HealthyGamerGG - The Unseen Problem of Women's Cognitive Load w/ Dr. Gowri Aragam

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

In this episode, Dr. K sits down with Dr. Gowri Aragam, an adult psychiatrist and host of the Sense of Self podcast, to dissect the unseen reality of women's cognitive load. They explore the exhausting mental gymnastics of emotional labor, how childhood narratives script our adult lives, and why standing up for yourself doesn't require controlling how the other person reacts. What to expect in this episode: The Invisible Burden: A breakdown of "cognitive load"—the unseen mental and emotional labor of anticipating needs, managing relationships, and running a household's social logistics (like planning kids' birthday parties). Internalized Narratives: How the stories we are told about who we are (e.g., "the responsible one") shape our reactions to events and fuel anxiety, depression, and self-doubt when our true desires conflict with that script. Love vs. Self-Sacrifice: Understanding how childhood parentification causes us to transmute love into "responsibility," ultimately leading to a toxic cycle of constant self-abandonment. The 5-Step Decompression: Dr. Aragam’s practical framework for navigating overwhelm by examining your expectations, environment, internal state, and the "past energy" of what you witnessed your family going through while growing up. Eldest Daughter Syndrome: How to redefine boundaries when you've been cast as the unpaid, exhausted "family manager," and why you must actively visualize your ideal life before trying to change the dynamic. Sacred Rage: Exploring why women's anger is often intensely layered with self-judgment, generational trauma, and the societal expectation to always be "kind" and accommodating. The Gratitude Hack: Why leading a difficult boundary-setting conversation with gratitude isn't about making the other person listen, but rather softening your own resentment so you can speak your truth without defensiveness. Oppressive Relationships: A candid look at what to do when conversation isn't the answer—recognizing when an abusive partner or family member with a fragile ego will weaponize your honesty, and why focusing on a "safe exit" takes priority. The "Bin" Battle: Why couples need to explicitly outline the division of household labor, and why jumping to the easiest solution (or preemptively doing the work for your partner) destroys the opportunity for true connection and teamwork.Dr. K's NEW Guide to Love, Sex, & Relationships is here! Order now: https://bit.ly/4dO3x0VHG Coaching : https://bit.ly/46bIkdo Dr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3SztHG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also...

Spider-Man. This July... You're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor. Friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them.

Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day. In theaters, July 31st. Hey, chat. Welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast.

I'm Dr. Al-O Knoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. All righty chat. Let's get started. Are we streaming?

Are we live? Is this live testing? One, two, three, one, two, three. Okay. So welcome to another Healthy Gamer Gigi stream. My name is Dr. Alok Kanoja. Just a reminder that everything we discussed, on stream today is intended to be taken as for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Nothing we discussed on stream today is intended to be taken as medical advice. So if you all have a medical concern or question, please go see a licensed professional. A couple of quick announcements. So first thing is we're going to be speaking with the awesome Dr. Gori Aragam today. She's the host of the Sense of Self podcast. And she's also an amazing psychiatrist. and I'm lucky enough to be able to call her a friend. So we're going to be talking to her about issues around women's cognitive load,

which I imagine she's an expert in. And now let's actually hop in with Dr. A. Give me a second. We want to do, oh, I'm going to have to fix an overlay. Give me a second chat. Let's do this. Yep. As expected.

But I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Oh, boy. Here we go. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Great.

Amazing. Nice to see you. Nice to see you too. So can you start by just telling us a little bit about who you are and what you're kind of up to nowadays where people can find you too? Sure, sure. First and foremost, I'm your friend. I'm a psychiatrist. I'm based in San Francisco. I'm an adult psychiatrist now kind of focusing primarily in women's mental health, although I do. do kind of work at the interface of medicine and psychiatry. And so I do a lot of consultation as well to primary care and to the OB-GYN service. And yeah, and I'm a podcast host. I created this podcast as of self to focus on how women can, you know, reclaim and rewrite the stories that

we tell and are told about who we are. And I found that that was hugely central to my work kind of clinically and non-clinically. And so that's a little about me. I have a past life ongoing currently in mental health tech as well. And so I've applied a lot of this to my product development work in the past. But yeah, literally now you can find me at UCSF working clinically and or on any of your major podcast platforms. So I'm a bit confused by, so I love your podcast, by the way. Yeah. It's so you. And the other thing is I'm confused by what that means. So when you said the podcast is about the stories that we get told and the stories that we tell ourselves, can you tell me what what does that mean? Oh my God.

This is so perfect. I think every woman I've told this too is like, yes. Exactly. I figured as much. So this is perfect. Thank you. This is not, you know, rehearsed beforehand. So, yeah, I mean, I guess that general idea is that we all have narratives that we tell ourselves.

It's just a part of the human condition. Those narratives are populated, I'm not who we are. And those narratives came populated by, you know, something as simple as you're being, you're the eldest son. And so your mom tells you that you're the most special, you know. That can be something that kind of gets put into your brain and can you can carry with you. And there's certain things you might expect in life going forward. It could be as systemic as, you know, coming to the country and being targeted in like a racist attack

and being made to felt other or less than. that can also stick with you and show up in the ways that you make decisions for yourself. Yes. Okay. Is there any chance you can switch your mic? And I'm going to. Oh. Are you using a different mic?

I was using a Yeti, but it was too soft. And so I switched back to my feet. Let me try. Give me a second. This is a, this is standard for us, by the way. I figured. It's like this is stupid. This mic also.

hold on. Let's switch over. Okay. How about now? Is that better? Count to ten for me? One second. You know, I'm going to just ask chat.

What is better? We're going to see. Oh, say something? We can't hear you at all now. Gigi. Is that better? Can you hear me now? Yeah.

So is this better chat? Let's find out. Second mic. Okay, way better. Wait. Okay, so just count to 10 for me. Better, better, better, better. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Okay. Oh, I think I'm still on the phone. Hey, second one's good, right? Okay, awesome. Thank you. All right. Done. Okay.

Okay. I think Ollo turned off the mic, my mic. soon as I started being fun of him earlier. Yeah, we do that. Well played. Sometimes my internet connection goes out when I'm saying something that's really important that the universe doesn't want people to know. True story.

Yeah, dynamics are macrocosm. That's cool. Okay, so where should I begin? Should I go back to the beginning? You were saying that like, you know, we get told these narratives, right? So we tell things about ourselves and then we kind of internalize them. Yeah. But I feel like I'm still like, that makes sense to me.

like I understood that, but I don't understand, like you were saying, when you, when you talk to a dude about this, they're like, what does that mean? And then women that you talk to are like, oh, that sounds awesome. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess it goes in line. I think the theme of today's topic, which is women's cognitive load. But the idea is the reason I did it is because generally speaking, even though a self-narrative is like imperative, like, philosophically, philosophically, to like sense of self and who you are and to like survive as a human. and you have to have a sense of who you are. There's so much of that story of who you are

that does not come from you, which can make it very confusing to actually have a great sense of who you are, the outlines of yourself, which I know something you talk about a lot in kind of a lot of your streams and a lot of your content, right? And so it can be like the basis of healing

or moving forward kind of with, kind of in a more emotionally well way of being. And so the idea is, you know, societally speaking, women get a lot of messages about how they're supposed to be. And that is even worse for a minoritized women where they're then being prejudiced against, right? And there are a lot of stereotypes, negative ones they're at that are put at them, laid out on them. And then generationally, how these types of stories get passed on from like one generation to the next. And it all sets up, I mean, it can go as, again, it's as simple as, oh, I'm the special one and I'm, or I'm the responsible one who's supposed to take care of everyone and, you know, not.

take care of my own needs. Or, you know, again, I guess I must be less than because I am not white in this very Midwestern town. And so I'm just going to be quiet and try to fit in as much as possible. I'm going to shun my, you know, religion, my culture or whatever to try and fit in. And kind of the downstream impact that has on your sense of who you are because you're actually kind of shunning yourself and you're abandoning yourself in many ways, right? Mainly because for survival and for safety. And so the idea is when all these types of stories start to make their home, and you know,

and get internalized. In the podcast, we talk to a lot of women who a lot of this leads to depression, anxiety, there's PTSD, longer-term trauma issues, grief, so many issues that can come up.

And oftentimes they realize at some point in their journey that one of the core issues, one of the core reasons that they're suffering so much is because they've been housing all of these narratives that are not theirs.

And that makes it very confusing to go, day to day, right? Because if you're like, literally, you know, you go out the door and you have to make decisions about, am I going to run to catch that bus? Am I going to ask for that raise? Am I going to, you know, stay the extra few minutes because it's worth it because I'll get, you know, promotion or, you know, or am I going to take that opportunity across the country or am I going to stay at home because they need my help, you know, at home or, you know, my friends need me or my family needs me. These, these stories influence kind of all of our small to large decisions that we make

every day. And so you can imagine to take a huge toll on self-confidence, self-worth. And so this podcast is all about kind of breaking that down with women who have kind of done a lot of work on themselves already and have sort of really identified this idea of having to kind of break down, rewrite these stories so that they are their own and then reclaiming them as well, because it can be a very political act to kind of reclaim a story that has decidedly been told to you to kind of other hold you back, make you feel put you down, et cetera. So yeah, I'll stop there first. second and see if that, you know, helps at all. Yeah, no, that was awesome. So I'm, you know, even more confused than when we started.

