HealthyGamerGG - I Can't Open Up To People IRL

Episode Date: August 7, 2022

Dr. K dives into guilt and over thinking, people seeing you change, intellectual hijacking, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What they like is the perfect version of you, right? They don't like the real you. And so then you can't share your real problems with them. Hello. Hi. Yeah. Prompt was, well, I kind of worded it badly because I was like in a hurry while I was writing it. That's all good.

I want to improve my ability to trust and let others that are close to me, help me, instead of like relying on people that I barely know sometimes. because I stop myself from like asking my friends like I see myself sometimes asking people that are not close to that's much

personal stuff and talking about personal stuff because I feel like I have no fear of the outcome that might come off this because if I do with these people that I'm not familiar with then it might end up

like okay if they don't like it for example I don't know these people that much. I'm not that close to them. I don't really care about what they feel. But recently, and I'd say 2020, when I first I would say, like, I'm 21, by the way. As when I first got friends that feel like genuine friends.

Good for you. Yeah. And because like all of my time in school, most of my friends felt like, you know, just talk about whatever you're interested in and that's it. You know, video games, shows and all of that. But recently I've met these friends and I was kind of at first shocked because I'm not used to these kinds of, you know, friendships that actually have people that care about each other and will talk about each other. And I guess that part of me kind of felt weird and at first maybe a bit distant. because I went to an old boy school so if I did end up talking about myself

then I most likely would have gotten made fun of a lot sure it would have made it a bit harder for me to open up so the idea of it was like not that there that much but for me I kind of feel like if I do open up to my friends

considering I do like listening like when they show trust in me to tell me about their problems their personal issues And I'm like always, you know, willing to help or listen to them whenever they need to. But for some reason, I can't trust myself to talk to them about my own problems. Okay. So let me just make sure I understand you, Muhammad. Yes.

So it sounds like you went to an all-boys school. Sharing emotional or personal things in that environment is a very fast way to get bullied. and made fun of. Yeah. And punished. So it sounds like early on, you kind of learned how to become a private person. Yeah. Fair so far?

Yes. And you've recently made a group of friends. So you had friends at that school and stuff like that, but the friendships you've had felt shallow. So you'll talk about TV shows, you'll talk about games, things like that. But you wouldn't have, like, serious talk. Yeah. And recently you've made. Like, yeah, go ahead.

Just like if it's serious talk, it's like maybe serious general talk, but nothing too personal. Got it. And so recently you've made a group of friends who you feel like are deeper friendships. You care about these people a lot. They also sometimes open up to you and you're totally fine with that and you treat them well and it seems like that's healthy. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah.

And what you find that you're struggling with is opening up to them. And you can open up to strangers on the internet. Yeah, basically. Right? And so let's just try to understand that a little bit. What do you think it is that makes it easy for you to open up to strangers on the internet? Well, with strangers, I'm not going to be interacting with them on a regular basis. So that interaction, most likely going to be that one of the only interaction I'm going to be having with them.

Or sometimes not even strangers. Like, like sometimes, one time they introduced me to a friend of theirs. And, uh, yeah, he seemed like a cool guy.

And one time we ended up in a call on Discord, like just me and him and we ended up talking about a lot of personal stuff between each other. Just all of a sudden, we started opening up to each other, even though we, this is like our third time meeting each other. And then maybe I talked to him a couple of times after that. And then I haven't really talked to him then again,

much again. So how do you feel about not talking to him again? Not, I don't see it as a big deal because I didn't really connect with him as much. Yeah. So, so I know it sounds kind of weird, but like, it sounds to me like your, some of these other relationships that you have feel very safe. Yeah. And how would you, how, what is the, if I were to tell you, okay, so Muhammad, for your

close friends, tell them something very personal today. If I were to ask you to do that, how would you react to that? What would you feel if I said, okay, why don't you just talk to someone today? Can I just clarify something? Yeah. I can talk to them. Like today, I've even had a chat with a friend about that I am going through these, a lot of issues, especially when it comes to trust. I am willing to talk that I do have issues and problems, but I'm not willing to delve deep into them. Yeah. So, so if you think about delving deep into them, then what, what does your mind do? Like, how does it react? At the thought of sharing something deep with some, with one of your friends? Well, it's, it's weird because I kind of like, because I have a lot of free time. I'm a college

student, so I either study or have nothing else to do, basically. And I always end up like, pacing around my room thinking back on what I'm doing. Why am I doing certain things? Why am I acting certain ways? So I do a lot of like self-reflection on myself. Okay. And one of the things I've realized is that in this case, I'm a hypocrite because I allow them to talk to me because I don't see any problem with it. But I feel like if I go to them with my problem, I'm burdening them with problems that they don't need to deal with. Okay. So I'm hearing that you feel some amount of guilt by burdening them because you care about these people. What else do you notice in there? It's a combination of guilt and also just

my mind kind of, I think it is just like maybe an excuse my mind that's kind of telling me, which is that if I do tell them, they might not be able to help me with it. So I might end up making them feel like maybe shit if they can't help me with it. And all they can do is just listen. Okay. So it sounds like you're afraid that telling them is going to make them feel bad if they can't help you. Yes. Are you afraid of what they will think about you if you tell them this stuff?

