Oh my God
Oh this is the same thing
Okay
All right so then you all can pre-order here
So someone is asking how much do they cost
Each one's 20 bucks
Where you can get all three for 50
And then you all can decide how much of these proceeds
Go to a 501c3
versus the Healthy Gamer Corps company
if you have any questions about like how the funds are used do you want to explain to us what the
difference is yep so Healthy Gamer the company products and services in the form of content
coaching and community um Healthy Gamer Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to changing the meta of mental
health so when Alok is talking about how every other discipline in medicine is getting better and
somehow mental health outcomes are just continuing to decline. We want to change that. So it's about
research and policy for the most part. It also services for people who can't afford them.
Yes. So. Yeah. Moses, I think, is saying that we can try that. Okay, do you guys want to watch one?
No, want to watch one right now? We can watch a whole video. Okay. Let's do it.
12 minitos.
Okay.
Or watching the whole day.
The big challenge for the anxiety is that you can't give it.
No, no.
Also, you...
Oh, I've muted you.
You know, keep going.
I can't tell you how much of my day is consumed with Ollup's face and his voice and his words and his captions and his wardrobe.
So I hope you guys like it.
Okay.
watch one. It's okay. Just it's leaked. Just don't tell anyone, chat. The big challenge with
anxiety is that you can't beat it and you can't give into it. So we've looked at a little bit
at how, you know, when you try to fight the anxiety within you, how it actually increases the tension
in the mind and makes the anxiety worse. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, you may think,
and a lot of people actually do do this, that the best way to deal with anxiety is just to give
into it, right? If I have anxious thoughts about, let's say, avoiding a particular situation,
And I just avoid the situation, then my anxiety kind of goes away.
But it turns out that if you give into anxiety,
it actually just grows even stronger.
And this is an interesting part of the mind
is that if you reinforce a certain thought process,
just like if you feed, let's say a dog,
what happens to the dog that you feed?
It grows.
And so every time that we give into anxiety,
it actually grows a little bit stronger.
And just like a dog, it becomes hungrier
and actually needs more food.
So I'd love to share.
with y'all a story of a patient that I worked with that kind of illustrates this point.
So I was working with a young woman who came to me during a divorce. She'd been married for
a couple of years and it turned out that her husband had been unfaithful, so she was kind of going
through the process of divorce. So we kind of worked through some of that trauma. And so then she kind of
got back on her feet, started dating again, actually found a really fantastic guy. Things were going
really well, so she sort of moved in with him. And that's when some of these anxieties started
kind of popping up in her head. So she started to think in the back of her mind, you know,
just a tiny little tickle, just a little thought. She liked this new guy who was fantastic,
nothing like her old husband, but still there was this little niggling doubt in the back of
her mind. What if he's doing something a little bit shady? And so when the doubt popped up,
at first she kind of pushed it down, she squashed it, she kind of, you know, muscled it into the
ground. But the thought kind of kept coming back. And so eventually one day things were, you know,
he'd fallen asleep and she was like, let me just check.
So she just opened up his phone and she kind of looked through his text messages and found
that nothing was wrong.
So she was like, relaxed, okay.
The anxiety kind of went away.
She was reassured.
Everything was golden.
She went to bed.
Next day woke up, felt totally happy.
And then a couple days went by and then that thought started to creep its way back in as anxieties
usually do.
So this time she didn't wait quite as long and she realized, okay, you know what, I just need
check very quickly and I'm just going to do like a 30 second check.
I'm just going to take a quick look at his text and make sure.
there's nothing going on. So she did that again. And over time, it became a part of her nightly
routine. You know, I'm going to brush my teeth, I'm going to take my makeup off, and I'm just going to
check my boyfriend's texts real quick. And her mind had gotten so used to the reassurance that it just
sort of became automatic. And everything was fine. She was totally cool as long as she got to check
his texts. Until, of course, one day, as I'm sure you guys can imagine where this is going,
he actually caught her, right? So she thought he was asleep, and it turns out that he wasn't. And he'd kind of
suspected things for a little while because he noticed that sometimes, you know, there were texts
on his phone that when he woke up in the morning would look, what would sort of read as red or
already read. They wouldn't be new texts, but he certainly hadn't read them the night before.
So he'd kind of been suspecting something for a little while. And one day he caught her red-handed.
And so this story sort of illustrates what goes on with anxiety, right? So what we can see is that
sometimes at the beginning she started to fight it and she tried to push it down. And then over
time, that sort of didn't really work at dealing with the root of that anxiety. So instead,
what she started to do was give in to the anxiety. And this illustrates a really important point
about how behaviors are reinforced in our brain, which is that, you know, when we give into something
and we get that anxiety relief, that's positively reinforcing that behavior. And even now, if you
pay attention to your own mind, I really guess that you're not really paying attention to what I'm
saying right now. Because right now in your mind,
there's a tiny little hunger, right?
And that hunger is, what happened?
What the F happened, Dr. K?
What happened when he found out?
And if you just stop for a second and notice it, right?
What would happen if I told you the end of the story?
Your mind would be like, oh, okay, that's what happened.
I need to know the end.
I need to know the end.
This is what suspense is all about, right?
It's a hunger in your mind.
And if I had started to tell you, let's say I told you the end of this story,
and I told you a second story, and I told you the end of that one.
And then if I left you on a cliffhanger on the third,
story, how dissatisfied would your mind become? And also notice what's happening in the energy
of your mind. As I point this out to you, as you become aware of it, the hunger actually
lessens maybe a tiny little bit. As you become aware that, okay, I really want to know what the
end of the story is, but be like, oh, oh, that's interesting. My mind's hungry for the end of the
story. It kind of calms down a little bit. And so at this point, you know, when I do this with people,
there's usually like three camps of people. So a third of y'all are going to really, really want to know
what the end of the story is, and you can't wait until I stop talking about this tangent
and just get to the end of the story. Another third of y'all, by kind of gaining awareness of it,
may actually be okay and like you actually don't need to hear the end of the story.
