HealthyGamerGG - Dr. K & Mrs. K Call-in Show - Answering Your Personal Questions

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

In this episode, Dr. K is joined by his wife, Kruti (Mrs. K), for a special Call-In style Q&A to celebrate Mental Health May. Together, they discuss the launch of the new Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships and take a deep dive into community questions regarding attachment styles, the neurobiology of love, and the practical hurdles of modern "adulting". What to expect in this episode: The Yin and Yang of Partnership: Dr. K and Kruti reveal how their vastly different personalities—extroverted vs. introverted and material vs. spiritual—create a balanced relationship through shared accountability and a similar moral compass. The "Adulting" Burden: A look at why modern life feels so overwhelming and why the amount of responsibility carried by individuals today has "ballooned disproportionately" compared to previous generations. Self-Worth and the Playground Shadow: An analysis of how childhood bullying creates a primitive drive for conflict avoidance that can sabotage adult self-esteem until you learn to "hold your ground". "Dark Magic" vs. "Pink Magic": Why using professional "map-hacking" communication skills (dark magic) can actually backfire in romance, and why new daters should instead embrace "pink magic"—the playfulness and boyish joy of being in someone's presence. The Neurobiology of Love: A technical breakdown of the four-part equation for sustainable love involving passion (dopamine), bonding (oxytocin), comfort (serotonin), and sacrifice. Escaping the "Match Made in Hell": How anxious and avoidant partners can navigate gridlocked conflicts by quantifying their needs on a scale of 1 to 10 and recognizing that their tensions are often a "karma" designed for spiritual growth. The Hybrid Build Advantage: Why being a "jack of all trades" is a major competitive advantage in a late-stage capitalist economy and how "wasted time" on diverse skills often leads to the most successful career paths. Action vs. Outcome: Why the quickest way to suffer in life is to focus on outcomes you cannot control rather than the internal actions that you can. Dr. K's NEW Guide to Love, Sex, & Relationships is here! Order now: https://bit.ly/4dO3x0VHG Coaching : https://bit.ly/46bIkdo Dr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3SztHG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2026 Chevrolet Tracks is the stylish SUV for those on the move. And with the standard Chevy safety assist package, you have the backup to handle every turn with confidence. The 26 tracks, start your build at Chevrolet.ca. Hey, chat. Welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast. I'm Dr. Al-O. Knoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist gamer and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down

big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. This is like your live stream. So scoot up a little bit. Okay. No, it does need to be right in your face. Look, it's in the green. You speak.

You speak. You have to speak louder. You speak in your face. Speak louder. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Can you? Closses are always blurry. Why are my glasses always blurry?

Hi, I'm here. I'm talking. Am I in the green? Okay. So yes, you're in the green. We want you in the yellow. So I usually talk like this. Look, you see? I'm not going to talk like that. I know. Okay. So then what you need to do is you change. This is browser cam. Look over here. Look. Okay. So you click this and it'll show this. And then you go back to full cam and it'll show this.

Okay. So this is the only thing that you need to click and I will be right back. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Happy Friday, guys. Am I too loud? I'm not too loud. I'm never too loud. I will yell this whole time. Hey, so it's nice to see you guys.

I never know what I'm doing. It's always a little bit of a train wreck, but I love May. Even though it's crazy over at Healthy Gamer, I really love getting to go really hard on the live stream with you guys and all the content and all the community events, and it's super fun. Okay.

Hi. All right. Are you around somewhere? Am I am here? Oh, you're in a pair of headphones, hold on. Let me see. Are you on this one? I think so.

Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Okay, I don't, can stream hear me? I'm not sure. Maybe they can, but I'm here for you. So would you like your first guest? Yeah, sure. Okay, so then I have to put these on properly.

Probably, yes. And this will be for you, a question for you. Okay, cool. Let me see how. Awesome. Hi, everybody. Hi, Laffey. Hi, Crow.

Thanks, Mots. Oh my God. Okay. Awesome. All right. We'll bring, this person, I think, doesn't have their camera. It'll be just voice. But here we go.

I'll bring them in now. Okay. Hi, I'm F Tom. You're live on Alvy Gamer. Hello. Hey, Tom. How are you this fine evening? I'm doing great.

It's so great to meet you. How can I help you? Is it question time? I just give you my question. Sure. Yeah. So when I watch your streams and Dr. K streams, the impression that I get is that in certain ways you're quite different people. Just off the top of my head, I think I've heard Dr. K talk about during, like, his spiritual journey, if you want to go.

call it that you used to like tease him about it a little bit or like make fun of it. And it used to I can't remember exactly what he said because it was a while ago when I watched this. I think he said it used to annoy him a bit, but then it helped him. I don't know. I'm trying to talk to Tom. Okay. Oh, do they not have camera? He's audio only, but you go ahead and use this on screen. That's fine. They'll at least have his name on there, but whatever. Go ahead, Tom. You're telling me how I used to annoy all look. Yeah.

I can't remember exactly what he said. It was something like, it used to annoy him, but it helped him not take himself so seriously or something. It was something like that. Yeah. And when I watched your streams, they're more like, I'm not sure what I'd call it, like, external-based or like material-based, I feel like, whereas. Dr. K's a bit more internal, spiritual, that kind of thing. Yep. So I guess my question is if you're, if you have big differences in that way, like spirituality,

I feel like it's a big part of someone's life if they're into that kind of thing. And that's kind of different from your partner. Mm-hmm. there must be some element that like keeps you together despite like a big difference like that because for example my parents kind of similar in terms of their very different personalities and temperaments and interests and that kind of thing but they've been together a long time and they're still in a happy relationship or conversely I'm I know people, and I'm sure you do too, who are like very similar, who are together,

but in like the worst way possible, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you get what I mean? Yeah. So, yeah, what is it? Am I correct? Are you quite different people? And if I am, like, what is it you think that like, you know, connects you or binds you

together? We are. I don't know how much more different we could be. I'm super extroverted. He's much more of an introvert. I like, I mean, I play tennis. He plays video games. Like, we don't have hobbies in common.

I think intellectually, we like some of the same things. But what I like to talk about is not what he likes to talk about. What he likes to talk about, I could not find more boring. like that's how this all started actually because he would he would keep talking to me about this stuff and I was like you need to talk to somebody else and so I made him a Twitch account I was like you know you know who'd be interested in this is like everybody else that's not me so yeah yeah let me set you up on Twitch that's actually how this started and the the base of your question though around people that are spiritually quite different is interesting because that is like the one thing

where we're quite similar but very different approaches. He is much more yoga based. He is much more introspective. He is much more kind of in the pursuit of enlightenment. And I'm not really interested in enlightenment. I like to have a good time. I like nice things. I am more practical. You talked about that, like the material versus the kind of detached. Yeah. I'm not detached. I care a lot about too many things.

But I'm thonthric. So my practice is quite different. My practice is less intense. But that is one thing where we are actually quite similar. but different approaches and different objectives. My objectives are different with my practice. If one of us was very, if one of us just, if we had fundamental different ways of looking at the universe, I think that would be different.

But we both kind of have an energetic approach to karma and the way things work and why things happen. and what's your responsibility in this situation? And I think that's really what it comes down to is we have a similar sense of who is responsible for what. And I think when you're super detached, you can be too like, oh, what will be will be. And when you're too attached, you can be too invested and kind of too selfish. and so I think in that way we balance each other out in the best way where I'm like okay if you want to do this mental health for free thing that's great your kids have got to eat so what's the plan you know so we balance each other out in that way and he's very like

yeah our kids have to eat but I really want to be mission first and so it's like okay we can do it that way. And I think having a similar moral compass and willing to talk about the conflict where both of us have a very high sense of accountability and responsibility, I think that is fundamental to a good relationship. And also, like, we don't take things personally that much. Yeah, it's so fun. Like, that is exactly. how I imagined your like relationship in terms of I can imagine just like what you said like Dr. Kay being like no you know we can't like chase views and we can't you know it needs to be mission fair so then you view we need some views otherwise we're going to be homeless

or we're going to have to get jobs like pick one like yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so it's this so we The thing that you really bond on is spirituality. Yeah, actually. Or like your core values, I guess. Yeah, and we both like to read. But it's funny because of the stuff that I am like, oh, this was really great. I want to talk about it.

He's like, oh, I thought that part was boring. And then he's like, oh, did you see this part? I was like, and now I skipped that part. So I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Did you get the answer you're looking for?

Um, kind of. I guess I'm thinking like outside of spirit. Oh, I guess you could call it like core values, I guess. Like say, um,

yeah, I don't know. I just know people who are like some of the, I know some couples who are so different and it works and some couples are so different. And it's like why you two together. But like, yeah i guess i'm wondering what is the thing that keeps the different ones together or like what is lacking in the people that are the same but it doesn't work if you get me but i guess you could

say that's like core value rather than like you know spirituality but yeah but also if all we talk about this all the time if alok had married somebody like him like they would never leave the house like that would that would that would not end well i don't think there would be a lot of affection or joy. So we talk about like, you know, how you wouldn't want to be with somebody that's just like you. If I married somebody that was just like me, I would probably be, I don't know, falling into a lot of the traps of like kind of material society of like, you know, chasing bigger house, bigger cars, all that kind of stuff. So I think you need the balance, but you have to be really intentional about what you want from each other. And that's not.

it's not easy it's difficult to kind of like know okay this is what i want this is what you want this is what you need from me this is what i need to adjust to give you what you want give you what you need give us what we want what us what we need give myself what i want and what i need it's it's hard you have to adjust yeah but yeah so i guess it's it's like you balance it the yin and the Yang, if you will. Yeah, but I mean, some people need mirrors of themselves, right? Some people are more rigid. So, yeah.

It's just what you need in life, I think. Okay. Okay, thanks, Tom. Thank you. Have a good one. You too. Thanks very much, Tom. Treve, which camera is it?

Is it this front one in front of me or is it this one over here? Look straight ahead of you. Yeah, the front one. right in front of you. Okay. Yeah. It's going to be 10 minutes. I'll take a coffee now. If it's in five minutes, I'm okay. Okay. I'm going to shoot for five minutes.

Okay. I think I directed you to the correct camera. We'll find out soon, but it looks good. That's all good. Would you like to take your next question? Yeah. I kind of wanted to just check chat really quick. Awesome. Let me know. She just admitted she's high maintenance. I am. I am. I've been pretty clear about this kind of from the start with Al Oak.

I thought it was the front one behind her. Oh no. Trevor, they're going to mess with me. Hi guys, this is so exciting to see. I know some of these names in chat. This is so cool to see you guys again after so long. Yeah, straight ahead of you is good. Okay, straight ahead of you. Is it true you didn't want to date an Indian person? Yeah, I wasn't super keen on it, mainly because I just didn't want to be in the same community that I really wanted to go out on my own. Just kind of do my own thing.

What advice would you suggest for someone who is in a period of lacking confidence? Okay, I'll tell you right now, even today, Alick and I both are confidence, waxing. in wanes. Okay, so like there's never going to be a period in time where you are going to be 100% confident 100% of the time. I think you feel the most confident when you see yourself getting to where you want to be. So keep taking the steps that you need to. There's always going to be bumps. And the only way forward is through. So I feel. I feel like people that want to take shortcuts or skip steps, that's where your confidence won't be consistent. You got to go forward.

Got to go through all the good stuff, all the bad stuff. Jose Ramos, I love your shirt. Where can I get it? Thank you. Actually, this is part of our mental health may package. So there's a bundle that has this shirt, which has. Let me see if I can show you the back. It's called Dr. Kay's sexy bundle.

It's on our merch store. Also make sure you talk into the microphone. Okay. Hey, welcome back. Okay. How do you decide where you want to be? Decide who you want to be. The where is just a means to be to get to who you want to be.

How am I high maintenance? I need a schedule. I need a plan. I need comfort. I don't like me. mess. I don't like clutter. I'm very particular with the way I like things done. And I have kids. So it's not just like, oh, I want this plate. There's a lot going on, a lot to maintain. How do I unleash my full toxicity into the world? I cannot help you there. All right, Trevor,

let's go to the next question. Okay. I will be bringing you Dunku Howells. And I also want to remind you to talk into that microphone. Oh, this one. And here we go. Hey, Dunku. You're live on Healthy Gamer. Oh. And she is using a camera. Hi. Hello. Give me a second. I might want to set it up so that I can see you clearly.

There we go. You try that split screen interface, Krutti. It's an interview overlay. There we go. I can see you nicely. Hi. Hi. Interviews Discord. Or you can talk. I'm going to just try to find the right one.

You got it, but let me just pop in there and try to pick something. Thank you. What's your name? Okay, my real name is Priyam Wada. Whatever you want me to call you. You can call me, Priya. Priya? Okay, nice to meet you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do I just explain the question directly, or do you, want to know the context where I'm coming from or how do you prefer? Guys, actually, can I interrupt you briefly? Yeah. I'm not actually able to log in. Are you able to turn on any desks for me so I can fix that? I'm able to get Alok.

Did we do it? So I just need to be able. Oh, yeah. He's got it. Okay. You're good. All right, cool. Nice.

Okay. Hi. Hi. Hi. Nice to meet you. Yeah. What can I do for you? Um, magic.

I all try. But I'm joking. Um, so yeah, I'm like, um, I'm fairly grown adult. I have a job, figured things out, running okay. Um, but I'm coming to an acceptance or overcoming the idea that, hey, I'm this adult who has become an adult, but has no idea how to do adult. Right. and I'm like constantly putting myself in trouble or like end up being in places that I may not have engaged before or like grown up the skills for and then I'm like I need an adult dear adult right now and then also then the problem of not knowing how to healthily realize that I need help and then ask for help right sometimes I would be like just soaking in my head although I got to solve this but then I'm not able to solve it on my own right to me I'm well guessing right that you've grown from work some certain place then met with dr k

and then you have you guys like grew this business it's been like good amount of experiences that you might have but to me I want to know like as adults like individuals when you guys started in your own life I bet you guys probably were in similar boats when you guys were figuring things out so I'm trying to like poke around to try and understand and some things from myself that I can maybe adapt. How did we become adults? Yeah, better adults, I would say. You know what, though.

Okay, go ahead. I'm going to ask you some questions, but I think we might be less adulty than meets the eye. Okay. So, yeah, there were like three overall questions that are sort of targeting to, which is how do you plan habits to engage socially and not act like these sensitive?

or lunatic people that just react instead of like properly being able to engage socially, be it friends or family or anybody. The other thing would be how to ask for help better. And the other thing would be how to figure out to take care of yourself in order to then figure out you are capable of taking care of the other partner or friend or family, right? Yeah. Like I barely I'm holding on. Not that I think that I have nothing.

Like I'm good. I have a job. I'm able to do things. I have an apartment. I haven't even a dog to take care of. doing fine. Yeah. But then when it comes to like, oh, I got to figure out how to hang out with friends.

Don't know. How to take care of my family. Don't know. Failed. Take care of our family. Like completely. Failing to take care of my mental health or overcoming traumatic situations. Don't know.

Right. So there's, I understand obstacles where I know I've come from a lot of failure. I'm still working on them. I'm still failing. But also then not able to like always doing these catch-up games that. hey, I got to get this done, because I get this done. But then there's no social engagement. There's a lot of responsibility of that thing I should be doing,

but I'm not able to do them. No balance to do them. Yeah, I hear you. Sorry, too much. No, no, no, no, no. I got it. It sounds like, okay, so here are my disclaimers. I'm not a therapist.

I'm not a mental health professional. All I do is osmosis, al-oak. and I just have my own experiences. But what you're describing sounds a lot like what I would kind of talk a friend or a sister through. So I'm going to approach it kind of that way, where you're asking about what sounds like time management, what sounds like understanding exactly what your responsibilities are to your friends and to your family. this is something I've struggled with, especially after having kids and having a large extended family that I married into.

And like, you know, how much can you do? How much can you set expectations? And when you show up, how can you show up in a way that you're proud of? And then your mental health, right? So were those the three areas? There were some skills development in there and some adulting. The first thing that, like, really comes to. mind to me is if you are able to, can you, do you have enough disposable income to where you can hire a virtual assistant?

I don't even know what's a virtual assistant. Okay, I think this might help you out a lot. So a virtual assistant can basically free up some time. It sounds to me like you need more time. and I think an assistant can help you get your schedule together and you can say, hey, I'd really like to see my friends. Can you find a couple things for us to do and just plan it? And here's everybody's time.

Here's everybody's availability. Can you just figure something out? Or, hey, my mom needs my help on this and this and this. Can you please help me figure this out? I think it sounds like the reason I come to this is because I'm, I feel like a lot of our generation is managing too much. We are having to deal with ourselves. We have to do so much more for ourselves than we have ever had to do before.

We have to take care of our parents in a way that involves so much more effort than generations previous. And we take care of like our friends, our kids, your dog. So I think the amount of overall responsibility that every individual carries has just ballooned disproportionately. And I think everybody needs a little help. So I would encourage

you to find an assistant that you can... Is it like, I have some follow-ups on this idea of virtual assistant. Is it like this now a lot, which has boomed in the last year and a half? Are you talking about using these AI-11 models as virtual assistant or like an actual

human being? I'm talking about a human being that lives in a lower cost of area, cost of living area, that will then be affordable for you. And they can help you out five to ten hours a week, take care of your doctor's appointments, take care of like your routine work. You can ask them to just keep your house stocked on certain groceries and just free up some time is honestly what it sounds like you need.

And then you'll have time to take care of some of the other stuff for, and I would kind of encourage you to poke around online and try to find a virtual assistant service and learn more. That to me sounds like a high impact thing for you. And then the other thing on the skills building, a lot of our resources are for that. And I think if you check out the heart to heart or any of those events, I think that could be really nice on the skills side. that's something that we want to do more for folks. But the thing that you said that really stood out to me was around taking care of your family

and your friend obligations. Can you say more about that? Like, it sounds like you want to be able to do more for people. Yeah, because, okay, thanks for bringing that because I had the exact similar follow-up. But when you said that, I should try to understand, my responsibility, right? For me, like, of an Indian background,

we are grown up with the whole idea that, you know, family and friends are our entire lock social system, right? Be at work, be it everywhere, we end up finding family at work, we end up finding family and friends. So to me, I engage with a world like that, right? I try to be useful,

I try to solve things, I try to help wherever I can. I don't try to look at myself as a failure where I fail to help. I try to do the best I can. But then there are certain obvious ones, which probably I would wait some of the portions of my own personal mental traumas that I'm dealing with, that I'm just become a little bit avoidant person

who's failing to communicate or staying in this weird state where it's like I sulk not reaching out family or taking care of them, but then also stay terrified or like being irritable person when I actually am there in person with them, right? It's so weird. But to me, this in back of my head, have given my own self-belief that, oh my God, I'm such a loser, daughter, person, sister, or a friend that I am not incapable of properly taking care of my family and friends. So, and I look at like, you know, people around me are like people like you they're like how do you even like

actually figure out that okay this is the right time I'm I'm okay to be heavily engaging with these people that it's okay I'll be able to take care of them or sometimes even fail because I feel like a lot of my personal avoidance comes because

I end up thinking that oh I have hurt this person or I might hurt this person more or I have heard other people in the past so I might hurt this person so I just I want to help them but I'm not able to help them and I'm failing at the same time. So it's like breaking the bridge of communication, but I'm now failing at the things that I really want to help people with or like take care of. Sorry, I got scared because Dr. Kidd just showed up and I thought

somebody opened my door. But yeah, sorry. No, you're fine. Okay, so without getting too much into details, I feel like I've been where you are, where you kind of have like a constant like, okay, I was supposed to do this. I didn't do it last time. They're counting on me. I let them down. I don't want other people to count on me. I don't want to let more people down, especially in these large family networks.