Well, I used to be, but I have opened up to some of them a couple of times. I have opened up a couple of times. But usually even though they reassure. me and they have made like they kind of proven me wrong in the sense of no they are understanding people they will understand what I have to say and they will understand even if I have a very outrageous feeling they would understand that you know it's a feeling that I'm having huh my mind always the moment I end this conversation goes back into I shouldn't have done that I've made a mistake I shouldn't have done okay and what is the mistake that

you made why does your mind think that you made a mistake? It's weird because I can't really pinpoint it. It's like the points I said before, like, you know, I don't like I, I just put this problem now on their head. Now I might like, I don't know, it might stay on their conscience for a while and maybe ruined their day possibly. Okay. So that sounds like those thoughts are coming from a feeling of guilt. Okay. I guess so.

So, Muhammad, I'm going to share a couple thoughts with you. Is that okay? Yes. So the first thing is that I want to share with you that I'm actually optimistic for you. So I think the key thing is not whether you have trust issues or not, but how you approach having trust issues. And so what I'm hearing from you is that you're a thoughtful dude. You know, you spend a lot of time kind of thinking about this stuff. You also are very observant, right? So you recognize, okay, I can talk about this with some people.

I can't talk about this with other people. you're kind of aware of what you're thinking. And ultimately, like, that's what leads to good outcomes. It's sort of focusing on a problem, being aware of a problem. The people who really struggle with trust issues are the ones who don't realize they have trust issues. And don't try to fix them. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So I'm going to try to teach you a particular technique. Okay? And then we'll talk about a couple of more general things. So actually, let's start with the general stuff. So the first thing to understand is that actually you're not alone with discussing intimate things with strangers on the internet or even like friends in real life that you don't know well. So we know from basically like a lot of psychological research that the closer we are with someone, the more their opinion of us matters. Right. I want my friends to like me.

I want my friends to respect me. I want my friends to think I care about them. And so interestingly enough, what we tend to find is that when there's a stranger, sometimes you can have the deepest conversations because it's safer. Because after this conversation is over, I never have to see this person again. So I don't have to damage the, I don't have to risk damaging the relationship by sharing something deeply personal with someone. Does that make sense? So you're not alone in this. This is also part of the reason, actually, that we even have things like group coaching, because what we've sort of found is that creating a space where no one knows each other that you can work on your problems actually gives you the most authentic and safe space to work on them.

Because the problem is with something like a friendship, or if you're talking to your boss or you're talking to your brother and you're trying to get support from them, all of those kinds of things, any conversation you have with that person is going to affect your relationship with that. person. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so what we actually try to do is create a relationship that's artificial. And this is where sometimes people in group coaching get upset because we have certain rules in coaching, which is that you're not allowed to do anything outside of coaching. So no playing games together, no like hanging out on individual calls. And sometimes we, I mean, we can't control people's behavior. But people seem really perplexed by that. And they're like, wait, why can't like I know these people, we all get along so well, like, why can't we play games together if we both like games?

And that's because we want to preserve this kind of like safe relationship. And the second that you become friends with someone in group coaching and then you start doing other stuff, then it turns into like your situation, which is that now I care about what this person thinks. There's all kinds of other problems. Like if we play together and I feed and next week we're like, you know, meeting and then like there's resentment left over from the game because I was feeding and throwing and all that kind of stuff. It messes up the work that we're trying to do. So that's a different issue. So the first thing that I kind of want to point out to you is that it's very normal to, like, feel more comfortable with people that you don't have good relationships with.

Okay? Yeah. Yeah. So the next thing is that what I'm going to recommend that you do with your friends is do a technique that we teach people in group coaching called going meta. Okay. So there's this very interesting principle, which is that if something is emotionally, charged. There's a lot of emotion, and I try to talk about something, the emotion can make it hard to talk about. But what I can do is go meta, go one level above it, and talk about why it's

hard to talk about. So, for example, if I'm working with a patient who has trauma, and the trauma is too difficult to talk about. I don't want to talk about the trauma. I don't want to force them to talk about the trauma. But what I can do is I can ask them, what makes it hard for you to talk about trauma? Does that make sense? I'm not asking them to talk about the trauma. I'm saying, what makes it hard for you to talk about the trauma? And so the interesting thing is that if the trauma and emotion is down here and then we move up one layer and we're saying, okay, what about this trauma is difficult for us to talk about? Then that's actually easier to talk about. And so interestingly enough, what I would recommend that you do with your friends is instead of telling them personal things, if that doesn't feel comfortable to you, have a conversation with them about having personal conversations.

So you could go to your friends. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So. Because I almost do this, what you were saying. I kind of do it to an extent where I would talk to them about, you know, I have this problem. I don't really like going into the details of it. And I would explain that, you know, I don't like going to these details because they leave me into feeling a certain way.