And the last third, this is my favorite camp, and this is the camp that I used to fall into,
or kind of like, I don't want to hear the end of the story. I'm going to be stronger than that.
I don't need to hear the end. All those other people are going to give into their anxiety,
but I'm not going to hear, I'm not going to give into my anxiety. I don't want to know what happens.
I'm fine. I'm good. I'm good.
And so what can we kind of learn from this, right?
So the first is that notice the hunger of your mind.
And actually what we're going to do to sort of illustrate this principle a little bit further is we're going to actually share the end of the story.
Okay.
So as I mentioned before, he had sort of suspected for a while that something shady was going on.
He'd noticed that, you know, some of his text messages had already been read, even though he'd never seen them before.
So he kind of confronted her about it.
She kind of like broke down, cried.
They had a really big fight.
he ended up forgiving her, and so it was kind of happily ever after.
She never checked his texts again.
And I wish that was true, but unfortunately it's not.
So what happened is he did forgive her.
They sort of patched things up, and then she was like, okay, I'm good now.
And after a couple of days, she felt pretty good,
but then she noticed that kind of anxiety creeping back in.
What if I need to check those texts?
But this time, she fought against it even harder because she's like,
if he catches me checking the texts, then it's going to be over.
He said, you know, like he would forgive me just this once, and it's going to, like,
the consequences are way too high, so I'm not going to check him.
She pushed him away.
And then a few more days went by, and then the thoughts kind of came back.
She actually lasted a couple of months.
But then what happened is she met one of his coworkers at, like, a happy hour event.
And she noticed that the two of them, like, got along really, really well.
And they had this, like, really awesome chemistry.
And then she started noticing that he was kind of texting with his co-worker and they'd be like laughing and stuff like that.
And so she kind of noticed and then like now the anxieties like sort of really came roaring back.
And they were really, really hard to deal with.
And she tried to push him away, but she just couldn't.
So then she got smart about it, right?
So she started to be very, very careful, checking his texts pretty infrequently, checking them very, very carefully,
not reading messages that had that were marked as new, but only looking at the older stuff.
And so she got really, really clever about it.
And her anxiety sort of started to decompress,
okay, this actually isn't that bad of a deal.
She started to feel a little bit better.
And then, you know, at times though,
she would see some text messages, like she'd see the text messages
with his coworker.
And while it was pretty clear that there was nothing
very serious going on, she started to believe
that he was having like an emotional affair.
And her paranoia, the more she checked the text messages,
instead of actually making her anxiety better,
she started to become more and more paranoid.
That something, even if he wasn't having an affair yet,
it was certainly moving in that direction.
So it became this vicious cycle of like,
she can't help herself and has to check.
But every time she checks, her mind is seeing messages
that may even be benign, but actually fed her paranoia.
And the more that her paranoia got fed,
the more she needed to check.
And so the good news is that this time,
you know, she was actually, it called me up again
because I hadn't seen her for a couple months.
And she came into my office and we started kind of working through it.
We started to realize that she was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.
That if you look at her anxiety, if she tried to kind of suppress it and kind of squash it into the ground,
it would come roaring back.
And we also noticed that when she gave into it, it would actually get worse, right?
It would feed the beast.
That the anxiety would be like, let me see those texts. Let me see those texts.
We got to check those texts.
And then she checked them and then the anxiety would calm down.
And so what she was actually doing, and if you think about anxiolytic medications, so these are
medications that reduce our anxiety, if I'm feeling anxious and I take a pill that makes my anxiety
go away, what that's actually going to reinforce is popping pills for anxiety. And so what she had
found was that checking those texts actually was like popping a pill for her anxiety. And so
it actually made the anxiety even stronger and harder to deal with. And the other big thing that we
kind of realized is that every time she was checking the texts, she was trying to reassure herself.
But every time that she reassured herself, she lost a little bit of trust in her boyfriend.
Because if we really think about it, you know, the foundation of a solid relationship is trust.
And trust isn't about knowing 100%. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Trust is about having faith
and not knowing 100%. So every time she checked those texts, what she was doing is decaying
the trust in her relationship. She was learning how to not put faith in her boyfriend because
she needed to know an answer 100%. Once we realized this, then we could really start working
on it, right? So what it actually happened is he ended up coming into the office too, and she
kind of was super terrified, so she wanted to confess to him in the office, which turned out to be
fine. So she kind of confessed that she was checking his texts again. He had sort of noticed that
something was off and he wasn't quite sure and we kind of talked through it. And what we realize is that
like she needs to be able to tolerate the anxiety and even share and acknowledge those thoughts
with him without giving into them. So what that would look like is she would actually tell him,
hey, I'm feeling anxious and I'm feeling paranoid. And I really, she would just tell him straight up,
I want to check your phone. And so the two of them would kind of sit with it, talk through it,
and then he'd even ask her. He'd be like, okay, you want to check my phone? Like, he'd be like,
do you want me to go get it? Do you actually want to check it? I'm okay with that. I really appreciate
your honesty, do you want me to go get it? And then she would say, no, I'm okay. And sometimes
she'd say yes, but most of the time she'd say no. And so what happened is like they started
being able to tolerate that anxiety together. She wasn't squashing it down. She wasn't giving
into it. She was just acknowledging it and noticing it. And even today, which by the way,
they are married now and she's pregnant. So happy ever after. Even today, she'll still tell him,
right? And she'll actually got worse when she got pregnant. And she was like, I'm feeling super
paranoid, he'd be like, cool, do you need the phone? And she's like, no, I'm okay. And so the more that
we acknowledge anxiety, we don't give into it, but we also don't fight it, the weaker it becomes.
And once it becomes like, it sort of lives underneath the surface. So really what we want to do
when it comes to anxiety is to recognize that if we try to fight it and squash it down, it's going to
come roaring back. If we give into it, what it's actually going to do is feed the beast,
because we're positively reinforcing the behavior that reduces our anxiety by giving into it.
