HealthyGamerGG - LONELINESS: The Danger of Social Isolation

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

Stream Schedule: https://www.twitch.tv/healthygamer_gg on Twitch. Youtube: https://youtu.be/s5cjlHMkOUM for VoD Archive. Support us at https://ko-fi.com/healthygamer if you enjoy our content and would continue helping making it accessible to everyone! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, man. Thanks for coming on. No worries, man. So, and what am I calling you? You can call me Nicholas or Nick, whatever you prefer. Okay. So Nicholas. And so we're talking about loneliness today? Yeah, well, mostly emotional loneliness, not like a physical point. Okay.

So let's start there. What's the difference between things? physical loneliness and emotional loneliness? Well, to me, it's, well, you can have friends physically and hang out with them, but you can still not feel the connection always. So then you emotionally feel lonely because you don't have anyone to maybe talk to and really let out with, if that makes sense to you. So, yeah, you get emotionally isolated at that point is what I feel like. Okay, so can you tell us what that feels like? Um, to me, it feels a lot like, uh, well, you feel lonely, of course.

You feel like you can't rely on anyone and you don't really feel understood. Okay. A lot of points as a person. So you feel lonely and like you can't be understood? Yes, that's part of it. Um, it's a lot to do with the fact that you don't. Yeah, it's mainly on just like being understood by people on an emotional level, like on a deeper level. I guess you could say. So it sounds like you actually have kind of people around you, you have friends, but you feel misunderstood.

Definitely. I don't feel like really, really close with an exception of like a few people, but I have a lot of friends that I don't have like an actual connection with, if that makes sense. Okay. So it's like I don't feel like I can rely on a lot of them on a deeper level. Okay. but it sounds like you do have a few people that you sort of rely on or can rely on on a deeper level. Yeah, more or less. I don't really talk to them on a deeper level a lot.

A lot of it is me and myself in my own room, feeling myself being lonely, if that makes sense. And then to kind of explain it better, it has like two parts of it. It has the part where I feel like I can't connect with a lot of people, but I also have like, I don't want to call it anxiety, but I'm like scared, right? So I'm scared of being alone later in life or being like forever alone. If that makes sense. So it's like those combinations. So you're scared of being alone and what's the second piece?

No, the first piece is that I'm currently feeling like emotionally alone, which I tried to explain earlier. Yeah. And then the second piece is kind of me being scared for the future that I won't have people to be with, both like, platonically and romantically. Okay. Have you been in a romantic relationship before? Yep. That's been around four years ago. Okay. And do you mind if I ask how old you are?

Yeah, I'm 20. You're 20. Okay. Yeah. And how long have you been feeling emotionally lonely? For around. three years maybe. Okay. And do you remember what you felt like in your late teens? Like what, what changed? Um, well, now it's something I have accepted. It's like a part of me now. So it's not something I'm bothering to bother too much by. Um, but you've accepted that you're going to be lonely.

No, I'm accepted. It's the feeling I have. Okay. So I'd like, you know, yeah. So basically during high school I was bothered a lot by the fact that I felt lonely and that my peers seemed way more popular than me in all aspects which gave me insecurities and then I went to a therapist like school therapist and she kind of changed my outlook and stuff by saying it's all about your attitude when you go to like parties etc so she tried to instilling me that if you come in with a good attitude compared to the bad one, you'll have more success in finding friends and so on. Which, you know, did work in finding friends, but it doesn't really wait for me on an emotional level, if that makes sense.

Sure. So it feels feeling it. Yeah, interesting. Can I think for a second, Nicholas? Sure. Okay. Give me just another second, okay? Yeah, no worries.

Take your time. Let me ask you something. Did your feeling of emotional loneliness get worse, the best? you got at changing your attitude? Yes. What I call anxiety or whatever it is, got worse. So whenever I had an episode of feeling an extra lonely and started spiraling in my thoughts,

that would get worse, a lot worse, basically. What would get a lot worse? The amount of times I would feel like the feelings and the thoughts would come on came more often and it would be there for longer, like the episode. And that happened more, the more you learned to change your attitude and social situations? Yeah, definitely. Okay, so let's let's just notice that for a second because that sounds, I mean, it makes perfect sense to me, but it sounds strange.

Right. So like here, you're seeing a therapist and your therapist is telling you, hey, if you're like insecure about going to parties, what you can do is change your attitude. and then you can learn to be like more friendly and more positive. And as you become more friendly and positive, you'll be able to make more friends and you'll be able to go to parties. Is that a fair? No. I would say the way she wanted me to think about it is that if you change,

so she had to think about fulfilling prophecies, right? So if I came in there thinking, oh, nobody would like me or nobody cares about me. whatever. She would say that would, you know, rub off to people compared to I came and being like, hey, let's meet new people. Let's make friends. So she was saying, she was basically saying, if I went to the party with a more positive attitude, I wouldn't feel as judged or whatever you could call it. Okay. And that worked.

Yes. Well, while I did, I got more friends. I was more confident, all I am more confident, confident about going to parties. But I also feel more disconnected to a lot of people. Okay. Right. So let's, so this is going to sound kind of strange. Let me ask you, Nicholas, what do you think is, how do you understand that? Do you have any ideas as to what's going on? Kind of. I mean, to me, I think it's because most of the relationships are kind of superficial. And why are they superficial?

What makes them super... I'll say it's due to the fact that we are only connected by other friends and we don't actually like hang out and meet and interact, you know what I mean? So we only hang out superficially whenever there's a reason to do it. We don't really support each other like with feelings and whatnot because we don't talk about it that much at least. So I feel like that's the main thing because we don't really... like support each other in that fact what keeps you from talking about your feelings um i have a strong feeling of independence and not really relying on each other or other people i would say anyways okay so i'm going to talk about a theme for today right it's how the solutions are the problems

that's our theme for today sure um so i'm going to try to explain this concept for a second and then we're going to see how much of it applies and how much of it doesn't. Okay. Okay. So if we think about people who have problems in their relationships, they tend to hold on to old solutions that used to work. So one of my teachers once told me that the process of growing up is about getting rid of what works, which is kind of a weird way to think about it. But like, let's say I'm a two-year-old kid and I don't get what I want and then I start crying and then maybe I'll get what I want.

Right. So like two-year-olds have certain ways to make their needs known and get what they are looking for and get their needs met. As we grow older, ideally a two-year-old will like abandon some of those things because even though it used to work, it's sort of not working anymore. But even like a 13-year-old who throws a temper tantrum, depending on the circumventure. that they grow up in will actually get that their needs met through a temper tantrum. And they're also 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 40 year olds for whom like throwing temper tantrums is a way to get their needs met. And if they end up, like let's say you're 25 years old and you're used to throwing temper tantrums because your parents sort of tolerated that kind of thing. And then you start engaging in a romantic relationship and you start throwing temper tantrums.

And depending on who you're dating, they'll either tolerate that or they'll break up with you. And when a lot of people break up with you, that becomes sort of a relationship problem, right? Like, there's some problem that you have with relationships. And what I find time and again is that first of all, I start with the assumption that, like, people aren't stupid. I also start with the assumption that people aren't, like, broken in some way. I think for the most part, most people out there, like have brains and bodies. and minds that are functioning the best way that they know now. Right? If you think about like, you know, your body, like most people's hands work pretty well.