So I don't really go further than that, like when I talk to them. Yeah. So that's where I would, perfect, right? So that's a good example of going meta. So I would encourage you to do it in a slightly different way or like move one step further and just have a conversation about having conversations. And sort of say, ask your friends, hey, like, you know, a couple weeks ago when you mentioned, this to me, how did you feel sharing that personal thing with me? Because I felt like trusted by you. I hope I was able to help you. One thing that I sometimes struggle with is that I'm sometimes

afraid. So instead of telling them your problem and burdening them and making them feel guilty, what you can do is tell them about your fear of burdening them. Right? So instead of talking about the issue, you can say, sometimes I hesitate to share things with you because I'm afraid that if I tell you and you can't help me, like, you'll feel like inadequate. What do you think about that? Right? Then I would ask them that. I'm not asking you. That's part of the conversation. So sometimes I hesitate to tell you things because I'm afraid that telling you will make you feel guilty if you can't help me. What do you think about that? Does that make sense? Well, it makes sense, but I think my problem is that, like, for example, I realize this mostly in school, for example, is that in one year I would act a certain way.

And, you know, the more time going on, the more you develop and your personality changes. So I would not show that change in personality until the next year, where I had this break where nobody sees me. What? And so, like, for example, the school breaks. I will only showcase my changes after school breaks because for some reason I don't like the reaction of people realizing that I'm changing it's kind of hard to explain

whereas like I don't like ever since I joined this group I've acted a certain way and now I'm changing but I'm for some a part of me does not want to show this change in me okay like for example so all of my yeah go ahead Yeah, all of my friends, like I used to be kind of known for a person who doesn't really compliment much, for example.

But recently I kind of got used to being, you know, more friendly and complimenting my friends. But the thing is with this group, it's for the first time. I never really had many female friends, but this group has females in it. And I feel like if I compliment them, then I would be like, you know, almost making a move on them even though that's not my intention. And so then my mind kind of goes like, oh, I shouldn't be nice to them as much as like, for example, I shouldn't be as like complimenting them as much. I don't know if that makes any sense.

Oh, so. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So let me ask you something. What does it, what's, what bothers you about your friends seeing you change? That's mostly for my past. I always hated the reaction of people realizing that I changed. like, oh, you're this now. And it's mostly like with family, for example.

Like, you know, I have five older siblings. And they're all used to me, you know, being their youngest brother. And every time I would change in a certain way, they would point it out. They know, not necessarily in a bad way. They were just, oh, like, oh, now you do this. And for some reason, I don't know why, but a part of me just didn't like them pointing it out. Huh. So I think, Mahmah, you're going to have to do a little bit more work there in terms of digging into what bothers you about people seeing you change.

Do you have a sense of like what bothers you about it? I guess. I guess that's reaction usually ends up bringing attention towards me. And I don't want to have attention towards me like that. Why not? What's wrong with having attention towards you? I guess I just kind of, like it's weird. In some cases, I feel like I thrive under attention when it comes to me showing off.

Like maybe in a game, I would play better if people are watching me, for example. But when it comes to social attention for some reason, I just not, I'm not very, not much of a social person. I grew up as the youngest of five and I kind of always just not, like my parents kind of never really pushed me a lot. Like, I kind of always say this to my friends, whereas I feel like my parents weren't prepared to raise a kid of my generation. That, unfortunately, is too likely to be true. Because all of my siblings aren't like, you know, two years older. The other youngest sibling, I have is six years older than me.

And to scale it up, I have another one who's 11 years, and then another one who's 12 years older, and then the oldest is 15 years older than me. So there's a huge gap between me and all of them. So, my, and I guess a part of me just felt like a kid all the time. I'm not like realizing I'm actually growing up now. And how does it feel to be growing up and them commenting on it?

In some cases, I enjoy it. And like, I'm enjoying the fact that they're recognizing that, you know, I'm no longer the younger, but they, you know, the kid. And in some cases where it's like, I guess a part of it also comes from the, embarrassment. I don't know. That's like a reaction kind of gets me embarrassed because it's like a comp almost like a compliment. It can be, you know, that, oh, they realized that you grew up. And I don't know, I don't react well with compliments. Okay. So I think there's a lot here, Mohammed, but let's try to, can I offer some thoughts? Yes. Okay. Actually, can I think for a second? Let me

start there. Yeah, it's okay. Mahabah, I wonder, I'm going to ask you a question real quick. Do you think that maybe the reason that you don't want people to see you changing is because you feel comfortable being a finished product when you put yourself on display? Yes, I would actually say that because I recently even talked to my friend about this, where like for some reason I've started to realize a lot of the things

that make me feel uncomfortable is basically variables in things when things are not set. Okay. So let's unpack this a little bit, okay? So I've got some thoughts for you. So the first is that I want to point out

to you that so you're okay being in the public light assuming you put yourself there. Yeah. Right? So you're, You're okay with being on display, but the only Muhammad that people get to see is the one that you want to show them. You don't want them to see anything that you're not prepared to show them.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Now, this ties into a couple of different things. The first is that like you're okay showing some random person on the internet, the unpolished Muhammad. Right? Like, it's okay for them to see it. Because if they don't like what they see or you feel embarrassed or you talk too much, you can block them, you can never talk to them again. And this also kind of makes sense because if you're like, if you just want, if you want to take a summer break or whatever, and then you come back and now you're complimenting everyone, that's okay because you've had enough time to figure out how to put yourself on display, how to compliment people properly?