But so I think it may thank you for explaining things in a way that I can understand. So I'm super confused by that whole political word. I, you know, I don't think about that very much. But what I'm really curious about is you said that these kinds of narratives that we tell ourselves then lead to grief, depression, anxiety, trauma. Can you help? us understand how does that happen? Like, what are the steps? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So, actually, I just had a conversation with a PTSD specialist, which will be posted, you know, hopefully the next couple weeks. That's super interesting. But we talk a lot about how, let's take a traumatic event, for example, right? You can think of something like, you're in a car

crash. I'll think of something that's, and a woman might think, oh, my gosh, what, that that happens, right? And a certain number of people are going to experience some kind of post-traumatic kind of reaction to that crash. Maybe they don't want to drive anymore, right? Or maybe they take them some time to drive again for whatever reason. Or maybe they were on the phone. And so they don't want to use the phone again for a little bit. Or they don't want to text because they feel guilty about having texted and caused this crash, right? Let's say somebody else was in the car with them, right?

There's a whole context around this one car crash. So if you are someone who has a very good sense of yourself and what you've done and you have a good sense like what's your responsibility versus like what's not your responsibility what's kind of your ownership versus not and that happens and let's say it was a red light and like somebody ran a red light and hit you with a somewhat kind of stable sense of self i mean this is kind of i'm reaching here but this is all hypothetical you would hopefully be able to say hey like someone else ran a red light and what the eff right you might still be scared this might still cause PTSD because you're like well what if somebody crosses the red light again you know what i mean but you have a sense of like

what was your responsibility versus not. However, if there's any, a lot of women, for example, people in general, I'm going to stick with women because that's the topic of today's conversation, might think, oh my goodness, is there something I could have done to prevent that, right? Pretty common thought. Could I have not been on the, could I have, you know, put my phone down a minute earlier? You weren't even on the phone? Could I have anticipated somebody, you know, running that light and stop before they came, right?

Like some kind of these narratives, these kind of fantasies of control that can come up. And so when that happens, usually those fantasies of control oftentimes can be fueled by something you've been told about yourself. Like, gosh, you always make mistakes. You're never paying attention. Like, why aren't you better at driving? You know, like all these like random, I'm giving a, this is very kind of innocuous examples. But what all these stories are kind of flooding your brain and you get into a car accident, your automatic thought might be that was my fault, even though it was clearly somebody else's fault. right? And then we think it's your fault and that can really shatter yourself because you're like,

I'd ruin my car. I could have gotten hurt. I could have hurt the other person in the car. Oh my gosh. Like what is wrong with me? And then that can very easily lead into a depressive episode. It can very easily lead into kind of more severe anxiety spiral and panic attacks. I've had plenty of patients where they now suffer from panic as a result of this. And then of course PTSD, right? Because you've been in a traumatic incident that, you know, where you almost potentially died and that can lead to PTSD. And so the goal of PTSD treatment often is to kind of rewrite a narrative and to integrate that event into your story. Okay. That is a treatment goal.

And another treatment goal is to sort of find your own voice within, within all of that. Like, what is your truth actually, right? And so that is like a clunky kind of way to explain one way in which it can lead to depression, anxiety, PTSD. But I wanted to give you one that was a bit more innocuous. as opposed to other ones like, you know, you have sexual abuse or physical abuse, emotional abuse. Those are a bit deeper and oftentimes what we can talk about in the podcast. But we'll start with the. Yeah.

So it's so, thank you so much because I think let me start by sort of sharing maybe what I understood. Please. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's really interesting because you're talking about this isolated event. And it was also interesting to have what I think is really a masculine reaction to your story. So like my first thought, and I imagine dudes in the audience. And I think this is why it's like, I'm so honestly honored to talk to you because I think that we have such different experiences.

So in my mind, and I would bet money that if we were to ask all the dudes who are like watching right now, if you're driving a car and someone else runs a red light, do you ever have the thought of what did I do wrong? Like I would say like most of the dudes that I've worked with would even be like, even if they ran the red light, they would blame the. person. This like this is, and maybe this is, we'll, we'll get to this issue of cognitive load. So if that seems really foreign, so I, I had to kind of learn this sort of a hard way as a psychiatrist where when I work with women, they have a default position that is different, especially when it comes to responsibility. So what I'm kind of hearing you say is based on the narratives that we're taught ourselves,

we're taught, not not taught ourselves, but taught by other people, right? So it's always as your fault. Like other things are you're responsible. You're a caretaker, right? Like you eat last. Like even in my household today, the men eat first when we're having a social situation. And then the women eat later. And so that's like really, really common in Indian culture.

So there's like this kind of baked in perspective that you have, which then drastically alters your experience of an event. Absolutely. as a dude who gets into a car crash if someone has a red light, if someone runs a red light, then your response to that situation, which we think is normal, is not normal, it's conditioned. Yes. And so what ends up happening is that you'll have, and, you know, since we're talking about women primarily today, like you'll work with a lot of women and what you've seen in your clinical experience.

I know you work in women's health and stuff like that is that oftentimes there is a gendered component to the narrative. we treat girls and women in different ways, that gets baked in so that when they have the same random-ass events that a dude may have or anyone may have, the way that those events shape you is determined by that narrative. Yes. The other thing that I kind of also like understood a little bit,

maybe this is a little bit more of an extrapolation. Man, I had something good, but it just left. Hold on. Give me a second. Okay. Oh, yeah. So the other thing that I think you alluded to that, I just want to make sure I understand, is that many of the things that we may want, or many of the things that we truly are or that we want or that we feel run contrary to the narrative that we were given. So we get conditioned in a particular way. And then that's a major source of like internal conflict, maybe the seeds for depression, anxiety.

grief, whatever. So I kind of heard you allude to that. Did I understand that correctly? Yeah. Yeah. No, I think exactly, right? And can you, I guess when you say the things that we might want run contrary, I guess what I hear in that and what I'm going to make of it is it's like the stereotypical narrative of like, are you living your own life or are you living somebody else's life, right? Are you living your own life or are you living the life that somebody else has told you you are capable of living, right? So it's not just somebody else's life. It's also somebody else's version of your life. And that can be very disheartening because like you said, so much of this is invisible. I think that is sort of the through line in our conversation is that

so much of this experience is completely invisible. And it's not even out in the open. Like, for example, the cultural thing you mentioned about men eating first, my family too. right and I have absolutely questioned that I will eat sometimes and I'll feel kind of guilty and I'm like no no no not going to feel guilty but the point is no one ever like told me right no one said oh men will eat first because they are somehow superior however that is still the story that is clearly been integrated into and internalized into my aunts like the woman in my family kind of an old generation and has like been tried to be passed on to this younger generation as well. But again, invisibly, like no one, you see it happening, you make an assumption based on

everyone's behavior around you. I guess they must be priority, right? Why? I don't know. I'm like six years old. That must be the priority, right? Never questioned. And then you kind of go through life.

And so it's just very confusing because then if you, you know, for example, are an ambitious person, women or not. And let's say you want a raise or you want to. a promotion in life, or not in life. That was for you and slip. You want like a promotion at work, right? Again, we're going with innocuous examples right now for a reason. And there's a dude or an older dude or an older person maybe who is your peer or there's just somebody else who's up for that promotion, right? There are plenty of women now who are going to be able to go for it and be competitive and get it done. There are plenty who oftentimes the initial thought is, but should I?

like, is it my place? Can I actually ask for this? Am I being entitled? Am I being ungrateful? Like, shouldn't somebody else get the chance for me? And oftentimes the woman who actually can do it and push forward, it's not because they didn't have those thoughts because they had those thoughts often and worked through them. And we're like, no, no, no, that's not true.

Moving forward with this promotion ask, you know what I mean? And so, but if, but, right, if you wanted that promotion and then you never got to question those initial thoughts that you had and then you did not go for it. Disappointment ensues, sadness ensues. Oftentimes that can then lead to another thought, which is, well, I'm just not capable of doing this job. It's not meant for me. Like, I'm, whatever, like, I'm just going to be stuck here, right? Which then lead to depression, anxiety, all this stuff, right? Or not, but it can. So it's this really horrible kind of snowball effect that can occur. Again, with these little decisions that happen. But I really wanted to break it down

to, like, very concretely, like a particular decision point of, am I going to go into my boss's office and ask for this and like this the the the tape that's playing that you have to work through in order to kind of be like no no no no no I'm doing it anyways and if you're unable to do that or if you've never even like been told that that's to question it or to push it down as even an option then yeah what you want ends up running contrary to what you feel like you're allowed to have and then that dissonance can absolutely lead to kind of mental health issues let alone that are, you know, meet the criteria of a, you know, DSM-5 disorder versus, you know, just having poor quality of life.

Yeah. So I think it's such a great example because I'm thinking about my clinical experiences and sort of this like, damned if you do, damned if you don't, right? So like even the concept of promotion. Yeah. Creates a differential effect depending on the person. So some people will say like, oh, like someone else deserves it or I'm not good enough or whatever.

And then what I oftentimes find is like irrespective of what they choose, there's regret initially. Right. So then you overcome those feelings and then you go for promotion and then oftentimes people will feel guilty. Or you give into those feelings and you say someone else is more deserving of me. Yeah. And I'm not good enough. And that other person is way better or whatever. You'll have these kinds of thoughts.

And then so even if you give into those thoughts, then a month later, a couple months later, you have regret. And so it's kind of like damned if you do, damned if you don't, sort of. And I think one's healthier than the other. But I mean, in the short term, it's kind of like either one is painful. Yeah. Yeah. As in like there's, exactly, in the short term, right? Because ultimately, if you're making decisions that are in line with actually what you want,

the longer term, that ideally would actually put you in a much better spot with yourself. And it does build your confidence over time. But yeah, absolutely. Kind of in the, I think what can be expected is kind of in that initial phase, right? the initial aftermath. Absolutely. Like, you can have those thoughts.

And again, oftentimes the way I've noticed is the difference between being able to move through that successfully versus not comes down to being able to actually examine those thoughts, examine those initial feelings you're having, and question them.