Most people's eyes work pretty well. This is a really crazy thing. Most people's minds work pretty well. They do exactly what they're designed to do, or they do the best that they know how. So what I'm noticing, any questions about that? No, that makes sense. Okay. So it's kind of weird, right? Because you went to this therapist and your therapist like taught you this positive mental attitude strategy. And what we're hearing is actually a lot of success. We're hearing that you were able to go to parties, that you were able to make friends, that you changed your attitude and you feel confident and comfortable interacting with other people, whereas in high school you didn't

really feel that way. So that's a success, right? Right. Yeah. And at the same time, I asked you kind of a weird question, because if this is a success, I asked you the question, have you found that the better you got at this, the more emotionally isolated you feel? And your answer was what? Yeah, correct. So like, let's try to think about what does that happen? Like, what's going on there? So my sense is that this worked for you, but what you learned how to do was like put on a certain kind of clothing.

Like you put on this mental clothing of like, I'm going to have a podcast. positive mental attitude. And then you started to be someone that you're not exactly. Like you started to take parts of yourself. Like you had these insecurities, right? And then what you did is you like buried those insecurities underneath this like positive mental attitude. And as a result, the most connected that someone can get to you is halfway. Because the most they ever see is like the positive part. And then what you're here, what I'm hearing from you is that like you, You don't have a deeper emotional connection with people. And that's sort of because, like, I think you approach it from sort of a, hey, let's

like hang out and like, let's meet people and let's have a good time. And so you project that side of yourself, which is a good side. And people kind of like that. And they're like, hey, like, Nicholas is a pretty cool guy. But it never gets to something serious because all the serious stuff has been kind of pushed away. What do you think? I can definitely agree with that.

mainly it's to do with all of my good friends that I do rely on every now and then are from you know before high school mainly so you know back from when I was 14 and 10 and under stuff like that so so yeah so let's think about who did they get to know um well yeah definitely the more uh connected all like true part of myself i guess you could call it I just know actual true part of oneself but you know why not what does that mean well um I just have to think that you always project one side of you to everyone. You don't always reject like the whole side of yourself to no matter who you're with. I feel like just because you know like when when as you talk about the mask thing,

when you go to like a sports club or whatever you put on one side of yourself when you go to a class, you put on another side so and so forth. So I feel like with my older friends, they definitely got to know me better on a all-around standpoint. But I don't think there's anyone that really, you know, know the full me, not even myself. Do you want them to know the full you? No. Why not?

I don't think so. Because I think there's some things I want to keep private for myself, just for the fact that there's some things I feel like that shouldn't be shared to other people. It doesn't have to be anything sensitive. Just, it could be hobbies. It could be, just your alone time in general, honestly. Could be your own those secrets or promises to yourself, but I think it depends from person to person. I mean, so I totally get that things are personal. Right. I'm still a little bit curious about, it seems like you feel like they shouldn't be shared no i'm not saying that necessarily what are you just my um i'm just saying me

personally would rather not share everything sure things i would just want to keep yeah and are there things that you want to share but you haven't been able to definitely yeah um like now like the emotional and and every time i felt depressed like in previous times in high school uh i couldn't for example always talk to my parents because I wasn't comfortable with it. Okay. Stuff like that, you know. So you weren't comfortable with it. What does that mean?

The reason why I wasn't comfortable with it is due to my mother being very, like she blames herself a lot for a lot of things. So I felt like if I told her, she would be upset about it. So that's the reason and also just the fact that I wasn't uncomfortable sharing things about myself in general at that point in time. I was very, like, isolated. So. So, Nicholas, like, those two combinations.

What are you afraid is going to happen if people see who you are? I'm afraid that people will leave, like, look good, physically and emotionally. Does that happen to you before? Yes. A long time ago, though. I was 14, I believe, where I had, like, a lot of friends that were just, from my knowledge, randomly leave without any actual reason. And what's, can you tell us about that?

So I had a combination of online friends and real life friends that sometimes would just like cut me off and just stop talking from that point. Which seemed to me at that point that we were in good terms. So it didn't really make sense to me. So that's where like basically a lot of it stems from, I think. I think so too. Yeah. So I feel like a lot of it, at least afterwards at that point, which I do know is that I shut myself in and didn't trust a lot of people. And then I kind of came over and started trusting people again and talking to people, but I never really, you know, fully opened myself up anymore afterwards.

I think you started talking to people again. I don't think you started trusting people. Right. What can you tell us can you tell us a story about when you were 14 like give us an example like help me understand what that what happened? It's kind of hard to I mean not to talk about but to explain Basically so I had a few friends that I talked to almost every day And I don't know there's not much to talk about except for the fact that I was just caught off completely one From all of them or one of them?

No, it's just a few of them. Like a few of my friends over a period of time, I think it's around like half a year, just like disappeared. And they didn't really know each other. So I'm not sure how like it happened. But just some important people left me like after each other basically. And how did they, how did they cut you off? Like, like how did that happen? Like the, you know, they blocked me on social.

media, they didn't reply to messages, they stopped hanging out with me in that sense. Interesting. So these are real life friends? Let's like just both both a real life person and a few online. Yeah. Can we just pick one and kind of go through the sequence of events? Um, sure. I'm trying to feel like I'm trying to find if there's any theme. Um, so what happens if that? I'm sorry Nicholas I don't want a theme and I don't want a conclusion I want as raw of a data as you can provide so as unfiltered as you can give me like tell me you know think about like just like pick one person and then you kind of said they blocked you on social media and stuff like that so were these people that you knew at school um no mostly online friends some of them I might later on though but mostly

online friends so that I came to know online friends and like how did you know them online did you guys play games together, like what was the deal? Some of them I played games with and others. I just met on this social media app called me out chat, which is not, you know, available anymore. Okay. Server shut down and something I'm not sure about. Anyways, it's like basically an app like Discord,

but you can be random people. Okay. Some of them I have met later, one of them became a girlfriend afterwards. Not my current girlfriend, but like at the time. And yeah, so we, I talked to them there and then a lot of them, they didn't know each other. A lot of them started coming me off after like half a year. I think it was half a year's time.

And one of them also, like basically one of them staged that they couldn't use the phone. And then I found out they had the phone later on to chat on. And then, you know, I was blocked later. How did you find that out? They had an alternate account. And how did you feel when you found out they were lying to? I felt betrayed, to put it simple, pretty much, yeah. What do you mean by betrayed?

Like they betrayed my trust, basically, and the friendship we had at the time. How did they betray it? Well, like you said, lying to me by trying to give out. of the relationship we had like the friendship without an actual reason without telling me why or what's going on or anything like no communication whatsoever so I think that is what kind of struck him so I'm I'm envisioning that you sort of started to be afraid that there's something wrong with you right yeah I guess you could say that what do you that is sorry go ahead

No, one of the themes I have when I get these episodes of feeling lonely and afraid is that I feel like something's wrong with me, but I quite can't figure out what it is. That makes sense. Where does your mind go? Yeah, go ahead. It goes in a spiral, but it usually goes towards the direction where I feel like I don't deserve a lot of friends and relationships. It's where it tends to go towards. I think for a second. Sure.

have a sense of why it is that let's assume for a moment that that's true that you don't deserve a lot of friends what do you think it is that makes you not deserve a lot of friends that's what i never can't figure out um so that's why i call it like an anxiety even though it's not you know diagnosed because none of the thoughts that can make sense whatsoever like there's no logic in them um okay so i i i i i I just spiral towards it and I can't figure out why that would be the case. I'm just looking at trends in the fact that, you know, my friends seem to be more popular and I lost friends and stuff like that, if that makes sense.