And then like, you know, you don't want people to, how can I say this? It's like, you know, there's like there's like uncooked. there's the pie when it goes into the oven, and then there's the pie that comes out of the oven. And the pie that comes out of the oven is like finished. It's beautiful. It's warm. It's golden brown on the top.

Right? Yeah. And so you're okay kind of putting yourself on display, but you don't want to show anyone the unfinished product. Because I suspect like you're not happy with the unfinished product. Yes, definitely. Right? So now you've got a really interesting problem because,

the interesting thing is how can you learn to be happy with yourself if the only thing that you ever show people is the perfect version of you because then actually what happens is what they like is the perfect version of you right they don't like the real you and so then you can't share your real problems with them you can tell them hey i'm struggling a little bit and then you can absolutely show them after you've worked through all your struggles, and you figured everything out, and you're Muhammad so strong and mature and adult, then you can tell them all about the problems, right? When they're fixed?

Yeah. So this is kind of tricky because if you really, now that you have the opportunity for authentic friendships, what you're sort of noticing is that you have difficulty trusting people. But I think the reason you have difficulty trusting people is because you can't really you don't feel very comfortable showing parts of yourself that are not polished. So I think the interesting thing, we're going to kind of go back to going meta, but I think what you've really got to do is, first of all, acknowledge a lot of these things, right? And this is also where like...

Other than I don't want to show them the unpolished look of myself, a part of me really dislikes it when people, like, feel bad for me. Like when people start feeling bad for me, it's like, also it goes back to the guilt that you mentioned. I feel guilty that I made them feel bad for me. Or like almost even petty to an extent, maybe, like feel petty for me. Yeah. What feels bad about that? I don't know.

I feel like it's, I mean, feeling if they feel bad about me, that's not a good feeling. And I made them feel like I ruined whatever happens maybe they had that day. Okay. So let me ask you something. Is feeling bad for you an appropriate price to pay for friendship with you? Well, that actually goes to another thing because I do remember watching not exactly which video, but one of your videos you mentioned, you know, that there is a price for friendship. And, you know, your friends need to be there. Maybe not all the time, but at least when you need them. But for me, I guess because I'm used to my family is a loving family. They always support me with most of my things. Whatever I want, they always will support me.

And I've always seen this love as, you know, the love of the family, this unconditional. I don't need any reason to love my family. They're my family. They don't need a reason to love me. So for me, it's kind of just translated into, okay, now we're talking about friends. I have no blood ties with them. I have no life I've lived with them. So there needs to be reasoning for why we're friends.

And I feel like I don't provide a good enough reasoning for me to be their friends. For me, it doesn't make sense why they're friends with me. And now we have the crux of the issue. So where did you start believing that you're not worth friendship with? Well, with them, I'm starting meeting a lot more people more than what I'm usually used to. And I know, I mean, I really, Mama, this sounds to me like you carried it. with you into these relationships? Well, yeah, because like I said, I didn't have any, you know, relationships in the past that felt

like this. So I felt like when I came here, I started recognizing all of my past problems and now they're kind of all like flooding in, where it's like I'm struggling and managing which one I should I deal with. And I've realized a lot of the things, for example, I dislike about people are traits that I myself have, are traits that I like showcase. Oh, 100%. That's all the time.

We hate in other people. So the second most, the thing that we hate the second most in other people are the problems that we struggle with. The thing that we hate the most about other people are the problems that we struggle with that they've actually fixed. Right. So we hate the most the problems that we see in ourselves. And then the only people we hate more than that are the people that had our problems. And if I was a better person, I could be that. When we see a better version of ourselves in someone else who struggled with our problems but did better than we did, that creates so much hatred.

So, but, but I think this is still going to, like, I'm trying to leave you with something a little bit practical here, but I think that a couple of things. So first is that what I'm noticing is that like, so now I'm going to go meta with you, right? So we have a certain problem and then we start talking about it. and then as we come to something like a solution, you add an additional problem. And then we talk about that for a little while and then we add something else. And we talk about that for a little while and then we add something else. When I point this out to you, how does it make you feel?

I was actually scared of this exact problem happening when I joined this call because I have been wanting to write on the Reddit at least or like maybe on the server. But every time I write, I realize, okay, I'm linking a problem to another problem, and then I link it to something else. And I kept, so all I'm writing ends up looking like a jumbled mess of problems where it's like it's hard to read. So that part of me was kind of scared of when I was joining this call because I knew I'm going to start diverging into other problems. And now that it's happened, how do you feel that your worst fears have come true? It's not as bad as I thought But like I still don't feel the greatest Okay

So I don't know if you can see my face On the Discord call or on the stream So look at my face Do I seem upset that you've given me this whole host of problems No I'm not upset at all Yeah I think you're doing great

Is that confusing to you? Well I guess in this case You're kind of like a professional at this almost. So I guess I'm expecting you not to feel bad, I guess. So this is interesting, right? So now you've got to be super careful

because your worst fear happened and it's not as bad as you thought but why isn't it as bad as you thought? It's not because you're actually like because you're afraid that, oh my God, it's going to be a jumbled mess. And if it's a jumbled mess, then no one's going to make sense of it.