Like you don't want to gain a reputation for being flaky or unreliable or cold or whatever, right? And I think it's really being able to set your own terms a little bit. So I was able to say, hey, on Sundays I'd like to get together for dinner. Let's have it out. Because if I have to have everybody over at my house for dinner, I'm going to be running around and I'm going to be like, oh, you know, this wasn't tasty enough. this wasn't hot enough. This person, I forgot, doesn't like tomatoes and I included tomatoes. Like, it's stuff like that, right?

So I kind of was like, okay, Sunday night is my night to catch up with family. And the ways I can do that is I can come to you with like a small dish of something. You can come to me, but we're ordering in. I'm not cooking. Unless we're like through that layer. And until I don't have the anxiety of like, if I cook for you, you're going to be critical of it. Like, I don't cook. This is like my thing, right?

Like, I don't know if I would call it a trauma. But this is a thing where I'm like, if I'm cooking for people, this is where my guilt loop and my hostessing tendencies are going to just set me up to fail. Or I'll meet you out. And here's three restaurants. I'll see you there. And, like, that's the end of it, right? So people know that like, hey, I'd love to talk to you about this more. Can we talk on Sunday?

Or, yeah, I can help you with your phone. Bring it on Sunday. If you need help before that, I think you should take it into the store. Or, okay, let me help you figure out whatever errands they are. Can we do it together on Sunday? And I just make it time bound. And I remove the thing that causes me to be anxious. So if it's like getting dressed up, I mean, some people where it's,

It's like they're always going to be dressed to the nines, and I just don't want to show up in that kind of pressured situation. But also, I think you get to decide who you want to be in your life. And if there are people that make you feel a certain way every time you see them, you don't have to pull them into your life so much. Yeah, that's very insightful because they're... I think this is a good pathway, at least to understand that there can be obstacles that I probably need to poke in myself that are causing these hurdles for me to do, right? And I feel like I just end up sitting in assault mode, feeling failure rather than being able to act on it and then not being able to see the hurdles.

whatever it may be, right? It could be that, it could be a time zone problem that I'm not calling them and whatnot. So I should try to do it more frequently. Or it could be that, oh, just do like a pass-by or like do some common hobby together, playing outside, playing basketball or something like that. So I feel like I just need to try to engage socially into things I'd really like, right? It could be small things like that. and not really salking on the idea that, hey, I didn't see this person and I missed them

and I'm breaking the bridges of communication. What do I do? Rather than, I like doing this. Let me try to invite them over and maybe they'll come. There you go. Yeah. Do it on your terms. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Too much information. No, I know. But this is really useful. I love end up finding people who are so different. so, well, wise and elder to me. And I can always pick on things that I get to like experiment on myself.

Awesome. Well, I'm so glad for you. Good luck with everything. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you, dog. Okay.

Do you want to talk to? Oh, no. Okay. Treve, you're going to have to call back. I did lose Trevor. I did. He'll be back soon. I'm not in the psychology field yet.

I'm thinking about I'm actually going to try to get into our next coaching cohort and become a coach. And I want to go and get an LMFT because I love family relationship stuff. So I'm not in the mental health field yet, but I just run all of the Healthy Gamer business operations. LMFT is a licensed marriage and family therapist. So hopefully, I don't know. It's just an idea I'm flirting with right now. What was the comment about lower cost of living? So what I meant is generally a personal assistant

in your same cost of living. If you can afford it, great. And if you can't get a virtual assistant that is offshore and affordable. Oh look, I did something bad. Thank you. I think I just exited Discord, but I don't. How's the drink, by the way.

It's good, but if it's all the way over there, sorry. Oh, am I blowing people's ear out? Hey, welcome back. Hey, Trev, sorry. It's okay. Are you guys ready for your next guest or no? Yeah.

Let me take this one here. What do you believe a women's expectations and standards should be on a first date, should the man pay? I think the first date sets the tone for the type of relationship you want to have. So in my case, I would want the man to pay, but also I know who I am and what I'm capable of, and if he was really cute, I would pay.

I did pay on him, but also you... Well, you're going to have to get closer to the mic if you want to remind people. He wants you to know that he paid. He paid on our first early dates. See, he set the tone. But I was very, I knew that whatever I did, I would be able to hold my own and then some. So I was comfortable picking up the tab if I needed to.

Hey, Aaluk, they like the orange shirt more. Or joking. I can change. Okay. I picked out that shirt and he was like, this shirt is terrible. Well, you said atrocious, I think. That's a word you use, though. It is a word.

It's not about that. Which shirt? other shirts I bought you. Not usually. I know you to use that word quite liberally. But not with you. Okay. Just when I leave, right after I leave. Atrocious. That's for other people.

Do you want to come up here? Should I move over? I think this is like a single mic set up. I just am settling in. There's one call that I think both of us need to listen to. Okay. Trevor, what should we do? I see some good questions in chat. Whenever you're ready, I have one for All Oak, but take your time. Okay. All Oak, they do have one for you. Okay. No, I just want to answer a couple questions and give it to you. How to make a first move as a girl. I'll show you. You look, and you're kind of like, maybe.

and then you look and you're like, yep. I can't. I can't. You have to do it. Do it to the camera? Okay, so I'm a girl. You're the person I'm interested in and making move on. I'm going to look at you, and I'm going to be like, oh.

And then you're going to see the question on my face, like, hmm. And I'm going to kind of give you like an affirmative. Like, yeah, this could be something. And then I'm going to look away. And then you're going to think you hallucinated the whole thing. Okay, but have you ever actually done that? To you? No, but I don't think you do it that way.

You do it. I mean, I do it to, like, if I need a waiter, you know, it's like, maybe, maybe I need help. That's how I get, huh? Okay. But no, yeah, I used to do that to you all the time. You called me out on it a long time ago. I don't know if you remember. You're like, why do you keep a lot?

looking at me like that. But you used to say you liked it when I looked at you like that. I do. I like it. Yeah. Okay. You guys ready to meet Blaze? Let's meet Blaze.

You need Allo to take it, right? Yeah, it is for All Oak. I'm sure Blaze wouldn't mind if you were there. But also, let's give Blaze a camera feed on Discord. Hey, Blaze. You're live on Healthy Gamer. Or if you want to grab me a drinking hand. No.

How is it? Okay. I tried to froth it a lot. It's deflated. Okay, hold on a second. So these other set of headphones will work if you want to listen. But if this is, I don't know if this is, okay, hold on.

All right, Trevor, what are we doing? I'll go interview with Blaze here. He's in the channel now. Okay, let me just. Is my camera right now, or no? I think we're, I don't see your camera. There we go. Hey, what's up, boss?

Hello. Let me just make sure that our... Hold on. Let me just make sure that... Okay, we're working. Nice. Okay. The maybe face.

Okay. What's up, Blaise? Talk to me, bro. What's up? Okay, do we want to just go straight in with the question or... Whatever you think is best? Okay, I'll go straight in. So my question is, why my sense of self-worth is closely tied to external validation and what to do about it.

Okay. Why do you think it's closely tied to... How do you know it's tied to self? What makes you think your self-worth is tied to external validation? I mean, it's something I've picked up on, but only after other people point out to me. So I don't know if there's any really good examples I have. Okay. But like when other people do things that validate me, then I'll like feel happy.

And it kind of is like tied to my mood. Okay. But only in social situations. If I'm on my own, I'm genuinely like usually. content with things. So if other people respond to you positively. Yeah, then I'm in a good dude, but if they respond negatively, then it kind of shuts me down. Can you give me an example of someone responding to you negatively?

Okay, so this is a really bad example, but... Awesome. So we're playing Mario Kart. And for some reason, it's really important to me that I win because I feel like I'm the best, so I feel like I should win. and then if I don't win, I'd be like a little bit annoyed, I don't know. But then because I like, I'm happy that I won, even though like it was like a predictable thing, other people are like, you know, it's kind of, you don't have to be like prideful about it or whatever.

But like I was just genuinely happy. And then that kind of, then because they're like not validating my feelings, then I just feel really shit about myself. And then kind of, you know what I mean? Okay. So, so when you, it seems like she has. Do you want to... I know. I'm just saying, yeah, I know what you mean. Okay, she says she knows what you mean.

So let me ask you... Okay, so... So you can feel a certain way about yourself, but it sounds like when you receive a different perspective from other people, that really bothers you. Yeah, if it's like not an agreement with how I feel that things are.

Okay. Do you remember... Was there a time... And how old are you, if you don't mind me asking? I'm 25. Okay. Is there a time when you were younger where you were really excited about something? And then you discovered that, like, other people were not, like, were really not happy about something. Was there, like, a time when you were much younger where...

I mean, school was a tough time. I feel like it was at the bottom of the food chain in school. Okay. So it was, I don't know, I feel like my amygdala is probably a bit oversensitive, but... Nice. I mean, not nice that your amygdala is over-sensitive. Nice that you have the command of that terminology. Yeah, so tell me a little.

Okay, so bullying. I'm going to go make you something to drink, but blaze, you're adorable, so just don't listen to the haters. It's hard to, this is going to get knocked off, though. This is the setup. I'm just saying you're adorable and don't listen to the haters.

He'll give you real advice, but. I appreciate. I appreciate it. I think just not everybody's feedback is worth taking, you know what I mean? Yeah, I feel you. But I think the feedback that I get from the people I care about most is the one, like the stuff that affects me the most. Yeah, well maybe there's something there. I'll help you with that.

But I think you're adorable. Yeah, so when you say the feedback that you get from the people that you care about the most is what affects you the most, can you give me an example of that? Yeah, so my best. So my best friend, she's amazing, and she's probably the person I talked to most about like any emotional kind of stuff. So yeah, that's often where we clash and have issues. What's, can you give me an example of clash and have issues? I mean, stuff's been tough in general recently. I feel like, like I was emotionally invested in her, like for like a long time. And I probably still am, but not in like a romantic way anymore.

So, I don't know, kind of anything she does affects me more than it should. What does that mean emotionally invested in her? I like an emotional bond, like probably hormones involved. Okay, so I'll ask again. So, you know, bonding is one thing, investment is another. So what is what does it mean to be emotionally invested in her? That's a tough question. I don't know how to answer that.

Okay. Do you... So let's try a couple of options. Number one is that your emotions are highly responsive to her? Yeah, I'd say that's true. Okay. Let me just think about what is... Yeah, so when we're emotionally invested in something,

we kind of peg or attach our emotions to something, right? So like if I'm emotionally invested in my children, If my children do well, my emotions go up. And if my children do poorly, my emotions go down. So it's like your emotional state is tied to someone else. Is that fair to say? Probably not as much anymore, but in the past definitely a lot. Okay.

Do you remember what, is there a particular thing that comes to mind as to like why you did that? Like, I know it's hard to say, but like, what about that appealed to you? Let's put it that way. You mean becoming emotionally invested in her? Yeah. Yeah.

I just thought she was a great person. I don't think it happened like intentionally. Of course. And so you thought she was a great person? And what's the, how does that affect you? I think I care more about what she says because I value her opinion more than others.

Okay. How do you value your own opinion? Um, probably higher than hers, but it's still very important to me. So like, probably second to none. Okay, what's important about, so if she approves of what you do, right, if she likes what you do, what does that do for you? I feel happy. Okay. What? there's some value with her approval.

Like, what does it say about you when she approves? I don't know that I'm good enough, or... Is that it? Probably, like, if I think back to, like, when I was in school and I thought I wasn't good enough, because that's how other people treated me. And then she's saying, you are good enough, then that's kind of going against what I think about myself or what I thought about myself in the past.

Okay. I mean, does that, so I'm kind of like arguably leading you there, but does that feel like it, I can't tell if I am or not? But does that map on to your experience? I think somewhat, yeah. I don't know if it's like entirely, I don't know how important, like, a validation from a specific person is. I think obviously hers is slightly like higher ranked, but I think in general I care about. Yeah, I don't know. I think probably, yeah, you're probably right. What does it feel like when people don't give you that validation?

I don't know. I feel like rejected, I guess. Okay. Thank you. Cheers. So, okay, you feel rejected. And your original question was, how do you not be this way? Yeah, how do I not tie that, like, feeling of rejection to actually, like, I don't know, the, what other people say to how I actually feel? Like, how do I sort of detach that? Okay, excellent. Excellent question.

So, when you get rejected by someone, what does it say about you? Technically nothing. It could say more about the other person than it says about me. I don't know, it depends on the situation, I suppose. Technically, you're correct, right? But practically what happens? I probably feel bad. Right? So what does it say about you?

Like, I don't know, someone worth rejecting or like something's wrong with me that I should be rejected. Is there something wrong with you that should be rejected? I don't think so. No. Okay. So you have another thought? No, no. Okay.

So, yeah, I mean, I think it's a great question. So I can see, and it's blaze, is that right? I mean, Blaze or Sean. I think Blaze is my internet name, and then Sean is my real-life name. What do you prefer? I don't mind. I really don't mind. Okay.

So, Blaze, I think, so the first thing that's super clear to me is that you're, like, on the path of development, right? Yeah, for sure. So, like, that's, like, super clear. So I think that, in a sense, the first thought that I have is that this is a temporary problem. So I get, like, because you're already moving past it, right? so you're able to separate out, okay, this thing happens to me and I experience this thing, but it used to be worse.

It is less so now. It still happens, I'm not quite sure. You're able to see that your self-worth, you already have a sense that your self-worth is not determined by the validation of others. But there's this really annoying thing, which is that even though one part of you knows that, when someone rejects you, like you feel bad about yourself. Right? And it's like, that's not the way that it's supposed to be, but it happens.

Okay? Yeah, so I think you're, so big picture is you just keep doing what you're doing and you'll get there. We'll help you speed things along. But I think first thing is to be a little bit aware of that chain of events, right? So when you get rejected, and it's not even that you, I don't even think you get rejected. I think that people give you contrary information, right? So you think one thing and they think something else. And then there's something about that experience which causes a part of your brain to default to theirs.

Okay, so it triggers, oh shit, I'm wrong. exe. Is that, okay? So now that now there's a couple of important questions. One thing, one thing that you can do is just be aware of that and really tunnel down into the chain. This person said this, and it's not about even trying to change. It's about what part of me is, like, behaving in this way. Because technically it doesn't say anything about me, but why do I feel like it does say something about me? Because you do feel that way, which is actually totally fine.

Right. So I would say, like, taking a more curious approach when things are like hot and live for you can be incredibly helpful. You'll probably find some kind of connection. That's number one. Second thing is, so you learned at some point that it is dangerous to have an opinion that is not congruent with other people. Right? So somewhere, right? So you realized when people disagree, panic. And what you also learned is that when people disagree, the safest thing to do is to adopt their viewpoint. because holding your viewpoint is a bad, bad, bad idea.

Okay? Does that bring up anything for you? Yeah, school times, definitely. I would try and avoid conflict at all costs. Okay, very good, okay? So tell me more about how you learn to avoid conflict. I don't know. I don't really remember much about school time.

I just remember it being like a bad time. Okay. And then I was like at the bottom of the food train. So like it wasn't super terrible, I think. Like it wasn't like super physical bullying or whatever. But it was kind of just not being seen or like just not being included. Like just rejected straight up. Right.

So. And you made attempts to be seen. Yeah, for sure. Right. And when you made attempts to be seen, what happened? the rejection was worse. Right. And so then at some point,

you started becoming invisible. Yeah. Right? So I'm going to stop trying to convince these people that I'm worth playing with on the playground because it just doesn't work.

So I think that's the key thing. Somewhere along the way, you say you're conflict avoidant. So when you're proud of playing Mario Kart, so here we go, so when you're proud of winning at Mario Kart and people are like,

hey man why are you being so arrogant about it why are you rubbing it in our face you know for you to say because i won bitches and you guys if you guys can't understand what it's you know i i don't i'm being facetious but like like you kind of know what i mean like in that moment i can imagine that is really hard for you to actually hold your ground i would imagine that it's actually terrifying for you to say you know what i'm celebrating because i won and like when people win it's okay to celebrate, you don't have to take it personally, bro. My guess is that that would be really hard for you. I don't know if it would be, but I've never really thought about trying to stand my ground in that way. Very good, right? So I agree with you that I don't think it would be. I think it has

been. And that doesn't, that doesn't, because I think you're clearly developing. Yeah. So I think like that idea, right? So even the possibility of like holding your ground hasn't crossed your mind. And if you never hold your ground, their opinions are going to come in. Right? So I'd say, hold your ground when you believe something about yourself and recognize that that too is going to feel primitively fearful. So here's what I mean by that. Okay. So if this stuff happened before you had a solid like memory, the feeling that you're going to get is not articulatable. It's like a six-year-old or seven-year-old feeling of conflict avoidance. So it'll feel really odd. It'll feel really primitive. You won't quite like know how to put it into words.

You may not even be able to describe. Like it may not be anger or shame. Does that kind of make sense? So remember that when you have traumatic experiences as a child, just like if you draw a picture when you're five, is your ability to draw improves when you're 25, the picture doesn't improve, right? So when something is laid down on paper or laid down in your brain, it retains that level of resolution. So it may be confusing because you may not be able to put it precisely into words, but it'll feel like a primitive conflict avoidance if you stand up for yourself.

And basically, why do things affect you? because you don't stand up for yourself. And when you stand up for yourself, you will start to harden the barriers of the self-esteem. Because I can see that you're developing your self-esteem on your own. It's just something about that development goes out the window when you are with some people. Does that kind of make sense?

Yeah. And so that's where we got to tie those two things together. That's good. Beautiful question. I liked your answer. It was very informative. Great. Any follow-up questions or is that good?

No, that was good. Okay. Awesome, dude. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thanks a lot, please. Thank. We're going to take questions from chat, right?

Can I talk to you for? Yeah. Yes. This kind of reminds me of our kids, right? Because one of our kids, like, has a point of view and gets rejected a lot because of her point of view and the way she likes to do things. And I feel like what we're teaching. her is so interesting. I'm glad you like it.

It is, but like, I'm going low. But you know what I mean? It reminds me of, like, some of what we're teaching our kids and, like, okay, read the room. If you really, like, feel this way and you want to have, like, a conflict about it, here's how to navigate the conflict. Is it ringing a bell to you at all? But I just, it's interesting because I can't.

I can't figure out which kid you're talking about. That's the thing, because one of our kids, one of our kids will avoid the conflict and we'll just go with the flow. And one of our kids is like, screw this, I'm better than everybody at Mario Kart. And I'm going to play it and I'm going to, you know, and she will really, like, stand her ground. And I just wonder what it is that makes her so confident in being able to stand her ground. and kind of doesn't care about the rejection. Yeah. And the other one really cares about the rejection.

So it's a really cool observation. So I think this is where I think sometimes a child, it's not that she doesn't care about the rejection. Rejection actually hurts her quite a bit. It's that she doesn't realize that the rejection is happening until it happens. And then when she gets very, very, very activated and angry and hurt, she kind of like locks down, right? So she'll leave the room, she'll kind of pout. She has intense emotions that she has difficulty handling. So she is oblivious

to rejection at the beginning because she has social difficulties. She's neurodiverse, right? So she, like, doesn't read the room. And then she ends up getting too caught up. So these are her challenges. One is that she has a difficulty with empathy. She has... Okay, hold on. Just to clarify, okay, we have two kids. One, like, is super conflict avoidant, and the second one will, like, fight over the dumbest things.