So I want to ask you something, Nicholas, or I'm going to make an observation, actually. Sure. So I want you to notice that a lot of times when we have a feeling, our mind tries to come up with reasons, which is what it's supposed to do. So let's say that I'm walking barefoot and I feel something poke my foot. So what do I do? I notice that sensation. I have a feeling of stepping on something sharp and then I lift up my foot and I look at my foot and I look at the ground. Does that make sense? I look for a reason why I feel a certain way. Does that make sense? That makes a let's say. Yeah. So like let's say I'm in a

relationship and I have a feeling that my partner is cheating on me. Then what I do is I go look for reasons. I start checking their phone. I start texting them. I start asking around. I look for a reason to explain a feeling. And what I'm hearing from you is that you have a fee and you have a feeling but you haven't been able to find a reason. Definitely. Yeah. And you're still looking for one. case. Yes. What do you think about that? That is, I don't know, I can't collect my thoughts on exactly that. I feel anything, if anything, I feel scared. Yep. Yeah. So I think the more you look for a reason and the more you're unable to find one, what does that do to your fear? Accelerates it, I would say.

Absolutely, right? Because you're like, oh, my God, there's something wrong and I can't find it. And it's big and it's bad. And I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm looking. And I can't find it. And if I can't find it, I can't fix it. And if I can't fix it, I'm going to be alone. Because whatever it is is going to pop up again and it's going to drive people away.

Yes. That would be the case. Okay. Do you think that kind of encapsulates how you feel? Yeah, actually, I would say it is. Yeah, because that would count both plasonic name momentively. Okay. So I want to talk to you for a second about something called psychosis.

Okay. And I realize this is kind of weird. I'm not trying to judge you or anything. Sure, yeah. But have you heard this term psychosis? I have, but I'm not quite sure of the definition of it. Okay. So like, do you know what the word paranoia means?

Yeah. Okay. So I don't think you're psychotic. I don't think you're paranoid or anything like that. The reason I'm bringing it up is because sometimes, if we want to try to understand how something works, we have to look at a malfunction of that object. So for example, if I'm trying to figure out what a tire does on a car, if I slash the tire and let the air out, then I quickly figure out, oh, this is the function of the tire.

Does that make sense? if we break like some piece, like if I unplug my mouse, like if I don't know what controls my computer and then I unplug my mouse, I can quickly figure out, okay, the keyboard controls this and the mouse controls this. Does that make sense? So we can discover the function of something by looking at a case of malfunction.

With me? Yeah. So I want to use psychosis to illustrate a general principle of the mind that applies to everyone. But when we look at psychosis, we'll kind of see how that function of the mind works because we'll look at like a version that's kind of busted. So sometimes people have paranoia and it's sort of like an, it's like a illness or like it's a malfunction of paranoia. So what happens is that, you know, sometimes people with psychosis, they'll wake up one day and they feel like they're being watched.

They have a feeling. I'm being watched in the same way that you have a feeling that something is wrong with you. You just wake up one day and you've like, I've got, I'm a feeling, I have a feeling that something's being watched. So then what happens is their logical mind starts to try to figure things out. Like, okay, where, like who's watching me? And they look around and they're like, oh, well, I have like these two webcams here. And so like that must be what's watching me. So what they do is they unplug their webcams. And then they like feel better for a day.

And then they wake up the next day and they're like, okay, I feel like I'm being watched. Like I took care of the webcams. Like what else is going on? Oh, it must be someone. Maybe someone's looking at me through the windows. So then what they do is they close up all the windows. And then they're like, feel better for a day. And the next day they wake up and they're like,

I feel like I'm being watched. And they're like not really sure what's going on. So then they walk down the street and sure enough, there's someone looking at them. They're walking down the street and there's someone walking the other way. And like, that person's kind of watching. And then they go and they drive around. and they see like there are cars like they make a right turn and someone else makes a right turn and they're like oh my god maybe i'm being followed and this goes on for a while and then like they

try to figure out okay where is this feeling coming from who's watching me and then eventually like they start to construct like really bizarre theories so they start to think that like it must be the government or the mafia because they think who has the resources to be constantly watching me and the best answer that they can come up with is like a powerful organization. But what I want to point out is like, you know, which comes first, the thought or the feeling? The feeling. And the thought is always looking for an answer. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And so the really interesting thing is that's the way our mind is wired, though, because like when we step on something, we have a feeling. and then our mind has evolved to be like, hey, let's try to figure out where this feeling comes from. Like, that's what our mind does. It's like it tries to explain our feelings because our feelings tend to be like, you know, intuitive like warning signs or like, I mean,

there's a lot of important stuff in feelings. If I walk into a room and I make eye contact with someone and then I have butterflies in my stomach and I start to feel sweaty and I start giggling like an idiot. Like those feelings are telling me something. Right? So feelings are a really important source of information. And then my mind tries to like piece together what's going on with the feeling. Any questions so far? No, that makes sense.

What makes sense about it? The fact that we are, you know, we've evolved to perceive stuff and then make sense of it, right? So we're using our senses. Yep. That makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is that feelings come first. Definitely. Right? And so like, you know, you can. walk into, you know, you can walk into your house late at night and then like you get this feeling

that maybe you're in danger and all the lights are off. And like that feeling comes from somewhere and then you try to reassure it, you turn on the lights, you look around, whatever. So in your case, I think what could be going on is that you have a feeling that something in you is busted. And that's not an inaccurate feeling because how else do you explain these people ghosting you? Like there must be something wrong, right? But I think what started to happen is that feeling has started to grow so much and develop a life of its own that your mind is doing all of these compensatory mechanisms. It's like starting to think about this and think about this and think about this. And you can never find the answer for what's wrong with you because I don't think there's anything wrong with you.

I think the reason that you feel like something is wrong with you is because people did treated you in a way that made you feel not value. Yeah. But the thing is that feeling doesn't come from the outside. It comes from their actions towards you. Does that make sense? Sure. Yeah. So like let me give you just another example.

So let's say I have abusive parents. If my parents treat me like shit, I'm going to go through life feeling like I'm worth nothing. It doesn't actually mean I'm worth nothing. It just means that the way that my parents treated me made me feel like I'm worth nothing. nothing. And then as I go through life with that feeling, I'm going to come up with all kinds of compensatory mechanisms or solutions to deal with it. Like I need to ask people all the time. Like I have to ask them, like if I'm dating someone, I have to ask them every single day. Do you love me? Sure. Because I need to hear it from them. Because I don't believe it about myself.

So I need reassurance. Do you love? Do you really love me? Do you really, really? Are you going to leave me. Promise you me. Promise me you'll never leave. Promise me. Because I don't have faith or confidence that this person wouldn't want to leave me. And so your mind comes up with all these things to try to account for it. But at the end of the day, like, where does that person's

lack of confidence come from? Well, that would come from themselves. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Do you think this applies to your situation? Yeah. I would say how so.

I would say so. Could. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I would say in a different way, but it applies more to the fact that I keep telling myself that I'm going to be lonely whenever, you know, these thoughts come up, and I just can't stop that feeling of thought from coming. And then in that sense, as you said earlier,

I take the logic to the fact that that might be something wrong with me, even though it's not an actual fact. So I think in that way it would apply, but, you know. Yeah, so now we get to an interesting, great point. So let me ask you, when you feel like you're going to be lonely, what do you try to do with that feeling? Whenever that happens, I don't really do much about it.

I sit in to isolate myself and just being my feels for the next two hours, three hours. And then after that, I just kind of get numb, if that makes sense. Okay, that doesn't make sense. So I think you kind of get like mentally exhausted from the feeling. Yeah, I would say that, yeah. Yep, right. So like an overload. Yep, overload.