So we don't want to reinforce those kinds of behaviors.
Instead, what we want to do is learn how to sit with our anxiety, learn how to acknowledge it.
And if you can learn how to sit with it and not give into it, it'll actually start to melt away.
And that's going to be a far more permanent solution to anxiety.
Okay, chat.
So some people are asking, so we sit with it forever?
No, so the whole point is that when you sit with it, it actually starts to decay, right?
So, like, that's the really interesting thing is that as you learn how to tolerate it and you don't give into it, it actually weakens.
So what happens, you know, if you think about something that grows, you know, the more you feed it, the more it's going to grow.
And the more they, like, this is like my favorite thing to do.
All right.
Yeah, I was going to say something, but I lost my train of.
thought. You T-pose on it. Beautifully said, dude, that's exactly what you need to do your anxiety.
You just need to tee pose on that, you know? Teach it. Teach it who's boss. And it's hard. It's hard.
Yeah, it's tricky, but I think especially that person ended up doing pretty well. And, you know, I think, like I said, in the video, anyway, that's a video.
So, and I can guarantee you that not all of them are that blue ballsish, but I got to confess, you know, it's still Dr. Kay making the videos.
And you guys know who I am.
And like, like, you know, I was born and bred on Twitch hat.
So there's going to be a little bit of trolling going on.
Like, I'm sorry.
Like, it's not going to be all Harvard Andy up in there.
It's going to be like, sometimes I'm going to have my enjoyment at your expense.
Because that's what we're about.
We're like just a little bit trolling.
dude.
A little bit.
That's what Twitch chat is.
It's like, you know,
gotta troll people.
Like,
you have to.
You have to pull it.
Sometimes,
sometimes that's who we are,
chat.
And we got to stay true
to our roots.
That's a big shout out
to all y'all
because it's possible
that people who don't know
what Twitch is
are going to buy this one day
and they won't understand that.
But
just got to troll
a little bit,
a little bit.
Most of the videos
don't have me,
you know,
blue ballsing people.
Just a little bit.
A little bit of troll.
Yeah, you just got to stay true to our roots, you know.
Remember where we came from.
I think one of the cool things about these modules is some of the meditation practices you bake in throughout.
So there's a meditation module in and of itself that's like kind of dedicated to the theory and practice of meditation.
I got to go pee.
In depression and in meditation, there are specific practices there as well.
We are debating whether we should switch to an AMA format.
If you guys have questions that we can answer, we're feeling fast in.
Alok has been working his butt off for weeks and weeks, months and months, really years and years to get this together.
And I feel like I've just been, it's been a lot of work, you guys.
and just congrats to the team, really, to French and Trinian and their teams for getting this together.
It's incredible.
Which one of us is a better cook?
I'm the better, like, just use up whatever is in the fridge, kind of like slap something together, cook.
Alok is like a better project cook where he's like, I'm going to look up a recipe, get all these specialty ingredients, marinate things.
grill things, he's definitely a better project cook than I am.
It's all paid off.
TBD. I hope so, because that's the whole point, is to be able to create things that are
self-sustaining, but I hope, I want to earn it. You know what I mean?
Like, I want it to be worth your time, and I really want it to be worth your money.
How's the Tandor project coming along?
Dude, Tandhor's are so hard to...
Like, I'm pretty good with a regular grill, man.
I can make some good stuff.
Let me tell you what.
But Tandu is like a whole different beast, man.
Who might have warned you that a Tandor might be worth or not worth it?
You warned me, but I'm still working on it.
Like, there was, like, I made those...
I mean, I made kebabs that have been really, really good.
It's just, most of them fell off the skewers.
And no one will ever know, because...
Because they are at the bottom of the tundur.
They are ashes now.
The other thing is about the tandoors...
Yeah, you're going the wrong way.
So funny.
The other thing with the tundur is that a lot of it is, like, the non is like a whole different process.
Because I'm like new to bread baking.
So there's like the, you know, there's the pre-baking part.
The rolling.
No, it's like the making of the dough, the leavening, that portion.
You know, the yeast.
You've got the yeast.
Yeast.
Please don't say yeast to me anymore.
Yeast.
That's how you make that magic happen.
All right, what do we do now?
Are we wrapping up or what?
I was thinking we could, what do y'all want to do?
I'm happy to hang out for a little bit,
especially while we're waiting on food.
We can answer questions if people want.
I was thinking we could just do more of like a general AMA about this process or
Tondor.
Also, water is not for news.
I rescinded by.
earlier statement.
Water is life-giving.
Hydro-homies.
One of the things that I will never understand about you is how you say the most
random things with like 100% confidence.
Like how can you really just be like waters for noves and like drop your mic and walk
out of here?
Like no, water's for everyone, for all creatures.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's, you know.
Can I put this on the mouse pad?
Nope.
The mouse pad is sacrosanct.
You don't even win that much.
I don't understand why you're so precious about your mouth's pad.
It's because I don't win that much.
I need the right kind of mouse pad to make up for a fundamental...
Like, seriously.
He's like, oh, because you're so happy when you win makes me think that you don't win that much.
Do you win more than I think you do?
Depends on whether I'm being carried or not.
I win a lot when I'm being carried.
That I know.
Nice.
God.
No, I win a fair amount.
You know, my reflexes are getting slow.
You know, I'm getting older.
Ah.
Oh my God.
New game.
No.
Could be the best new game.
You just get us poking.
Yes, because you're not right now.
What are we supposed to do?
Okay.
You want me to swat you?
No, I don't want you to swat me.
just want to know that you can.
Hold on.
What message is that sending to a chat?
I don't know.
You just want to know that I can swat you?
Well, I'm...
It was much more...
No, I was more testing your reflexes.
Okay.
Because, I mean, you know I can spank you.
Like, that's...
Excuse me?
All right.
Take questions now.
I just did that for them.
I didn't, you know.
No, I know.
It's like four hours later, and that's the clip.