Everyone's going to dislike it. It's not going to help anyone. It's going to be a complete mess. And now when I say it doesn't bother me, you do something very, very dangerous, Mahmah, you say, oh, it's because I'm a professional. It's not because you're, it's not that your problem is actually okay. Do you see that? You're sort of like saying that the way you feel is because I'm a professional as opposed

to it being okay that you did this. Does that make sense or no? Because if not, we got to stop and make sure. Like you see, because like you're actually like, this is a chance. where I can look at your problems and I can say, Muhammad, it's okay to have these problems. You're a normal human being. I actually think they make a lot of sense.

I don't think they're jumbled at all. But if you push what I say away by calling me a professional, then your complex will still continue. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's actually just. So this is really important. This is exactly why you have self-esteem problems. because any time someone says,

hey, Muhammad, it's okay for you to have this problem. What does your mind do? I guess reject it? 100%. And what is the logic that your mind uses to reject me? That's your professional. 100%. Oh, it's Dr. Kay. K.

Of course, he's okay with me being a jumbled mess, but the rest of the world won't be. So I can't share this with other people. And so now I think we're running into something that's very, very important, which is that anytime you actually start to connect with someone, you push them away. Yeah. Anytime someone has a chance to help you and say, actually, Mama, you don't make me feel guilty.

Actually, when you share your problems with me, it doesn't ruin my day. What is your mind going to do when they say that? I create some sort of excuse to reject that. 100%. Right? You'll say, oh, they're just saying that to make me feel. better. They're not being honest with me. Yeah. Now, I guess one more problem like I've kind of had is that I've been wanting to go to therapy recently. Okay. But the problem,

but the problem, my problem with therapy is that I'll be paying a lot of money to possibly find someone who's possibly good for me that's who can possibly help me. And that's probably and this kind of problem is a bit more in my country because all the people I know who have went to therapy in my country have gotten bad experiences from it. Okay. So that's an important issue and I'm not going to engage with that. Okay. Okay. So now I'm going to restrain you a little bit.

That's a whole other can of worms. And I think what your mind is doing. So like, why did you bring up therapy and how, oh my God, their therapy isn't good? my in my country. What happens if we start talking about that? We'll ignore what we were talking about and go to another problem. 100%. And what were we talking about, Muhammad?

About how I keep doing that exact thing where I reject the solutions I'm getting. Right. So that even this is a form of avoidance. So I think all your problems are related. like I don't think it's actually a thousand problems. I think the problem is that when your mind gets seen, you're terrified of being seen.

And if I see you here, right? And I say, oh, look, Mama, this is what you're doing. Your mind is like, oh, shit. This is not what we wanted to put on display. It's not well formed. We haven't figured out the perfect way to convey this on the internet. So let's talk about something else.

Dodge, deflect. Yeah. And so, You're doing fine, dude. This is all, like, super healthy and super good. I mean that. Does that make sense? Yeah, a part of me was scared that what I'm doing was not healthy

in the sense of thinking, self-reflecting as much as I did. Because I feel like I'm just acknowledging a lot of the problems I've had where I feel like I maybe didn't know about them and just was ignoring them because I wasn't aware of their existence. So that too, Mom, but this is the same thing, because look at, all the work that you're doing, what does your mind do with that work? When you introspect and you discover something, what does your mind say? It's confused and just goes to something else.

Right? It says, oh my God, what if it doesn't actually help at all? It doubts you. There's constant doubt, right? This all comes back to the, like, because like, that's the, there's some part of you that does, is not happy with who you are. And you're terrified that unless you put together the perfect display, everyone else will realize what you are.

I don't know what you said about the doubt. I keep thinking that my problem, I keep thinking about these problems and when I think about them to my friends, I keep thinking that maybe my problems aren't that big of a deal. Maybe I'm just overthinking that these problems aren't actually big. I don't need to actually deal with them. A part of me kind of goes to that direction.

But now part of me gets scared about that because it's like, what if I'm underestimating my problems? Sure. What if I do have a lot of problems? Yeah. So that's where like you've just like, forget about what your mind actually says, Mahmah, and look at the direction that your mind's thoughts move you in. So here where I am.

I'm about to tell my close friend that I'm really struggling with something. And my mind is like, oh, like, what if it's actually not that big of a deal? And it's not that big of a deal. What direction is that moving me in? It's moving me away from connecting with my friend. Yeah. And your mind will generally. whatever logic it needs to.

The key thing is still going to be. It still comes down to like two or three very simple things. The first is where, like, what do you think about yourself? Are you happy with the person that you are? And my guess is that the answer is no. But I think that you think of yourself as a work in progress, which is 100% correct. Yeah, definitely. The challenges...