Like, conflict does not phase her until she realizes, oh, no, I have no friends anymore. Yeah, so I wouldn't say that conflict doesn't phase her. I would say that one of them avoids conflict and one of them blunders into conflict without being aware. Right. So one of them is conflict avoidant because she can read the room. And she is somewhat sensitive to other people liking her or not liking her. I think that in turn is actually probably due to the fact that she was such a warm and exceptional kid early on. Like, I remember we had, here I got you.

You remember? Yeah, I remember that, like, I, you know, we, I, we had family members that were blown away by how compassionate she was at the age of three. So she was observant, I had a family member who had an autoimmune disease and was having difficulty, like, walking. And she, like, noticed that he was having difficulty walking. And then she was, like, three. And she walked over and she's like, hey, can I help you stand up? and people were like, this is insane. So I think then what happened is she started to develop this identity

of being warm, compassionate, friendly, she's likable, right? She's like charismatic knows how to get people to like her. And then in that process, she's sort of really like solidified into that. So she's almost hyper-aware, has a lot of difficulty pissing people off even when they deserve to be pissed off. Yeah. And the other one is oblivious to conflict until it happens, hits her in the face. She realizes, I don't think she even realizes what the problem is.

She just, then things fall apart. And then she gets her, she gets amygdala hyperactivity, and then she kind of like locks down. Yeah. But I think I'm working with both of them on both of those things. Yeah. Yeah. There were some. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's take a couple.

So Dr. Kay and Mrs. Kay, what are your anagram types, are men trash? Do you want to, we have to figure this out if you're here. Yeah, just move over. Yeah, let me move. But there's also this height difference because that chair is shouting. Okay. So what are your an eneagram types, are men trash? Why or why not?

What's an aneogram? An aneagram is a system of personality analysis that is not super evidence-based. Is this MBTI? No, it's, it's not MBTI. MBTI. MBTI is ultimately based on Jungian like archetypal kind of stuff. What's an an aneogram? It's just like a different system of personality analysis. I don't know what our types are. I don't put a whole lot of stock in a neagram, but I think that it can still be functionally useful is a lens for people to understand themselves.

And it's just one of the systems I haven't studied. I and T no I'm just thinking about it I may be I NTJ I know that's what I said you're an I N TJ okay okay sorry I was Or men trash no easy no men are not trash Why or why not I think people can be trash I think men can be trash in a certain way that I love men and men love me Sorry. Okay, let's move.

No, I mean, I don't think men are trash. I think that, that, I mean, I think it's like a very simplistic view, right? So it's really easy to, it's really easy to lump all types of people together cognitively. Like, it's really easy to do that. You can just be like, but I don't think that's the case. I think it's an unsophisticated analysis. and yeah. Okay.

How good is having a growth mindset for your mental health? Compared to a fixed one? So I think it's a great question. So generally speaking, growth mindset is superior to fixed mindset. But this is where we have to understand a nuance about science, right? So if we take 100 people who have a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, the people with a growth mindset will outperform the people with a fixed mindset over periods of time in some ways. But I think what's really tricky is that there's a toxic version of a growth

mindset, which is like to be obsessive with growth. If I'm not the smartest person in the room, I mean, if I'm the smartest person in the room, I'm in the wrong room. Right. Like there's sort of this attitude. So I think generally... you like to leave this room? Oh, I'm, oh, I said both versions, so I don't know. Um, so I think that generally speaking, I mean, this is something that I, I'm a big believer in. So, you know, growth mindset and fixed mindset is a lot of this research was done by Carol Dweck. So she had some really, really, really strong studies that suggest a growth mindset, which is not focusing on outcomes, but focusing on actions, right? So,

So what's more important, like, doing better on the next test or getting an A or getting a B. So I think focusing on your actions instead of being focused on performance is generally speaking healthier. But this is not a new concept. So I think the best, the most well-known oldest discussion of this topic. So I'm multiplying how well, how popular this is with how long ago it is, is probably from the Pagvat Gita. And in that, Krishna says, as a human being, you're entitled to your actions, not the outcomes of your actions. And that one of the quickest ways to both suck at life and have a lot

of suffering is to focus on the outcomes of your actions instead of your actions. And literally, like, it's funny, I was having this conversation earlier today. But literally, like, what you control is like here. And this barely, right? You barely control your thoughts and emotions and things like that. You don't control anything outside of here. And so shifting from trying to control the outside world, which is like somewhat unresponsive to your efforts, somewhat, right? Because there's a lot of dark psychology stuff. There's sociopathy. There's manipulation. There's gaslighting. There's abuse. There are lots of practical ways to control people. So I think we have to like keep that in mind. But I think ultimately growth mindset is better and focus on your actions instead of outcomes.

And then the next one from Cute Dude 13 is how to get over fear of others knowing or gossiping around me when I get rejected by her. What will they say? What will they think? I think you're safe. I can't detect anything. Just wait. I'm serious. It's bad. Do you need to leave? No, I'm saying maybe you need to leave. Okay. All right. I'm warning you ahead of time. Okay. What I would say about how to get over fear of people talking about you when you kind of make your move is to just kind of own it.

Hey, I'm going to shoot my shot. We'll see what happens. We'll see. We'll see. Let's see. I'm not going to get my hopes up. I'm just going to shoot my shot. And that's it. Just own it. There were a couple up there. Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, so about the gossip, I mean, I think when you get... Okay, I'm going to leave you. Okay. Okay. I mean, yeah, I think like Ruthie's saying, kind of own it is the right move. I kind of agree, like, I think you've got to just own it.

Own it in the sense that, see, when you take actions in the world, the actions are going to have consequences. So if people are going to talk about it, you know, are you going to avoid asking someone out because people are going to talk? And a lot of people say yes. And I think one thing to keep in mind is that when people talk, the people who talk don't talk about it long. Right. So like, they're going to talk about you because they've got nothing better to do. They have no other substantive form of conversation. and then when something else will happen,

and then they'll start talking about something else. So the focus on you is going to be temporary. And also, I think there was a good, someone earlier was talking about, you know, this is a reflection of them. That's not a reflection of you. So there are going to be people who talk. And that's okay. And it's okay to be afraid of that.

but I think that the way that you respond to that fear is really important, which is like, great. So you gave them something for them to talk about at the water cooler today. You've done a good deed. You have made their terrible work life a little bit more entertaining. You know, and I think there is an element of owning it, which is like if people are talking about you, they're like, what are you all talking about? If you guys have questions, ask, you know.

And oftentimes when people like get confronted in that way, I mean, it's really easy to own them. Like it's like, okay, you guys are gossiping about me. What are people saying? Like, you want to let me in on what people are saying about me? Oh yeah, that you ask this girl out. And it's like, yeah. Can I tell you guys why I asked her out? And then you've got them in the palm of your fucking hand.

You're in control of the situation. Right? Can I tell you why I asked her out? Oh my God. Did you guys see the text that she sent me the day before I asked her out? Can you guys help me interpret this? Like, was it okay? Like, take a look at this text.

Is this a green flag? Like, what's going on? Right? So those are just examples of owning it. And I think generally speaking, owning yourself is one of the best things that you can do. Right. So I was talking to my daughter about this. one of my daughters had a little bit of difficulty in school.

And like I realized, like I was, I've never explained to her how useful it is to own your failures. So for a long time, I was running away from my failures. And I was like, oh my God, I failed. I feel terrible. Like, I'm going to hide my grades from my parents. I'm not going to tell anyone, right? So I was like really ashamed of failure, which makes perfect sense. And then I would sort of like try to avoid the failure.

but like I would psychologically avoid it. Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't, how can I say this? I wouldn't strive to succeed. I would strive to avoid the pain of failure. So I wasn't owning it. I was like trying to do mental gymnastics and figure out ways so that I, I didn't have to own that I sucked at something and that I had failed. And in the moment that you own that, it kind of like, like half of,

what drains your energy is the mental gymnastics of avoiding what is true in your life. And you can waste so much time trying to convince yourself of the truth about who you are. And I think the really tricky thing is like, let's say I'm a loser. People will say like, oh, no, you're not a loser. But the problem is that when we think about a term like loser, we think that it's destined, that it's fixed. Right? So if I own that I'm a loser in this moment,

I can also own that I'm someone who wants to never be a loser again, and I can own that I'm going to change myself. So this is the tricky thing about being a psychiatrist is like, you know, if someone is in a frame of mind where if you show them that they are a loser and they think that that is,

loser is about the past. It is about the actions that are completed. It's not about your destiny. But some people believe that past performance is a predictor of future return. But what they say if you day trade is that past performance is not an indicator of future return. Just because a stock went up 100% over the last five years doesn't mean that it's going to go up 100% over the next five. Right? You have, and this is where I think a lot of people make a pretty big mistake, which is what's the difference between the past and the future is the

actions that you take. So if you have been a loser for 10 years of your life and what were the actions you were taking on a daily basis, if you continue to take those actions, you'll continue to be a loser. But you can change those actions, and that will change the outcome. Okay. I'm going to take, we're going to do one last question, then we'll hop in with the next caller, okay? Let me just make sure that Discord is okay. Yeah, Discord's not. Okay. When I'm hurt or scared, I can become cruel, vindictive, and hurtful even to those I love the most. I want to be a good person. I don't want to hurt anyone.

I'm in therapy. Figured I'd ask here, too, things are improving. Okay. Okay. This is great, great, great, great. It's not even a question. It's just a statement. When I'm hurt or scared, I can become cruel, vindictive, or hurtful, even to those I love the most.

Okay? So I want to be a good person. So this is what's kind of weird is what is the relationship between being hurt or scared, becoming cruel and not being a good person. So I think this is part of the problem, right? So if you say when I'm hurt or scared, I lash out at other people, that makes me a bad person. And that's like a pretty good argument, right? people who are when they're afraid are vindictive or hurtful, that is a bad person. It's a very

reasonable thing to believe. But like, that's not really true. Okay? So if we look at it like more precisely, is being vindictive and hurtful, hurtful to other people? Yes. But that doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you a good person to not do that. Right. So I think this is where, this is what happens when we think this way is we believe that who we are is kind of determined by our actions, which is sort of like makes sense. But a bad person can do a good thing and a good person can do a bad thing. And so I think that you add, this is what I'm trying to say, you add an additional layer of burden onto yourself. I want to be a good person.

because what you're doing there is you're actually like double dipping the hurt, right? There's the hurt of doing the bad action, and then there's the hurt that you pile on top, oh my God, now I'm an asshole. I knew I was an asshole. I've always been an asshole. So there's the hurt that you did to the other person, and then there's what you pile on top. And the problem is that thinking that you're a bad person helps you correct to, behavior up until a point, right? So if I take a securely attached person with a relatively

good upbringing, feeling like you're a bad person will correct behavior because they have the emotional regulation capability. They have the frontal lobe control. They lack the trauma that causes someone to lash out when they're hurt. The problem is that many of these mechanisms, and this is what we see with mental illness and in psychiatry, is that the systems that are supposed to protect us start working against us. So guilt is not a bad emotion. Guilt is a very healthy emotion.

But when guilt gets out of whack, it becomes this weird self-reinforcing cycle where it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. A really good example of this is you can think about mental illness like an autoimmune disease. The immune system is designed to be helpful. it's designed to attack things and make us healthy. But in certain disease states, that immune system starts attacking things that it's not supposed to be doing.

So our treatment is to shut off the immune system. And even in psychiatry, our treatment is shut off guilt. Here's an injection of ketamine. Here's intranasal ketamine. Make the hurt go away. Right? That's what we do. So this is where I think whether you,

want to be a good person or not doesn't depend so much on your actions. It depends a lot more on your intentions. Now, this is different from saying, someone having me in their life is not a net positive. That can be true. When you're hurt or scared, if you lash out of the people that love you, strong argument to make that you're not a net positive in their life. And you can own that. Right. But you can, that doesn't mean you're a good person or a bad person. That just means that you're difficult to have in somebody's life. And you can own that too. And then you can, hey, I'm trying to change.

I'm in therapy. I figured I ask your things are improving. Very good. The last thing is when you're hurt or scared, you can become cruel. And the question is why? Right. So generally speaking, when we feel hurt, like if there's like an animal that is trapped in a corner and I'm trying to be friendly with it, the animal will be,

hurtful because it's scared. When I attack an animal and the animal fights back, that also is like, we don't say that the animal is bad. Evil animal. Oh my God. I'm trying to pet it. Doesn't understand that I'm trying to love it. You have these reactions, right?

So in your brain, you've learned that when in danger, go on the offensive. Now, the cruelty is where things get really interesting. So this is where things get a little bit more psychologically complex. Because to lash out is one thing. To be cruel is to try to inflict pain. It's not self-protection. The goal is harm. So then we get to the deeper versions of ourselves.

And I've worked with a lot of people who are bad people, sociopaths at the top of the list. And they have an inclination to be cruel. They, I had once, one of the, probably the most important piece of feedback that I ever got in residency as a second year resident. And one of my attendings gave me the feedback that she was like, you're really good with people. And she told me, I see how you're, basically she was like, you're not manipulative, but you're like smooth. You're smooth with me. All the nurses love you. All the patients love you.

She said, use your power for good, not evil. And I was like, yes, ma'am. And I took that to heart. So oftentimes when I work with people who are like sociopathic, like, so the other thing is you want to be a good person, but maybe you aren't. What are you going to do about it? Right. So we all have within us, and this is what's kind of messed up, we all have within us the capacity to save a life and the capacity to take a life. Unfortunately, those capacities are not equal for all of us.

Some people have hearts of gold. Some people have hearts of, this, kryptonite is maybe a better word. Like, not stone. And so, like, even if you are a bad person, you don't have to be a hurtful person. You don't have to hurt those around you. You can restrain and control that part of you.

Right? And you can strive to be a good person, but still be a bad person. And like, you have to recognize that you have a demon inside of you. Like, some of us have demons inside of us. And we all strive to be good people, but, like, this is so fucked

that we don't say, hey, there are some of us who fundamentally are, like, have something brutal inside. And, like, that's actually okay, too. Like, that doesn't have to control you, but don't for a second think that one day you'll wake up

and it won't be there. Right? So you've got this brutality within you, and then there may be a time or place where that brutality really needs to come out. And this is where, like, that dog needs to be on a leash, but don't assume for a moment, like, you may just be different.

And this is what's so scary, right? If we look at risk factors for antisocial personality disorder, childhood trauma is at the top of the list. So when you, when your brain is forming, when you're three and you're four, and you see, you get the rules of life laid into you, right? Then you carry that with you. And you can try to be as good of a person as you want.

But like that thing is going to be there. And the thing is like, I'm all for trying to change. But honestly, what I would say to some of you all is like, that's okay. Right? It's okay to have it there. You should be in control of it. That's the ultimate sin. is not to be a good person or a bad person, but to be out of control with your brutality.

The ultimate sin is to be out of control with your brutality. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, I think we're going to take a call, but let me see what that. Yeah. Are you ready for your next calling?

Let's see what the... Okay. ADHD and friction. Okay. Yeah, we're going to do one quick question, Trevor, and then we'll go. Okay. Does that work? You got it.

Yeah. Okay. I struggle with ADHD and the friction feels unfair. I'm starting to just accept the friction and do things despite it. It takes a long time to get things done because of the mental battle prior to the task. Does the gap between thought and action eventually closed so I can get my time back? Love. Okay.

This is tough. Oh. Okay. Weird. Thank you so much. I'm thinking about the question. Okay. So let's start with the basics.

I struggle with ADHD and the friction feels unfair. Well, that's because it is. So I think it's really great that as human beings, we strive for fairness. And we, oh, I know. I wonder what's going on. Okay, we'll just keep going. So I think it's really scary that, that, I think it's really great that we strive for like fairness and equality, right?

We say the world should be fair. I agree it should be fair. But make no mistake that it isn't fair. And this is, this is, I got to be straight with y'all. Like, I just don't see it, right? I have patients with ADHD who had basically what we used to call shit life syndrome. the emergency room. So a kid comes in, has six diagnoses, 19-year-old kid with dissociative identity disorder, PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD, rule out autism, bipolar 2. And if you,

this is Massachusetts General Hospital in the middle of downtown Boston, if you walk one block from the hospital, you'll see a brownstone that is worth $2 million with a 19-year-old kid who is staying there for college. Parents have a home somewhere else. Life is unfair. I'm not saying that that's good or we should accept it. Like, we as human beings should try to correct that. So if it feels unfair, that's because it is.

Right? And that, too, is like, that is worth crying about up to a point. That is worth grieving. Right? to pretend that it isn't and deny these feelings of frustration and anger, like I don't think that that's healthy. But what we can't allow to happen is for that to break us. So should you cry about it?

Should you whine about it? Absolutely. But up to a point because you still have to live with it. Then the question becomes just accept the friction and do things despite it. That is one of the important pieces of the puzzle. And this is not just for ADHD. Right. So there's a really interesting quote from Swami Vivekanand.

And he talks about karma yoga. And he says that activity is resistance. The two are the same. And literally, if you think about it, right, if I lift a weight, that is an activity, it is a resistance. If I get up and do something that I don't feel like doing, that's a resistance. All activity is resistance. So this is where

this is kind of like a mixed bag. On the one hand, everything with ADHD is arguably harder, but on the other hand, you're also doing a lot more reps. Right? Because each step is hard, but your frontal lobe is doing reps.

And then this is where, you know, there are two or three other things to consider. One is that it will get easier, not because it gets easier, but you will become stronger. Right? So your capacity to do will increase.

The task won't ever become, well, we can talk about that in a second. But you will get better. Right. So it's not that it gets easier. We'll hear about this a lot with grief. It doesn't ever get easier. You'll get better at it. Addiction is the same way.

It doesn't get easier. You'll get better at it. And we focus so much on it being easier because of the unfairness. The last thing is that, you know, I don't know exactly what your treatment situation looks like or things like that. but I have found, and I'm a walking case of this, that things can get easier, right, that you can learn what are the scenarios that work well for you,

what are the things that do reduce the friction? And you have to be like really, really like, not just protected, but I was going to say observant, that if you try to live other people's way, it's going to be high friction. And there's certain times that you have to do that. But then as you start to do high friction things, as you start to pull yourself out, hopefully you will gain more power. And as you gain more power, you can structure your life.

And as you structure your life, your life will be less friction. And as your life is less friction and more structured, you can start to excel. Right. So a good example of thing that ADHD person can do. So 30 to 40% of streamers that I've worked with have ADHD. It's insane. the rate of diagnosis and the rest of the population is somewhere between 5 and 15%. To have a 300% increased rate, there has to be some kind of selection pressure going on.

So finding ways that you can work with your ADHD, and hopefully things will get better. But there are plenty of patients that I've worked with who have such severe ADHD. I really see no advantage to it. and then there's people who are mild to moderate or even subclinical where it can be a competitive advantage but this is why to say that ADHD is an advantage i don't think so yeah go ahead and we'll do you just watching all like really struggle and then like things starting to click for him and him having ADHD i think a couple of things like really stand out. One is his timing. He kind of mastered his timing. Like

when he's most creative, when he's most productive. Like if inspiration hits like right when he's getting ready for bed, he doesn't kind of say like, oh, I'll do it tomorrow. He just kind of chases it when it's happening. So I think him understanding his like resting routine and like the daylight hours and just like when he's on. And just like, when he's on. then when no matter what he does is just not going to get done. So I think him kind of structuring his schedule and his sleep around that has been one of the big ones. And then I think also his diet, he's really experimented a lot there to make sure that, like, he doesn't get too bogged down or too flighty. so sleep and diet

I think have been big for him but that's just what I've noticed with Oloch. Let's, Travis, should we jump into the next one? We're ready for you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

We'll bring Noah in. Hey, Noah. Noah. Are we going to be on Cambrough? We are. Noah's going to get their camera up. Hey. Hey. Hey.