All right. Are we doing questions? What's going on?
Are you all going to help us before I get a divorce?
It takes two to divorce.
Yeah, I mean, you divorcing me because I'm doing...
I'm not divorcing you.
Okay.
I have to try harder.
Okay. I love you.
I love you, too.
Yes, you did come in at a good time.
All right, so no questions.
Forges.
WTFs.
Can you talk through the social anxiety?
What part of the social anxiety?
It doesn't say. There's another question about how do I talk about my anxious attachment
style with my non-anxious partner?
Oh, that's a good question. Let me think about that.
So it's kind of interesting because we're
Dr. Kay's guys.
So we actually talk about this.
So there's a whole video about this.
So for people who don't, aren't aware, this video.
By the way, you can just buy the anxiety module if that is all that's true.
This video, the anxious personality is all, goes into a lot of detail about attachment styles.
So I explain all that stuff there.
And that's kind of the goal of the guides is because a lot of people will like hear me talk about stuff.
And they're like, oh, where can I learn about this?
And then a lot of people don't hear me talk about it.
And so they never get exposed to it.
So the whole point of the guides is that it's a little bit more comprehensive and kind of like puts everyone on the same playing field.
So for people who don't know, I guess I'll do a quick summary of the video now.
There are different things called attachment styles.
So this is very fascinating.
So back in the day, like maybe about 30 years ago, there were researchers who noticed that kids, like some kids are chill and some kids are like super anxious.
And so they did this really interesting experiment where what?
Can I keep going?
They did this experiment where they took a parent and the kid.
I think most of the time it was the mother.
And they left him in a room together.
So it's like a foreign room that kid has never been in.
So mom is there, kid is there.
Kid like wanders around, like plays with some toys.
And then like a stranger comes into the room and sits down.
Like some kids are kind of like anxious there.
Like some kids will move closer to mom.
Some kids will ignore the stranger.
and then mom leaves.
And so then something really interesting happened.
Like some kids would start crying.
Some kids would be totally fine with like mom leaving.
And by kids we're talking about like a one-year-old.
Okay, so like an 18-month-old or something like that.
So young kids, infants.
And then mom comes back.
And then kids respond to mom in different ways.
So like some kids would calm right down when mom entered the room.
Some kids would get pissed at mom for leaving in the first place and putting them in that
situation. And so what they basically found, and then some kids were like relatively neutral the
whole time. Like they didn't care if mom left. They didn't care when mom came back. And so what we
actually found is that, that they're these different what they called attachment style. So depending on
how the kid was raised, their ability to tolerate distress and how anxious versus confident they were,
like varied. And so if you have an anxious attachment,
style, it means that, like, so these were the kids that took a long time to calm down once mom entered
the room. They would start to panic. And even if mom came, they'd get like super clinging and they'd be like,
don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave. And other kids were
like, oh, thank God you're back. I'm going to go back to playing my blocks. And so if you have an
anxious attachment style, what it means is that you're going to have some, like, your distress tolerance
from distance may be higher. So sometimes you'll end up with like,
an attachment, you know, like you're, like afraid when your partner kind of leaves. You're worried
about them. You just tend to be prone to more anxiety in general because what we've discovered
is that attachment styles actually correlate to like all kinds of anxiety in your life.
So how do you deal with that or how do you explain it to your partner? I would start by just
saying that, you know, like, I'm someone that needs a little bit more reassurance. Let your partner
know what your needs are. Acknowledge to them and to your
yourself that your part, some of the needs that you have may be what?
Buzing? Bizz-buzz?
Saved? What happened?
Was it, was there a problem?
Saved? Are there buzzes?
Was I just talking to no one?
Is your mic plugged in?
It should be. I mean, I hear it.
Do you need to move your headset?
Should be fine.
It's okay now. Maybe I was just talking too much.
and far away from it.
Yep.
Oh, it might be because
our phones are too close
to that.
Hello?
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
We did get vaccinated.
So we are part of the 5G network now.
All right.
We'll move our phones away.
Bye.
Thanks.
So, you know,
how should you talk to your partner
about your anxious attachment style?
What the hell?
So, you know, just tell your partner
that you may need a little.
little bit more reassurance that sometimes you get anxious. And then the two you all need to figure
out like what is an appropriate amount of support that they can give you. Because it, you know,
some of that is going to be like tolerance that you need to learn. And some of it is going to be like
them helping, like, you know, supporting you along the way. So it's tough. There was a question
about premarital sex. Do you think that people should be celibate before marriage?
thoughts. They had a religious upbringing.
Salabacy is like a thing to be valued.
Does premarital sex ruin everything?
I mean, I think it's an individual decision.
You know, I think that, you know, I think you have to,
I'd be careful about compromising your values just because some rando on the internet says you should.
That's my answer to that question.
So I think that the decision to have sex is like a highly individual decision.
Even if there are some religions that sort of advocate for a particular thing,
I think that there's a lot of value in religious teachings,
but that the religious teachings should be sort of tempered or like filtered through
what you actually accept or what you don't accept.
So, you know, do I think that premarital sex is going to like, you know, send you to hell?
like I personally don't believe that, but those are my personal beliefs.
I think that, you know, if you think about a healthy sexual relationship,
I think a healthy sexual relationship is not something that you find.
If you're lucky, you'll find it.
But I think a lot of times it's something that you build.
You know, like there's like the loot box, RNG version, and then there's like the crafting.
So I'd say like go the crafting route.
And, you know, if you don't want to have sex before marriage,
don't have sex before marriage.
And if you want to have sex,
you know, like if you want to wait until marriage,
then by all means, wait until marriage.
And at the end of the day, like,
a healthy sexual relationship is all about communication
and comfort with your partner.
You also need to be a little bit careful, right?
Because a lot of, like, unhealthy relationships
involve one partner pressuring the other
into doing things that they're not comfortable with.
So if you have a particular boundary
and then, like, your partner is really pressuring you,
like that's something that I would really think carefully about.