So I- rewrite them to use that language again. Yeah. I mean, I like the way you're framing things because I can think of, I know sort of the topic is women today, but I think there's a ton of men

in our community who experience very similar things. this idea of being given a narrative. And then like you kind of fight against that narrative, right? And then you kind of end like this is like super common. So so I know we're kind of speaking a little bit more about women's experiences. But I think a lot of what you're saying like absolutely applies to men too. And I think that's usually what we discover is that even we're talking about dudes. Like a lot of women will resonate with that.

Like we'll talk about male experiences of mental illness versus female experiences of mental illness. qualitatively, like the research shows that they're somewhat different, but we tend to see that even though on average, if there's difference, there's a huge population of any gender that can relate to a particular experience. Yes. So let me ask you. So can you explain, like, what is cognitive load? Because this is something that I think is like a lot of people don't, myself included,

like I had to learn about this concept. I feel like I just demonstrated it. You know what I mean? Like, I think, well, before I get to cognitive load, I will. say yes, I agree. And just to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to a disclaimer, but to kind of explain with the podcast, um, the reason why we focus on women of color is, well, one, universally, this was, I mean, sorry, this was, this was, I mean, sorry, this was, this was, the podcast was designed intentionally to be universally

relatable. So we have men who are like, in their 70s who are like, you know, white from like Boston, New England area, who listen to these stories. And I were like, oh, my gosh, like, I relate to this fully. Well, not fully, obviously, because there's certain, you know, very concrete experiences that they could never relate to exactly, but the general idea of being put a narrative and how to sort of like come back to yourself and find yourself in that way. So yes, we purposely highlight women of color because those just stories you think need to be told. And we hope others can relate to them and all that. But anyways, so I agree. So I'm glad people can kind of get more out of this. And it was a cognitive flow. This is something that

everyone experiences. You know, I'm not an expert in kind of like the cognitive psychology. realm of things where people kind of talk about cognitive load and the from the perspective of like learning you know like in school and like how do you best learn and all of that right so what we're talking about and what cognitive load talks about kind of in this setting um is more like mental load like what is sort like that again that invisible load of like heavy kind of mental work that an emotional work that woman face and and and go through every single day that men don't and usually it's talked about in the context of like the household. So it's like, okay, like running a household, like kind of stereotypically, it's like, you know, if you're, if you have children, if you're, if you're partnered and you

have children, right, it is who's managing the house, who's making sure that like the garbage is taken out, that we paid the bills, that we've, you know, that the house is clean, that like, we're going to set up for having a kid potentially. If there are kids, oftentimes this, this, like, kind of, you know, exponentially increases where it's like, how we can keep the kids safe and emotionally well and, like, make sure they're sent up for their activities and, you know, picked up from school and not neglected, all this stuff, right? So all of this, all of these responsibilities that are involved in quote, unquote, maintaining a household and all of like the like work that goes into planning for that and following through with it and keep and

monitoring it are within the realm of cognitive load. Yeah. So I think it was like you said, a great example because I, I put the cognitive load of explaining cognitive load onto you. But I was expecting it. I anticipated. It's interesting because I think there are a couple of other dimensions that I would add to that, just because as I've learned, so like I was aware of that stuff, right? Because it's like I, but it's interesting, like the levels of stuff that my wife does.

So like here's a dimension of crap that I never thought about that like she spent is actually like pretty sophisticated. So the relationships of my children. So making sure that they're getting invited to birthday parties, making sure that gifts are ordered, knowing what the kid likes, asking our kids, asking the parent, asking the parent who's hosting the birthday party, what can we bring, going a couple of hours earlier, going to the grocery store the day before. And these are all, I mean, it's like, it's like, you know, I, in my, early days, if she would have asked me to help with this, I would have thought about it is such a pain in the ass. It's like, why are we even doing this? This is so much effort. But she knows that when it comes time for their birthday party, the number of kids that show up, right? Like, what they

bring, how their parents perceive them, that, all that stuff matters a lot. Yeah. Because we've had a lot of people in our community whose parents did not do that kind of stuff. My parents weren't really like that either. We didn't really have birthday parties and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, and so like there's just a bunch of like layers of stuff, which is like,

okay, who are all their friends? What are all the friends contact numbers? When are their birthdays? Do I have a relationship with their parents so that their parents can contact me directly and invite my child to a birthday party? What do I need to prep for it? And the other thing is I've got like two kids and they've, let's say, got, you know, half a dozen friends each, which means that like this is happening once a month.

Yeah. And you have to keep track of like, you know, and then for Christmas time, okay, who are the friends that are close enough to where we need to get them Christmas gifts? And so there's a bunch of stuff about like relationship management, which I take for granted, like when we throw a party at our house, a bunch of people show up. But it's not like I've kept in touch with them for a year or two, right? And then she'll even do the work of asking me. they're like, hey, you haven't talked to your friend in a couple of years. Do you want to invite them to our Christmas party because like now we've moved and they're in the neighborhood. Yeah. And so it's like the dimensions of stuff that she's processing and caring are like completely foreign to me.

Yes. And what's funny is you said you're going to add to what I said, but that actually was included in the emotional labor that I was talking about. Right. It's like I know I'm making a joke because it's like that is what I meant by it. And so in my mind when I use the word emotional, I'm like, oh yeah, that's that's it. right, because it's the emotional well-being and what goes into the emotional well-being, which nowadays we know a lot more about than we did even before. Like you said, maybe your parents, my parents, like, that was not really on their radar as much.

Whereas nowadays, absolutely, I see that happening kind of across the board. And it's exhausting. It's a lot of planning, but you're doing it for the sake of, you know, your child's social well-being, right? Yeah. So what else is included in emotional labor? Oh, my goodness. I mean, it is, it's, it's, how do you make sure that, like, it's not people pleasing because it's, it's, how do you make sure that the people that you're responsible for kind of in your household, in your, in your community that you feel responsible for again, are emotionally well? Like, they don't feel overly stressed. And if they are, they're taking care of, or you're lighting their load. They feel like they belong, like they have a community. Like they are, you know, they can lean on someone that they are, just taking care of emotion. right? It can feel so foreign because it's not something that a lot of parents from like previous generations kind of considered as much necessarily. Or if they did have said a bit of a different way. It's like, oh, my kid is sad. I'm going to make them feel better. I'm going to, you know, make them cookies or whatever. I'm minimizing it. But I, I, an example would be, I don't know, like, let's say like you're really stressed. You have a whole week of streams and travel and whatever you got going on with HG. And again, Krithi's like, oh gosh, it's going to be really busy week for all of. He's going to be really tired. Like, let me see if I can take some of this to

off his plate or like and so I can do it or he usually likes to play games with the kids and that's what makes him feel better so maybe we can like make sure that I'm going to remind him to like make sure he plans like 30 minutes of game time with the kids each evening because like you know and that's more than it usually does but it's going to be really helpful to him and it'll be good for them too to connect with him because then they won't feel like he's um he's like gone this week so the kids will have kind of intentional time with him so that is emotional labor because she is wanting to make sure that not just relationships with your kids and their friends, but the kids and you and her and her and you and the whole family unit are maintained during this time of busyness for you. And she's anticipating that it might get compromised because let's say you're really busy and very tired and you want to go take a nap. Well, if something like this has been pre-planned, she's reminded you, then you'll be happy to be like, well, I guess all the dishes are done and like everything else is taken care of. So yeah, I'm going to sit down and play games for 30 minutes. And this is going to be great. So I If people think I'm talking a lot, it's because this is oftentimes the rapid thought process that's going on in someone's brain.

Like, I think in one of the studies that was done about cognitive load, like literally, it's like racing thoughts, which we usually use for somebody who's manic. Yeah. Or it's very anxious. But it's also just for somebody who's really trying to plan a lot. Yep. And has a huge load that they have to process very quickly. Yeah. So I know, but I mean, I think I wasn't thinking you were talking.

a lot. I think you were, you know, really, I think that really speaks to how extrapolated it becomes, right? So it's not a simple thought. It's like one thought followed by another thought, followed by another thought. Integration of this circumstance, this circumstance, this has to come together. This has to come together. And I think that's the load. It's like you're, you know, planning an orchestra. You're like running an orchestra in your mind for all of the things that have to come together and harmonize. So that stuff happens. Yes. So what, you know, so for people who are struggling with this, I guess the first question that I would have is like, this is going to feel so normal to so many people. Yeah. So how do you know like when it's a problem? Like how do you approach this issue? When it's a problem for whom, I guess. Like when it's a problem for the individual, when it's a problem for the family unit or the, or the, you know,

partner unit, whatever. I'm imagining that like I'm a listen, like I'm a someone who's listening to this right now. And I say to myself, yes, this is something that I struggle with. Like, like, this is like, this is what my life is like. Racing thoughts. I have to do this. I have to do this. I have to do this.