Especially recently, I've been planning a lot about my future. Yeah. So. Especially what I'm, what I'm trying to do. I don't think you have a traditional level of, like, low self-esteem, let's say, where you're beating yourself up all the time. But I don't think that you're, I just don't think you're okay not being perfect for your friends. Yeah. And the thing is, like, you're never going to be perfect.

In fact, the idea of being perfect is just a trick our mind uses to prevent us from, like, connecting with other people. Right? It's actually like a trick. It's like we use the idea of perfection as a protection against rejection and bad outcomes. If I make the perfect dating profile, then someone won't reject me. If I turn myself into the perfect friend and then I can share something with my friends, they'll be okay with it. I won't be a burden. I won't be guilty. So we have this idea of if I'm perfect, then everything will be fine. And we go chasing that perfection, chasing that perfection, chasing that perfection, and it never comes. It's just another tactic.

I'll say, I'm not a person who kind of believes in perfection. Good. I believe in doing the best I can. Then why don't you talk to your friends? I guess a part of me because these friends, most of them are older than me as well. A few years older than me, but that few years can make a difference. So what? So you're telling me if you were a couple of years more older, you were further

prolonging yourself to development journey, then you would talk to them? Well, no, I'm not saying that far. I'm saying that I feel like I'm seeing their problems and then I'm comparing them to mine. I'm like, oh, mine is not that big of a deal. I don't need to talk to them about this. They have a bigger problem. That's the kind of logic my mind takes me too. Yeah.

And what direction is that, is that logic taking you? Away from talking to them. the solution. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. So this is my, like, so I, I don't, I think the tricky thing here, Muhammad, is that you actually have grown a lot. You're very intelligent, you're very introspective. The problem is sometimes your intellect is hijacked by this part of you. And so all of your talent and all of your strength actually twists and turns. And it tricks you, but it just wants one thing, which is safety. And the one thing that it's going to do to feel safe is don't talk to your friends.

Because if you talk to them, they'll see you for who you are. Since I'm such a toxic person or my problems are so small, I'm going to infect them and ruin their day. Or my problems are so unsolvable. So like, which is it? Are your problems unsolvable because they're so big? Or are you going to ruin their day because they're so tiny and petty and irrelevant? Right? Like it sounds kind of contradictory, but to your mind, it's like, I don't care. Either one is fine as long as we don't talk to them. As long as we don't talk to them, as long as we don't talk to them. Yeah. Like a part of me was definitely the past few months have been trying to isolate myself from talking to friends.

Sure. Specifically. Right. Like the past few months, I haven't seen any of them unless it was like someone's birthday. Then I would show up for the birthday. But other than that, I haven't been trying to do anything. interactive with them. Only reason I tried to go back because I feel like it's maybe what I need, at least maybe not what I want right now, but maybe it's what I need to at least be around them for a while to get back into the mood of talking to them more. Good. So Mama, what I'm going to do if it's okay is I'm going to try to like summarize a little bit of like maybe how you can move forward. Is that all right? Yeah. Yeah. So the first thing that I want to let you know is be aware of what your mind is doing. Okay? It's not about right or wrong. You don't have to fix everything, but I want you to just notice, like, how slippery your mind can be. And don't worry about the logic

that it uses. I want one part of your mind to pay attention to the direction that your mind is going in. Right? Is this making me move away from friends? And then you'll see, because as you notice that, oh, my mind is moving away from friendship, your mind will twist and turn and it'll give you a different argument. It'll abandon that argument right away. And it'll twist and turn, but the goal is always going to be the same, which is don't talk to your friends. So this is where I would still recommend to you very concretely that you go meta with them. And then you actually talk to them, not about your actual problems, but about your relationship. And you can ask them, hey, what is it like, if I were to share like some things that were challenging in my life, would that be okay? How would you feel about

that? Here are some concerns that I have. So you don't have to share it right away. You can say, I'm afraid sometimes that like my problems will seem, it's kind of weird, will seem either too small and then like you'll feel like it's a waste of time. Or they'll feel so big that you won't be able to help me and then that in turn will make you feel bad. Yeah. Share that with them. Ask them, what do you think about that? Okay. Can I ask something as well?

Yeah. Because I feel like I can see logic where it would point me to. the solution. I see like I can understand what I should be doing to go to the solution, but my feelings kind of look the other way. 100%. Furthermore, I can see what any needs to be done, but like my feelings tell me, nope, go the other direction. Yes. Or just don't do anything. So that's where you've got to address the feelings, right? And what? How do I do that? Well, so let's focus on the conversation you're going to have with your your friends. And then we'll talk about the feelings in a second. Okay. So how do you feel about having,

that kind of conversation with your friends? That kind of conversation, I would be more okay with than directly sharing. Okay, good. What exactly are my thoughts. So what you're going to do is you're going to talk to your friends about the rules of friendship and sharing. That will help you feel more safe in opening up to them.