How's going? What's up, bro? Yo. Sorry, that kind of surprised me. I didn't, I wasn't caught up on stream. Okay. How's it going? Good.

Yeah? Noah's going to be because of this. Let me see. There we go. Okay. Take it away, Noah. All right, man. So the short version is I'm getting married in three days.

Yay. And so, I mean, give me your best marriage advice. But the long version, I figured I would give you some background. Um, so, uh, my partner, um, her name is Callie. She is, she's somebody who I would say has always known what she wanted to be when she grew up. Um, from being from childhood, she knew she wanted to be a teacher and now she's a teacher. And now she's in graduate school to be a better teacher. Um, I am the opposite. Uh, so if she's, if she's fire dosha, I'm very much windosha. Um, and it's, it's something where, um, you know, I've kind of struggled to, to find purpose in my adulthood. Um, I'm very much like, uh, uh, a fan of Victor Frankel and Man Search for Meaning and stuff like that and really been on kind of that quest for a few years now.

Really kind of the time that I've known her to really kind of find that. And I think I'm getting there. I'm actually right now part of the HCI Elements Quest to become a coach. That's kind of my next journey that I'm going through to kind of see if that brings some good stuff. But basically the situation we're in now with getting. ready to get married is she's very supportive of my lifestyle. She's very supportive of me in general. I'm kind of the starving creator type, starving artist, whatever you want to say. And, you know, with being a teacher and us being based in Oklahoma, so she's underpaid even for

teachers, right? We kind of, you know, we have financial struggles. We have, you know, different stressors in life. And we're kind of moving into kind of a part of our life that's filled with uncertainty. And so she's of two minds of it, you know, and we're both of two minds of it. We're both supportive of each other, but we're both kind of uncertain. So how do I best support her and receive her support in this time of uncertainty, I guess? Congratulations, Noah and Kelly. That's so awesome. I appreciate the question and I relate to it quite a lot because we're... I figured you would. Also so different. And I think in a lot of ways, my path was clearer and Ollocks was more around fulfillment.

I have some thoughts, but Oleg, did you want to weigh in first? So best marriage advice, honestly, truly is don't go to bed and angry. I think resolve things quickly. There's like a way to work through the hard stuff that is more like, like we're on the same page as opposed to you versus me. And I think the more you can frame things that it's Noah and Callie against the world or Noah and Callie's like lifetime of fun, you know, like the way you think about your life together as being the pursuit,

it'll really help resolve conflict. it'll help define what you want, your North Star. I think the financial struggles can really be, I mean, I think the stat is like half of divorces, cite financial struggles. So I think that's a real risk, right? And so building a fulfilling career for you is going to be really important.

And it sounds like she's super supportive. She's doing something that she's passionate about that, you know, is it, you're going to need both incomes. So I think that's a real thing. And as much as I would love to be idealistic and say, like, love conquers all, your basic needs have to be met. You have to live within your means. I mean, we struggled for five years or so before we kind of figured it out.

But I think as long as there's no blame, there's no, regret in a way where somebody is saying, oh, I'm sacrificing for you, but like this is a decision we're making together. I think that is like really the most important thing is making sure that you guys are deciding together and one person doesn't feel like you're doing everything for the other person and the other person isn't able to return that. In a lot of ways, marriage really is, it's, I mean, this is very tired advice in a way that it's not 50-50, it's 100, 100, right? Like, you guys each have to do 100% every day. But that's honestly some of the best advice out there. Awesome. Yeah, so I think Ruthie's got good kind of marriage

advice. I think that's something we, I don't know if we've talked about before, but we, I don't, maybe one night, two nights in 15 years that I can think of, if even, that we've gone bad to angry with each other. So, so, you know, Kruthi says resolve things quickly, but I think there's an important part, which is that you don't have to resolve it that day. So what we'll do is set it aside. We can fight about this tomorrow. There's a lot I'm upset about.

I feel really hurt, take an advantage of, angry, betrayed, take your pick. but I can like set that over here and or you, you know, I can set that aside. And I think being the skill of setting aside the bad and soaking in a little bit of the good is probably like one of the most important things for the survival of our marriage. Right. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. but like, I mean, I think that also is a, that perspective, I think is actually helpful, like, in the sense of you can't ever take it for granted. Like, this is a constant work in progress. It's kind of like a garden, like you can't leave it alone. Um, you know, my, my, the other thing that I

would kind of say, and how old are you? Uh, I'm 29. She's 31. Okay. So, so I think like, coaching is fantastic because this is part of the reason that we did this is because there are very few opportunities to do meaningful impactful work that people will like be willing to pay for where there isn't already like a late stage capitalism where everything has been squeezed right right so like if you just look at like shrinkflation and like insurance is getting squeezed and therapists are getting squeezed and stuff like that. Like coaching is one of the fields where you can still make decent money without working too much.

And then if you're really good at it, you can make a ton of money because people will oftentimes have value for it. So I think that's a great step. So, you know, that didn't exist when I was your age. So I did the closest thing that I could, which is like MCAT tutoring. Right. So I think direct working with a client without a middleman, allows you to charge the same amount for the service without like paying for the overhead of

whatever. So that's why I think it's really good. The other thing is I'm going to be like a little bit. And I know I'm not, I'm looking at you over here, not over here. But that's fine. So the other thing is I'm going to say it's Neil. Noah. So so. Yeah. No. No, I'm going to say you got to work your ass off, bro. So I don't know like what you do with your free time. So I'm all for Vata. I'm all for finding your dreams. I think coaching is a really good example of how to do this, because I think the yield per hour is like generally speaking pretty good. So, and even now, like, like, I mean, Healthy Gamer is, I still have a private coaching practice,

which like I really enjoy doing and stuff like that. But I think you really got to get your ass in gear. I'm not saying it isn't, but if it isn't, you really got to get your ass in gear. Yeah. Right. And that's where it's like, I don't know exactly what it's going to be, but figuring it out is like, should have in my, IMO, speaking bro to bro, you know, like, like there, when I was trying to figure it out, like figuring it out was like 80 to 100 hours a week.

Yeah. Like plugging away. And even now, so going through a midlife crisis, I'm still trying to figure it out. But figuring it out means I have a set of seven or eight yogic practices. and meditation practices that I try to do on a daily basis, they're all practices that I am not familiar with and have not mastered. So I'm trying to figure out which yogic practice or meditative practice will help me the most.

I'm working on four different writing projects. I'm reading about a dozen books. And so, like, I'm not saying that you need to do all of those things, but I still feel like I need to figure it out. The difference is figuring it out is like, I was waiting to pick up my kid at school today, and while I'm sitting in the parking lot for 15 minutes, because pickup is a pain.

I've got a book on Swami Vivekan on this complete works. Right? So I'm reading that book, and I'm really trying, like figuring it out is sort of a full-time job. The one piece that I would say is really, really hopeful for you

is I think the world grossly underestimates hybrids. like hybrid build. I don't know if you play video games or what, but people, people tend to think that, you know, Malcolm Gladwell kind of came out with outliers and he was like 10,000 hour rule and the world appreciates people who are really, really niche. I think there's a gross underestimation of people who are jacks of all trades. The best example of that that you can see is if you look at like tech CEOs,

those people who are engineers and then go get an MBA are far superior to MBAs and engineers. So someone who understands meditation and yoga is going to be a stronger psychiatrist. Someone who understands psychiatry is going to be a better yoga teacher for when people have Kundalini awakenings and are becoming manic and like I know when to send people to the emergency room and not. So I think there's a gross underestimation of the value of what I would call wasted time. It's a dual skill set. Yeah. Yeah.

Dude, you're speaking my language. Dual skill set is the way to go. For sure. And if you're 29, she's 31, like your next 10 years is grinding. For real. For sure. But with you. Yeah.

That all speaks me very well. I mean, I'm a musician. I'm my degree is in computer science. You know, worked in different places. I was a salesman briefly. So I'm definitely bringing that into. kind of everything that I do now, trying to kind of approach. And it's funny that you kind of talk about the Jack of All Trades, because I talked about, you know, I had a conversation recently where I was like,

you know, I think back to like, you know, with a lot of shame that comes with ADHD and a lot of the things that come with it, I talked about how like, you know, like a hundred years ago or 200 years ago or a thousand years ago or whatever, I would not have like a place in society. But then I was like, No, actually, I think that decided would have had more a place for me. I think I would have been somebody who helped out in the village with whatever needed help doing, you know, whether it's fixing somebody's roof or helping somebody with their kids or whatever it was or helping out on farmland or helping with hunting. I would be available as a hand to help. That would probably be more like what I would do, you know, a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, something like that.

So, but anyway, yeah, it, it, everything you're saying is spot on. You, you caught things about us in our relationship that I didn't even have to tell you. Great stuff. I guess the only follow-up question I really have is, you know, I, you know, I was talking with my mom the other day. She kind of draws from his experience because she went through a similar thing with my stepdad where he was kind of not really knowing what he wanted to do and ended up becoming a teacher.

And then, but had to go back to school for two years and kind of be. a drain on their income more or less for a couple of years before he could really figure it out. And she said, you know, we looked for the light at the end of the tunnel. And, you know, there were times where we got into fights and thought about finances or fought about whatever responsibilities around the house, whatever it was. But we got through it because we were looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. And I guess we just have a hard time really kind of being future focused in a way that's not just filled with anxiety.

We both have anxiety. So it's something that we're both kind of struggling with. So like what do you maybe have to say on that? I mean, I get it. I love the light at the end of the tunnel approach of it's really easy to get frustrated and resentful of what feels like wasted time or wasted money. But if you're looking at like, okay, where does this end? Where is this going?

I think that's a really great way to look at it. I also understand the anxiety and it being really hard to, like, future plan right now. With how chaotic things feel, I totally get that. The best thing I think is really investing in yourself, right? So it's hard to kind of say, like, oh, I'm going to have a career with this company or I'm going to pursue this degree. you have to always be learning, always be trying stuff. Every,

Oleg was talking about different projects and different passions and like how you kind of have to keep learning. But I think that activating something is the most important part. Yeah, you can learn a million different things, but if you never do anything with it, then what's the point? So the activating things and trying is the most important part. the skill set to be able to do something for two years, learn for something, maybe the two-year thing becomes a 10-year thing, but maybe it doesn't work and you have to do the next thing.

So knowing when to cut your losses, knowing when to pivot, and knowing when to say like, okay, I try this. This is as far as I can take this right now or onto the next. It's also really important. And it's going to feel scary to kind of. be like, well, then what did I just do for those last two years? But as you're building your life, you know, there are, there's a framework you can kind of think through, especially as a coach, right, of where is the most effort I can put in that's going to give me the longest returns? And then

where is the effort that I can put in that I'm going to start realizing things short term? Right. But understanding, hey, this is short term. And if I need to move on, I can move on. But this is the long-term thing I'm building for. I think it's like only you can kind of really define that. Yeah. And it's very much about developing the skills and activating them. Don't be a lifelong learner if you're not also a lifelong doer, right?

Nice. Yeah. Ours. Yeah. I mean, I think just to kind of piggyback off of that a little bit, I think, you know, the anxiety is hard. I think this is going to sound kind of weird, but I think it can be useful. We use this. One thing that I realized that was really good about our relationship is we have our own vocabulary. We literally have our own like jargon for things.

And we actually named our vision of our life. Like I don't know if that makes sense, but like we call our life one, like this is like this is what we're shooting for. And I mean, I think that's private, so I'm not going to share it. but we named what our vision for life is. It has a particular phrase. And we'll use that phrase, right? So like, yeah, it's kind of like the motto for your, that's a good way to put it, right?

But like, this is what we're, this is what we're shooting for. So in keeping that kind of front and center of, hey, like, oh my God, you know, we have, you know, it's like, I've got a really rough two weeks coming up. You know, I don't know how things are going to go. and it's like, okay, let's go, Tigers. Like, you know, like, this is what we're,

this is what we're shooting for. That's just as an example. But so, so that I think, I think sort of really like naming that future thing is important. And really being, like, very conscious about what you're doing is, like, for this thing. This is a sacrifice that you're making for this shared life together. And then the other thing is that I would strongly like Ruthie's kind of saying. My thought was that make sure you're. producing. You can produce crap. That's fine. But just make sure you're producing, right? Because

there's all kinds of things that may work out. So if you know some amount of coding, you may be able to build your own website. There may be people who are aspiring musicians who need the skills of a coach. So there's all kinds of weird intersections. And then if you get like good at coaching musicians, I've worked with a couple of musicians, you know, they can pay a fair amount out of pocket, right, depending on who you end up with. And that's where There's like, there could be like a very lucrative career down the road for you that you just haven't seen materialize. And so, but you got to work at it and you got to realize like even today, you know, I mentioned this on stream a couple days ago. 90% of the things that I do end up failing.

And, you know, people don't usually see all those failures, but there's failure upon failure upon failure upon failure. And for vatas like us, like we don't have to invest all. a lot into something, right? We can sort of like try something for a while, learn something from it. It kind of falls by the wayside. We have a couple of products that we talk about at HG that continually get resurrected as zombies and are just not going to ever work. But, but, you know, that's how we find the stuff that is really good. Like, for example, HGI has been a huge success. People are, you know, we've given people career opportunities. Clinicians are learning about porn addiction so that they're better able to handle people with pornography addiction.

but there's there's a trail of bodies of things that didn't work. So I think focus on really working your ass off. And even today, part of the reason that I work so hard is for a period of about seven or eight or even ten years, there was a long time where I didn't have stable income and she did. Right. And the way that she stuck by me really mattered a lot to where it's like, okay, if like I can work extra hard so that you don't have to. And this is where like working hard isn't bad, right? Especially when it's for yourself. Right. Working hard for someone who doesn't appreciate is a whole different story. So I'd say,

I'd say work your ass off and, and it's going to be a bumpy road. But like, you got you got this. Yeah, dude. Great stuff. Congratulations. Yeah, congrats, by the way. Thanks. Thanks for calling in. Yeah. Thank you guys so much. You guys. hit the nail right on the head and my fiancee's watching just not here with me right now. So she's, I'm sure, going to appreciate it. And yeah, thanks so much. Thanks, Noah. Thanks, Noah.

Thanks, Trevor. I want another beverage too. Do you want another espresso martina? No, I think let's both do this one. Okay. There's a bunch of really great questions. I don't know if that's like. Hypergamy.

Yeah. Pergamene. Okay. You guys want to take some more questions from chat. I have a couple for a question for the both of you whenever you're ready. You have a couple? What is that? Like, is in two people?

I do, yes. I have two people, a partnership. Okay. How let's let her fix a drink? Let's do, let's, how many more people do we have, Trevor? I think I've got three. I've got two questions for you, and I've got this couple for both of you. Okay.

So let's do one for me while Krutti's fixing drinks. We'll, and then we'll do the couple. And then we'll take questions from chat, and then we'll do the couple, and then we'll take questions from chat. And then we'll do the last one to take questions from chat. Does that sound good? Yeah, so you, the couple, and then you? Yeah. You got it.

Thanks, buddy. You want that now? Yeah, let's go. All right. I'm going to center myself. All right, looks like we have Wave night. I'll bring him in. And now I can.

So, hey, Wave. Oh, my goodness. Hello. Am I? Could you, would you like to be on stream? Can someone else go first? I have to use the restroom. Okay.

Okay, we'll take just, okay. I mean, we can also, yeah, we can have somebody else go first, or I can just take questions from chat. You go ahead and take a question. I think that sounds best. Yeah, okay.

So we'll just have Wave when he's ready. All right. Okay, what are the... Yeah, there's an interesting question about, would you say emotions are constructed because of some internal auditor, or is it just a prediction machine of how closely things relate to past experiences?

I'm going to show you all something interesting. My God, why can't I... Over here. Here it is. Just while we're waiting. Someone's asking... So this is really fascinating. there's something called the theory of constructed emotion,

which is really interesting because, see, we think that, like, the feelings just arise and that we have to, like, regulate the emotion. But this is, speaking of, I don't know if this has failed yet, but this is a video that I've been working on for maybe about six months. Sometimes I just have to read enough research for, for things to click. But one of the really scary things

is that you can construct emotions. Emotions. Emotions are constructed, right? So your brain does some kind of calculation for what you feel. And the tricky thing about theory of constructed emotion is that it's not clear how you construct it, right?

So you can't like DIY, but your brain constructs emotions. And one of the key things is the prediction machine is a big part of it. So a lot of the emotions that you experience are based upon your predictions. So your brain actually, if you look at some aspects of the theory of constructed emotions, this is fascinating. You don't go into a situation. See, what most people think is that you go into a situation. Based on the situation, your brain turns on a particular emotion.

That's what most people think, right? So, like, if I go to a movie theater and the movie sucks, that's why I'm not having a good time, because the movie sucks. So the way that most people view their emotions is their emotional state is essentially dictated by their surroundings. The reason that I am upset is because you forgot about Valentine's Day. The reason that I'm angry is because you did not cook my steak to perfection. That is why I'm angry, right? And if we kind of think, if we pay attention to a little bit about, like, you know, abusive relationships, we kind of know that, yeah, like, the reason I'm angry is because you did this.

So narcissism, abusive relationships, it's kind of weird, right? So, like, we say that that's bad. No, the reason you're angry doesn't have anything to do with me, it's your own inability to regulate your emotion. But when it comes to other parts of life and non-abusive relationships, we sort of assume that, hey, if I feel this way, and we say this, right, you're entitled to. to feel the way that you feel. That's not really anyone's fault.

That's okay. And then, but the theory of constructed emotion actually says that you have a fair amount of control. And one of the, well, actually it doesn't say that you have control, that it is constructed.

And the really interesting thing is a big part of which emotion is constructed is influenced by your prediction. And we kind of know this, right? Things can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I am afraid of going into recess and getting bullied, the likelihood, so I'm already predicting that emotion, and that's what my brain will create with the scenario.

And this is why people will say, like, you know, hey, like, lower your expectations. Because if we change our prediction about the future, then it alters our emotional state when the thing happens. So if you have really bad anxiety and you are worried about being anxious when you go to a party, if that is the prediction that you make, that prediction is more likely to come true. When your brain shows up there, your brain is like, oh, that's right. We already considered this situation. Turn on anxiety.exe.

This is what we're supposed to be doing because that's what you said we were supposed to do. And we sort of know this because we have like lots of studies. Actually, I don't know if we have lots of studies in this, but the example that I'm going to use, I can't remember lots of studies. But we sort of think about, okay, what are your expectations when you go into a movie? If you're actually, so that's actually the opposite. So if you have an expectation that it's going to be really good, then you're likely to be disappointed. So that's a weird. That's what I sort of mean about this video is like there's something, there's a couple of missing pieces here.

But there's absolutely, so that is one side of it. The second side of it is like if I'm afraid I'm going to screw up when I go into a job interview, the likelihood that I screw up will be greater. And the most important part of that is if I believe I will feel an emotion in a particular situation, then I'm likely to feel that emotion. And it appears that that is not just because it's triggered by the environment. That is because actually my prediction creates the emotion when I'm in the environment. So this video isn't, I mean, it's not ready for a lecture yet because I need to tease together a couple of things.

The other problem with the theory of constructed emotion is that there's nothing in there about what you can do. It's just your brain constructs the emotion, but there's nothing about, you know, how can you construct emotions. But if you look at the Buddhist literature, they're really good at creating emotions. Right. So there's this, let me see if I can find. Let me just ask, Trevor, we ready? Yeah, we can be. Okay, let's just do that then.