So for that person who's suffering in some way usually, right, how does this person begin to approach this? Is it about understanding? Is it about like, we'll get to like intervention and stuff. I'm sure at some point. but like how do I begin to, if I say yes, this is a problem and like this needs to change, how do I approach that? Yeah, well, I think this is all about identifying what the actual problem is, right? Because I think big, big picture, like, I don't know if it's evolutionarily or what, you know,

this ability to kind of be like metacognitive, like think about what you're thinking and plan and execute. This is meant to be a really positive feature being a human and, um, in this case, like being women, like these are really positive things that, you know, if you think in, in the learning spheres is thought of as, hey, like, the better you're able to do this, the more confident you are in yourself, the more efficient you get, like, the happier you are. Yeah, like, yeah, the more confident you are in yourself and your ability to, like, live in the world and be. The issue is when it feels like a disproportionate amount of that is falling on you. And so the rate at which you can process,

the rate at which like responsibilities are coming in is overwhelming and outweighing the rate at which you can kind of figure it out and act on it and there's no one you feel like you're alone in that that's oftentimes when it becomes like an overwhelming issue right um because at the end of the day you know there's a lot of satisfaction people can gain men women whoever you are in like caring for your child for example or whatever it is that you have to get done like it helps actually build confidence and in oneself. Again, it's usually when things are overwhelmed in that way, and that mathematical equation is when it occurs become an issue when the suffering kind of happens, right? And I think that's what people are probably referring to is like, this feels like it's

too much now. No longer am I at the steady state in a good place, right? Like in like positive psychology or whatever, right? Where like things are just hard enough that it challenges you, but not so hard that it's like too challenging, right? Similarly, it's kind of similar in this case, right? And so that's, I think it's really important people to understand and put this kind of puts in a positive light of like, wait, no, actually this ability I have is pretty awesome. So to be able to do this. That's number one. Okay. Okay. So first thing is to recognize where you are on that spectrum. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's like where you're on the spectrum and also that like, this is actually coming in handy for you, right? Like this is actually potentially a really good skill.

So let's just like kind of take away some of the negative weight from it for a second. So it doesn't feel so loaded and desperate because I think that can make it harder to address. Two, it's like, what is, wait, why are you laughing? I'm laughing because that is something that I would never do as a psychiatrist. Like when I'm like sitting with my patients, like that step that you just had is not one that is a normal part of my process. Let's take away some of the negative weight from it. I'm like, okay, if it's like, you know, it's just interesting.

Well, it's a psychoeducation part of it, right? It's like, yeah, like let's the starting point be one that's a bit less encumbered. So it's not, you know, yeah. I mean, I think it's great. It's something I should really do more often. Yeah, this is really funny. Just as a side note, just because my mind works this way, I had to get a massage recently, like, for rehab. And I was like, I'm going to make sure I, like, roll out my, like, my legs or my back or whatever before I go.

So that, like, the knots that I can get out, I've gotten out. So when I get to the massage therapist, they can only work on this stuff that I can't get. Yeah. Anyways, sorry. It's a pro tip for anybody watching who gets massages. But the second step would be, I mean, I'm saying, were you alluding to that as like taking responsibility for something in which you should be receiving care? No, no, no, no. I'm making a joke of like, I'm trying to unencumber myself so that I can then move into something.

Yeah. It's not the perfect analogy, but I just wanted to bring it up as a joke. But anyway, so, yes, being aware of like why the skill exists to begin with. It's a very positive thing. it can be very helpful and useful and build your confidence, but you're just maybe the equation, the machine is a bit overwhelmed right now. So then it's like, okay, well, why is it overwhelmed? Right. Like that's where where the problem solving happens. And that's where we think of, like, you know, differential diagnosis. Like, what could be going on? And that's one thing you

want to look at, right? Like, is it where your expectations, right? Like, do you, is there, is there any possibility that what you have placed as an expectation for yourself is beyond what's reasonable. And like no one can really tell you that besides yourself, to some degree, right? There's oftentimes an intuitive feeling you can have, you really allow yourself to sit with yourself about, is this really reasonable what I'm asking myself to accomplish in this period of time or whatever? In terms of your environment, right? Like, okay, do I need to be doing this by myself? Like, what is my support system? Is there a support system? You know, if there is money, if there's money kind of that you have at your disposal, could I use, could I, you know, dispose some of this? I not dispose.

But could I like put some of this money towards kind of getting some help? If there are people in your system, is there a way I could ask for help in certain ways, right? Again, I know this is kind of added to the cognitive load, but I think oftentimes like things get worse before they get better. Like you have to put in some work to kind of figure this out before it's going to ease the system. Right. And so then it's like versus, you know, is am I, is something going on with me? Like am I in a depression? Am I kind of overly anxious?

am I overly fatigued, right? Like, there's something going on inside of me that's actually making it more difficult to manage what it is that I think I want to and or need to manage. Is there something from my past that's making me feel more resentful about having to take on this responsibility, right? That's a big one that people don't often, again, invisible, right? Oftentimes it goes back to your own kind of parent dynamics or family dynamics and kind of how responsibilities were shared or not shared, what was accepted of whom and

kind of your desire to kind of correct for that or not, right? And is the rest of your system on board with your version of how things should be going down? Right? Or so, so I'm saying all that because that is like a sampling of the different dimensions of this issue that you could look at, whether by yourself or ideally with somebody else, because this is a lot to do on your own. There's a mapping it out, but it can be, you know, an interesting activity. I'll stop there. Does that kind of make sense? Oh, I think it's brilliant. So let me just share what I heard because I think this is, it's interesting how you're doing the cognitive load work of how to deal with cognitive load.

Which is why I, yeah, the irony of that was not lost on me. And so I'm like, no, no, no, there's a front loaded work and then it gets easier. So I think it's really starting to click for me now. Like, so I think first thing is that weird step of decompressing negativity, which I'm still a little bit lost on. But let's understand that. I would. Like, wow, anybody want to do that. Yeah.

So to first of all, understand, and I'm getting it now. So, you know, that you're, so you feel overwhelmed right now. First thing to understand is that even though you feel overwhelmed right now, there are things about you that are designed to help you that are either miscalibrated or just overwhelmed or something like that. So like take a step back. It doesn't mean that you're broken. It doesn't mean that you're screwed. It doesn't mean that you're weak.

right? So already the narrative comes in. Yes. So one thought that I have is when you feel overwhelmed, what does your conditioning lead you to conclude about that, right? So if you're taught, you are less than, or you should be a caregiver, you shouldn't need help, like all of these kinds of thoughts. So even the feeling of overwhelmed has this narrative component to it that changes the way that we interpret it. Mm-hmm.

Yes. Second thing is I love how you broke it down into four dimensions. So expectations. Whoa, whoa, hold on a second. Why is this your job in the first place, right? What do you expect of yourself? Once again, where narrative comes in. So like, where, what were you taught about the default allocation of responsibility?

Where did you come to expect so much of yourself? Yeah. So I think tackling what you expect and really critically examining, like, why you expect those things of yourself, why you expect so much of yourself, why you expect so little of other people. Yeah. You know, I've found that when I do this work with people, oftentimes moving in the right direction feels bad.

Yes. Oh, 100%. Pretty much always. Yeah, right? So that when I expect a lot of myself and I expect nothing of other people, when I start to change that because that's not really how life should be, if you run with that premise, then you're just going to get exhausted all the time. You'll accumulate all of these orbiters who just like take advantage of you.

and treat you like a dormant and never reciprocate. So like that's got to change. But when you start changing that, you're going to feel my experience has been mostly guilty, right? So people feel guilty for like, oh, asking for help or like I should be able to do this. Or there's some kind of perception of weakness to where if I ask for help or if I can't do it on my own, that means I'm weak. And they run away from weakness, this idea that they're weak.

They run away from that so much that they start burdening themselves. to the point of exhaustion. Yeah. So I think it's great to think about critically like expectations. I love how you develop that framework. The second thing also based on narrative, and that's kind of the lens that I'm thinking about right now. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's, I think what you sort of emphasize is environment, right? So what are the resources available to you? Who are the people available to you? What, you know, how much money do you have as a resource? So what is your resource allocation? What are your systems of support? And once again, based on the, narrative that you grew up with, like my grandmother grew up incredibly, incredibly poor.

So in her mind, anything that was labor intensive that you could do yourself, you should never spend money on. Like time was the unlimited resource in her case, and money was a very limited resource. So we get taught all of these things about how we look at our environment. And some of that has been conditioned as also based on narrative, and to re-examine that more critically. Yes. The internal component also awesome.

So in addition to what are the expectations, what is the environment, what am I carrying around internally? What's going on inside me that makes this potentially harder than it needs to be? And then I think also a lot of people that I've worked with who struggle with cognitive load are not great at self-care. Yeah. Right? Because everyone else comes first.

So the kids' birthday party, we have to make sure we have these gifts and this happens this happens, this happens, and then they get kind of left behind. Yeah. And then the last thing that you kind of mentioned is, I'm not sure if I'm going to be capturing this correctly. This is just how I interpreted it. Like the energy of the past. So it's not just self-care in the moment, but you may carry certain resentment.

You may carry certain like traumatic energy that so that when you look in this current situation, this person is asking me for help moving. But I have been, I'm so resentful of people to. taking advantage of me and not reciprocating, that in this one instance, I'm bringing a lot of stuff from the past into the present. Yeah. And I don't know if that's exactly what you meant, but that's sort of what I, what the thought that triggered.

So how is that? And I love those five steps. Like I think it's, it's beautiful to think about the different dimensions and internal dimensions, environment expectations, like past energy. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think the one thing I would add to the past energy one, or the, the, the, the, the, the is like, yeah, your own experiences of maybe being taken advantage of, but also what you witnessed.

I think that's the part where it may not be directly related to you. Like maybe, you know, maybe you witnessed your dad being taken advantage of all the time, or your mom being taken advantage of or somebody, your grandma being taken advantage of, right? And that's what lives within you and you bring to all these situations, which, again, could be something that actually can be turned into a very, like, positive, generative thing for your life, but also could be something that can lead to this sort of ongoing kind of resentment and anger. This is just one example.

You know what I mean? One example, which can then, again, burden that already kind of heavy load that we're talking about. So can you tell me a little bit about so for brilliant. Love it. I got to think about that. I'm learning so much. So, so because I really don't think about witness.

I mean, sort of practically. But like, you know, cognitively, I don't think about witnessing is, I think about what happened to the. as opposed to what they saw, like just clinically. I think of it. That's where my mind goes first. So I think it's a really cool. I feel like my eyes have been open to another dimension of shaping another human being, right?