It's not going to happen overnight, but it'll definitely move in the right direction. Now we move on to some of this stuff about feelings and things like that. So now I think the core issue here, like I said, is that something about you makes you very, very sensitive to being seen while you're not perfect. Right. So even like your family, as you were saying, as you were growing up and they're noticed, oh, like, look, you're like you're going to, you have a little mustache now. You're going to have to start shaving soon, right? It's a right of manhood that your older brothers are poking fun at you and you sort of recognize, okay, I'm growing up. So we just have to acknowledge that.

I'm not sure exactly where that comes from. If you do work with a therapist, I think it's not a bad idea. You can try to dig into that kind of stuff with them. I don't know what country you're from. I don't know anything about the quality of therapy in your country, so I can't really comment on that. And if therapy in your country is not very good, we apologize. We also, in a sense, try to help.

So not, you know, people who should be seeing it. I've been considering online therapy. I've been considering it. But, like, I don't know which should I choose, you know. Yeah, I'm not too sure about that either. But I think it's not a bad idea. The key thing, though, that I'm getting, Mohamed, is that you're not comfortable in your own skin yet. You kind of feel like your...

I definitely recognize that. Yeah. And so, like, all of the emotions and stuff are going to stem from that. And the key thing to understand, I don't know if you've seen our videos on Vedic psychology or you watch Dr. K's guide, but that really explains it very well, where we sort of talk about the tricky thing is that your emotions want one thing, your logic wants another. And what we don't realize is sometimes our emotions hijack our logic. And we'll create all kinds of justifications to keep us from doing things that are emotionally difficult. They'll basically be a logical excuse to avoid. And what are we avoiding?

I keep myself safe. Yes. We're avoiding some kind of emotional discomfort. Oh, my. Or conflict even. Yeah. Right? So it could be conflict.

It could be issues related to ego. And I'm not sure exactly, you know, what to do there. I think it requires more than what, you know, what we have time for on the call-in show. But I think that, like, at least to me, I think you've come, hopefully understood yourself a little bit better. And like the most important thing is not what the emotional issues are, but not to let your mind retreat from them. So here, like, kind of stop at catch it as it's trying to find a new excuse to diverge from the problem, you know? Absolutely, right? And then what you really want to ask yourself is like, what is my mind trying to avoid and try to look for an emotion that it's trying to avoid

or a perception of yourself? So like, or like it's either going to try to avoid an emotion or people thinking something about you. It's going to be one of those two things. And as you find out, okay, like, then the next question kind of becomes, all right, where did I learn to fear this thing? where did I learn that if I share things with friends of mine, they'll start to think that I'm weak. And the more that you sort of follow that process, you'll follow it back to its root, and then hopefully you can deal with the core of the issue. That's what we call a somscar. You can address it in therapy too. Okay.

Yeah, that makes sense. All right? Any last questions or complications you want to throw in? I can't think of any of the ones Oh my goodness, look at that Sorry, I realize that does that make you feel a little bit uncomfortable If I'm joking with you a bit too much No, no, no

Like if I'm being honest, when it comes to anything emotional, I realize I get teary-eyed quickly But I also end up chuckling a lot Good, that's- I laugh a lot through these times And that's the only thing that can keep me actually Going in these conversations Good

First of all, bro, I'm super proud of you. I think you're doing awesome. Thank you. And I think that you don't have to be perfect to be okay. And this is what life is, right? It's just like one step at a time, my friend. Take care. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Take care very much. Take care. I think Tech Teller, we're going to have to end because that ended up being longer than expected. Sure. So please extend my apologies to everyone in the waiting room. Man, I feel so bad.

Like there's like 1,000 people in. there. But yeah, it's challenging to try to balance, like, giving people the time they need and, like, making time for other people. Just to kind of summarize. So this is super tricky, but good. So sometimes we have difficulty connecting with people. And what we actually find ourselves doing is, like, being caught, like, we can open up to strangers on the internet, but we can't open up to our friends. And the challenge there is that if we kind of, like, look at it, sort of makes sense, right? because opening up to a stranger on the internet is safe. Because at the end of, you know, at the end of the conversation, if you said too much,

or you're afraid of what they think of you, you can just, like, retreat, right? And you can ghost them, block them, never talk to them again, let things fizzle out. But in real life, when it comes to opening up with friends, opening up with family, opening up with romantic partners, that's really tricky. Because if you open up to them, you have to live with it tomorrow. You have to see them again. So it's very natural for us to want to disclose things to strangers. It's a very well-understood part of psychology.

It's part of the reason that we have the restrictions that we have in our group coaching program because we sort of recognize that if you want to authentically work on your problems, working on them with a friend always has a conflict of interest because you have to maintain the relationship and work on your problems. And what if working on the problem actually negatively impacts the relationship? So that's why we try to create a very specific space in group coaching where people can authentically work on shared problems. That's also why sometimes people get upset, but we restrict things in group coaching.

No playing video games together. No having conversations outside of group. Why is that? It's because it changes the relationship, introduces conflicts of interest. And sometimes people in group are really upset by that. They're like, I like these people so much. We've gotten to know each other so well. Why can't we have fun?