Okay, great. Hey, Wade, welcome back. Thank you for waiting for me. I appreciate it. I'm good to go. Okay. Count to 10 for me real quick. Oh, me?

Yes. Oh, I didn't realize. Okay, one, two, three. Okay, am I on camera? Nope. Do you want to be on camera? sure my face is too beautiful

for you to miss sorry we just need you to send your camera to discord okay can you can you not do that okay there's a lot of light but then maybe we do this do you need help figuring

it out way oh yeah yeah what do I do just click the camera button bro down at the bottom there we go easiest advice ever well done welcome

thank you Okay, let's go. Oh, my gosh. Your room looks a lot bigger on stream. Looks bigger on stream. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so this angle is different. Yeah.

Okay. What's going on, man? So it's wave night, right? Yeah. You call me Darren, though. Okay. Yeah, before that, I want to give a quick shout out to coach Allen, Coach Yana and HD Community Leader Soma.

I don't know if we're on stream, but I just wanted to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for doing that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know. Wait, so Coach Allen, Coach who? Yana.

I don't know if I, I think I met Coach Yanna a couple of times. I know Alan really well. I know. Okay. And then, yeah, Soma does awesome stuff on the Discord. Yeah, he's amazing. And you've done Soma's meditation stuff or what? He does meditation.

Oh, not Psychooma. The other one. Oh. Okay, there's there's another sum. Okay, okay, okay. The fitness guy. Okay, okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, thanks for the shoutouts. Yeah, for sure. They brought me here, really. I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for their encouragement and coaching and everything. Awesome, dude. Yeah.

So my question, it's, I don't really know how to phrase it completely, but I just started dating like a month ago. Like, really, I'm 27. and I just started. So I met someone that's like pretty similar to me. She's actually a therapist too. Not too. I'm not a therapist. But I did HD coaching stuff.

So I feel like sometimes when we talk, we get into like this weird space where it's like, oh, there's a problem. Now we have to like fix it. And it's we literally just been on a few like dates, I guess. So I just, I feel like that gets in the way of our communication of it. Absolutely. It's just so bizarre because like, and it's also because we're both so similar. We're both like, I watched your video on flirting and I think we're like the sincere type of

flirts where we just like talk about trauma. I'm like, okay, like how far do we go? Yeah. So I really feel like there's like this huge like wall that I can't like, that I'm just like really scared. So I don't really know what to do. So I was wondering if you had any advice. Yeah. So tell me what the wall is and where.

what you're scared about. Let's start there. Like, I'm afraid of being, like, too intense. It's funny because on our second outing, she, like, kind of just told me straight up. Like, I'm a little too much sometimes, but I'm afraid of, like, asking too deep of a question when I don't, questions when I don't really know her that well yet. Because, I mean, it's just so bizarre.

Like, I literally just met this person, but it feels like I've known her forever, but I don't want to, like, pretend like I do, I guess. Okay, so when she says you're too intense, do you have a sense of what she's picking up on? Yeah, so, like, I guess she said, like, I'm very, like, perceptive of, like, her needs and stuff, and that I try to, like, do everything right. What an asshole, dude.

Oh, my God. Right. Just, like, accept my generosity or whatever. Just let me, like, so she's, like, chill out. basically. And I feel like that just happens all the time in regular conversation. So last time we saw each other on Monday, she started like talking a bit about her past and then I was just like listening and being affirming. But I made sure not to do any of the coaching stuff that I learned. Good. That's like the dark magic, you know? Yeah, good. Good. You should not use the dark magic.

It backfires if you use it on a romantic partner, by the way. Really? Yes. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yes. Yeah, I'm so. glad that I asked that then. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, I'm just like, how does it backfire, though? Yeah. Okay.

So let's talk about the utilization of the dark magic. Okay. So one of the reasons that Krutti and I are still together is that I started being with her far before I became a psychiatrist. And so, you know, one of the weird things is that, see, when you get trained in people, you learn the, you know, you know, you know, It's the dark magic, right? Like, it's weird. It's like you have a, I mean, do you play video games? Yeah.

Okay. So you're like, like, you know, once you learn the dark magic, you're like map hacking. But in interpersonal relationships, and it's kind of OPE. But there's, there's a couple of things about, you know, coaching and psychiatry, which is that this kind of map hacking is only okay in a relationship where you are designed to map hack. Right? They don't know what's on the map. I don't know if you play any games that have map hacks, but like, like, you know, they don't know where things are and you are specifically in the role of helping them figure it out. So one of the things that I found is, I mean, you know, there's there's some evidence that when you're like a psychiatrist for your kids, that that's not super healthy for them. So a psychiatric awareness is really good, but like I don't therapies my children. So one thing that I, so and using the dark magic will backfire because it won't be a

relate, it'll be a coaching relationship. It won't be a romantic relationship. So then what will happen is once it, once it becomes a coaching relationship, weird things will start to happen. There will be a power dynamic. That's one example. Another example is like they will detect that you are using the dark magic on them and they will not like it.

It's not that it doesn't work. It's that they can feel it happening, right? Yeah. And then they don't like it. They're like, hey, like it's funny because we joked about this, right? But it's actually not funny, which is like, oh my God, you're such a thoughtful and caring perceptive person and a good listener. You asshole, actually, yeah. Right?

Because she doesn't want you to do that. So I would say, and this makes sense because now you're kind of screwed, bro. you're not really, but let's be, let's be clear about where you are, which is that now you are really good at utilizing the dark magic, but you haven't stumbled through relationships between the ages of 17 and 27, so you don't know any other kind of, you need to use the warm magic, the pink magic, not the dark magic. I should put on my magical sunglasses then.

There you go, right? Yeah, you should wear those glasses, right? And that's, like, you wouldn't go into a coaching, with a coaching client with that. You wouldn't go into therapy with that. But that's exactly. So there's a different kind of energy. What's going to be hard for you.

Yeah, you can take those off so I can see your eyes? Is that okay? Yeah, great. Yeah. So I appreciate the move, but it's really reflective. Oh, my bad. No, no, it's totally fine. So, so, what was that?

Yeah, so the tricky thing for you is going to be that for you to be so good at one thing. and then to go back to being a novice is going to be really hard. Yep, it has been. Right? But I think that that's where the other problem is, I mean, maybe you're in love with this person? I don't want to say that because if she watches this, then she's going to be like. Right. Okay, so you don't want to say it.

I know, but we can all tell. Right. So, and then. Wow. And then, dude, I practiced the dark magic, dude. I was there. I was there when the old magic was written. Yeah.

Okay. Oh, man, what was I expecting, right? Yeah. That's a good question. Okay. So, so, and I think, I think there's hesitance around that, which is healthy, because this is your first relationship. There's a decent chance that you, this is really is the one, which I hate to say.

Yeah, this is the first one. I know. It was faded, dude. You were waiting for her. This is what this is meant to be. Oh, my God. No, don't say that. No, I know, but like what?

You want us to not consider that possibility? Yeah, it feels like scary. It is scary. And maybe this is just the first person that you've come across. So there's a lot of like emptiness, which this person is filling in some way. You're projecting a lot. All that stuff is true too. Right.

But you have to have a nice differential. of like, this could be the one. And this could be, this is your first real relationship and you're 27 years old. So, like, you don't even know what the one looks like. This is some kind of weird, like, projection or whatever, which could also be the case. But don't for a second delude yourself into thinking this isn't the one. Because then if you start thinking that way and you shove that away, right, then you could really be screwing things up. That's what I've been doing.

Sh shoving it away? Yeah, like when I see her, it's just like, because we're still in this ambiguous state that's like difficult for me to challenge because I feel like I have like an anxious attachment. So I have to like the way I described to my therapist was like as far as escalation of relationship, it's like I'm up here when I see her and then I kind of have to like go back down. But like I don't know where she's at. She could be up here or whatever. But I keep putting myself down. Like keep shoving my feelings down because I don't want to be too intense like I said earlier. I think that's where there's like there are other moves. Playfulness is really useful in a situation like this, right? So you have those feelings, and it's not that you need to shove them down, it's that you need to let them out. Yeah. So I'll, I mean, I used to do this where, I mean, I was hopelessly in love with my wife

and didn't realize it for a while. But, you know, when I would go on a date, like I would just, Yeah. Right? And then you could, and then be playful, right? So like, do you're flirting? Am I being too intense now? Yeah.

Is this me being intense? Is this too intense for you? There's other variables if I can interrupt. Yeah, please. Well, she's just coming out of a relationship, so then it's just, it just feels, the dynamic feels weird because of that. Yeah, so you're running a thousand calculations a second in your head about this, aren't you?

100% right i think a thousand's putting it pretty low okay so so i i think this is where there's something you've got to learn which is how to be right so it's not about doing right or doing wrong which is ultimately what you're if you pay attention to your internal thought processes you're trying to not screw up because she is especially told you're trying to she said don't be so intense and you're like okay i'm not going to be intense okay okay how do i know i not do i not be intense. Playfulness. Playfulness. Yeah. Right. So, so you're, you're running calculations now, right? This is an anxious experience. You're about to come on, oh my God, I didn't realize I needed to pee. Right. And, and there's genuineness, there's authenticity, there's playfulness. You put

on the glasses, right? That's the right energy. You have it within you to perform the pink magic. You need not only use the dark magic. Right. Yeah, the dark magic is so powerful, though. It's tempting. It is. It is. And so learning to step away from it is difficult. Right. So the power, the dark side is tempting. And that's what it does. Yeah. So I guess I've been doing things right by not using it. But I just don't know what to do. So I'm just going to sit there. So I think you have to open yourself up to making mistakes. Right. You have to a signal to her to some degree that you're trying. And I think it really is being a little bit like detached that this feels like the one. but hey, it may not be.

So you're not going to push that away, but you're also going to have sort of like, and there's a cultivation, and Alan can help you with this. Soma can probably help you with this too. And Yonah, I just don't know as well as the other two. But, you know, to just be. And like there's a chance, like, we, you know,

we know you have feelings, which I won't name any further. But, and the thought of heartbreak is really, really scary, right? so you don't want to screw it up, and that's going to cause you to run a calculation, and then it's going to be hard to just be. But like, just be. I would say if you spend time with her, right? I mean, it's fine that she's intense, but the intensity, so there's a certain kind of

intensity that she's going to be okay with. I would predict. I don't know. I've never met her. Not all women are the same, but I think is one bro talking to another. The intensity of using the dark magic to map hack her soul, not good. The intensity of being head over. over heels in love with her and letting that playfulness, that boyishness, that joy of being in her

absolute presence, right? That absolute joy of just like being in her presence. And then, and, you know, it's kind of like, like, hey, can you stop smiling so wide? And you're like, I'm trying really hard, but this is the highlight of my day. Yeah. And, and, and, and just like, let it out then. But let a certain part of it out and, and give it that payful, playful twist. Right? You don't want to be like, oh my God, we're meant to be together. I've seen it. Yeah. And I feel it. And oh my God, your body is my body. And I complete you and you complete me and I want to wrap myself all around you and I want you to wrap. Don't let that out. I thought you couldn't hurt me through the screen, but you just did. Yeah. Well, that's, you know, but it's okay. It's okay. Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes like, you know, you'll fall harder first and you're making.

be opening yourself up. I mean, you may screw things up and that's okay too. Like, this is part of your journey and try to have a little bit of perspective. And, and like, bro, like, I'm behind you to fail spectacularly. And like, that's okay. Like, I'm so glad you're a part of this community. I genuinely mean that. Like, I want you to, I want you to admit to yourself how you feel and that this could be real and this could be the one. And like, like, don't run away from that. Like, that's what we're here for. We're here to help people like you find the one. And to embrace that and you've been alone for who knows how many years and now you have a chance to not be alone. And so like run for it, right? Like, like, that's amazing and beautiful and embrace that.

And also recognize that you can embrace it without shoving it onto her. That is what intensity is. Yeah. You know, and be a little bit like, like, not, don't be a dick, but don't go into therapist mode with her. Go into, like, you know, it's not your job to, you know, it's not your job to help her with her problems. It's your job to give her a break from her life. That's the way you should think about a date, right? It's like you're not there to fix her. You're not there to coach her.

She's got her own problems. She can handle things by herself. But when she spends time with you, there should be a microcosm of joy, playfulness, and fun. Right? You should be, she is the highlight of your day. Treat her in such a way.

way where you become the highlight of hers yeah yeah that's i think i have a hard time like just existing yes always feels like i have to do something yes so yeah it's just i don't i don't know um but i'll do my best because it's like it just puts me into flight or flight just existing and in the past I've always ran away. That's why this is my first. How do you feel about that? Excited. A bit ashamed of my past, but yeah, I don't know. It is just completely different for me. It's kind of scary, but...

Yeah, I can see the terror. I think scary's an understatement, right? It's really scary. And, like, that's, and, like, give yourself a pat on the back and, like, understand that, like, this is what, I mean, you're doing it, bro. And it's scary. I can't take that terror away from you. All I can encourage you to do is, like, keep moving in that direction. And it, you will be grateful for it, right? Like, it's going to be painful and it's going to be scary. And by the way, like, you know, it's hard to not do things, which is, like, I don't know if you're familiar with the Dow, like, Laozu and.

right? So like the Dow is like, I mean, not doing things is actually the primary challenge that most human beings face. So you're in good company and like you'll get better at it and it's scary and that's okay and we love you and we got your back. Thank you. I appreciate it. And you know, you get married, you better invite somebody from HG. Oh, shoot. I think my internet dropped. That's okay. Sorry. It's all good. Yeah. No, there was. go. Yeah, but okay. Thanks, Dr. Kay. I think, I think I got it. I think we got it. So you got, you got this fam. And if you don't, we're here to pick up the pieces. Sounds good. All right, take care, buddy. Thank you, have a good one. We'll see you.

Okay. Chat. Yeah, so I think it was good that the, see, this is what's really weird. This really makes me wonder, man. You know, so like the internet, I swear to God, the internet, is like an active participant. So the second that I said the thing that he missed, right, so he missed one sentence that I said. And that sentence would have put so much pressure on his head. Like the internet is like, actually the universe is like, no, don't say that, Dr. K. Right?

There's a lot of intensity of feeling, and it's hard when there's that intensity of feeling. Okay. Okay, someone's asking, do you take on regular people or only people with money as a therapist lull? In my career, 60% of my patients, it used to be 65, maybe it's 55 now, I'm not sure. About 60% of my patients have been for free or on the most public health insurance on the planet, which is like mass health. And so a long time ago I had a particular rate. And then what I really didn't like is when people couldn't pay that rate, I would turn them away. Because I had a family to support. Gruthy wasn't working.

I had two kids at home. So it's like I'm supporting a family, and I couldn't afford it. And I hated that. So it has jacked up my rate and started taking people for free, and that felt way better. And so most of the work that I do is still, I mean, so look, we have certain things that we want you guys to support us financially with. Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships is a great example of that, you know, but most of what we do is free. And I think that, unfortunately, like, the people who need help and their capacity to pay are, like, somewhat independent variables. Okay, there was another question that I want to take real quick.

Okay. There's, it was in a relationship for three years, but eventually decided to end it. We have been talking again for five months. We recently released a video about don't date your type. She's not my type at all. She's incredible person. I love her daily. She means so much to me.

And also, there is an element of natural attraction that I don't experience. It makes me feel guilty that I don't feel a physical pull towards her. How to decide what to do with this relationship. I think you have to start by understanding why you guys broke up in the first place. Right. So what's really scary is that, see, I think one of the reasons that's really hard to find a healthy relationship is because of how many boxes need to be checked. And I think the problem is that since a lot of boxes need to be checked, what a lot of people do is put a lot of boxes on their dating profile. And they're like, unless you check all these boxes, sorry, not even can consider you.

The problem is the boxes that need to be checked for a relationship cannot be captured in the dating profile. But you can think someone is an incredible person. You can love them dearly. They can be really important to you. But if you're not physically attracted to them, a relationship with them may be just that. And like, even if you choose to pursue that relationship, that can work out, but it can also be really hard. and then there may be someone that you love dearly that means so much to you that is physically attractive but isn't actually an incredible person they're just a mediocre person and that could be

the right person for you right and the reason so so probably the best evidence suggests that human beings there was a question about hypergamy but you know the best evidence that i've seen suggest that human beings are serial monogamous so we're heavily invested the The species that, if we're talking about basic biology, you know, the species that, if you look at some species, the male's role is to impregnate the female and then they disappear. Like great cats is a good example, like leopards and jaguars and tigers and things like that. Right? But then you have animals like swans where they kind of mate for life because the male has a significant. role in child rearing. And generally speaking, when there is, the male has a significant role in

child rearing, the selection process is completely different. So it takes a while for us to find out who is that person that really matches us. And sometimes, you know, you can have a great co-parent that doesn't work out in a romantic sense. But generally speaking, you know, the right person for a long-term romantic relationship is someone that you can build a life with. It's not just about the relationship. It is about building a life. Right. And if you're, if you're going on your honeymoon with this person and great sex isn't a part of that honeymoon, that's doable. But, you know, arguably not ideal. Can you explain the dark magic, old magic, pink magic, et cetera? Okay. So I think what Wave Night was referring to is, so what we, what we sometimes do is we'll teach communication,

skills. So if you go through the coaching elements program and things like that, like we'll, we'll teach people how to communicate. Not just how to communicate, how to understand people, how to understand what is hurting them, how to understand how to give, help people overcome their problems. So a big part of what's actually interesting is so we used to be like more goal focused. and at HGI we adopted, we added a goal-focused curriculum, but if you look at sort of our internal data about how change happens, first it's forming a relationship, second it is understanding patterns, and then it is creating behavioral change.

So coaches are designed to help people understand what is wrong with them, why they end up in these ways in life, and then to nudge them in the right direction and include accountability, stuff like that. So that ability to read people, which like very few people walking down the street have, to be able to understand and map out a person's psychology. Right? What's going on with them?

What is it that really bothers them? Why is this person stuck? Because we try to help people get unstuck. That's what we call the dark magic, the ability to read another person, understand what makes them tick. The pink magic is a different kind of magic. The dark magic is a magic that can be used to shape another person. Now, in coaching and in therapy, we shape them in the positive direction.

We help them overcome their anxiety. We help them apply for a promotion that they felt anxious about. We help them set boundaries with their parents. We help them wake up every day, right? We are using our understanding of the inner workings of a human being to help that person. That's the dark magic. And since it can edit the source code of a person, we call it the dark magic. And it does feel, I mean, it's incredibly, when you use it on someone, like he said,

who doesn't like it, they feel the intensity, they don't like it. The pink magic is, is the playfulness, is the charm, is the flirtation. It's a different kind of energy. It's a joy, right? It's not understanding and reading someone. It's like having a good time. Helping somebody else have a good time. Helping somebody else have a good time

despite their best efforts to be grumpy. Charm. Right? To evoke a certain feeling. And then the old magic is a quote. Then that I was joking with Wave. And Wave was like, you know, talking about the dark magic. And he was like, wow, I wasn't expecting this.

And it's like, come on, bro. And then there's this quote about, don't quote the old magic to me. I was there when it was written. And it was like, yeah, I'm the one who wrote the curriculum that teaches you to do the things that you're doing. And that doesn't, I mean, I'm sure that if I, this is what's really cool about it is like, I'm sure, and I've seen this before with people like Allen or whoever. But it's like, if I talk about my feelings, they will use the dark magic on me. And it works. which is like frustrating.