So what did you see when you were growing up as opposed to what happened to you? And I tend to default a lot more to what happened to you as opposed to what you see, but makes perfect sense that what you see shapes you just as much or maybe even more in some cases. Yeah. So what I'm curious about is you're talking about this system as being positive. You're talking about these events or what you witnessed as being a catalyst for growth or a source of burden. How do you move from one place to another? You know, what differentiates the prognosis of witnessing a negative thing?

Well, that's why I guess we have jobs all of them. One or the other. God, a million dollar question, if not more. I guess million dollars doesn't, you know. as much today. But, you know, I, there is so much there. So just to make sure I understand your question, you're asking if you're out a fork in the road almost, right? And you could go down the path of this becoming one of like burden, resentment, negativity and just like lack of joy in life versus one of learning, growth, mindset, positivity, et cetera, et cetera, where you actually

can build and enrich your life. Is that sort of what you're saying? Like so, and I mean, I'm imagine that's the work that you do, right? When you do this narrative work with people, you acknowledge what their experience was and then you help them reinterpret and understand this experience in a different way or what they witnessed. So what does that look like, right? Because I imagine people who are listening to this are like, yeah, give me some of that. Yeah. I mean, it may not feel natural for a lot of people because it is incredibly, it's meant to be strengths based, right? So in the same way that I just, sort of reframed cognitive load in a positive way of like what is the actual goal of

cognitive load and metacognition, right, which I know you love that. The actual goal of it is to help you function in life and to survive and to, yeah, thrive and beat, whatever, like before even capitalism, right, there was a reason why cognitive load and metacognition were important for happiness, survival, development, et cetera. So similarly speaking, when you think about a power. last event, we'll stick with the past event, right? Let's say, you know, a very common one is witnessing some kind of abuse between parents, right, whether it's emotional abuse, verbal abuse, physical, you know, and that gets internalized into you in some way, shape, or form. Some people go on to

develop, you know, PTSD symptoms, some don't. People are studying as to why, you know, some doing, some don't, right? We know that. But let's. Let's see. And, you know, say that you have, gosh, where I can start with this? Let me think for a second. So if you want to be strengths-based about this, right? Fast forward to, well, actually, while you're a child, you see that happen. Some part of you feels like you, it's your responsibility to protect the victim in this, right? So you get in the way.

You yell back at the person like, you can't do that to my mom or like stop doing that, right? And you feel somehow responsible for this person. And no one's told you to be responsible yet at that point, right? Maybe they have. Maybe there's something that you felt like you're responsible. But your love for this person has made you want to protect them. And that has been transformed into this feeling of responsibility, right, when you're a child. And you're a child, and that's as best as you can understand it.

You're not seeing it as love. You're seeing it as my job to protect this person, right? It's not being translated as love. You grow up, right? And again, this thing that has actually came out of love and respect for your mother, becomes this thing of like, no, it is my job and my responsibility. You're always extracting the human emotion out of it and it becomes this very practical thing, right, that may have the emotion that's filled with anger and resentment, anger possibly, right? Which is, as we know,

not necessarily an emotion, but a response to an emotion, right? A more vulnerable one. And so usually, and so that is what oftentimes takes you down path one, which is where you stick to the narrative of this responsibility and this role that you have, which often times usually always leads to some kind of like self-abandonment where you are not considering your own needs, desires, wants, you actually end up kind of abandoning yourself, right? Because this thing that was actually, hey, I'm a person who loves another person who wants to help that person because I love them, but I'm still my own person. That has gotten lost and has now become my, I'm always looking externally to like how to like help and save and be responsible for other

people at the expense of myself, right? Because oftentimes when you're growing up, there was never the corrective experience that you had where your parent was like, oh, that's not your job. Or like, I love you too and you're still a child. I'm like, I'm here to protect you. Right. Oftentimes, a person in the position might actually feel good that someone is coming to their defense because no one else is. Right. And so you never really had the corrective experience where your actual role as a child was made clear to you and reinforced by action and, you know, caring, yeah, carrying action. So then, blah, path one, the negative. To shift over, right, again, to really, you do what I just did.

Like, how do you reframe this idea of responsibility into one of, like, love? Like, at the very baseline of all of this, what I'm seeing in you is this, that you are a person who loves fiercely and your love shows up as wanting to protect someone. That is a beautiful thing. And you just leave like that is it because you're not making something up. You're not even being like you're not like psychiatrising them as my dad likes to say. You're just making an observation about the truth. Right.

Like oh damn kid like you were five years old. You must really love your mom to like get in harm's way to try and help her. You know. So it's just an observation. And the person on the other side of the conversation may fully reject that and be like, what are you talking about? Like I didn't come here for this such healy stuff. Like what do you mean love?

And it's like no, no, no, no. That's fine. Like you, you, I expect that you're going to reject this because why would you take it? Why would you accept it when it's not even anywhere near what you ever heard as an interpretation of your life, you know, and who you are in your strengths? So that's fine. And I'm spending a lot of time on this because this is like the foundation. Yeah. This is the foundation of then what comes next on this kind of more growth mindset, kind of more generative path.

Oh, there's a next. Cool. So, so, so, so a couple of thoughts. So this is so cool. So I, first of all, I appreciate how you psychiatrists us right at the beginning with, like, so you're, you did it. Even with our question, you were like, okay, let's like, so I asked you, how do you move from a negative to a positive? And you started doing it when you showed up, right? You said, okay, let's that step one that was confusing for me, which is like, okay, let's understand that like, this thing is not negative.

So it starts by sort of even that reframe is, it is huge. And I love the chain that you kind of put together. And I think this is, it's so cool. If only I could have learned from you when I was in residency. Did you not? I thought that's exactly. But like, you know, I think if I had had you and as an attending, I think I would have been a different psychiatrist today, which is super cool to think about. But never too late to learn.

So first thing is like I love this concept of like love being transmuted into responsibility. Right? And it happens young. It happens when our brains are relatively primitive oftentimes. right? So like we don't know exactly what love feels like, but then we turn it into this responsibility. We sometimes step into harm's way. And then I think what happens, I love this phrase of self-abandonment. So once you start becoming the responsible person, responsible people, people who love, right, what do they do? They sacrifice. So that becomes a part of your mode of

operation. It becomes a part of your script for how you navigate relationships. Yes. And then what happens is as you start to sacrifice for the people around you, which is wonderful and can be great, there's oftentimes a self-abandonment because in your mind, this is what I've seen with patients, is that these three things become tied together. So we stop separating them out. So what does love mean? Love means responsibility. Love means self-sacrifice.

And then I've seen some absolute messes in therapy, and maybe I shouldn't say that so harshly. but like, you know, people who like will, they have a lot of difficulty loving without responsibility. Yes. They have a lot of difficulty loving without sacrifice. Yeah. And so instead of like building a relationship where like both of us are kind of 50, 50, and we can build from the ground up,

in order for me to express my love, I have to sacrifice. So sometimes I'll see this like almost as like a narcissistic martyrdom. where they will look for ways to sacrifice more and more and more as expressions of their love. Sometimes that's what they also expect of their partner too. And then that gets really problematic because I'm the sacrificer, but I want you to sacrifice for me anyway. And then it gets really complicated. But and so this chain of like love to responsibility to self abandonment. And that's what also leads to a lot of resentment, right?

Is that like, yeah, I keep on abandonment. abandoning myself, but I'm kind of stuck once again between a rock and a hard place because if I don't do that, that means that I'm not responsible. That means that I don't love them. And if I do do that, then I always get left behind. Yeah. And so I love the way that you, you know, focused on strengths based and then also like unpacking this narrative, understanding what the pieces are. And then I'm sort of envisioning like, these are now the forks in the road. Okay, do I love this person? does that mean that I have to be responsible? And once you start breaking that apart, I can really see a path forward for people. Yeah, it kind of, because again, like we can't tell them what their values are, right? The whole point of kind of breaking out this narrative and quote, quote, finding your voice, feeling more authentic to yourself, that's not, you know, these are treatment goals, right? This isn't like a inspirational say, I mean, there are also inspirational sayings, but they're inspirational because they are treatment goals. And oftentimes it's being able to identify what are your values, what are your priorities?

what are your priorities, right? A friend of mine recently, who's a coach, said something really what, like, it was like so eye-opening to me. She was like, you know, she had a really hard time communicating her needs to people, right? And so she was like, well, here's an exercise you could do when you're trying to communicate your needs. And I'm probably going to say this over the course of my career many, many times. So, you know, let this be the first in public where she's like, number one, assume that the people

that you are around are safe, where you can actually say what's on your mind, what you feel without any threat of breakage in that relationship, threat of them leaving you, or other than getting mad at you, like the only option is that when you say what you're feeling and what you want and our need, they just oblige. Or they're like, okay, great, thank you so much for telling me. You know, there's like a positive response. So that's like the hypothetical kind of go through that with yourself, right? And then when you actually want to communicate it, kind of lead with some kind of gratitude, lead with that gratitude. because if that usually allows it to be,

you feel better about it, one, and then also the person on the receiving end will kind of receive it probably more so than not when you're leading with gratitude. And so it was just like an exercise she gave me to try out. But I was like, oh, yeah, that is so relevant to what we're talking about here

because all of this stuff, right? Like whether it is so rooted in a person's desire and need to feel safe. Right? Like, I mean, and what I mean by that is, in this case, physically safe, but, you know, emotionally safe to feel like the person who you're with or the people that you're with aren't going to reject you for being yourself and making your needs wanted. Because, again, this idea of love becoming self-sacrifice, when you take that all the way, right?

What that means is then you're not going to be loved if you don't fully sacrifice yourself. You're not going to be love. It's conditional. It's a conditional exchange, right? So you're not going to be loved if you somehow have a need and aren't fully catering to the other person's need. So I'm a little confused. Yeah. Go for it.