And then it's like, you know, it's like a, you know what a blue screen of death is, a BSOD? No. Okay, so it's like when your computer crashes, your RAM overloads or something. And it just restarts. Right? Yeah. So like that's, I'm hearing that happen with you. So let's think a little bit about, do you?

have any idea about how to move forward from here um i feel like it's a lot to do with um accepting myself but i'm not sure how to do that right so this is the problem because it's like yeah everyone's like accept yourself nicholas for who you are yeah yeah and then you'll be free yeah and then you're like how the fuck do i do that yeah you know it makes no sense from it's basically like something depressed people not to be depressed you know like no it's actually the opposite. That's why they have trouble with it. Because it's not telling them to not be depressed. It's telling them to be depressed.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. So accepting yourself is not, if a, so if there's someone who's depressed and we tell them to accept themselves, are we telling them to be depressed or not be depressed? No, that's not what I meant. I mean like when you

tell depressed people not to be depressed. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's like you can tell them just don't be depressed and it doesn't work. And I can tell you just accept yourself. And you're like, I have no fucking idea how to do that. Yeah, exactly. Okay.

So let me tell you what accepting yourself looks like. Give me a second. Okay. Sure. Okay. So when you meet someone, you show them a mask. Right. Why do you show them a mask?

To be liked by that person, I would say. Be accepted by the person. Yeah. So see, this is the person. problem, right? So your solution is the problem. To be liked by them, to be accepted by them. And when they accept you, you fuck yourself because they're not actually accepting you. Who are they accepting? Well, yeah, my mask, basically. Yep. Yeah. And so all of your interactions reinforce the idea that the only thing about me that is that is worth loving is my mask.

Yeah. And so like the more people that accept your mask, what happens to your emotional loneliness? Well, it would get worse. Absolutely. The solution is the problem. So now let me ask you a question, Nicholas. Sure. How do we change that cycle? Well, in that case, it would be stopping, like, stopping yourself and putting a mask on.

Sure. Which would, that's easier set than none. Absolutely. Yeah. But now, hold on. Go ahead. Oh, I was going to say basically not to enable yourself going that way and try to, you know, be yourself around more people. Yeah.

So, but we've made, so that's very different, right? Because telling the depressed person to not be depressed, in that case, the person doesn't know how to do it. They literally don't know how to do it. But now we've come to a different problem. You know how to do it. It's just really hard. Yeah. Does that make sense? Like this apples and oranges stuff. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Right? So like, like now I know this is going to sound weird, but this is how you accept yourself. When you show yourself to other people, you have to, that's, you have to accept yourself in that process. Does that make sense? You can't show yourself to someone without accepting who you are.

Yeah, I can see that. Right. So like, I know it sounds weird, but that's how you do it. So what's, what that means practically is I think that like there are going to be times where you interact with other people where there's going to be a part of you that says you're going to have a thought or you're going to want to do something or say something and there's going to be a part of you that says Nicholas don't do that because if you say that they'll run away. You know which part I'm talking about? Well, that would be the suppressed part of me or like my actual thing. But I encourage you to look at your.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. No. I'm not sure how it's a phrase it. It would be the part of, well, the, my expectations of others inside of me or my fear. Sure. Sure. My point is that the mask has a cognitive component, right? So when we call a mask, you're not actually putting on a mask. What the mask is, is this a set of thoughts that dictate your behaviors. Sure. Does that make sense? So the thing that if you want to accept yourself, what you have to do is notice those thoughts that are telling you to not say something and then choose the other thing. And they're going to say like, so you have a girlfriend now, it sounds like?

No, no, no, no. Okay. So, so, you know, like, are there certain things that we've talked about today, which you thought would be relevant, but you haven't shared because. because you're afraid of judgment? Hold on. I'm trying to think about it. Only thing, no, no, not really. Okay, so. Yeah, I'll just go on. Okay, can I, you gotta let me know

if this is going overboard, okay? But I'm just gonna ask you a question. Can we talk about why you don't have a girlfriend? Sure, definitely. Now, my hope in talking about why you don't have a girlfriend is that you're gonna have certain thoughts about yourself that the mask is going to want to cover or certain feelings about yourself. Right.

Do you think that that's the case if we talk about why you don't have a girlfriend? I think it could be the case, but not to the extent you might think. Okay. So then give me something else. The thing about this is that I've had it for a while. So I've kind of come to accept it as a part of me, if that makes sense, that I just do it, you know? Yep, I understand. So that's why I want something that's like, you know, so let me put it this way. You know, you said earlier that there are some things that you don't want to share with people because they're profit. So like, let's pick one of those topics and talk about it. Well, this was one of the topics. It's not that I'm honestly, it's not because I'm afraid to talk about it. I just don't do it for the fact that I don't want to bother people with it. Okay. So what's something that you don't want to bother us with?

Yeah. Well, yeah, this was one of them. The second would be my insecurity in myself sometimes in my, like the way I approach people, which I feel like I say huge factors as to why I don't have a girlfriend as well. Also my, what was I going to say? Also the fact that I get depressed, not diagnosed, which is like huge difference, but everyone gets depressed, I mean, which happens quite a bit. all of that kind of contributes to me, you know, filling it down a lot and I isolate myself.

And then, you know, I just end up getting those overlaps that talks to me about. Nicholas, I want you to show us an ugly part of you. I want to see an ugly part. I'm not sure how to show that, though. I'm not sure. What's ugly? When you say that, I don't know. It's hard for me to do.

Like, when you say it, I don't know what to show, you know, nothing really comes up. that makes sense. Okay. So that's kind of interesting, right? So that that leads to one of two. When I ask you to, I want to see the ugliest thing you've got. And that if you can't come up with something, what are the reasons that you may not be able to come up with it? Could be the mask as you talked about. But the other thing I'm not sure about, honestly. Okay. So one is that you've gotten so used to suppressing it that you don't even know how to find it anymore. more. I have another wild, wild idea. What if you have nothing ugly within you? And all you really have, much like the paranoid person, is a feeling that you're ugly. And that despite you look for what's ugly within you, you can't find anything. Maybe what you just have is the feeling of ugliness. Yeah, I could agree to, yeah, I could agree. Again, as I mentioned at the stellar, Whenever I feel this loneliness, I don't know what.

And I think that's connected with this because I can't figure out any proper reason for me to not be lonely, but it happens anyway. Yep. You know? So I have a crazy idea. It's just a feeling. Right. It's not a truth. There's nothing broken.

You're not ugly. Because I'm telling you, man, if you are ugly like, that's cool, show us so that we can either accept you or reject you. Right. And so I think this is also where acceptance comes in. I think you have to give people the, if you want, so Nicholas, this all comes down to your sense of value. Somewhere along the way, you started to believe that you weren't worth very much, that people cheated you poorly because you weren't worth treating well. And like, that's why you put on the mask because people can't see. the ugliness on the inside. So you have to put on a mask because what's down there is fundamentally

ugly. And then you say this a lot. So like you don't deserve a lot of friends. I don't want to bother people. If we think about those two statements, what that mean is that like you're inconvenient, like you're not worth it. Like you're not worth inconveniencing someone else's day. It all comes down to value. Now here's the really tricky thing. As long as you keep a mask on, your sense of value will never increase. Because the more you wear the mask, the more what they judge is the mask and they don't judge you. And then you end up emotionally lonely because you never get to connect with someone. Because all they connect with is a false face that you put on.

Yeah. So the way that you connect with people is by showing people. Now, that's hard because I don't know that it's a particular thing. And maybe we can find it. Maybe we can't. But even if we can't find it, what I think you need is courage, because you have to let them look underneath the mask and take the risk of being hurt again. Yeah.