Yeah, so don't use the dark magic on your partners. It's not for partners. It's for people who are there for your help. That is the ethical use of the dark magic. Dude, polytheism didn't even realize I had subscribed for this long at some point in time. Oh my God, 61 months streak? That's insane, bro. Or girl, whoever you are.

Let's do... So, Trevor, I don't know where... recruit these is, but let's do, um, let me actually, uh, what do I want to do? Let's do another one. Yeah, you want the one for you then? Yeah, let's do the one for me. Okay, that'll be fishy. Fishy does not have a camera. And we're going to bring. Totally fine. Hey, Fishy, you're live. Yo, Fishy. And G. G. It's the moment. We'll see if she's there again. Hey, Fishy, you there. Yes. Is my audio fine? Yeah, you're great. You're alive. Awesome. I'm going to just turn you down just a bit. Can you count to 10 for me, Fisci?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven, thank you so much. Cool. What's going on? So I have like a kind of broad question and then we can go more into it. So my broad question is like, how do people who are securely attached, distinguish between platonic attraction and romantic attraction? Or how do they distinguish between what they're feeling for?

How do they distinguish what they're feeling? Yeah. So I think they feel, I think they distinguish what they're feeling based on the quality of the feeling itself. Right. So people who are secure, let's just do a bit of background. So the core way to become securely attached is to have emotional mirroring during development. So when I'm feeling angry, or let's say I'm crying, or I feel upset, my parents will come to me and they'll be like, oh my God, with a baby, it's so sad. You left your little bear, panda, whatever.

Did you forget it at school? Oh, my God. So oftentimes, if you look across cultures, this isn't true for every culture. So if you look at some European cultures, this isn't the case. But for many cultures around the world, you'll have exaggerated. emotional reactions from adults. And when a child has an exaggerated, sees an exaggerated emotional reaction,

they are feeling a thing, they don't understand what they're feeling. And then they see it in the face of the parent. So the parent has an exaggerated reaction of sadness, and then children tie these two things together. And that's how they know, okay, this is what sad feels like. So they are able to identify their emotion.

They know what they're feeling because they're taught what they're feeling. That's what makes someone securely attached. Okay? So then what happens is if they're in a platonic relationship, they will detect the presence or absence of certain emotions. And when they're in a romantic relationship, they will detect or not the presence or absence of other emotions. Love, attraction, playfulness, connection, connection, chemistry, you know, and some of that is like they kind of, they get you and you get them. There's a spark.

There's a connection. Does that answer your question? Kind of. So part of my problem, okay, so context, I'm autistic, so I'm pretty sure I have elixothymia. Okay. So for me, I've had moments where I could be bonding with like my close friends. And I'll sort of get those like thoughts of like, oh, am I in love with my friend? because I'll get like a welling up a feeling

but it's like I don't want to date my friends I love them but I don't want to date them but this happens quite a lot with me and although I'm consciously aware I don't want to date them it is still confusing as to it's still confusing for me going forward how to figure out

if I have feelings for someone if I don't because I know like technically you can develop feelings for someone that you're not compatible with date And it's like, for me, we struggles with understanding emotions. It's like, I feel like I don't, I feel like I don't know how to body the difference of those feelings. Does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense. I mean, let me repeat back what I heard. And then you tell me if it makes sense. So first thing is that you'll have relationships. These can be platonic or like those aren't defined, right? But you'll have some sort of like literal connection with a person. And then in that connection, feeling. will arise and you're not quite sure how to interpret those, right? So there's a part of you that's

kind of saying, like, hey, I don't want to date this person. And then you're kind of confused because maybe you have some feeling towards them that does feel like love. Is that fair? Yeah. Yes, exactly. And then the way that you understand that is, okay, sometimes human beings have feelings of love for people who are not appropriate to date. Right? So it is possible, that I'm feeling love towards this person, even a romantic love, and my head is telling me this is a bad idea. So it's possible to be in love and know it's a bad idea.

But if you're autistic and elixothymic, how do you know if this is romantic love with your head telling you it's a bad idea or if this is some other kind of love and that's why your head is telling you it's a bad idea? Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah, because I feel like, from my understanding of, like, relationships and stuff,

I feel like so many people, their feelings are very clear to them, or they interpret their feelings in a very clear way. But for me, no emotion feels quite clear. Yes. That is incredibly challenging. Right? So being colorblind to your internal emotional state makes navigating human relationships incredibly difficult. have you had a romantic relationship where you have been in love? Yeah, I've been in love three times in my life.

And what were those experiences like if you're comfortable giving us sharing what that was like for you? Well, sort of the overall trend I've noticed when I'm in love with someone, I tend to, I'm monogamous, so I tend to desire exclusivity from them and then also the commitment piece. Sure. The first relationship was actually really challenging because we were both teenagers. And the person I fell in love with was Polly or wanted to be Polly. So me and him were dating, but then we also opened up Polly so that he could date other people. That eventually got too much for me because I was just jealous and I thought it's secure. I wanted to be monogamous and closed.

So we eventually broke up. Good for you. The second person after that, thank you. The second person after that was a monogamous relationship. relationship I had with this girl was probably my healthies relationship to the state. There was like no arguing. We got along really well. Long distance for context, by the way.

And then just about a year and a half in, she just got depressed, fell out of love, and like we kind of split off from there. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't an uneasy at the time. The third person I fell in love with was my first only unrequited love. So I had made friends with this guy and I really quickly developed feelings for him. He didn't return the feelings. You tried to be friends.

It just couldn't work because I was just really hurt, basically. Sure. Okay, so that's really interesting. So then here's my question. So you seem to understand quite well that there are times that you've been in love with people. So what's hard, what is the feeling that you don't understand? because it sounds like you've had three times that you've felt in love. So I'm a bit confused about what you're...

So do you... Are... Right? So if you have three examples of being in love and you know what that feels like, is there still some difficulty translating that over to other connections? Because you can't tell if those two things are the same?

yeah um so the situation i was in that kind of inspired this question is um last year i was friends with benefits with this guy for a couple of months um and because we were friends with benefits there was a level of like just emotional support emotional intimacy sure sure um and during that i started getting thoughts of like do i have feelings for him do i want to be with him um and it got really distressing because i was i went in it i went into it with the intention of only being friends So even the thought that I could have different feelings stressed me out. Sure. Yeah.

So it's really kind of like that too. Yeah. So I think that is going to be confusing even if you're not alexathymic or autistic. Have you seen our video about friends with benefits? I have not. So I would definitely watch that. This is really interesting. I'm going to just try to pull this up.

for you here. I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you. So it's really interesting. There's a, oh, man, I can't find it now. There's a great paper

that actually lays out rules for successful, like successful friends with benefits relationships. Oh, it's situation ship, right? That's what people call it. Yeah. Hold on.

Let me see if I can. So I'm going to pull this up in a second, but let's just talk about the situation with your friends with benefits person. So, you know, it's understandable that you're very confused because, so this actually makes a lot more sense now to me anyway, but I have better clarity on it. So I think the reason that that can be particularly confusing is because romantic love and the kind of catching feelings for someone that you're in a situationhip with are actually like qualitatively different from a neuroscience perspective. So when you start engaging in a sexual relationship with someone, certain hormones will turn on, like number one of which is oxytocin. So when you were in a situation ship with this person, would you guys cuddle, hold hands, or spend the night? Cuddle, yes. Hold hands kind of.

Spend the night. No, but we had fallen asleep together like once. Yeah. So when you do those things, that will activate a certain form of emotion. bonding, right? So when there's sexual activity and there's emotional bonding, that becomes like more difficult to navigate and more difficult to understand. So you may not have had that kind of dopaminergic. So the feeling of falling in love is highly mediated by dopamine, right? So we feel intoxicated. We have cravings for these people. There's a lot of behavioral reinforcement.

the feeling of that warm, cuddly, emotional bonding love is mediated by oxytocin. So probably part of the challenge here in this situation is that you had some of the love signals going on in your brain, but you may not have had all of them, but some of them are the love signals. Right. So love is not homogenous. Whereas usually what happens with human beings is when we fall in love with someone, we crave them, we pursue them, then we engage in a physical relationship, then we end up cuddling.

So then all the signals come together. And that's what we call love. Okay. I don't know how helpful that is to you. But I... So, I'm sorry. When you say love, you mean like love broadly or like the specific romantic love we're talking about? The romantic love, right?

So what I'm talking about is falling head over heels for someone. And so if we think about, you know, you're asking how do they know if it's platonic love or romantic love. And what I'm saying is that romantic love is composed of several pieces. And this literally is because you're, it sounds like you're on the spectrum, I'm going to define those pieces for you. Is that, okay, would that be helpful for you? Yes. Okay. Let's define, let's, I'm going to just define what love is. Okay. So we can start with the Greeks. The Greeks notice there's different kinds of love. So there's Eros love, which is like being, um, uh, I, I'm losing some of these terms, but there's sort of like what we call classically being in love.

Right. So we're consumed by someone. You can also call us passion. There's a lot of passion between us. Then there is also like a friendly, playful kind of love. So there's like passion. Like, I want your body and I want you to have my body and like you complete me and I complete you. And then there's the playfulness.

There's like the laying in bed naked. and covering things and not covering things and then poking and not poking and then tickling and like that's different from passion there's a playful kind of love with tickling then there is emotional bonding right so this is not passion this is like you and i are bonded we have a bond we we have common cause we're in it together where we're like two people in a trench in World War II, and we're in it together. There's also a love that is sacrificial. Okay?

So this is like, you know, when you're in, like when you have your partner, it's like you would take a bullet for them, you will stay up all night for them, you would do this, you would do that. Your love manifests as sacrifice, right? I would do anything for this person. That is different from like you complete me, and I'm tickling you after we're laying in bed naked together. So when we have a committed romantic relationship,

oftentimes all of these things are happening together. And the reason that people don't last is that they are not able to transition and get these additional types of love. So if there is passion, we're fine for the first couple of months. When we add playfulness to it, we're good for a couple of years. But we're not willing to. sacrifice. So I have my career, you have your career. I'm not willing to sacrifice for you. So the relationship, we parted ways amicably. It was intense. It was lovely. We were bonded. It was real love.

But that sacrifice is not there. That's why a relationship falls apart. Other times, there is sacrifice. There was passion. The passion gets extinguished. Now the passion is gone. Now the playfulness is gone. Now we have two kids at home. No one's sleeping. My hours are getting cut, you're not able to work anymore. So now we're like ground down. So there's sacrifice and there's commitment, but there's no joy. I just can't do this anymore. I love you, but I can't do this anymore. Right. We can listen to the reasons why people break up and track them back to failures of these different kinds of love. And then there is loss of passion with sacrifice, but the playfulness is still there. Right. And sometimes that can sustain.

us when now I've got I've got postpartum depression I've got postpartum problems with my hormones so my libido is absolutely gone but there is enough emotion there is enough sacrifice and there is enough playfulness to where we can stay connected that survives the the postpartum depressive libido crash two years later things come back and when they come back they come back real good right so these are the when you say how does someone know what loves feels like this is where people with secure attachment do have an advantage on feeling, but love is more complex. This is why not everyone who is in love and dates for one year and is good together

stays together because they cannot graduate into these additional kinds of love. And you kind of need it all. Then there's a neuroscience layer on top of this where passionate love is mediated by dopamine. It's an addiction. emotional bonding is mediated by oxytocin. Feeling comfortable with someone is mediated by serotonin. I was talking to someone recently who was really happy with their current partner, and I asked, you know, what do you really like about them?

And they said, this is the first person I've dated in a long time that I don't feel anxious around. I just feel soothed when they're around. That is serotonin. Mood, anxiety reduction. Mood elevation and anxiety reduction. I just feel good around them. It's not passion. It's not physical attractiveness, not even emotional bonding.

This is a serotonergic love. So these things don't map on one to one because a neurotransmitter is just a chemical signal in the brain. Dopamine also does smooth movement, right? So instead of cogwheel rigidity, which is what we see. So dopamine does way more. But I think when it comes to like, you know, you catching feelings for someone in a situation ship, yeah, that's because some of these.

neurotransmitters are coming on, but there's physical attraction, there's some amount of serotonin, but there may not be dopamine, right? It could be more like, I'm frisky and you're frisky, let's just kind of like get our physical needs met. And then oxytocin kicks in. Does that make sense? Yeah, that does. Yeah, so one thing that I just want to appreciate about your question is when I work with people who are on the spectrum, it requires me to stretch into explaining things. And I think the stuff that comes out of my mouth when I work with people on the spectrum is some of the best stuff that my brain can produce. And there's something about the way that people on the spectrum ask questions that requires us to really tunnel down and define and explain each of these

elements. And I know it's hard for you. It fucking sucks. At the same time, I think that I am a better psychiatrist because of people like you. And I think that the answer that I gave just now is maybe one of the best answers I will ever give on love on stream. So thank you for your question. I'm not saying we're done, but I just want to thank you for that. of course, thank you for answering it. That honestly made my day hearing that. Okay, so what I'm, when my little autistic mind is understanding is just that there are all these different components to love.

It's not just one thing. So you can have some turned on, some turned off. And that's why emotions can get kind of confusing, basically. Yes. And so the confusion comes because you have, like not mixed signals, but you have incomplete signals, right? So you've been in love three times, and those three times, you probably had some version of all of these. Right.

But now what's happening with Friends of Benefits is you've got like two out of four. Have you got three out of four? And then you're like, what is this? And by the way, you know, people who are neurotypical are also hella confused by situation ships. So you're not alone there. Yeah, if I've been told. Huh? I said,

Oh, yeah. Were you able to hear me? Okay. Yeah, no, go ahead. Oh, yeah. So I've been told. Yeah. So then, so I sort of, I guess the last thing on this is like, so going forward, if I'm ever in this situation again, not a situation ship per se, but trying to understand my feelings, really just asking those kind of questions to myself, like, what is, what signals being.

hit here, which ones aren't sort of analysis? Or is that like overthinking? No, I mean, I think it is it is overthinking and it is necessary if you are elixothymic, right? So the four questions I would ask yourself going forward is, do I crave this person? Do I feel connected to this person? Does this person elevate my mood and lower my anxiety? And would I be willing to take a bullet for this person? Right. And if the answer to all of all four of those questions is yes, that is probably the best back of the napkin equation for whether you know whether you're in love. In love is just dopamine, but whether there is a sustainable, complete sense of love.

Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming. Yeah, thank you. Take care. You too. Bye.

Okay, you can. I think we've got one more that, yeah, we've got one more that's for both of us, I think. Yeah, would you like that person now? Do you want to take a couple questions or you want to do, okay, you take questions. I need a pee. Awesome. Hello, hello. Okay, I saw a good question about hypergamy, hypergamy.

I don't know how to pronounce it. Hypergamy, hypergamy. So I looked it up and I think the best relationships are where both people think they've married up. And I feel like I married up and I think Oluke also felt that way where he says he felt that way. And I think those are the best. And also I have been meeting a lot of women. play tennis and I meet a lot of like country club wives who seem like maybe they married up in some ways like maybe financially like they kind of married the guy with the great job they're all

incredibly beautiful fun caring warm women and I think a lot of their partners think that they've married up and what I've seen with a lot of these relationships, okay, and like these are relationships that have been like 20, 30 years in the making. And they are, they bring out so many amazing things in each other. So the travel opportunities that they got just help them become better people. So I feel like everybody can be, you know, a tier above and you just need access. So you might be able, you might be marrying up, but then like that also gives you a way to step up and become the person you want to be. So I don't mind the concept. I just don't think it's usually one way for a successful relationship.

That would be so fun. That would be so fun. Is it okay to ask what's your thoughts on children getting hormones and surgeries? Appreciate the delicacy of the question, but I think it's, so I think before, let me see if I can find this. So I think the first thing that you have to do before you even answer this, question is figure out what's your standard? Right? So I think one of the biggest challenges in medicine is having a different rule set for different things. So a simple example is, are we going to follow the evidence? Do we do what the

evidence suggests? Never. So if you follow what the evidence suggests, I think there was a pretty big study out of Mayo. I think it was Mayo. I'd have to check. It's not my area of expertise. I have worked with people who have taken hormones. I don't know if I've ever worked with anyone who's had surgery. I mean, I had people, but not gender reassignment surgery. So I've worked with people who have done gender affirming care. That wasn't the role that I was in.

So generally speaking, what would happen where I was working is people would do complementary alternative medicine consults. So people would come in and I would teach them how to meditate. and stuff. So I think there was a really good study, I think out of Mayo, where they basically found that hormones and gender-based surgery are effective if done properly. So what this means is there's usually a full suite of different kinds of care, including ruling out other conditions.

Right? So is this person depressed? Are they, so I don't know if you guys know this, but people on the spectrum have a way higher likelihood of being non-binary. And that's because our sense of gender identity is an integration of internal emotional experiences. Right. How do you know you're a man? I feel like a man.

So if you are a lexathymic, if your emotions don't function in the same way, aren't present in the same way, your sense of gender will be impacted by that. So I think a lot of the concern I think is fair because I don't think it's as simple as, hey, I don't feel like a man or I don't feel like a woman. Let me order hormones off the internet and start taking them. But I think the strongest data that I have seen is from this Mayo study, which is, I mean, they put, people through their paces. Like there was a very high level of care administered. And one thing that is it's not my area of expertise, there's a lot of nuance around it. So the one thing that I would say, if someone came to me, if one of my patients came to me and said, hey, I'm interested in taking hormones, I'm interested in gender reassignment surgery. What I would say is that I can't comment about

whether that is a good idea or a bad idea, but what I do know is that if you want to do it, you better do it the right way, which is go to someone who specializes in it, get ruled out for all of the other conditions, and then the people, you know, if you have a trauma, go to a trauma surgeon. If you have cancer, go to a cancer surgeon. So go to the people who are experts in this stuff. I mean, my personal take on a lot of this stuff is like, and so this is funny, the first time I got called woke, okay, was was 2000. 15. And I was, no, maybe 2000, yeah, 2015. You got called to woke before it was cool. I got called woke. So I remember I was, I was in supervision with one of my attendings. And, and the attending was a member of the LGBTQ community. And so I was, I was telling him, I have this patient in psychotherapy. This is what

they're, they're struggling with. Here's what I'm doing with them. And he's like, how very woke of you? I was like, I don't know what that means. And so what I was explaining to them is that in yogic thinking, gender is a part of like rupe, but our true higher root means form, right? So it's a part of our form. But like the basic elements of what make us human transcend gender. So if we look at some of our imagery,

there's an incarnation of Shiva called Ardhanerishwar. Arden Arishwar is half man, half woman. So I'll show you guys like a picture real quick. And I'm not going to like interpret. Like, so there's all kinds of people that will interpret this as, right? So there's all kinds of people that will interpret this based on various sociological things. Like this is Arden Arrishwar over here. This is Arden Ardhishwar.

Right. So this is the male side. This is the female side. This is the male side. This is the female side. So this is like an old concept. This is nothing new. Now, you can say that this is an interpretation of non-binary.

You can make that argument. The way I understand it is that we all have masculine and feminine within us. We'll talk about this when we talk about animus, which, by the way, is going to be fucking a fantastic lecture. I'm so hyped about it. It took me a long time to understand it. Something clicked over, I've been working on it for like nine months. And something clicked. It's so good.