I'm sure. Yeah. So this makes a lot of sense to me hypothetically. Yeah. So I'm with you in terms of, okay, like love means sacrifice, therefore full complete love means complete sacrifice, all that good stuff. But and I'm with you in terms of the hypothetical as well, like, you know, having a hypothetical conversation with someone where there are no negative consequences of you. making your needs known. Yeah.

Makes perfect sense. Now, and I'm also, if I'm following you correctly, there's a way to actually have that conversation where if you lead with gratitude, it makes you being able to say your authentic peace more easily received. But I think what I'm having trouble with is just that, you know, oftentimes in the world, most of the people are not going to. receive your needs well. No, they're not. And that's what's that that's what is that's where the risk comes in. Right. And that's where. Go ahead. Do people actually do that? Do they have,

do they have those conversations and does it kind of work out for them? Is like leading with gratitude sufficient? Well, it depends, right? It's a great way to test. So this is a much bigger conversation that is, I think, beyond the scope of probably cognitive load. But at the end of the day, right, Like, how are you going to decide whether or not someone in your environment is healthy for you? That could be anybody. It could be family, a coworker, a friend. Like, if you cannot show up as yourself, not like, I mean, don't be rude or mean or anything like that, right? But like, it knows what you need and or want.

While also considering the other person, like you're not just being fully selfish, right? You're just wanting to show up and have your needs somewhat met while you're considering somebody else. If you can't do that in a relationship, then is that actually a healthy relationship? to be in, right? Maybe it could be if you are aware of that, right, and you're in a work relationship, for example, and you have to kind of just make things work because it's a professional environment. And in order to sort of function well, you don't want to just get lost in feeling kind of like, oh my God, that person's taking advantage of me over and over again. Like, if you have this sense of yourself, right, and what you need and want, you're able to better maneuver that because you're

not doing it blindly. You're doing it in an informed way. This is all hypothetical. I mean, I think, I think, I think it's great. Like so let me, it's so interesting because I think it's reminding me of people, there's someone in my personal life that I want to send this conversation to because I think, you know, I think a lot of times what I've noticed is that in terms of our relationships, we default to holding them as opposed to really stopping and ever asking ourselves. Like, is this relationship actually healthy for me? What way, right? Like, what is this relationship too? Because I remember my friend, there's like a thing that people I think say in Alonon,

which is like you don't go to the hardware store for ice cream. You know, it's like you have to know. Don't go to the hardware store for ice cream. Although nowadays, I think there's like ice cream pieces everywhere. So that might be outdated. But you know what I mean. Like the idea is you have to kind of know what you're getting into and who you're going to for what reason. Right.

Not like anybody use them, right? But what I mean is if you're, I don't know, if your dad is not a very emotional person, you can't just keep going to him expecting emotional support. He's not going to give it because he's not learned to give it. If he learns and, you know, he puts that work in, then maybe he, you know, will start to be able to do that. But he's not a person you can get that from. And so how do you process the, probably the grief and the hurt and the disappointment of that reality, right? That's kind of part of this.

And so to get back to your question, which is, oh, gosh, you're with gratitude, people aren't going to accept that anyways. It's like, yeah, you're right. They absolutely won't. But the point here, again, is to not always be considering what the other person is going to respond with. Like, focusing on the other person's reality. is what we're trying to get away from in this exercise because usually people who have to do this exercise are too preoccupied with the external person's reaction anyways. And this is very difficult because I'm like this myself. So like, you know, in the trenches, like that's a phrase my old

therapies used to use. I'm here with you. I get it. But a very, there's just an example on Reddit, I think, that I saw if we could just go into an example for a second, which could be helpful. And it's culturally very, I think, on point for what we were talking about. I think it was a mother-daughter relationship where it's the eldest daughter. She's, you know, responsible for her younger siblings. Mom expects her to kind of take care of her siblings. She's now older. She's, you know, 20, 21 years old.

And is like, I don't want to keep doing this because, like, I want to live my own life. But in my, like, I feel like I'm sort of bound to this role and I kind of have to take care of my younger siblings and my mom relies on me. But, you know, I'm going to take a stand. And I think she tried to take a stand. And her mother, I think said something like, well, what use are you? like I raised you to be able to help me, which made her feel like her whole purpose in life was to, you know, be helpful. And I think this got very confusing for her because exactly what you said earlier happened, where she could not differentiate between like love, self-sacrifice, responsibility.

So these things, this love and the care that she was giving her younger siblings kind of got like transmuted into like this, like this, this, this responsibility that she had no matter what, this kind of like conditional thing of like if you don't do this, there was a consequence. this is conditional. If you don't do this, you don't have my love. If you don't do this for them, you are not my daughter. If you don't do this for them, you are actually a bad, selfish person, right? Someone used this beautiful thing to kind of like manipulate this, this girl, essentially, to do what they wanted her to do, which makes it very confusing because a lot of people would hear that story and be like, well, yeah, I mean, it can be a great responsibility for an older sibling to, you know, babies with their younger siblings or be there for them or help them out. But not at the expense of themselves and not when there is sort of this kind of toxic interaction between the actual

caregiver who's the mom and the older the eldest daughter but to the point it's like this is still responsibility that the eldest daughter really feels like is hers and she's like if I try to outline myself and make any room for myself in this and I don't know go to a concert with my friends go take classes somewhere go do anything in the evenings that isn't you know at the beck and call of my parents does they make me a bad person and I think she internally really feels like it does. Yes. Right.

And so, I know. Getting carried away. No, no. I thought it was great. So, so, um, I, I'm just curious about something that you said. So you said, um, you know, the rob is that, okay, so hypothetically we can have this, this conversation. But then when you actually have the conversation, people can respond to it in a negative way, right?

And you just gave a great example of that. So then I, this may be like a simple question, but how do you. develop, I don't know if courage is the right word, right? So I'm thinking about many people that I've worked with. I'm thinking about a version of myself some time ago. Yeah. And I'm thinking about just how challenging it is to take that risk and take that leap. Yeah.

Because that runs against all of the programming, right? The programming is other people come first. So how do you help people actually take that leap? Like, what are the, are there any steps that sort of alleviate that fear or that consequence that kind of come to your mind or maybe a little bit too abstract of a question too? No, I mean, like, let's see, let's see this girl. Yeah, I mean, great question. It's, it's, it's, it's not easy. Like, this is very difficult work, which is why I think.

Do you want to take a look at that? I mean, I can read the whole thing. It's pretty long, but we can take a look at it if you want. The Reddit post? Yeah. You want to just jump into an explanation or should I read it? about the oldest daughter syndrome. Yeah.

I mean, I think I just did I, it was my explanation. Yeah, I think I covered it. I think you covered it. Yeah, it's just if you were going to revisit it, then I could read it if you wanted. But I thought you did a good job. Oh, yeah. I think, yeah, that was, I think that's like the most support that people need to know is that she's the oldest. This is her responsibility.

And, you know, it started off. It's like, oh, this could be really lovely. But then it kind of took a term when her mother kind of made it very clear that, like, this is what she expected of her. and that she was actually being selfish by not, you know, by asking for something for herself. And so how in the world is somebody like that, you know, go into this conversation? So I think it can break your brain because, again, safety. Like you are, you've been conditioned. This girl probably been conditioned to feel as though safety is being able to be in her parents' house in the way that she has been.

Like that is what she's familiar with and familiarity to a lot of people equal safety, which you right? And that's oftentimes we have to get them to decouple so that they can realize that safety actually is something else. The familiarity doesn't always equate to safety. Oftentimes, usually doesn't actually. So that's, again, like a baseline understanding that I kind of prep people with before going into these conversations because it's like, this is going to be a roller coaster. It's not going to feel great, probably. If it does, wonderful. Second is expectation, right it's like okay another bit of like psycho education um beforehand is why don't we understand like what is your relationship with your in this case it's with her mother right like what is that

relationship like let's actually break that down right like what is how does she treat you how do you treat her how does she help you how do you help her like what does love look like when it you know when you feel love by her how do you show your love to her how does she show your love her love to you right let's actually go through these questions very concretely so you have a sense of what this relationship actually is right and if you have a hard time hard time answering these questions that in and of itself as we say is either gris for the mill or something we need to you know look into a bit further because it's why some guilt there's probably guilt a lot of a lot of kids of immigrant parents feel really guilty for saying anything negative about their parents and so that could be another

you know hurdle but sorry you're going to ask a question yeah i wanted to jump in because i i i feel like that, that, so I would say that the number of times that going through that exercise has given people a real wake up call is like, it's super low hanging fruit, right? How does your mom express love? And like, it's, it's interesting because I'm with you in terms of sometimes there's psychological defense mechanisms that keep you from answering that question. But I'd say most of the time, it's like brutally, like I would say honestly the majority of people, you can ask that one question. And it's an incredibly powerful question because the answer that they see is. is that she doesn't.

Yeah. You know, and that, like, just asking those, like, really concrete questions will, you know, what does, what do you do for your siblings' birthdays? What does anyone do for your birthday? Like, some of these really simple, concrete things can really be eye-opening for people. Yeah. And I think the, the natural next step of that is you can't just be like, okay, cool, now I know that moving on.

Like, that is a highly emotional, a high emotional experience because, It is riddled with grief and disappointment because you are actually, it's like, it's almost like a, people say it's like a natural part of growing up is to sort of realize who your parents are. Yes, maybe, but this, this is like an added extra layer, right? Of, oh my goodness, that is who they are, but like how they are with me. It's like, what can I expect from my parent? What was I hoping for from my parent? What am I not going to receive from my parent unless they do their own, you know, therapy or inner work or whatever? And so kind of holding space for that intense emotion and allowing them to feel it is really important, which I know is part of therapy.