You know, is it just a case of blue balls, which is, you know, fine.
Or is this person, you know, it's fine for them to express their needs and for you to express your needs and for those needs to not match up.
Like, that's totally fine.
And that's where like in a relationship, sometimes there needs to be sacrificed, right?
Like sometimes you've got to take one for the team.
Sex-wise?
Yeah, in terms of like, you know, you guys just have to decide like who's going to who's going to, who's going to,
going to sacrifice. You've got, you know, you've got a thirsty partner. You're not feeling it that
day. Like, one of y'all is going to be unsatisfied, which is fine. And just over time, you know,
you want to try to balance things out. Right? Am I wrong there? I feel like if you don't want to
have sex with this person, I'm not sure that marriage is going to change that. I mean, some people
want to have sex. They just want to wait until they're married. Right? Yeah. I mean, if you don't
want to have sex with the person. That's one thing.
If you want to have sex with the person,
but you want to wait until marriage like, that's something else.
Like, if you're not physically attracted
to them, like, I agree with Kruthi. I don't know
if marriage is going to change that, but,
you know. You should also
not rush your marriage just to be able
to have sex with this person.
Is incest
ever okay, or is it... Oh, I'm just
going to ignore that.
Are there some videos
of the guide available now if
I pre-purchase?
You know what? We're really trying to lay it out so it has that experience to it of like the branching logic.
So we were going to kind of try to pre-release some of it and then we just thought it would be better to really have the full kind of sphere grid available.
So you can really understand whether it's like really have the experience of progressing and having those video chapters.
Yeah, so just to echo on what you said.
You have so much to learn about Twitch.
I know. I mean, I'm new to this side of things.
I don't understand why you read out the question.
Is incest ever okay?
And then choose not to answer it.
Like, what are you signing yourself up for there?
I thought I was explicitly resigning and not signing myself up for things.
Okay. But to echo what Gruthy said. So I think part of the goal of the Dr. Kay's guides is that it's not just about an individual video.
Wait, why would you bring it up again and not answer it? That's worse than reading the question in the first place.
Yeah, I felt like it needed to be kind of acknowledged. So I acknowledge it. I did.
No, you acknowledged me not acknowledging it. You did not acknowledge it.
How do you feel about me acknowledging you not acknowledging it?
I think it's fine, but follow through, Mr. Magic.
What would following through look like?
Answering the question, I guess.
Is incest ever okay?
I believe that was the question.
I can answer that.
Okay.
So I think, so let's remember that sexual attraction is something of a,
Are you just going to be doing that while I'm answering this question?
What would you like me to do while you're answering the question?
Be neutral.
Don't be...
I can do the Itsy Bitsy Spider?
No, don't be doing the Itsy Bitsy Spider.
Don't be like...
Like, that's not what you want to be doing when we're talking about this.
Okay.
Right?
I'm wrong.
They're like chat.
Like...
Okay.
So here's the thing that I'd say.
I'd say, remember that sexual attraction is like some...
of a neuroscientific process, right?
That, like, your body has been entrained or learned to, like,
respond to particular stimuli.
And that, oddly enough,
sexual attraction to people who share some of your DNA is, like,
not that uncommon of a, of an experience.
So if we think about, you know, Freud discovered the edible complex,
which he made a big deal about,
which is about, you know, when someone wants to replace their father with their
mother.
Dr. Freud's good.
the edible complex.
Yeah, that's going to be
Dr. Freud's guide.
I don't think Dr. K is ever going to make a guide
about the animal complex.
So this is where I'd say that
like, you know, feelings of attraction
or even sexual arousal
are not good or bad in the sense
because like sometimes that's just the way they're wired, right?
Like, so you'll have situations
where people have a particular sexual experience
early on like sometimes like as young as childhood
that will shape the way
that their brain and their neurons wire,
which will cause them to be sexually aroused by things in the future.
Sometimes it can happen when you're young,
sometimes it can happen like when you're a teenager or adolescent,
sometimes it can happen in adulthood.
It's a fancy way of saying, like,
sometimes you have a sexual experience,
and then your brain thinks like, wow, that's really hot.
And we can place moral judgments on the impulses that we have.
So I'd say that, you know, generally speaking,
I'd say steer clear of incest,
because I think there's a good genetic reason
why we don't sort of
advocate that societally.
I think that there are a lot of
toxic power relationships
that happen in potentially
like incestuous relationships, which
I think are bad.
So I'd say generally speaking, steer
clear of it, but also be a little
bit careful about
judging yourself for the way
that your body reacts to certain things.
And it doesn't make you a bad
person if you have those kinds of thoughts
or feelings. That's different. That's not incest. That's like, oh, sometimes I have thoughts that I
shouldn't have. But like the act. Yeah, I think the act is probably a bad idea. Yeah,
okay. I just want to make sure that that's like really clear. Okay. I just, I think a lot of times
you can't control, you know, what your mind produces, which is, you know, why I keep playing Dota,
because I can't control that my mind is like, let's play some Dota. It's what I do with those
thoughts. I am continuously impressed by your ability to apply Dota analogies to
I just want to play Dota. Do you want to play Dota right now? Kind of. You can.
I got to find someone to carry me first though. Always. You carry me at HG.
Comma. And? Um, I do it because I believe in you. If I didn't, I would totally support you just
being a psychiatrist.
All right.
Any other questions
or shall we just play Dota?
Am I streaming Dota?
I don't know.
I mean, I think that's good for questions.
I think we have a raid set up, right?
So we can end on an incest question.
Okay, well, what's your favorite ice cream flavor?
Ooh, probably black walnut.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, it's generally available ice cream flavor.
black walnut, but in terms of the
two best ice cream experiences
I've had, hands down, matcha.
Yeah. And forest fruit.
I agree. Except for
he got matcha ice cream and I got
sake ice cream. And they were
but forest fruit. Black walnut.
So my first
job was working at an ice cream shop
chat, the tender
age of 16. Made
some that minimum wage.