It explains basically. like not, and I'm not exaggerating here, okay? Sometimes I use hyperbole. I really think it explains all of our modern dating problems, not just the majority, like all the big things. Everything that I see wrong with dating, I look at anima animus and it's like, oh, that's really interesting because this is predicted, right? So you can read a text from like 1920 where they talk about when someone's anima or animus is messed up, here is what they do. And it's like, holy crap, that's the manosphere. Okay. Anyway, we'll get to that later. But so, so in the yogic, in the yogic view, like, gender is something to be moved past. It's not that it doesn't exist. It's that if we look at

what makes us human, when you look at a state of meditation, you are neither man nor woman when you are in a state of dian. Dian is a melting of your eating. ego. And you are a man, you are a woman. That's part of your ego. It's not who you are. Your fundamental capacity to experience and witness goes beyond that. And that is the core part of who we are as human. And so I was working with this patient in this realm, and that's when I got called woke. And it's not, I mean, like, I don't, I don't know if I'm woke or not woke. This is just, this person said this about me. You guys decide. But like, I, you know, So with hormones and gender reassignment surgery, I think it should be done very, very carefully, very, cautiously, and very, very correctly.

And what is correct? If you want to make a moral stance on it, that's fine. I have no problem with that. But if we're talking about the practice of medicine, we have ethical guidelines, which are not the same as morals. Ethics is the rules of the profession. What are the standards that we hold to? So beneficence, do good. Second is non-malfeasance.

Do no harm. Autonomy and justice. Autonomy is the patient gets to decide. Justice is we should be fair to everyone. So some doctors will say, I think it is harmful to do gender reassignment surgery, and that is more important than a patient. autonomy. I think that's a fine ethical argument to make. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong.

This is where I, this is not my area of expertise. I don't know the data well enough to say this is right and this is wrong. But I think what I have seen some signals of is that when it's done poorly, when people rush to these things without doing a thorough differential, then you're opening yourself up to a potential problem. Right. And if you want to make a moral stance against abortion, like that's one thing. But from a medical perspective, you know, if a fetus has an encephaly, which is the absence of a brain, that is incompatible with life. Like if you don't have a brain, you're not going to, like you can't live. It's impossible. Right. So in that kind of situation, I think it makes a lot of reasonable medical sense to have an abortion. Like,

Like it's a no-brainer from a medical sense. Now, you can still have a moral argument against it. But that's why I said the beginning, the thing that you start with is, what is the standard that we're using to make our decisions? Is it science? So I think science should be number one when it comes to the practice of medicine. Because in the simple reason for that is that when it comes to morality, people disagree. Right? But when it comes to science, science is fact.

So I think our practice of medicine should be based primarily on. on fact. And then if you have a personal moral objection, like, that's a different story. Right. So if you as a doctor say, this is against my religion, I can't do this. As long as you're being fair about it, I think, like, that's fine. Like, I don't, I mean, there's a limit to that. Right. So I think that beneficence and malfeasance and justice, so I think discriminating against a patient on the basis of their religion or race, I don't think is just. And beneficence has helped people, and you're not doing that. So that, I think, is bad. But the point is, the thing that I feel the most strongly about is that the same standard

should apply to everything. We shouldn't start changing the standard just because we don't like the direction that something is going. Okay, I've got two like really quick ones. Okay. Did you want to elaborate more? No, no, no, that's fine. Okay. Really, really quick, okay? Like 30 seconds. Okay. If someone says your wife is beautiful, how do you feel about it? I have a hard time to relax when someone opposite gender compliments my wife. Do you see it? Yeah, I mean, I think so. A lot of that is going to be like, how threatened do you feel by that? Right? So, I mean, I don't know how often people call my wife beautiful, but I think she's beautiful. We just don't go out much, right? So like, you will go out and I will go out, but we don't. But like, I will call her beautiful. I think she's beautiful.

I, I, I have tried really hard to convince her that people think she's beautiful, even when they never say it, because of their behavior towards her. Hey, I'm your boss. You got a promotion. Let's go out and celebrate. We're going to go to the place and I'm going to buy you drinks, right? So, like, when that happens, like, I'm trying, I'm like, hey, this is kind of, red flaggish for me, right? So, so I, I think like, you know, I mean, hopefully you think your wife

is beautiful. And for other people to observe that, I think is not necessarily bad. Not necessarily, but I think that comes to your own threshold of comfort with it. And then there's also, like, the tone, right? So people in chat have called Grutie Beautiful. I haven't felt bad about that. I think, yeah, like, I agree. That's why I married her. One of the reasons. I got a first time chat her saying she hot. I mean, I agree. Okay, 30 seconds, babe. Should I try and make a relationship work based on how long I've been with them?

That should not be the operative variable. One. Yes or no? No, I won't say yes or no. I'm going to say no. So I think that's not the operative variable. The question is, what is in the relationship that is worth making work. And if it is just time, then I'd say no. So if in that time there is something of immense

value that is worth fighting for, then the answer is yes. But time as a variable is not a good thing. The presumption is that in that time there's been something really good that is potentially worth fighting for. Okay. I see there's, so I think we need to get to. We do. Yeah, we do have a Okay, so there are a couple people who have questions, Mia Rose. Let's get to our next caller, but Mia Rose and so member, please post, member, please post in our membership community. And if one of our membership mods could flag that post for me for our next membership lecture, I want to take a look at that question.

And for Mia Rose, thanks, thanks Crowe for floating that to the surface, can you please post more detail on our subreddit and I'll do best to take a look. Also, I read most of the posts on the subreddit. And I'm routinely not the most upvoted answer, which I love. That's just, that speaks to how good our community is. And also, why you guys don't need to talk to Dr. Kay? Because Dr. Kay will answer your question and everybody else will love somebody else's answer even more, including the OP. Okay? So there's a lot of great people in this community. All right, cool. Trevor, let's not keep our couple waiting any longer. Yeah, no problem. We're going to have Lucas and Ori. I think that's how you pronounce it. Come in. Are we doing camera?

Lucas and Ori, you're live and yes, we will do camera. Great. Perfect. Welcome. Welcome. How's that audio? Can you hear us? Okay. Yes, can you hear us? I mean, turn up, okay. No, no, you're fine. Okay. I'm Lucas. And I'm Ori. It's so nice to meet you both.

Nice to meet you too. First off, I just want to say thank you so much for taking time to chat with the community and answer all the questions that everybody had. So I'm grateful and thankful for that. And then also, shout out to know. He's also my cohort. I'm also becoming a coach. Oh, wow.

So also, he's working his ass off. I will say he's always in there chatting. and he's up to it. So I can give confirmation. Yeah. And then the other component is the question is a dynamic about a relationship. So I feel like as a aspiring coach, there's some apprehension about sharing it just because it feels like so raw. It's not just me.

It's our dynamic. So if you two are ready, it's more of a thing we've been talking about for a while. So we need an outside perspective. So we're super interested to hear what you have. have to say. So basically, I struggle to feel okay if she's not okay. And there's a specific scenario that came up a couple weeks ago where we were both sick and not feeling well. We had food poisoning. And she was sort of requesting a certain amount of comfort and care. But in that moment, I was trying to service my own needs and take care of what I wanted to. And we were in the

situation where our needs didn't match in that moment. And it doesn't always come up this way. And I wonder about our attachment styles as well. We've been diving deep into Dr. Kay's lectures on attachment styles. I'm avoided. And she has an anxious attachment style. So there's some pieces that. Matt's made in hell is what Dr. Kay said. So we're trying to climb the ladder at the hell here, Dr. Kay. We need your help desperately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you guys can do it. So match made in hell. But one of you all, is capable of the dark magic, right, which I'm not sure we'll actually help in this situation. But, and by the way, so people, even though it's a match made in hell, there are many couples that

successfully navigate to graduate to secure attachment. Right. So it's doable. So you guys are not doomed. But it's challenging, but keep going. Yeah. Yeah. So we've had a few conversations about addressing.

the things that have come up, maybe you could share your experience and then you two can take it from there, maybe? Yeah, and a little bit of background. I do feel like we have moved more towards secure attachment. Like, we've been dating for five years. Yeah. As background. And we did a year of couples.

Can I interrupt you? Sorry, before you keep going. Sorry. I'm sorry for being a dick. So lesson to everybody in avoidant and anxious attachment. relationships, when your avoidantly attached boyfriend shows up on a couple's stream to ask a question about your relationship, that means that you all are doing something right. So please continue.

That's right. Yeah, so we did a year of couples therapy about we stopped six months ago. And our therapist focused on nonviolent communication. I'm not sure if you've talked about what non-violent communication is, but I feel like a lot of the tools or things that you talk about lean that way a little bit. And so we use that dial, that framework of communication where you say how you're feeling, you say why you feel that way, and then you say what need is behind that. So we try to communicate like that when we can, but then it's not perfect. anyways but yeah in this so we think a lot about what what is our need behind what's happening and so in this situation where our needs didn't match we i don't know i feel like oftentimes we're able to

work through it but in this one i think i have the expectation that he was feeling better than i was at the time so like if anyone's had food poisoning like it comes in waves and so i was having like a really bad, like, I can't walk. I'm in a ball, like, oh, my stomach cramps are so bad right now moment. And he was feeling better. And I think he was feeling like, oh, I'm finally feeling better. I want to do something for myself. And I was feeling like, I'm really struggling right now. And I just want some comfort. And so, and I know part of, like, the anxious attachment style is, like you're seeking like reassurance from the outside sometimes. Yeah.

But in this situation, I felt like it was very much like not, I mean, it is partly emotional, but I'm like the need is more physical, I guess. Maybe it is emotional. I don't know. I need to think about that more. But feeling like I have. What do you mean the need is physical? Maybe it is more emotional.

Like I feel like I wanted comfort because it's like, I guess I couldn't do anything physical in the moment. Like, there's nothing to make the actual stomach pain better, but I wanted someone there, like, with me, like, to feel. What did you want Lucas to do? Well, okay. Full disclosure, I wanted him to watch the Lord of the Rings with me. Okay.

That's a commitment. That's like three and a half hours. Extended addition. But I just, even if it was just like 30 minutes, even if it was just like 30 minutes, just like while that wave, while I was in just like so much discomfort, I wanted to, like, like be with, like not feel alone in my physical discomfort. And I realize that I have this expectation that if we are physically sick, that we show up for each other if we are able to.

And I felt like he was able to, but he was choosing not to show up for me. And I didn't know how to reconcile that. And also while trying to take care, like I've worked really hard through our relation to be like, okay, I'm taking care of my own need. I'm not putting it onto you because I used to do a lot of manipulative behaviors where it's like this is your responsibility and that's a lot of what we learned in couples therapy where like how how to service your own needs.

So I think what I'm struggling with is how at what point is an expectation reasonable and at what like at what point do I expect him to to fulfill a certain need? and when is that unreasonable and one is that like my anxious attachment so now I'm having trouble distinguishing them A relationship lays in your hands Yeah you can take this one But okay go ahead

Well okay so Attachment styles aside This sounds like a communication thing And first of all I've been suckered into watching The Extended Edition unknowingly So like I get it I get it.

But one thing that Alok and I kind of found was quantifying the need. Like, how badly do you need this? So, like, I'll just ask you, like, scale of 1 to 10, how badly did you want him to be in bed with you? That is a beautiful response. That just clicked for me. I think that was really good. Something I reflected on is in my avoiding attachment is I'm very self-reliant, as I learned through Dr. K. And that I assumed her experience was over amplification and that in my position, I would have not

have asked that. So I think asking the scale will really allow me to assess. So like, but do you remember, like on a scale of 1 to 10, like how badly did you want him to be in bed with you? I was like level 8. You were an 8. And then. So for Lucas, on a scale of 1 to 10, how badly did you need to like disengage and go?

do your own thing. Maybe it's a cop-out answer, but I feel like eight. Like rarely, like most, like, I always step up and take care of her and, like, do these sorts of things. I was on an up for my sickness, and I was like, I can finally have enough concentration to, like, just watch a YouTube video, watch a Dr. K video, watch a Healthy Gamer video, and, like, not think about anything. And maybe that's a partial.

So if you're deadlocked, that's interesting, because we've never been deadlocked. I was just thinking, we've been doing this for two years. We've never been done. been like, not a single time, because we'll be like, okay, I'm like a 7.92. So you win. No, I think we've genuinely, I haven't done manipulation to change my number. No, nobody. I'm not saying that you have. It's, it's more like when we kind of see like, okay, this is, we've never deadlocked. So this is interesting to me. Yeah. So what I thought was really interesting. Sorry. No, that's fine. So what I thought was really interesting is what I was going to

respond with is, okay, thank you for sharing your experience of the situation, Ori. Lucas, what is yours? And what I thought was really interesting is that Gruthi was like, okay, this is enough. Right, which I think is telling. I thought they both described there. Lucas, did you describe your experience of it? Partially. That night, I had broken fever. I was on a slight uphill for my energy, and I was like, I finally see a little bit of sunshine, a little bit of energy. I just need the whole day before I was just like in bed, like not having a good time. So in that moment, I was sort of like, this is my time. And then she made the request for me to comfort her.

And rarely does it happen that we both meet this moment. I'm also trying to explore that side of avoidant attachment of understanding my own needs and not placing hers above mine. So it's like this really tricky dynamic where, like I'm also like it's coming up as am I over indexing like my need here or am I just using this as a shield to not comfort her because I want to do something selfish, which is maybe an avoidant response. But yeah. Okay. So so my answer is like a little bit different.

So Mike, it starts with a question, which is what does success in this scenario look like to both of you? So what would? So this is a problem. If the problem was fixed, what would this look like? Do you want to go first? If you have something loaded, go forward. I do have something. That's great language, great language, by the way.

If you have something loaded. I love that. I think for me, like what I was trying to explain to him before was, I think he felt like it was all or nothing. For me, like it was like you either watch this with me or you don't. And I think for me, success would have been better communication in the moment. I think we both agree on that where like, I don't want to watch Laura the Rings because we're on like this third extended edition.

We've been watching it while we're sick and I'm like tired of Laura the Rings. Can I comfort you in another way? Is there something else that we can figure out? I think. And he kind of tried to do that. But he was more like, I'm going to watch my videos and you can like lay there next to me if you want. And I'm like, what I want to feel is not alone in my pain. And so I think that to me would have felt like success, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I can see it's still alive for you, that pain, that feeling of being alone, being abandoned. Right? Because it feels like she, it sounds like you feel like you really weren't asking for that much. It sounds like you feel like you were like, okay, I'm asking for like really just a very simple, small thing. And I think Lucas was like, I'm maxed out. Like this is the most I can do. I need to step away. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a tough one. I feel like we've been there. Yeah, I've got an answer, but let's let's hear from Lucas. Okay. Yeah, you ready? So I did, I did leave this part out. I did try to throw out a compromise because we were in two separate beds because we were in a hotel room.

And she was on the other side. She was not having a good time. And a part of myself, I think, interpret it as over amplification of her pain, like I said earlier. And so I'm registering a part of myself selfishly was minimizing her experience, but maybe also like trying to be in myself. But I did offer, please come over to the other bed, bring the laptop, like just lay down next to me and like I'm going to watch my thing. and you can watch your thing, like, next to each other. That was a compromise I had come up with in the moment. It didn't aim to land.

And then eventually I caved and compromised and watched Lord of the Rings, which I feel like is an avoided, Asman style, because I, like, placed my own needs and prioritized hers. Match made and out, maybe. Yeah, which didn't feel good for me because I'm like, I just feel like you felt coarse and it wasn't genuine. Like, I want it to feel genuine. And so then it's like, we both lost.

Then what we left out is then two days. later, I was struggling to recover from this. It happened again and he had an interview the next day online and he was like, you're having this moment again like you're the third like because basically what was happening is we would feel better and then we'd eat food and then I would feel terrible again trying to like eat food. And it would be like I was sick all over again. And so this happened and he had this interview and he kind of just ignored me because I think he was frustrated from the time of four and his like the avoidant thing came up stronger the second time and like the frustration. So it was like a double whammy situation.

Yeah. Yeah. That's why we're trying to register as I think, are these outliers? Are these a trend of my behavior not taking care of her? I think her, as she has communicated one of her bigger concerns about what has happened. It's a big value for me in a relationship that I can trust that my partner will be there. for me when it when it appears to me that they're able to be there like i'm a reasonable person like if they're not home or you know what i mean but if it to me it seemed i don't know crudy said like

i didn't seem like i didn't feel like i was asking for much and i want to feel that i can trust that my partner is going to show up for me in that way but also being self-reliant so i yeah yeah so that second time where were you on a scale a one to ten It was a very same pain, same level. No, no, no, not the pain, but like, do you feel like you needed him to show up for you more the second time? Or was it less or still an eight? It might have been more maybe because he didn't show up the first time. I think so, too.

Okay. What's, you haven't, I have a couple questions, but then I also have, a couple of answers. Do you want to go first? Do you have something loaded? I mean, I'm quicker, I think, to just get to the answer, but you can ask your questions. Okay. So what I'm curious about is, is, or, I do get, so first of all, I think y'all are amazing. Y'all are truly so cute. Yeah. So, so I, I, I, I think that, like, y'all are, y'all give me hope for the relationships born in the depths of hell um we're both yoga teachers we're both becoming chigong teachers and we've watched healthy

game her content so we're on the up i hope that you could not watch floor of the rings but i just to give you all some background so return of the king was coming out and she had not seen the first two movies so i was like this we have tickets for 10 o'clock at night we got to start in the move in the morning and you got to watch both extended edition i i kept her she watched 12 hours of lord of the rings in one day because i was like look you have to see the first two and you can't watch the right you have to watch the extended because the extended is just better all of his friends are there and they're like are you loving this and i'm like she was i ruined the experience for her because she she just watched so much lord of the rings um so it's funny that this is lord of the

if there's some weird karmic something going on here. So my question, ori, is in those moments. So it's clear to me that you guys are committed to each other.

It's clear to me that, you know, Lucas has come a long way, that you've come a long way. So what is it in those moments that makes it hard to remember? And I think you do maybe after the fact,

right? So what makes it hard to access his, support and care for you in that moment? Like what emotion or what? So what makes it hard for you to basically remember that he is there for you, even if he's not there for you in this moment the way that you want? Right?

Does it just kind of go out the window and you, like, because I get the sense that you can't act, because the way that y'all talk about each other, there's clearly a lot of commitment, there's clearly a lot of compromise, there's clearly a lot of growth, right? But that feels far from you in that moment. Yeah, yeah, that feels, that feels accurate.

Maybe it's something, I think, what comes to mind, which is something I think I've grappled with, we're both each other's first serious relationship, so we kind of just like figure out all the tough parts together. It's been like, it's been bumpy. This story gets better, better. And we're also for reference, we're travelers, we're backpackers, so we're on a nine-month trip. We're also like each other's rock.

Like I call we have networks that we call but if we're physically sick like I can't call my mom to come over or like a friend. So there's also that dynamic. But yeah, I think this I think it comes down to loving myself and feeling that I'm worthy of the love that he gives me and feeling like almost like I can't believe it sometimes. Yeah. and and that anything that puts a crack in that it's like my mind uses that as that opening yeah and I'm aware of that excellent insight but but yeah I'm aware of it but then like it'll still it'll still happen I feel like it's a lot better yeah than it used to me because I think it used to cause a lot of certain like behaviors now I think it causes less behavior

you're in, the thoughts are there, they're less, but yeah. I think that it's easier question. Yeah, I can see how, you know, that crack really lets the flood through, right? And then even when you're talking about it, like, it's clear that you're recalling how overwhelming it feels, how kind of abandoned do you feel, right? And then Lucas is stuck with sort of like, am I an asshole? Or is this part of her self-reliance growth? journey, right? Like, we can't tell.