But I think this is like with anybody, right? This is even with a friend. I've had conversations with friends in this stage of life where all kind of many of us are going through this with our family members and we hold space for each other because we're having similar experiences. And it's been really nice to be able to connect on that level because that the weight of that grief, which can sometimes be really difficult to put into words of, the disappointment of not having the mom that you thought you had, the dad that you had, the sibling that you thought you had, whatever, right? Sometimes it's really hard to put into words. And so that's nice to have that support.

Anyways, so, so, you know, after like the monumental task of kind of getting through that grief, kind of while you're getting through the grief, actually, part of this is kind of, again, being very concrete. Like, what would you actually want this to look like? Like, let's visualize, right? Because oftentimes visualization is the first step to allow them something to actually be, both in the world, but also internally. where I think I used to go to this Reiki, I become Reiki, but like this woman who used to say like imagination and visualization is the connection between like the spiritual and physical sometimes.

Probably more dimensions as well, but like, you know, we'll get there. You're going to hear something crazy? Yeah. So there's a really fascinating study where they took geriatric population and they had them visualize working out. Oh, wow. Guess how much hand grip strength increases through visualization of exercise in geriatric populations? How much? 40%.

63%. Yeah. Oh, by visualizing exercising. Improves grip strength. Jerry, I picked geriatric population because that's where it's the biggest difference. Yeah.

That's amazing. It's crazy. It's crazy. Imagine working out and it will, in one study, showed a 63% improvement in hand grip strength. Oh my God. My uncle who's like 85 is going to take that and run with it. That's so funny.

But yes, right? And so it applies here, even not in that exact sense, but the idea of visualizing, what do you want this to look like? And that is the reason why it's a big question is it seems simple, but if you actually go through it, it's really difficult because part of this is re-learning what it means to be in that relationship for yourself and for the other person. And so I think you've got to have some sense of what you're working towards because without that clarity, you know, it's like, what do you, yeah, what are you working towards?

And that's with anything. And that takes some time to kind of outline and decipher. and it can be a lot of guess and checking, kind of trying something out and not working out, you know. And I think there needs to be also a sense of practice. Like, you know, maybe you didn't have a, because if this girl grew up in that kind of environment, like, she never had practiced being able to say something to her mom or seeing this, like kind of seeing the situation in a different light. So leading with gratitude, right, could sound like, this is a friend of my what she told me and I'm going to not do as a great job as she did.

but something along the lines of, like, mom, like, it's so nice that, like, you trust me enough to be responsible for my siblings. Like, that means a lot to me because you don't have to trust me, but you trust me. Like, you think I'm responsible enough to take care of them and to be there for them. That means a lot. And at the same time, you know, and then, like, whatever you want to say, right? And at the same time, like, I'm realizing that as I get older, I need to figure out how I'm going to be able to...

create a life for myself as well because I want to be able to, you know, maybe have my own kids where I can put some of this learning into motion in my own life. And so like it would be great if we could work together to figure out what that could look like for me. Right. Because at the end of the day, it's a it's not, you're not lying. You're just being honest about what you actually want, right? As opposed to being coming from a defensive position of like, I don't want to be here anymore because like this is too much work and I'm too stressed. It's like, yes. But if you play that tape forward, actually it's because you're you want to actually be able to make time. to build a life of your own. And some of these skills that you've learned will actually come in handy for when you're, you know, have that life of your own, you know. And so that's what I mean by leading with gratitude. It's not necessarily being like, thank you mom for taking care of me. It's more just like, hey, the reality is that you seem to trust me enough. And that's a big deal.

So that's great. I'm so glad you do. And also, right? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So I think I still have a fair amount of skepticism about the efficacy of that. I'm not thinking it's efficacious, right? this is not about the other person responding positively. This is about you being able to identify what you even want.

Because like, I mean, not so I think that. No, seriously, right? Because like, if you, if she had not done the work to play the tape forward, maybe she would have been in the defensive position this entire time of like, oh my gosh, I'm just being kind of like reamed on by my mom. Like she's seeing me as this tool to use. Like, what are I going to do? I'm stuck.

What do I do? What do I do? When she allows herself to be like, no, actually what I want is to build my own life and like, see this from a different perspective. saying that out loud is actually allowing her to claim that for herself, right? And it might seem like, well, what's the, what's the benefit of that? No, it's a really big deal. Like, I've done this myself.

Like from firsthand, from firsthand practice, I can tell you, it's a really big deal. Because in the same way that negative narratives can snowball, like these little positive glimmers or things can snowball as well if you allow them to. And so I think it's just like one begets another, it gets another. Yeah. So I think I, so it's interesting because how my conditioning. didn't process, even though you said it more than once. So I think, uh, love it. So can I try to summarize and just,

please, because I, I, I think there's something huge here. Um, so the first thing, I, I loved how you started with this concept of like concrete question, right? So if you want to make a change in your life, if you're unhappy with the way things are. Yeah. So you feel stuck. You feel like if you try to, you don't want this.

life anymore, but you feel like a bad person if you change it. How do you go about like growing and getting something positive out of it? First of all, asking these really simple concrete questions. And I like concrete question because it's not about the emotions. It's about the reality of it. Right? Because when emotions get involved with love and sacrifice and then I'm interpreting this and this means this and like all kinds of crap is happening in my head to where I like, like I make it okay for people to treat me like shit. And it's because of all the stupid like, oh, like it's okay. Like I want to be a good person and all this crap.

But like very concretely, like what do you do for other people? What do other people do for you? And when I have these conversations with people, it's amazing how easily eye-opening it is. Because then you dispense with all the cognitive crap, the reasoning, the justification, the explanations, even the forgiveness. Let's just look at the reality of the situation. Yeah. Second step, once again, another thing that I don't invest much in, which is visual. visualization. But I think it's great, right? Because like for these people, the visualization

makes so much sense because literally in their mind, it's such a closed space. What are your options? So so many people, myself included, and I didn't realize I had this conditioning, I don't think about what I want. I think about what is possible. And then I reverse engineer to try to, but fundamentally, I'm being responsible. constrained or constricted by other people, which is why I didn't get that point. I don't think that's going to work, right? Because I'm default thinking about what other people will respond to. So I don't even think about what I want.

I think about what I can get away with. So really taking a step back and visualizing what the real possibility, or not even what the real, I would see, visualizing the unreal possibilities becomes incredibly important. The ideal. Yeah. The ideal, right? Because, and we don't realize how realistic the ideal actually is. That's been my clinical experience is that once you really help people, they think, oh, this is perfect.

It's amazing how close people can get to perfect once they really strive for it and a couple of other things fall into place. Yeah. And then the third thing that I loved about implementation is the gratitude is not there. It took me a while to figure this out or understand what you were saying, I should say. Receive what you were saying. is that the gratitude is not about getting them to listen. That's what I was sort of envisioning, right? I was like, oh, like, if you're nice to them, like, maybe they'll be nice to you.

No, no, yeah. But really, the action that you're taking has nothing to do with them. It's about reclaiming your own space. And if you practice some of that gratitude, if you think about the positivity, I don't know if this kind of makes sense, but when you're stuck in these, like, you know, self-sacrificing love, responsibility, there's so much resentment that you care. that in order for you to grow, you can't have that resentment like leading the charge.

So instead, what you need to have is decompress some of that resentment, create that internal balance with gratitude. And then when you kind of speak your truth, it's not even about how they respond. It's about the big step you're taking is in advocating for yourself, which is the main thing that you don't do. In a way that you want to, right? In a way that makes you feel proud and like, hey, I feel good about this.

I'm not leading with, yeah, I'm not coming at this in the defense. physician. Absolutely, as opposed to being absolutely burnt out and then exploding on the other person and all that resentment comes out. It's about sort of controlling and carving out that space in your life, which makes like, I mean, that sounds awesome, awesome. Yeah, it's like, it's like, it's like, not making room for shame, right? It's like, because when you explode at somebody or if that resentment comes out or if you get passive aggressive, like, it happens. It's so human. But oftentimes there can be this kind of residual shame or regret or like what's like what did I just do um or you can justify it in some way but it's just it doesn't usually lead to anywhere kind of positive for yourself so yeah

I that was great thanks all thank you for summarizing what I'm saying it's very no I mean I I think what I heard you just break down is like the steps to how not to give a fuck oh my god yeah that should be like a t-shirt maybe that's my next podcast I think there's something really here right? Because it's like concretely really looking at what the reality is because a lot of our investments are in our what we believe is happening, not what is actually happening. So that's how to start separating and then visualizing what the ideal is and then the implementation of like kind of speaking your truth and like, yeah. And I was like, but I don't think that's going to work. And you're like, that's not the point. Work how? No, and I think. And I think an important thing here, right, is. I think in modern culture, sometimes this idea of like standing up for yourself has also been kind of twisted somehow into being very isolationist and like easy to kind of push people out of your life.

But that's not the goal here either, right? Because that's also kind of a very reactionary thing, which in the long run is actually not totally helpful. Yeah, of course, there's certain people that that's the best case scenario because, you know, this kind of conversation is like not tenable. It's maybe not safe. Like they're, you know, they're all reasons for why that that path of just kind of like shutting somebody out is what's necessary. In this case, though, and if the family member or something like this, right, the idea is there's still love between these people and you want to give them a chance. Like you want to, you know, you don't want to assume the worst in this person. And oftentimes assuming the worst is just like another way to avoid standing up for yourself.

So be honest. Be like, hey, if I don't do this and I just assume they're going to respond poorly, that's actually just like another. defense mechanism another obstacle that I'm putting in my own way of being able to live a life that I actually like and want and being kind of quote quote happy or content right um which she's like wait what but it's it's true and when I've said that to people it's like it takes a second to kind of fully understand what that means and it's like that in and of itself is like a defense is like a self sabotaging thing that I'm doing yeah yeah but it's justified as well there's not going to respond to because they are, you know, so mean or they are so unreasonable.