But the only way that you're going to start to have faith at yourself, and the only way you're going to realize that you're not ugly on the inside is when you take off the mask, you go outside and then like people treat you normally. And then the day that you start doing that, your life is going to be. be entirely different. Because it's like, holy shit. I'm actually a pretty cool guy. People actually like me. They see me. They know me. And like maybe the reason that those 14 year olds blocked me is because they're fucking 14 and it's meow chat and the internet is a weird place. Maybe there's nothing fundamentally wrong with me. But you can't know that unless you give

people a chance to reject you. Right now the problem is that you're never, you never, you never putting anything on the table like you're never you're not giving people a chance to know you that's why you're lonely yeah I think um the hard part of it is to to locate when exactly you put on the mask and then you know rejecting it or putting it off sure I'm not quite sure because yeah because right now I've not really thought about putting the mask on more than what I explained to you earlier that the fact that everyone puts masks on depending on the situation right But I've never thought about it the way you just put it.

So I don't think I know how or when it's there. Okay. If that makes sense. Sure. So, Nicholas, let me ask you him, do you have a mask on right now? Possibly. I'm not entirely aware of it, but I think I do. Yeah.

Okay. So what does that covering up? That's something I can't quite locate. Okay. Okay. Yeah. How does it feel? How does it feel when I ask you these questions?

and you can't answer them. Uncomfortable and confusing. Good. Perfect. Yeah. We're getting underneath the mask. What feels uncomfortable about it? Tell me about that discomfort. I think the discomfort comes from the fact that I can't answer.

Good. So when you can't answer a question that Dr. K is asking you, how does that make you feel? Well, yeah, uncomfortable. Okay. It makes me uncomfortable, yeah. Okay. what's uncomfortable about it it's uncomfortable about it because I don't know why like the the thing that I

like because I don't know it makes me uncomfortable because I thought that I kind of more or less knew why I had it but this makes me a little bit uncomfortable because I can't figure out now so how does someone who can't figure something out when they're being asked feel well

unknowledgeable or Yeah, stupid sometimes. There we go. So when you say uncomfortable, do you mean stupid? Not entirely. When I mean uncomfortable, it's just when I think back to all the times of interact with people, when I don't know when I've had the mask on them. Yeah, but I'm talking about right now.

Okay, so you don't know when you've had the mask on. So I'm guessing, so generally speaking, when I ask people questions and they're not able to answer them and they use the word uncomfortable, what I imagine they mean is that they feel dumb because they don't have to answer. No, that's not quite why I feel. What do you feel? It's just, I wouldn't say, I mean, I guess you could call this stupid, but not quite. I feel more surprised in a bad way, kind of like when you get a shock, right? For the fact that I haven't known about this, because I feel like I know myself quite well.

But apparently I don't. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. So you feel like you should have figured. this out. Yeah, yeah. I guess you could say that. Yeah. So now that's interesting. So I think like that too comes from your sense of value. Right. So instead of just feeling stupid, oh, this is going to be hard, Nicholas, okay? But I want I want you guys to really like pay attention to this. Instead of just feeling stupid, he's blaming himself for not figuring it out already. And that comes from the idea that you're fundamentally, you're not worth it, right? Like, oh, God, this is so hard. I hope you guys

understand this because I can't explain it better. Like the person who doesn't value themselves blames themselves for not knowing something when they learn something new. Do you guys get that? Like you guys see how that's his just, it's his like instead of just feeling dumb like anyone else, he feels worthless because he couldn't figure it out. He should have figured it out long ago. Look at how dumb I am. Like look at how worthless I am. Other people would have been able to figure it out, but I can't figure it out. You guys see that? It's all like spiraling out of this sense of lack of worth.

Does that make sense to you, Nicholas? That makes sense. You're like blaming yourself for not having figured this out. Is that fair? Yeah. It's not that you feel. It's not fair. Yeah.

Is it accurate? I wouldn't say it's fair. It's accurate. Yeah. Right. So but do you see how like I'm just asking you a question? And then what your mind is doing is you're saying, oh, I can't believe that I didn't notice this before.

Like, how dumb am I? That is the feeling of a strength. Yeah, right? So, like, that too is a feeling of value. It's about a feeling of your identity as a person. It's not like I'm dumb because I have low IQ. It's like, I should have figured this out. Like, you're beating yourself up.

Right. So now I'm going to ask you a different question, Nicholas. Here you are being an idiot in front of us and revealing all of the things that you should have figured out on your own. And how do you feel? Um, I feel nervous, honestly. And I feel, I feel like I should have done this a long time ago with friends, honestly. That's the, that's the two main feelings.

Okay. So let's, there it is again. Okay. So now I'm going to ask you, I should have done this a long time ago with friends. Tell me about that. Um, if I, if I, I feel like if I've done it with friends before, maybe. the problem wouldn't have been as profound as it is. And so whose fault is it that the problem is this bad?

In that sense, I would say it would have been my own fault. There you go. You see how your mind does that? Your mind jumps to blame you. No matter like, however I twist and turn, oh, it's like, oh, I should like, do you really get what I'm saying here? Yeah, I can see now what you mean. I think I do that quite a lot. Yeah, your mind jumps to this idea that it's your mind. your fault. And why is it your fault? Because your sense of value for yourself is low. It can't be someone else's fault, Nicholas. When they stopped, when they blocked you,

whose fault wasn't Nick? My fault. There it is. Yeah, yeah, I see. I see. So what do you see? Tell me. I see why, um, you know, these feelings kind of come up now. if I'm constantly putting myself under the bus, basically. Exactly. Yeah. You know, that makes sense. Right. It's a lot of sense.

Yeah. It's weird, man. But so here's the thing. I hope that you have some some kind of hope at this point. Because I certainly have hope for you. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't feel.

So here's the thing. I don't feel hopeless. Yeah. Because I've felt progress and then I've, you know, kind of like taking two steps forward and then I'm one back, kind of back and forth. What really gets to me is when I have, you know, those episodes of overload. Because then it kind of affects me for like days at a time. Okay. Yeah.

So like, let's say I get it and then I'm feeling lonely and anxious for like three hours maybe. And then I will feel numb for like two days, three days. Okay. And that's what really like makes me feel lonely after that point. Now, I'm not like everything else to say still counts, but this is what like really hits me. That's what I was hoping to. It's kind of talk about. Yeah.

So I know this is going to sound maybe a little bit disappointing, Nicholas, but I don't think you can do so much about those overload states right now. Sure. I think the overload states will get better over time. The more that you notice and accept that there is a part of you that is going to twist and turn and blame yourself. And my guess is that if you tunnel into those overloaded states or right before you get overloaded, if you tunnel down into what you're thinking, somehow it's a thought that stems from your sense that, like, you messed up in some way or that you're not a good person. I could agree. It's like a frenzy of like thoughts about, oh, I messed this up or I should have done this or like, you know, this person like I could have done this better.

and like it's something about you not in all of those shoulds that you tell yourself those are not acceptance because like even then like if you say oh i should have done this with friends like you can't accept that like it's okay to not have done it with friends like you're doing it now like do you see how should an acceptance or opposite ends of the spectrum like this pen is black it should be blue like that's not accepting that the pen is black it's just two opposite ends And so the cool thing is that I think that you will get better, but the solution to the overload episodes is not to fix the episode. It's to slowly chip away at the fuel for the episode. Right.

Right. And the more that you look at like how your mind makes it your fault, is your mind making it your fault here when you're listening to me? Is it doing something? No, I'm just listening. Okay. I'm thinking about when I have the episodes that, um, usually something triggers it, right? So I've done something, but it's just that way I feel like I was in the wrong. Yep.

There it is. I was into that. Okay. Yeah, right. You could tell me more. But do you see, you see how like what triggers the episode is the idea that you've done something wrong. And what's fucked up is you probably didn't even do anything wrong. And so what I'm saying is if you want to conquer the episodes.