Also had all
the ice cream I could eat. It was dope.
Got that
Gotta get that money
I never put this together
But my first job was
At a pizza hut
And we've both worked in like
Service occupations
I think it's good for building character
The ladies love me back then too
Yeah I bet they did
Do you know what my system was
For the dudes who kept asking for my number?
No
So some dudes gave me their number
and some dudes asked for my number.
And so I would keep the numbers that they,
this was back when people did things by phone.
And so I would like, you know, keep the napkins or whatever
they had written their number on.
And then whenever somebody asked me for my phone number,
I would just give them some other guy's number.
In my year of serving ice cream,
I don't think any person asked me for my number,
nor did they leave a number.
So, you know.
batting above my league.
What can I say, chat?
We also had a hustle
because one of my best friends
from high school.
So it was me, the valedictorian
from like the class above me
and the valedictorian from the public high school.
Like we all worked at the Pizza Hut.
And we,
and then like one of my,
my co-editor of the yearbook
worked at the Domino's.
And we essentially had our, like,
underage alcohol ring.
through the delivery, the pizza delivery.
Let's not talk about things that may be illegal,
because that sounds a little bit illegal.
A little bit.
So, anyway, so we're going to...
It was a long time ago.
I'm pretty sure, like, the statute or whatever has passed.
Yeah, we just don't want to, you know, that's fine.
You got to be careful about it.
We've got to be careful.
There's only so much.
Ah, your content has helped me a lot.
So Ashes of Dreams Donates.
I was wondering if Dr. Kay had any thoughts on various.
types of therapy, CBT versus dialectical behavioral therapy versus existential therapy. So I feel like
this is kind of silly. This is a Harvard question. Because because this is like I'm going to say the
same damn thing over and over again. It's going to really sound like I'm selling something. But in
general treatment principles of depression. So this is what I want to explain to you guys. There is a
video about this. So this is the way that we developed the guides is because you all asked the same
questions over and over and over again. So I did a sit down. Let's think about all of the different
questions that people could ask. And let's make an actual start to finish answer for all of these
questions. I know it sounds like absolutely an ad, but do you guys get that it's not an ad?
It's like, this is the whole reason why we made the product is because people ask us these questions
like over and over and over again. So here's the answer, okay? So here's what I think you should do with
therapy. First of all, try a couple of different things. Different therapies offer different
benefits. So if you've done CBT for a while, then try something like psychodynamic therapy
if you hit a roadblock with CBT. You can learn a different kind of thing from a different
therapy. Second thing is that a lot of it is temperamental. So some people prefer psychodynamic therapy.
Some people prefer CBT therapy. And a lot of it is like personality or cognitive fingerprint.
And it's hard to say because you're not going to know until you try.
And then the other confounding factor, which is so frustrating, is that sometimes you will get a crappy therapist in a particular modality.
It doesn't mean that the modality is bad. It means that the therapist is bad.
And so then you ask the question, well, how am I supposed to know if the therapist is bad versus the modality?
You're not going to know until you try someone else who, like, you know, is good at it.
So if you think about, you know, like, oh, I really love pizza versus I really.
hate pizza. Maybe you just went to a crappy pizza joint. So what's the real answer is that you
guys should try like multiple things. So I'd say that, you know, here's my quick rundown of like
how I think about therapy. And this is all in like, it's literally like there's a script for this
in Dr. Kay's guides. Can you hold on a second? So like I will like literally show you guys like this is
you have to go to teaching with chat. I will. I will. So we're going to do this.
Let's do general treatment principles, right?
And then let's go down.
Holy shit.
What?
$500.
Oh, thank you.
Hold on.
Oh, my God.
Can you please thank people properly?
I can get your document.
I'm, okay, so he just,
thank you, nerdery forever for the $500 donation.
Hold on.
Thank you so much.
Sorry, I would love to thank you appropriately,
but now my Harvard Andy is.
Okay, so like this is like, I'm going to show you guys just a quick leak, okay?
So this is like literally the script for the Dr. K's guide to depression.
So like we're going to talk about psychotherapy.
So like we explain what psychodynamic therapy is.
We explain what CBT is.
Oh, shit.
Right?
And then we explain what like the Eastern Influencer third wave of therapies are.
We talk about different like pieces of them.
So my point is that, you know, the reason I made the guy.
is to explain the stuff. So I'll explain it now just because we're here. Right? So it's like,
here's the answer. So three different dimensions of therapy that I organize.
So one is the psychodynamic branch, which is sort of based on Freud. So what Freud did was like sit and listen to people.
And like based on what they would say, he would make inferences. He'd say like, oh, like this person is like connecting these dots.
next then what happened is like for a while like he developed like all these complicated theories in the psychodynamic like tradition if you like these sort of like theories about how you work then the psychodynamic tradition is good for you it's sort of about understanding yourself and like how your mind kind of like fits together in these different ways and stuff like that then along came Aaron Beck and the behaviorists were like at the end of the day you can never tell what's going on in someone's head
And the important thing is, like, what do they do?
Because therapy is a lot about ultimately, like,
helping people engage in the behaviors that are good for them.
So you can have an edible complex.
That's fine.
But at the end of the day, how do you, like, overcome that edible complex to engage in a healthy behavior?
How do you engage in a healthy relationship?
So that's where, like, CBT was born.
And what CBT noticed was that there are cognitions, their thoughts,
their emotions and then their behaviors.
And the three of these things kind of interact with each other.
So for CBT, I think it's better for people who are like a little bit more scientific as opposed
to theoretical. Maybe concrete is a better word.
It's for people like, and CBT is very like worksheet oriented and protocolized oriented.
So for BITDAs out there, they do way better in CBT because it's sort of like, okay, I'm going to show up
this week, this is what I'm going to learn.
I'm going to learn this about my anxiety.
I'm going to get this homework.
I'm going to go home.
I'm going to do the homework. I'm going to come back. We're going to talk about this. We're going to learn about this. My anxiety is going to get better. That's what CBT is about.