That's exactly why. Because once you start having fun, the authenticity and the sacred space within group gets destroyed. There are 1,000 people on the internet, 10,000, 10 million people on the internet for you to play games with. Not someone in group. Go find someone else. There are even people on our Discord. There are 80,000 people on our Discord server. You can play games with them.

Not people in group. group is a sacred space for you to work on problems where you can be authentic and work with a group of peers. So this is common for us to only want to connect to strangers on the internet. The issue is what do we do about it? So now we had a fantastic caller who every time they try to talk about something. So first thing that we kind of notice is that as we start to dig into one problem, their mind adds something else. Oh, by the way, as soon as this is starting to take shape, let's add another variable. And as we start to work on that, let's add another variable.

And as we start to work on that, let's add another variable. And so this is the sign of a slippery mind. And you may notice this yourself, that sometimes like when there's something you're afraid of, your mind will come up with whatever excuse it can to have you not do it. Oh, your problems are too big for them to handle. They're not going to be able to help you. You're going to make them feel guilty. or your problems are too petty.

This person is four years older than you. They've grown past all this kind of stuff. It's pathetic that you even have these problems and you're bothering this person. The end result is the same. Don't have the conversation. And where is that fear coming from? Because we want to project something to our friends. We want to be valuable as friends.

We don't want to burden them. All kinds of other stuff comes in. The end of the day, if you're in this kind of situation where you're trying to figure out, okay, like, how do I have, how do I develop trust with my real friends? How do I share these kinds of things? My concrete recommendation would be that you go meta. So this is a technique that we use in coaching a lot. It's also used in therapy.

I also, you can use it in any kind of, it's useful for any kind of conflict resolution. So the idea of going meta is you don't talk about the thing. You don't address the thing. You talk about addressing the thing. So if I say, for example, I'm happy to talk about anything except for money. So instead of talking about money, what people can ask is you can ask, well, can you help me understand what is it about money that makes you not want to talk about it? We're not going to talk about money, but just help me understand why you don't want to talk

about money so that I can respect your boundaries. So in the case of a friendship, you know, you can sort of ask them like, hey, like what is, like, how do we be friends, not how do we be friends, but what's okay to talk about in this friendship? So instead of sharing this particular thing, like, oh, I have these particular thoughts that I'm embarrassed about, instead of talking and sharing those thoughts, you can ask your friend, you know, is it okay for me to share things with you that may seem petty? Sometimes I'm about to share something and I want to share something, but I'm afraid that it'll burden you or I'm afraid that you'll think it's petty and insignificant.

What do you think about that? So have a conversation about having a conversation. And the interesting thing is that the more that you go meta, the more that you move away from the emotions. So when you're talking about the issue itself, it's highly emotionally charged. Every time we play video games, you feed and you throw. Right? That's emotionally charged. Stop throwing.

Hey, can we talk a little bit about how we play video games together? What's your approach to playing video games? What's my approach to playing video games? And so you can even go like meta, meta, meta, meta. So you can even say like, oh, you don't want to talk about money? Like, can you please tell me why you don't want to talk about money? I don't want to talk about why I don't want to talk about money. Oh, that's totally fine.

No problem. Can you tell me a little bit about what makes you reluctant to talk about the reasons that you don't want to talk about money? And each step away we get, the less emotionally charged it is, the easier it is to insert yourself into a healthy conversation. This is the tricky thing is that when there's a charged emotional subject, we know we need to talk about it, but no one ever teaches us how do you like ease into the topic?

Right? Like how do you ease into this? And so the way that you ease into it is that you go meta. So you go one level above where things are not quite as charged. And then you can go like inception, like one layer deeper and then one layer deeper and then one layer deeper until you get to the core issue. So I'll leave you all with one last example. So let's say that I have a conflict with my wife. So we can address the conflict or what we can do is talk about, you know, like going to couples therapy to address the conflict.

So like we don't want to address the conflict, but we can like do couples therapy. If we do couples therapy, like that's a separate conversation up here that will eventually get to down here. And then if my partner doesn't want to do couples therapy, then what I can do is have a conversation with them about, okay, if you don't want to do couples therapy, like help me understand why. Help me understand your perspective on couples therapy. Right? So you can, like, keep going until you reach a safe territory. Because then you're so abstract that you don't even know what you're talking about anymore. And then you kind of want to, like, go one layer deeper, one layer deeper, one layer deeper, one layer deeper.

In terms of friendship, it's like, hey, like, what is it safe for me to share with you about when we're friends? What can I talk to you about? I'm afraid that you're going to judge me a particular way. What do you think about that? Right? So you can talk about all that stuff and then ease into whatever the sensitive issue is. We also use this technique a lot when we're sort of coaching parents to work with their kids, especially around like healthy gaming habits and stuff like that, right?

So like, you know, if you don't want to talk about limiting your gaming, that's totally fine. Help me understand, like, what makes it hard for you to engage in that conversation. And then the child is like, well, every time we talk about it, you punish me. And then we're making progress, right? Because now we're talking about, okay, so every time we talk about it, you feel like you're getting punished. Thank you for sharing that. And now we can talk about, okay, how should we talk about video games without immediately jumping to punishment? And once we solve that, then we can go to video games.