So I want everyone to understand this. People come to me and they. they say, how do I put out the fire? My house is burning down. Every week it burns down. And what I say is, don't try to put out the fire. Put out the match. Put out the match that gets you started.

And like, because people look at this and it's kind of bizarre, but like, it's way easier to put out a match than it is to put out the fire once it started. And so once you get into that overload mode, it's going to take a lot of effort, a lot of work to kind of wrap that in. But what I'm telling you, and this is when I think about, you know, when I've helped people who have like panic attacks and stuff to the point where they're like off of medication. They're basically, I mean, they're not really cured, but in psychiatry, we don't cure anyone. We have something called sustained remission, which means that they don't have any symptoms for a long

period of time, but we don't cure anyone because we don't know. We can't do that. Fine. So when I see patients with sustained remission, the way that I get there is I get them to put out the match. You go to the root of it. And you pull out the root and all of the subsequent. behaviors will come frumbling down.

So would you say, would you say the way to find the match for just to be recognized when it happens? Absolutely. Because you said it gets triggered by what, Nicholas? By me blaming myself. There it is. Yeah. So the hard part at that point, I would say, is just to stop the thoughts and rolling in.

Nope, you can't stop them. Nope. that's not acceptance right see that's what you try to do i would bet money i would bet money that you fight against them you fight against them with every fiber of your being and the more you fight them the more they grow that's right right so i want you to imagine this i want you guys to think about your thoughts like water and the harder you hit it like if i if i jump off of a hundred foot diving board and I make myself flat and I smack into water, it's hard like concrete. The harder I push against it, the harder it pushes back. If I'm in a bathtub, or if I'm in

the ocean, let's say a bathtub, if I'm in the bathtub and there are too many waves in the bathtub and I push against the waves, what happens? Well, they push back. Absolutely. And so that's what you do. When those thoughts come, what do you do, Nicholas? I push back. And then what they, what do they do? Well, they push back harder. Then what do you do?

Yeah. Pushback. Yeah, back and forth. And then you hit overload. Right. You see that? It's an escalating cycle until you're like, you're tired of pushing back. You're physically exhausted.

You just lay back. They hammer you for a while. And then they stop. And then you crawl out of the tub and you're numb for two or three days because you're exhausted from all this cognitive activity. So acceptance is laying back at the very beginning. Okay. Stopping the cycle.

So when they hammer you, you just notice it and say, oh, here it is again. Here's my old friend. Here's 14-year-old Nicholas who's paranoid that the world doesn't like him. Because that Nicholas is still 14. It's not the person that you are today with your cool hair and your beard. Yeah. There's 14-year-old Nicholas who's not confident, who's insecure. And sometimes he's afraid and he comes and he says, Nick, I'm afraid that people aren't going to like me.

And then you're like, fuck you. Everyone likes you. You piece of shit. Why are you complaining? And then he grows. He gets stronger. Every time you push him away, he gets stronger. So when those spirals start, see that within yourself.

See that there's like this part of you that's like, Oh my God, these people don't like me. I screwed something up. And instead of saying, no, no, no, you didn't screw anything up. You're great, bro. You're awesome. Because that's actually what the abuse of 14-year-old Nicholas looks like. That's the positive fucking mental attitude that your therapist taught you.

Right? It's telling you like, no, man. Like you're awesome. Like everyone likes you. You have no reason to feel that way. I know it sounds bizarre, but that positivity is abusive. It's the weirdest thing in the world. So you would say it's basically enabling.

yourself. Absolutely. And that's what we hear from you, right? We hear that everything you do makes it worse. Stop doing that's true. That's definitely true. Right? And it started with this positive mental attitude stuff because the positive mental attitude was useful for a time. It worked for a time. Right. It helped you make friends and stuff. But now you're finding like, okay, I can't make authentic friends. Definitely. And so I think that there are times where you interact with other people where you want to say something that's authentic, and then your mind tells you, you're going to screw it up if you tell them.

Yeah. And then you don't speak. And instead, what you need to do is speak. And here's the wild thing. I'm not going to tell you you won't screw it up. The way to overcome this is by screwing it up over and over and over again. Because you're not going to screw it up all the time.

You're going to screw it up sometimes, and you're not going to screw it up other times. And that's when you're going to find like the middle road of like who you are, that you're not perfect, because that's what you try to be, by the way. I don't know if you noticed. Sure. Like the more you try to be perfect, the more that comes from the idea that you don't have inherent about. Like the less, the more insecure you are in yourself as a person, the harder you try to be perfect.

And instead, what you need to be is just be who you are, which is like a 20 year old guy who's like got some problems and self-confidence. But there's also like kind of friendly and charismatic and knows how to talk to people. Sure. Be that dude. Be the guy who like pisses some people off and befriends others. Yeah. Yeah. I can agree.

It's hard though, right? It's absolutely hard. To not push back. Yep. That's the main thing. Yep. So now, Nicholas, we're going to test you. You ready for a test?

Sure. Okay. Hit me. If I tell you, you to push back and you can't push back. How do you think about yourself? Wait, um, can you rephrase that? Yeah, so you say it's hard. So let's say you try and you fail.

How do you think about yourself after you fail? I would feel disappointed normally. Yep, right? And then you would say to yourself, I should be able to do it. Yeah, correct. And there it is again. Do you see it? same thing yeah yeah yeah I see what you mean right so yeah so the next time yeah so the next time yeah so the next time you try and it's hard and you fail what are you going to tell yourself instead that's okay absolutely yeah and what is it okay it's okay to fail yes yeah definitely okay it's okay to not be perfect yep And what do we call that, by the way?

Acceptance. There you go. Yeah. That's how you accept yourself. You see, you figured it out. Yeah, now I just have to put it into practice. Yeah. And what happens when you try and you fail?

Then I should be okay with it and accept it. Yeah, right? Because even then when you say, now I need to put it into practice, you're doing is you're your devaluing the success of understanding you just had okay that's interesting because i didn't notice of that yep because you don't because it's there man it's there in your programming right because when you say now i need to put it into practice what that says is nicholas isn't good enough okay that's interesting yeah that's interesting because i i would say i saw it differently but yeah when I said it firstly it was more like a hopeful statement sure but I

can see what you mean by it yeah yeah yep and I'm not I'm not disputing so I think the other tricky thing is that I think hope can be within this thing right I think you can because if you're different you can hope right it's it's subtle that you're like if I was a different person if I behaved like I should I'm hopeful for the future okay If I dot, dot, dot, then I can hope. But the subtle thing there is that, Nicholas, you don't need to do anything, man. You're perfect just the way that you are. Yeah, perfection and imperfection is what you mean.

Yep. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Okay, got you. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah.

That's hard, man. Yes. That's good. That's progress. Because let me explain something to you. When you say, that's hard, man, there's no should there. There's no hope. That is a statement of acceptance.

Okay. Right? That is a statement that says, I don't know if I can do it. It's not beating yourself up for not being able to do it. It's not saying that you should be able to do it. It's saying, you know what, man? That's hard. That's acceptance.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to wrap my mind around me. Yeah, sorry. It's kind of, it's getting abstract. Yeah. Nicholas, really, I think it's like there are a couple of core things where I really think if you can kind of really get a handle on them and learn how to see them and learn how to say that's hard. Right.

Like so like there's 14 year old Nicholas and there's 20 year old Nicholas. And when 14 year old Nicholas comes to 20 year old Nicholas and he says, hey, my friend's blocked me on meow chat. And then when Nicholas says, hey man, that's rough. That's hard. That's got to be tough. That's acceptance, right? It's not telling him, hey, you're a piece of shit. It's also not telling him that you're a wonderful person.