Then what happened is Marshall Linahan came along. Marshall Linahan Pog. So what Marshall Linahan is someone who has borderline personality disorder. And she became a psychologist because she was trying to figure out like how can I like, you know, so a lot of people who have a struggle with mental illness or some kind of mental challenge will study psychology in the hopes of like really learning something about.
themselves and trying to like help other people who and they're inspired by people helping them.
So she came along and she realized like CBT is great, but I actually got a lot of benefit
from mindfulness and studying Buddhism. So she developed a kind of treatment that was sort of like
CBT plus mindfulness. And that became DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy. And what she
discovered and other people have discovered this too is that the Western psychology doesn't
solve all problems, that there are some mental challenges or illnesses that either psychodynamic
therapy or CBT does not ideally treat. And so this is what we call the third wave of psychotherapy.
So this includes CBT plus mindfulness, which is DBT. It also includes things like act or acceptance
and commitment therapy, which is like an addiction-oriented treatment. And so this is kind of like
the third wave, which one do I think is better? I don't think any one of them is better. I personally think
actually the third wave is just starting. So the interesting thing is that DBT is actually like a
sprinkling of Eastern stuff into the CBT model. And what I actually think is the best is the road
to enlightenment in which, you know, as you really begin to like understand these like in a deep way,
these concepts that Marshall Linahan sprinkled into DBT, you can actually start to get to a very peaceful
state of mind. But, you know, what should you pick? Which one is better? It sort of depends on
temperament. So if you're someone who's theoretical, if you're someone who's like, okay, kind of like
being a little bit unstructured and being free form and like trying to like plumb the depths of
your unconscious mind, then go the psychodynamic route. If you're someone who likes highly
protocolized things, so you're like, I want A, I want B, I want C, I want measurements, I want
worksheets, I want to plan, then go CBT. If you're someone who's sort of like interested in this
Eastern stuff, wants to learn a little bit of mindfulness, wants to learn a little bit of these Eastern
concepts, but do want to work with a therapist because you can learn all that stuff outside of
working with a therapist, right? Because like monks have been teaching this stuff for thousands of years.
Then go with a third wave therapy and like do something like DBT or act. If you have a
personality disorder, go with the DBT route. If you have an addiction, go.
with the act route. So there are a lot of different, you know, traditions of psychotherapy. I'm
certainly not trained in them all. You know, I'm sure that a lot of therapists will disagree with my
model. This is just the way that my mind organize this stuff as I was learning it. And at the end of the
day, like I said, you know, start with the one that sort of appeals to you and then recognize that
each kind of therapy is going to offer a different advantage. And the data basically suggests
that all of them are comparable.
Some of them have better indications
for particular diagnoses.
There's some evidence that CBT works faster,
but also doesn't last as long
is psychodynamic therapy.
So some evidence suggests
that psychodynamic therapy
takes more time to get going,
but has a more lasting impact
after you stop the therapy.
Okay?
That's in the guides, though.
It's all in the guides.
It's not all in the guide.
The whole reason we made the guides
is I sat down and I like literally,
I thought like when someone comes in my office, okay, first I'll say this. Then I'll ask them a question.
Depending on their answer, I'll go this way. I'll go this way. And then I'll ask them another question.
Depending on that, I'll go this way. I'll go this way. If they want medication, I'll say this.
If they don't want medication, I'll explain therapy. Then I'll ask what kind of therapy should I do.
Then I'll give you that guys that answer. That's how it works. So it's like a tree, right?
With like lots of branches. And where we cover, I think, like, 80% of like the stuff that I explain to patients.
So is it fair to say that this follows your clinical approach?
Yeah, I mean, I don't even know if it's clinical, because half the guides are not clinical.
Like, the whole meditation guide is not clinical, but it's what I do with people.
Right, it's the beauty of your approach.
Yeah, because like most, I mean, half of what I do is it clinical.
Right?
So it's like, so it's just, you know, because the challenge that I have is like, like,
What am I going to do, guys?
Like, we get, like, hundreds or thousands of requests to work with Dr. K per week.
And it's like, what are we going to do?
Like, I can't work with everyone.
Well, and even last night we were talking, and our parent coaching pilot has just kind of come to an end.
And it was like, well, if nothing else, we helped these 35 families, right?
And so it's always kind of limited.
Like, everything that we do is so, like, this many clients is all we could do.
this many parents is all we could do.
And I think that's what's so exciting about the Dr. Kay's guides is there's no constraint.
Yeah, so there's two comments that I think are kind of funny, but like are actually like you guys would be surprised.
Like this kind of comes comes back to the net fucks kind of thing where like that's why you study for years.
So the whole point of studying for years is so that I can boil things down and break it down for you all like in like 10 hours.
Well, because none of them is a perfect science, right?
Right.
Yeah.
And so I think that this is where like studying for years, like I can't explain to you guys how much useless crap I learned.
Like I'm a certified crystal healer.
And I know that some people are really into that.
I have my crystal healing collection.
My kids are thrilled when I pulled it out.
It had been collecting dust for like a decade.
Daddy's Rock Collection.
Daddy's Rock Collection.
So we have like Soda Light and like these different kinds of amethysts that all have different healing properties and stuff.
And like it's cool.
I mean, they love it because it's.
It's a rock collection and they're like four and six.
But that's why I studied for years.
And now the goal is like, before I die, how can I take 15 years of experience and
distill it so that you guys don't have to go do that crap?
How can you learn like the highest value stuff?
Like what works, right?
And someone else is like, yeah, clone UPog, crumbled abs.
And it's like, yeah, that's why we started the coaching program.
because I say this and I'll say this again.
I'll keep saying it until you guys believe it,
which I don't know if you ever will,
but I'm not special.
No, I'm special to you.
I mean, no one's ever going to be able to replace me in your eyes.
That I can get behind.
I'm special to my kids,
but what I do is not special, right?
Like other people can learn this.