No, we can't. Is this anxious attachment out of control or avoided attachment out of control? Which one of I? We can't even figure out. I can't tell if I'm the one who's fucked up or he's the one who's fucked up. Okay? Yeah. So, so, so, so, I mean, I know it sucks for y'all, but beautiful, really beautiful to see that you guys are working through this. I think you all have captured what make, so there's like two things that make avoidant and anxious attachment relationships hard. One is when two people aren't trying and they're just in their own patterns and you're manipulative and he's running away and you guys are completely unconscious and everyone is getting torn apart all the time.

What's really scary is that when two people love each other a lot, when they go to couples therapy when they show up on a stream, when they watch, when they're becoming Chi-Gong Masters, they're backpacking together. You guys are doing everything right, and it's still hard. Like, look at this situation. It's like, how do we know, is this a moment of personal growth, or is this a moment where my partner is falling into their lack of personal growth, right? Okay, so here's my answer.

I'm loaded. Okay. So first thing is, I think one thing that we've learned, I don't know if Grutti would even agree with this, I think there are some times where there's just an L, there's just a loss. This is actually not a moment of growth. And I think one of the biggest mistakes that we can sometimes make is correcting for every failure. Not every failure is a mistake, right? We should learn from our mistakes, not learn from our failures. So sometimes what I'm hearing is that y'all are backpacking.

Y'all are together all the time. Both y'all are sick. And something fell apart between you. Yeah. So I don't know that there is, I don't care who you are, unless you're two Buddhas who are in a loving relationship. Like there are going to be some situations where things fall apart, the physical stress that you're under,

you're going to regress, you're going to slip back into your patterns, right? So you don't want to correct your everyday formula, right? So like, if I'm like serving, I don't know, a shrimp pasta and someone comes into the restaurant and is allergic to shrimp and dies, I don't want to, I don't want to stop serving shrimp pasta automatically. Does that kind of make sense? So I think sometimes in relationships, things are just bad. And that's okay. And y'all don't actually have to over index or correct for that. So that's number one, which doesn't mean that you guys, I mean, I think you're, y'all have both articulated a couple of really good things, but I think like this is a really good, it's hard to describe, but I feel like don't over correct for y'all's

attachment style. Sometimes the nature of the attachment style is that it activates, kind of fucks things up for like a couple of days because y'all are sick, right? But at the end of the day, that has passed, it still hurts in some ways. There's some work to be done. I'm not saying ignore it. But like don't over index to correct it is my first instinct. Y'all are on the right path, right? And you guys have done so much positive work behind you. That is all paying in dividends, but y'all are still learning. Y'all aren't perfect yet.

And sometimes both of y'all are going to get activated, and you'll go back to the people that you were five years ago, which is what happens with regression and physical illness. Now, if one of y'all develops a chronic illness or something like that, that's a different story, right, because then you guys need to develop a dynamic that will account for this outlier. Second thing is, I think this is a really good example of conflicting templates. So, ORI has an idea of in this situation, this thing means this thing, right? So if he doesn't do something, that means that he doesn't care. right and or he has a different template which is like okay like this is a situation where he's

all up in his head he's like I don't know if this is like her anxious attachment being overblown and then there's this tricky thing right because it's like okay if we feed the anxious attachment it sometimes gets better and it sometimes gets worse so I don't know what to do am I avoidantly attached he's in his own head he doesn't know really what's going on but there's also I think the key thing here is getting underneath the template if you guys do want something to work on, which I think you were sort of saying, like, like, you know, to be able to say, like, hey, in this moment, and so one thing that I find is a psychiatrist is I will actually, when people have personality disorders or attachment styles, so this is like kind of baked into you, you know,

I will have people put names to it. And so when I have a patient who has like BPD, for example, BPD gets better with stability, but it doesn't get better with like unresponsiveness. So I'll, I've literally had patients who will tell their partner, hey, BPD is just really active today, and, like, I need your help with that. Right. So this is where, like, hey, my anxious attachment is flaring. Like, I've got that, you know, my, my knee is hurting today. Like, my anxious attachment is flaring.

Yeah. Question. Lori, are you, are you a baby a lot? Like, do you need a lot of TLC? I used to be. And now I think it's a lot less. What would you say from a, when you say baby, baby, baby like

like I need to like do you need to be pampered a lot? Do you need like a lot of cuddles and get tucked in and like a lot of physical affection? Maybe. Oh. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. And then Lucas does it feel like okay, I've given you all the kisses I can today or like do you get burnt out on like, like do you get touched out a little? Yeah. This is something we sort of worked through at the beginning where I was extended. my capacity to extend that to her and then burning myself out, not meeting my own needs. So it's been a development of like her working on the reassurance part and me working on the

reassuring, but also taking care of myself. One thing we watched on your guys' stream, which I don't know if you do still do it, but Dr. Kay went where, which was your implication that you're asking for something that was like, it's high maintenance, I think is what Dr. Kay said, but it's something that you want regardless. Exactly. I think that's that's kind of where when he talks about naming things, like we have a similar dynamic where like, well, we're both very high maintenance, right? We both like, like, I need a lot of physical touch, a lot of physical comfort. He like needs things set up just so.

Like, hey, can he like, he'll be in bed and he's like, I need a glass of water. Also, can he fix the AC? Can you close a door? That light is still on. So like that kind of crap. Right. Yeah, exactly. I know, I know.

And I'm like, if I have to come back here one more time, oh, you need a napkin now, like, you know what I mean? Like that's where it's just like, that's, I'm closing door by, I can't hear you, you know? So like, I think naming those of like, it really goes a long way. And like, if I need a lot of like, if I need a lot of verbal reassurance, I'm like, I need you to tell me sweet things. Like, we just kind of name it. And it really helps in the communication. This feels more than anything, a communication breakdown. Like, you guys have your patterns and your needs and stuff, but I think naming things, the scale of 1 to 10.

And then, like, being able to recognize, like, I was at an 8 before I didn't get it. And that hurt. I'm at a 9 and a half now, like, you know? And then I was thinking about you guys being deadlocked at 8. And I feel like in that situation, both of you saying, okay, let's both give each other what we need. like go ahead, take some space, come back and give me 10 minutes when you can. Might be like a good way for you guys to each say to each other. Like we both really need something.

But I think it's communication and compromise. It's not one or the other. Like find a way for you guys to both get what you need. Yeah. I think it's interesting because I was actually leaning a little bit. I think people overemphasize communication actually, ironically. Right? So I think sometimes like you just take the L.

Like sometimes like it's just a bad. situation and overcorrecting for that can be like it because y'all are trying so hard right now to figure it out i think that's true i don't think this is one of it is i think this is a learning moment agreed agreed so so that's one perspective second perspectives i do think there's some understanding of templates right where like the more lucas understands what works for you and what doesn't work for you you know to read each other's signals to understand that you don't have the bandwidth to watch Lord of the Rings right now. But for you to understand that this is her signaling, something that she's not even consciously aware of in her template for her to ask this kind of thing,

what she may need is physical touch, right? What she may need is a kiss or she needs some signal from you that I'm not abandoning you. Like she needs the anti-abandonment signal. And I think similarly in that way, so I will, I've noticed that about, Gruthy as well, where, like, sometimes she needs a signal that she doesn't know how to ask for, right? And this is where you use the dark magic. This is one of the kids that it is to be used rarely and only under, only under certain circumstances, right? For you to be able to read and understand, okay, this is what she needs. Now, if she can explain it to you in therapy or whatever, like, great.

but like for you to know like okay in in the future she may just need physical affection so what i've what i've done in our relationship is just ramp up physical affection like a ton because i've noticed that and this is another important thing in a relationship sometimes people get there's an efficiency of what it costs to give something and what someone receives right so it costs me not much to give her a hug So every time I walk by, give her a hug, give her a kiss, right? But it, it feels, so then this is the other communication thing. So we use two other things to quantify. So we use the ranking system.

But sometimes we'll use how empty is your tank. Right? So like where, like how empty are you right now? So like literally it'll be like, our kids are going to come home soon. And then when they come home, we're going to have to do bedtime or whatever, right? and then I'm just going to ask her, how empty is your tank? And so to gauge where people are. And the other thing that we have is, how full is your cup?

So, like, when your cup is full, that's like, what's your contentment level? What's your energy level? And where are you on a scale of 1 to 10? Those are three communication things that I think have really helped us. I'll just ask her straight up, how empty are you? It's not about whether she had a hard day or I had a hard day, because sometimes you have a hard day and your cup, You're still like, you still got some juice left, right? And it's like, you know what?

You relax, even though I've had a harder day. You recharge your battery more. Then your battery is full. And tomorrow you're going to get a text. I need a napkin. I need this. I need this. Right?

Like, I'm going to give you a chance to rest. And when you have energy, fucking spoil me. Okay? Right? So that's where I do think there's absolutely a communication element. but I think it's like these three things, right? You guys are going to have some bumps in the road. Like, don't over index.

Understand each other's template. And one to ten, how, to be able to gauge each other, right? Because you guys don't know each other's templates. So like, where are you right now? And if Ori says, look, I'm absolutely empty. And you're like, I'm feeling a little bit better. That's what's so hurtful, right? Is she sees you feeling a little bit better and her needs are still quite acute.

That doesn't make you an asshole, Lucas. by the way, right? And so, yeah. Beautiful responses. I think, yeah, you gave us so much. I don't know if I have a question, but maybe a response. I think the relationship that we've had

has given me so much personal growth and I think spiritual growth. So it's like it's a match made in hell, but it's like if we're really working through it, there's like so much opportunity to learn, it could be a match made in heaven. Yeah, I mean, so I, I, I'm so glad you said that, Lucas, because I think we sometimes grossly underest—we all want good things.

But, like, we underestimate from like—this is, like, karmic and spiritual and whatnot. But, like, this was your karma, right? So you're—if we assume that some of this weird Hindu-Buddh, this stuff is correct, your soul, if you believe in this stuff, is omnipotent and omniscient. And chooses the time and place of your birth, you have these dormant carmas, which are going to bear fruit in this life and y'all have a karma you were made for each other to have this kind of growth and these tensions are what demand that you increase your awareness and become more spiritual, become better people. And without each other, this would not happen. So this is not a match made in hell. It is a match made in heaven, like literally, like in the stars. Okay? And and so I'm a big

believer in that, which is why, like, you know, I love working with people with like BPD and NPD and anti-social personality disorder and addicts and all these people that are like, you know, bad cases. And I think y'all are such an amazing example of why we started this community and why you should not let the things that are bad, like y'all have avoidant anxious attachment. Oh my God, security attachment is better. But no one is screwed. You guys are such great examples of like what growth looks like and how amazing it can truly be. And just because you've got dealt a certain hand of cards in life does not mean that you can't be happy,

can't be in a loving relationship. So props to both y'all. I have one last thing for you guys. Yeah. But I agree. I think y'all are great. And I think this is very fun to kind of hear and talk about and kind of see a lot of our patterns mirrored in you guys.

Because y'all are traveling, Do you guys have a lot of friends where you're going? Are you guys alone a lot, the two of you? We've been alone. We make friends. You make friends. Yeah, we're good at making friends and we keep in touch with our friends back home and family. But yeah, we're together a lot.

Yeah. I will say it can be more challenging taking care of each other when you guys are all you have. Right? When you're the only person close because you mentioned like I can't call. my mom, right? So I would just be a little mindful of that. Like maybe when you go back home, really immerse yourself in your tribe and give each other a break. And that way, like when you're back and like you're all each other have again, like you don't feel as like tapped out. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we'll keep that in mind. We got a couple more months and then,

yeah. Awesome. Quality recharge. Yeah. Totally. but it was great. I have a follow question if you have time. I know that this dream is maybe longer than I did. I know originally one of your questions was feeling that your emotional state is attached to my emotional state. And I don't know if I feel clarity around that. Yeah, me, not feeling well, she doesn't feel well. It's like, is that that avoiding anxious dynamic or is this something,

Is this codependency because we spend time together? I would actually say neither, right? So I think here's how I would just speed run it, right? So yes, we're over time, but you guys have also been incredibly patient. Y'all have been waiting for four hours. So let's do our best to honor that commitment that you all have made. So Lucas, I think this has more to do with you than it has to do with avoidant attachment, right? So I think you struggle with being a dick.

And so you place your own self-worth in your rise out of no longer being avoided. You place a lot of value on, okay, I need to be a better person. Right. And so I think you're, so in order to live up to that ideal, it hurts a lot to have her hurt. And then you beat yourself up as well because you're programmed in a particular way and when you have needs that are driven by avoidant attachment or not even avoidant attachment, then when you have completely normal needs, you label them as avoidant to demonize yourself because you feel bad, because you're not living up to her emotional

needs. That's the inside I was looking for. Yeah, I think there's a lot of pieces there I'm going to have to sit with. Yeah. That's speed running. But I mean, and I could be wrong, right? So I could be wrong. But, but I mean, I, I mean, it seemed like you were nodding along and, and, and, and,

stuff. So, so, but I think that's, that's like your personal struggle, right? That's your personal growth. Don't over pathologize and like just continue to work on that and recognize, you know, so once you understand that you are enough, that you are doing a good job, then you won't, then you can understand, okay, this is her anxious attachment. This isn't a deficiency on my part. And you're trying so hard to no longer be deficient for her. So then it gets really tricky, right? Because that I is going to like bring up all of this kind of stuff, which is a wonderful ideal to have, but you're still, you know, working your way to like, okay, I have done it. I'm no longer avoidant. The moment that you understand that, the moment you have confidence in who you are,

you will be able to let her fall apart without you taking responsibility. And then something beautiful can happen. You're not responsible for it, but you can pick her back up. Not your fault that she's falling apart, but you're still going to pick her back up. And right now that that distinction is going to be hard. So I watched Healthy Gamer. That was beautifully said. I think you have a good pulse for the tension there that I'm currently coming out of and it's sort of like a weird place.

So thank you for putting words and adding a bit of perception there. I have a slight request. I've been on a spiritual journey for 10 years. I'm looking for resources or people to reach out to. I've read a bunch of books. I've done meditation. I've tried to meet yoga teachers. I've done therapy.

I'm looking for spiritual awareness. I don't know if you could back channel anything. Links, books, people I could talk to them. That would be... What are you looking for spiritually? I have a bunch of puzzle pieces about my understanding and perspectives of the world, and I feel like I'm just...

I haven't met people who have the ability to put my pieces that I have together. I don't know if that's a really general answer. I don't feel super comfortable sharing them on stream. Okay, sure. So then this is what I would recommend. So it's hard for me to recommend something without understanding. I have an inclination, but I, too, am reluctant to share that on stream.

Where are you guys? We're in Peru currently. Okay. So I would say, so I don't know if you all have watched the membership lecture. on weird stuff and things like that. Right? So I would say what you should do. I mean, that's where we do the weird stuff.

So what I would do is, I don't know if there's, like, if you feel comfortable posting in the membership community about where you are in your spiritual journey, if you're not, then things become challenging. Okay, let me think for a second. Okay, let me ask you this. What, if you, if these pieces were put together, what would be different about you or what would you achieve? What does achievement or resolution look like for you?

Can you share that? Yeah, I've felt pieces of resonance that have made me not feel insane, maybe. And I'm sort of just holding my hands out, I think, sort of trying to process a lot of the pieces. Okay, so this is the best that I can do. So I'm going to think about it, and I will teach a practice at some point. point for sure in, probably in memberships, because that's where I do most of the teaching of advanced practices, but I will think about what practice you need. And I will teach it to everybody, and then you can do that. So, okay, pieces of resonance. I got you. I'll just,

it's cool. Like, so, you know, sometimes I'm like, I don't know how to do this. So a great example is tech teller a couple years ago was like, hey, can you do, everyone wants to do like heart chakra. And I was like, I don't know heart chakra. I don't know that. It's not what I do. I remember you being so stressed out. Yeah, I was like super stressed out like two or three days before I just sat down to meditate and I was like, oh. And it wasn't me figuring it out. So I'm going to just, it's helped me out before. So I'm going to ask for some help and then I'll pass along what I get.

Hashtag not a cult. That's right. Yeah, I appreciate it. Even the fact that I think I was able to throw it a few pieces and you got me. It's exactly what I'm looking for. So looking forward to it. you so much. Okay, take care. Thanks, guys. Good luck. Thank you guys so much for coming on and waiting for four hours for us. Thank you. Okay, take care, guys. Trevor, I'm going to drop call,

okay? I think we're done, right? Trevor? Yes, yes, dropped off. Okay. Okay. Do you, is there any stuff that you need to show before we wrap up? No, just can we just show some love for Trevor for producing all of this and getting all of the questions and Allison and our mods and everybody's been so amazing. Thank you guys. This is always fun for us, even though if it's a little bit different at our usual time. It's been really cool hanging out with y'all. It's been a blast, dude. We should, we should absolutely do this more, is my sense. Like, this is so much fun and so great. And I think what I really love about it is like, you know, people are coming here with challenges. But I don't know.

I mean, I imagine our mods did a great job of like selecting people, but it's amazing. So when I started doing this like five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, I don't even know how. It's like everyone was at the beginning. You guys get that? Everyone's so evolved now. Everyone is evolved. And it's really great because instead of just doing the basic stuff over and over again,

we've got someone who's on the spectrum who's like, hey, how do I understand this? I've managed to have a couple of relationships. We have, I think Wave Night was, and he's like, hey, I'm 27. I'm in, I'm in my first relationship, right? So like, I'm here and here's what I'm running into. So it used to be like I've never had a relation. And I know there's plenty of people who have that kind of challenge as well, which is like totally fine, right?

That's why we make things like the guide, which is like all the steps, right? So it's all the steps. It's like later advanced communication techniques, early dating stuff, all of the above. And it's really cool to see, like, I mean, these people have anxious attachment, avoid an attachment, but it's like, okay, hold on a second. This is the resolution of y'all's past karma. This is not, I mean, is it a disadvantage? Yes. Disadvantage isn't the right word. Is it something that you carry that is burdensome? Yes. But the quality of relationship that they are going to have, if not already have, that I think y'all can see, is amazing. And so it's amazing to see. people have better problems. Like that is so awesome. Like it's not, it never gets easy. I mean, yeah, it does actually.

But, you know, it stays hard for a really long time. Let's put it that way. Well, there's also like parent questions. Yeah. Yeah. Have like really gone through quite a few miles. Yeah, I mean. It's really cool.

You know, people were virgins and then they got laid and now they're having babies. People have anxious and avoid an attachment, and they're working through it. And some people are still at the beginning of their journey. Some people haven't progressed much in four or five years. And that's also something that I'm working on some. But I think oftentimes one of the trickiest things is we don't realize our progress. And so then what happens is things just click. I remember seeing a post, Dr. Kay helped me get laid, right?

And it's like, it's a journey. It's, I'm not clear that I, I still don't really understand what impact I had. But. Is Dr. Kay going to help me get laid? Yeah. I, I, I think so. I mean, I don't know if I'm, no, no, actually, no. Dr. K is not going to help, Dr. K is not going to give you advice on how to get laid.

Right? that would backfire so much. Tell me I'm wrong. No, this got really weird. I know you made it weird. It was just no. I made a joke. Okay, well.

You thought you thought too much. I did. I was in my head. Oh, yeah. Dr. Keyes going to do. It's too close. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Now the joke. Now the joke isn't funny, is it? Okay. Okay. Thank you guys so much. Thanks, guys. We will see all later. I don't know when.

I'm fried. But this was fun. This was fun. Thank you guys so much. And we'll see you all next week. I think deep dive into psychedelics, interview, and then anima animus. Let's go. Anime animus is going to be long.

Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.