You didn't do anything wrong. Maybe you did. Either way, you can accept that it's hard, that it's tough. And it doesn't have to mean anything more beyond that. Okay. Questions. Yeah. I'm trying to think of some.

Right. So what would you do? I guess this kind of answer. I'm trying to unfold a little bit more. Sure. So what would you do when someone does something rather mean, but you can't figure out the reasoning point? In this case being, so I used to live in Spain. In Spain, what happened? I went to a party, and at the party, someone literally punished me without any reason.

I figured out the reason later, being that she was trying to get some money off for someone, you know, by doing some work. Like, she would say, I don't know if I can say on stream. I don't know if you can either. I mean, there's against term. Yeah. It was, you know, some illegal kind of what she's trying to do with someone. Okay.

And she felt like kind of blocked that off. So she punched me. But I didn't know that until later. So I beat myself up for that because I couldn't figure out why I was punched. Right. Um, so in that sense, why would you, what would you do? Like, because I'm not sure how you would. accept that thing as except that that you know except that someone punched you without reasoning

how would you not overthink it is what i'm trying to say because i instantly you know as we've you know talked about tried to find a reason point yep so i think nicholas that's a great example man because that example shows and i say this with love how fucked up your reasoning is Because when you're at a party And you get randomly punched by someone If your mind somehow does some gymnastics To make it your fault When you don't even know who this person is

And she just walks up to you and punches you Like Do you see how that's just absolutely ridiculous Like the reason she punched you Is because she's an asshole That's the reason There's nothing to do with you Definitely

But I'm trying to figure out like How would you, because I feel like most people would think about that to an extreme, right? Absolutely. Because it's such a random thing that would occur. So how would you stop yourself? Well, not stop yourself, but how would you not beat yourself up from it is what I'm trying to ask. Okay. So, I mean, I think oddly enough, I know this sounds bizarre, Nicholas.

I don't think most people would beat themselves up after getting punched randomly in the face. Sure enough. Okay. Sure enough. Okay. But I think, but that doesn't help you because you. you beat yourself up. And that should just give us an idea for how strong that complex is in your mind. So here's a here's an answer for you. So I want you and this is going to sound kind of weird,

but maybe it'll help because it's sort of a long shot. So I want you to think about karma, karma. What's your understanding of karma? Um, I have the understanding that karma is necessarily good or bad, but it's a bunch of energy that kind of determines why you go in the next life. Okay. If I'm understanding it correct. So I'm going to tell you a story. So you've heard of this guy, Buddha, Buddha. Yeah. Sidarta, Gautam Buddha.

Okay. So Buddha gets enlightened. Okay. And then he's like, he's like teaching people. And so he's got a bunch of disciples and he's like sort of famous at this point. And one day someone comes up to him. So he's like teaching and he like gives a lecture. And after the lecture, you know, he's got his disciples that are there.

And then someone comes up and sometimes people will come up and ask him questions. And so someone comes up to him and he says, hey, do you remember me? And Buddha says, no, I don't. He says, well, you tried to teach me how to meditate 15 years ago and it didn't work. And then the dude spits in Buddha's face. He's like, fuck you. And then his disciples get pissed. They're like, this guy's like he's disrespecting the master.

Like, let's beat his ass. And then Buddha's like, no, no, no, calm down. Chill. And he's like, just let him go. So the dude like spits in his face and he like walks away. He's like expecting something to happen. and he walks away. And they're like, how can you let this guy disrespect you like that?

And whether it's like, that's just a karma that he has to wipe away. So he has like some amount of resentment. I may have wronged him. He's spit in my face and now we're done. He's gone. He's going to go live his life. I'm going to go live mine. It's just sort of like it just gets wiped away.

Just because I'm enlightened doesn't mean that I've become free of all of my past gharmas. It's just a debt that I had to pay. Okay. So I don't know if this is going to help you or not. But I would say that, you know, if you're trying to think about why bad things happen to you and you're looking for an alternate solution, besides I'm an idiot and it's my fault and I lack value, I would toss out karma for you to think about. Now, you have to decide for yourself whether like after studying it and thinking about it, it's a good alternate solution. but in my mind, you know, all causes have effects and all effects have causes.

So one way to think about it is like you're looking for, you know, the cause to the effect of her punching you, whereas like that cause may not come from you. And in fact, her punching you may not be in effect. It could be a cause. She could be opening up a new karma where like you had the opportunity to punch her back. right anyway it gets complicated but i mean the simplest answer i can give you is like just understand that some of the shit that happens to you in life is like you could say if you don't want to think about karma you could just say hey man shit happens some people say that right some people say that the world is a random place and sometimes just random bad things happen to good people like which is a completely reasonable hypothesis on the other hand some people say that everything is

determined and orderly and like it's because God wants it to happen and stuff like that. I think that's a completely fine hypothesis too. In the middle, I think there's just the simple principle of cause and effect, which is karma, which is that like things happen, like all things have causes and all causes have effects. And that doesn't mean that you're the creator of the universe and sometimes people are going to be assholes to you because that's just stuff. You know, why is one person born in the United States, whereas another person is born in Zimbabwe, whereas another person is born in Australia,

you can say it's randomness, you can say it's karma. But in your case, I'd say, just think about, like, you know, are you the center of all things that happened to you? In my world, technically, yes. You know, because you, yeah, you perceive everything. Right, so that's something that I would encourage you to think about, right? So I don't doubt that you perceive it, and you may even arrive at a logical truth

that you are the center of all things that happened to you, but I'd encourage you to think about it. Be like, is it my fault if I'm walking down the street and someone, you know, spills their drink on me? Did I do something wrong? And I'm not sure. I think you need to give your life actors besides yourself. Yeah, I could agree. Yeah.

Right? Because sometimes when people block you, it's because they're envious. Not because you did something wrong, but because they're envious. All kinds of reasons people block other people. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's not the fact that they block me. It's more like the way that they just, you know, cut off the relations. Sure. You know, it's it, yeah, because people get blocked all the time. But it's more like the, yeah. Yeah. And so once again, there are lots of reasons that could happen. I think the problem is that your mind jumps to one. And the more that you notice, okay, here my mind is blaming me again. And even in that scenario, if you notice that your mind is blaming you for being punched by a random person, you person at a party, then just be like, whoa, that's kind of weird. Like, there it is again, blaming me for being punched by a random person. True. Yeah.

And I think that's something. I'm going to say, like, I don't even think you need to do much more than that. If you can just notice that that's the part of the mind, I kid you not. It starts to get better. I know it's bizarre. Well, yeah, it's definitely worth it tries. You know, 100%. Yeah. That's wild.

That she just punched you. What do you mean? Yeah, no. I was saying. So we were sitting like in a circle and I was talking to my friend. He was sitting across me and she was sitting in the middle. And then to put her friend, she felt that I was cuck-blocking her because she was trying to charge him for it. And then she punched me.

And then we left. But I didn't find that out. I'm still like a few days later. So. Sounds like you helped your friend out. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he also just funded out later. So you know, but it is what it is.

Yeah, that's a wild story, man. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the good things to do when they travel around, right? Huh? I said that's one of the good things about traveling is that it gets experience wild stories. Yeah. Yeah. Other questions? No, I don't think so.

Okay. So we've got a choice then, Nicol. I feel like we've covered like, you know, we've kind of gotten to like an important conclusion. If you want to open up something else, we can or we can kind of switch to meditation. What do you think?

I don't really have anything to open. Okay. Meditate. The one thought, you'd made one statement, which I don't think we had really addressed. One was that independence leads to like a lack of disclosing or sharing with other people. said something about being independent and that's why you don't want to share.