Like, I was taught this because, like,
I had teachers who understood this stuff.
Oh, like, you're special.
When it comes to family, sure, I'll accept that.
Ed. Okay. All right. So. Can you show that, let's, let's do the trailer one more time just for anybody that's new. And then I think we can, um, do a quick read. Just in case you guys don't know what we're talking about for Dr. Kay's guide. You guys not? Okay. All right. If you really want to do the trailer one more time, we'll listen to it one more time. Okay, but change your sound settings because of buzz buzz. Is it still buzzing? Shouldn't be buzzing. I'll have anything that gets fixed. Saved, chat. Saved.
But don't you have to change your sound setting?
Yeah, I'll change the sound settings.
Oh, whoa.
Thanks for the subs.
And seriously, Ashes of Dreams and Nerdery Forever.
Thank you guys so much for the very generous donations.
Thank all of you for like, you know, I know we get sometimes like $5 donations.
I don't know.
Thank you guys very much.
So just to emphasize, like, for everyone who's donated so far, like, it's your money
that has resulted in the building of this stuff.
And this is why when we,
we're like releasing it.
We have this pre-order phase where we don't need to recoup our costs from the pre-order
and you guys can donate them.
Right.
Like we're like offering you guys the options to get this product and essentially make a 501c3
donation in return.
And that's because of the generosity of everyone who's come before and is like donated,
subbed, whatever.
So it's our goal to really like try to help this community.
And the more you guys give us, like the more we're going to do with it and like totally
fine.
And you guys can check out the stream with the impact report where we kind of detail how much we've spent on what and like, you know, how we've tried to make the world a better place.
Okay, we'll watch this one more time.
So if you really want to take control of your life, the first thing that you have to understand is how does my mind work?
These modules are a distillation, the essence of my personal journey to understand myself over the last two decades.
They're kind of like a choose-your-own adventure of understanding a particular topic.
Because in my experience as a psychiatrist, the best outcomes come from educated patients.
And you are ultimately going to be the most important part of your treatment.
Okay, fine, I'm in this place, and this place sucks.
What am I going to do about it now?
Focus on building a healthy identity of yourself, where you can learn to unconditionally love yourself.
If meditation has one good effect on the brain, it actually strengthens the hell out of your frontal lobes.
You have to let go of the entire construction, right?
Because what does it mean to have fallen behind?
It's a construct of the mind.
What does it mean to catch up?
It's a construct of the mind.
Because think what you're doing here, right?
You're doing so much problem solving.
There's a certain method, there's a certain secret,
there's a certain technique to being able to find that piece
in spite of the emotion.
We can go to the birth of that scar,
and we can actually try to rewrite history a little bit,
change our mind's conceptualization,
of the truths that we learned in the past
that cause us suffering today.
There's a hype right now?
Great.
Oh, this is good.
Have you guys seen this one?
This is, this video is from our YouTube too.
This one's really good.
Psychiatrist reacts to I have too much self-awareness.
Oh, it's so interesting.
There's a video about this in Dr. Kay's guides too.
And you guys can now see what I watch on YouTube
based on, you know, SNL, Dota,
a little bit of Harstown,
a little bit of Kibbler and some key and peel.
Yeah, so thank you guys very much for coming today.
You know, thank you for all of the support.
Huge thanks to all of our donors.
You know, we're trying to make the world a little bit of a better place.
And we can't do without you.
I mean, we can't do without you.
This is going to be the impact is going to be tiny.
Yeah.
So with you, I think it's been wonderful.
Because when I started Healthy Gamer, you know,
I was working nights and weekends to support my family.
I think we, you know, I don't need to do that anymore.
So I still have a clinical practice and stuff.
But, you know, to help pay our bills and things like that.
But it's not like, you know, now Healthy Gamer kind of with all support.
We can, I can devote 40 hours a week to like doing this kind of work and building this kind of stuff.
I really hope it's helpful.
We build it for you guys.
You know, that's really what it's for.
It's to try to answer all of these questions to try to help you guys.
you know, work with the challenges that you all have. Thanks to, you know, some of our,
our very prominent donors today, it looks like we're making Dr. Kay's guide to magic, which I
don't know if that means relationships or sex and sexuality. You know, and I really do appreciate
all the support. Everyone who's been a coaching client so far, it's been nice because you guys
have paid for that service. You know, we've had a fair amount of, you know, for you coaching
clients, but enough people have paid for the service to where we can just give this to you to free.
And it's our way of saying thank you. And it's our way of saying like, you know, thank you for
giving us this money. And we're going to use that money to build this resource. So you basically
funded it. So we're going to give it to you. It'll be available to all coaching clients going
forward as well. And if you guys don't want to do coaching totally fine. Like that's why you sort of
have this DIY kind of thing. You guys can get it yourself. And you can also donate right now. And
it'll go to fund our free coaching programs, our research, things like that.
Who are you going to raid chat?
That's the big question.
Six weeks maybe.
Is when it's going to come out?
What do you think, Ruthie?
When is it ready?
We're targeting end of June, early July.
Yeah.
So we're taking the, you know, the good developer route, which is that we're going to push back the release date rather than give you guys a dumpster fire that everyone is sad about.
Let's raid Nihatsu
Let's do it, dude
It's Poki's birthday, I think
Oh, is it Poki's birthday?
Should we raid her?
Sure.
I mean, whatever you think,
I think Nihatsu is raising for RAD today,
which is also great.
Oh, interesting.
Logan's House is live.
Dude, this is great.
Logan's House, this guy has...
Can we raid Logan's House?
Yeah.
So I think Logan's House,
This is the guy who...
He's trying to raise money to get a place to live, I think.
Yeah.
And he's still fundraising for...
So this guy, if I remember correctly, maybe actually, like, homeless.
Is that right?
Is that open the house?
Yeah.
So let's send him some love.
And thank you guys very much.
This is great.
Thank you. Seriously, you guys. Thank you.
He's got 38 of you nor do us right now.
Send him some love.