Yeah, I have this feeling of self-reliance, right? So I want to be very independent in pretty much everything I do, which is also, you know, conflict with my own feelings and stuff like that. So I usually don't tend to to reach out to people unless I know for sure I can't do it myself, which is kind of contradicting with, you know, this whole thing because, you know, but That's how it is practically. No, I don't. I don't think it's contradictory at all.

I think that if you have low value in yourself, you can strive for independence because if you can do it all by yourself, then you don't have to worry about it sort of negates the low value. It negates being, you know, relying on other people. I think it makes a lot of sense. But I, okay. So let's talk about meditation. Sure.

Have you had experience with meditation? A little bit because I used to meditate like before coming to bed, just like sitting down and relaxing for them, but not like too much. Okay. So I just, I did like five minutes just sitting, closing my eyes and listening. That's it. Five, some minutes. Okay, let me think about what to do.

Sure. I have a meditation technique for you, but it's a little bit advanced. So it could be hard. But I want to teach something a little bit different. Okay. Let me just think about how to explain it. Okay. So I want to teach you something, Nicholas, that involves understanding your relationship to the outside world.

Okay. Okay. So if we think about like this punching example, something in the outside world happens and you somehow think it has something to do with you. So that makes sense? Like I know it sounds really bizarre, but like as human beings, we assume that we interact with the world in a particular way that we're responsible for some things. Right. So in a weird way, it's almost like we believe subconsciously that we control the world. I know it sounds weird. But let me give you an example. Let's say that I apply for a job or I ask a girl out and I get rejected. I blame myself. It's my fault that I didn't get the job.

I should have studied harder. I should have done a better internship. I should have wrote a bigger personal statement, whatever. And we don't really acknowledge that the outside world has all kinds of reasons for treating us the way that it does, which have nothing to do with us. Like maybe the reason that I didn't get the job is because. you know, it was a job, maybe the company is actually going out of business. And then they interviewed people and they're like never hired it.

Right. But that's not the way that we think about it. We always assume that we are responsible for the things that happen to us. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I know it sounds weird, but I want to teach you a way where you can start discovering what the actual relationship between you and the outside world is.

Where does Nicholas end in the outside world begin? Okay. Okay, I know it sounds weird. Yeah, let's give it a short. The practice is actually quite simple, but it's hard. Okay, so what I have to figure out how am I, I need music. Okay, so what I want you to do is tune into the stream. Okay.

So you can hear the background music. Can you hear the music? Yeah, I hear the music. Okay, so this is what I want you to do. So I want all you guys to close your eyes and listen to the music. So hear the notes in the music. You hear the music, Nicholas? Yeah, I hear it.

Okay. So when you listen to my words or the music, I don't know how to put this, but your attention is focused on my words. right? It's focused on something outside. Does that make sense? Yeah. So you're listening to the notes of the music? Sure.

Okay. So now what I want you to do is put your attention on your ears. And put your attention, not physically on your ears, but on the sense of hearing. Okay. So don't listen to the notes. Pay attention to you hearing them. So it used to be that your attention was on the notes. Now your attention is on you hearing the notes. Mm-hmm.

Can you do that? I think so, yeah. Try it. Now you may find that your attention goes back to the notes after a few moments. Mm-hmm. Does that happen? A little bit. Okay.

And then when it moves back to the notes, shift it back to the hearing of the notes. So put all your attention on your hearing as opposed to the music. Okay. How long can you hold on to the hearing instead of the notes? I think maybe half a minute, 45 seconds at a time. Okay. Before I come back and time. Okay. So just, we're going to practice for about another minute, okay? Okay.

Move back to the hearing. So as I continue to talk, do your best not to pay attention to my words. But listen. Or pay attention to your hearing of the words without paying attention to the words. It can be difficult. Now go ahead and come back. Okay. Can you go back to camera?

Sure. So now what I'm going to ask you to do, is look at me. Sure. So see my face. So we're going to do the same thing, but this time we're going to use our eyes. Okay. So look at my face. And so you see it, right? You can look at the background.

You can put your attention on anything on your screen. Or actually, yeah, or you can look at something in your room. It doesn't really matter. Okay. Then what I want you to do is put your attention to the looking. instead of looking at something having your attention on the objects that your eyes see have your attention be on the looking itself so it'll almost feel it feels to me like zooming out and then i can blurry vision kind of yeah it's not quite blurry vision but then you're doing it right right so just pay attention to the seeing itself as opposed to the object of seeing and you can look at something like an object in your room or the screen and then focus on the object

like let your eyes look at the object and really see the object and then let your attention pull back and see the seeing itself we'll go for about a minute okay thoughts questions do you want to share what that was like for you I felt I feel like sort of calmness I didn't feel like I was thinking about stuff, you know? Good. So I just felt observing. I get shook and clothing. Just like seeing stuff.

Yeah. Do that make sense where you're seeing the seeing itself as opposed to seeing an object? Yeah, definitely. Okay. I feel like that's doable. Okay. So I don't know how else to put this, but so here's the cool thing about this practice, okay? When we see an object, it is outside of us, right?

So let's say here's me, here's the object. If I'm looking at it, then the object is out here, and therefore me and the object are separate. Does that make sense? Yeah. So like I'm over here, seeing is over here, the object is over here. When you look at the seeing, what happens to the seeing moves from you to the outside. Yeah.

And then you're looking at the seeing itself. So there's almost a piece of you, there's a piece of who you think you are that you shift outside of yourself by looking at the scene. Because then the seeing is out there and you're looking at it and then you're over here. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. As you said, it kind of feels like swimming out for me, it's more like a bit of a little bit of a little. like a bit of a bluriness, I guess you can say. But it definitely feels like you're not like focusing on one thing.

Yeah, except for like, you know. So, so this is tricky, right? So after the zooming out, there is actually the focusing on the thing that is doing the zooming out. Right. Right. It's noticing the seeing itself, which has the effect on the object side of zooming out. What I really want you to focus on is the act of sync. Yeah, I got you. Yeah. Okay. That is, no, yeah, go on.

No, go for it. I was just going to say that is, I mean, it's doable, but I don't, I can't do it for like long periods. Good. Yeah, it's very hard. So here's the crate. I know this is going to sound wild. But your problem, Nicholas, is that you confuse what's in here with what's in the outside world. This person ghosted me.

that's not on the outside, that's on the inside. This woman punched me, that's not on the outside, that's on the inside. And that's the fucked up thing that we've showed you today. And so literally if you do this practice, you will learn how to like get control over what is on the inside and what is on the outside. Instead of misattributing everything, you will begin to see on a very fundamental level what you are and what the outside list. what you control and what you can't control. This all comes down to earlier you tossed out this tiny, tiny quip where I don't know what to show people because I don't know who I am.

And this will be a practice where you can learn, are you seeing? Are you the object that you see? Are you the seeing itself? Or are you something else? And if you continue to do this, I really think it'll help you along with the noticing and acceptance and all that other craft we talked about. It's like literally a cognitive training skill to like do something different with your mind.

You can practice it. And then when it comes to dealing with your view of like your confidence in yourself or your value as a person, you'll have done a bunch of push-ups. So when it comes time to actually use your mind, it'll like work way better. It'll make everything way easier for you. Does that make sense?

Well, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Cool, man. Any last thoughts for questions? No, I think we're good to go. Okay. Listen, Nick, it's been awesome having you, man. I really, really appreciated what you shared with us.

I think it's very, very important. Like, there are a couple of key principles here that I think are really, really important. So thank you so much for, you know, coming on. I'm going to take a moment to collect my thoughts and then I'll try to recap for other people. You're welcome to watch the street. Sure. Is that okay? Of course.

Yeah, I'm sure. Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for coming, man. It's been awesome. Take care. No worries. You too, man. Bye now.

Bye.