Great. So what? You know, and so, you know, the easier's have been done. So, like, you know, I also practice this in my own life. But I think it is something that is, you're considering the other person in all of this. Just not so much so that you abandon yourself, if that makes sense. Yeah. No, I think it's, it's, and also that point about the almost negotiating against yourself, right?

Yeah. where you think about their negative response, and their negative response becomes an excuse to not advocate for yourself, not build the life that you want. It's wild. I was wondering if you have, if you have any other thoughts,

cool, otherwise I had a couple questions for you. Yeah, sure. So these are questions that were sourced from our community. So how can I ask for more help with household responsibilities without feeling guilty or sounding ungrateful or entitled? There's an inherent power dynamic

since my partner is the main financial provider, which makes me feel anxious about bringing this up. Any thoughts about that? Yeah. No, this is so common. And I feel for her, I think, I could, you know, now that I've taught you, Oleg, you could probably answer this question yourself. I'm just kidding. Hi, thoughts. Yeah.

I mean, like, I would love to hear your thoughts because I'm curious as to, like, what the guilt. I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. So, yeah, please, give me your thoughts first. I guess what we've talked about. So I think how can I ask for more help with household responsibilities without feeling guilty or sounding ungrateful or entitled. I mean, I think the short answer is with practice. So, so I think that oftentimes what I run into is people who want something, but they want something without an emotional cost. Yeah. So this is where, you know, when I think about this,

it's like, it's okay to feel guilty and ask, right? It's okay to have some of those emotions. And I think oftentimes people want something, but they don't want to, it's like, how can I make a million dollars without having to work. And that's challenging. But if you sort of accept some amount of negativity around it, and you accept that it's okay to ask for household responsibilities, like just because someone earns more than you doesn't mean that they work more than you. Yeah. Right. So, and there may be some differential value there or whatever, but I think the biggest thing that I would kind of focus on is like, it's okay to feel guilty. It's okay to feel ungrateful and also exactly like you're saying critically examine those where do these thoughts

come from where do these feelings come from if the positions were reversed and your partner asks you for something how do you feel about it are you someone who is usually the sacrifice or are you the person who other people came to for help i think all the stuff that we've talked about is relevant here as for the inherent power dynamic i think that's the kind of thing that oftentimes exists in relationships, but oftentimes I found that really healthy relationships don't have an inherent power dynamic around finances. Yeah. And building a healthy relationship oftentimes involves having a kind of like a diplomacy around

the power dynamics, right? What does it mean that you earn more? What are the expectations? Because this person may be coming with a set of expectations. And their expectations may not be yours, right? So even though they earn more than you do, they may not feel like they're, you know, that that matters as much as you think it does. So I think there are a lot of different ways to kind of approach this. Yeah, I think that's so true.

And a lot of a lot of like really healthy relationships have a very structured way of going about this actually, right? And that's just the modern day version of relationships. I think that may not be what you witness with your own parents. And that may have just been like, again, an unspoken and invisible power. dynamic that was just kind of unspoken. You know, you just sort of assumed responsibility of certain things and you never really had the chance to say anything or ask for anything more. But that's not really how things have to be right now. And so I think what I would say is, yeah, I think the guilt, first of all, the fact that you feel guilty or entitled, like,

do you feel that way or is somebody else making you feel that way? That's an important thing to understand in this, right? Because no matter how much you practice, like if you don't understand like where, like you said, if the emotion is so tied to it and you're trying to control somebody else's perspective of you, it's like a losing battle because all you can do is kind of present yourself in a way that you're proud of and that you feel good about. And so it kind of comes down to, again, practice for sure. But I think, why do you need help, right? I mean, this is a person who you love, who's your partner. If you're struggling, you need help. That's kind of where the conversation should probably begin. You shouldn't just jump to the action item because then you, because like you

just demonstrated for everybody, the person you're with probably isn't even thinking about all the stuff that you have on your mind and that you have to do. Right. And so it's really important to have the conversation of like, hey, I feel like I need help. Can we talk about that first? Like, why do I need help? What do I need help with? What's going on here? And to get really concrete, right? If that person can't understand what you mean by you need help, be like, hey, when I, like, when I think, what I need help with the kids food, because like, if I asked you to put the food, create, you know, plan their meals for the week, tell me how you do it and what you think of. And then let me tell you what I'm thinking of and how I do it, right? And then you put on

paper kind of like what that differential is between like what her partner's thinking versus what she's thinking. Suddenly he's like, oh, okay, like you need help because you're thinking of like 10 million other things, then, you know, what I would be thinking of. And so how do we figure that out? And so you have to kind of go into it as though this partner. Because what I'm feeling from this question is her kind of almost approaching her partner from a place of defense again and feeling very small and being like, I'm going to do all of the work for him and just give him the ask of I need help with these things. Because that's going to like alleviate him. Like he has the power. He has the work.

He don't got time for this. So I'm going to make it less work for him. And actually what that ends up doing is it like eliminates any chance of connection and understanding that those people have of. of making with each other, right? And the partner then, of course, like, it's almost like you're creating a place where you're assuming this person to do something or it's going to feel to your partner

as though you're assuming they should just do something and that you have not thought through what else that they're bringing to the household and how much they work they put in without giving them a chance to understand where you're coming from and kind of how you're seeing this. And so that's a long way of saying,

have that conversation first. Yeah, I love your answer so much more than mine. I think it's like, I think it's, So what I really liked about it was just all of the assumptions that are baked in, right? So when you were doing this whole like, you know, like, and so I think you brought up this really good idea of like, oftentimes what will happen is you try to make the ask in the easiest way. Yeah. The most acceptable way possible that doesn't burden the other person. But if you've already arrived at that asked as the answer, you've actually missed out on a lot of good stuff.

Right? Just starting with a conversation about, hey, why do you, like, explaining what your experience of needing help is, explaining some of this stuff. And then also I would, the one thing that I would add is sharing your experience of the power dynamic or the role of finances. And even having a conversation, like you said, there's a structured way. So I find that most people who do this in a healthy way will sit down and really just talk about finances as one piece of a relationship. So what does it mean for us if one person or, or, or, makes more money. What does it mean for our division of our household responsibilities? How do we understand that? Is that worth more? Yeah. And so I think just really like not I would almost hear what I heard in your answer was this person is fast forwarded way too much. Rewind back to some of these fundamentals about what do you need help with? What is their what is their experience of helping out more? You know, what is their what is their understanding around finances and like having all these conversations. And then I loved your emphasis on partnership. And so right now what's happening is this person is running through all these scenarios and coming up with one concrete ask.

Yeah. As opposed to let's run through this together and see what our options are. And then their ability to jump on board without you feeling guilty is way easier. Yes. Because they're open to it. So then there's no guilt if you're not, I think the guilt comes because you've created a preconceived notion of asking them for something, but they may volunteer for something, and then the guilt is solved. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Um, so, uh, okay, man, there's so many good questions. We have so many. Okay, I'm going to, uh, jump to this one. In, in non-romantic but close relationships, such as with siblings, how can we communicate that the mental load is too much? The effects of parentification and the associated mental load can last well into adulthood,

eldest daughter syndrome, and being the family manager is an unpaid and exhausting job. Yes. Sorry, I'd like sigh. I feel you. Whoever asks this question, I feel you. So I guess how can we communicate that the mental load is too much? Again, not to be a broken record, but in this question, I think what's tough is, I don't know if there is any kind of like a wrote way to do this like oh here follow these three steps maybe maybe there is um but again like reminding right like you're you're fast forwarding to this is too much for me and then full stop right which can with certain siblings that could actually be totally fine right so i don't know what the underlying baseline relationship is between these siblings that you know they're talking about

but sometimes just saying that right can be a great first step from a place of genuine like kind of honesty and vulnerability, not from a place of, like, defense and anger and, like, defensiveness. Like, assuming, because if you want to assume they're going to be like, what do you mean, it's too much? You oftentimes go into it, presenting yourself in a very particular way because you're expecting them to fight back or to, like, you know, negate or deny your experience somehow. So, and again, to expect, like you said earlier, this, each sibling has a very different perspective of, like, their parents, of the siblinghood, of the family. And so, Like there needs to be, you almost have to prepare yourself for like a difference of opinion here.

And people are going to be who they are. They're going to bring themselves to it. I mean, I'm not going to be personal. It could just be who they are and what they're bringing to the table, how much they work through, right? Like you're all three, your independent humans. Who, but I think if you feel like you just want to have this conversation, sometimes that is the place to start, is to say, hey, you guys, I can't talk to you about something. Like, I'm, I personally have just been feeling like I've been, um,

Like, this is too much on me. And I would love to kind of just talk to you more about that to figure out, like, what I can do what we can do. Because then you're coming to them with the sense of, this is too much on me, but I'm not looking to you to solve the problem because that also is putting this on you. I'm actually coming to you being like, hey, can we do this together? Because I know there are things that I could do to help kind of decrease the mental load. And maybe there are things that you could do that I don't, I'm unaware of, right? So you are not assuming or putting kind of things on them immediately, you're allowing space for a dialogue. And it makes it feel a lot more equitable when it's like, it's not just me.

It's all of us. Or it's not just you. It's all of us. So that's kind of like the first, I think, approach that I could think of in a relationship that feels like, hey, that might not be received immediately perfectly well. But that could be a good way to approach it initially, if that makes sense. Yeah. I think it makes a lot of sense to me. I think like you were just kind of saying that there's no, you know, there may not be a perfect solution to this.

And at the same time, I think there's enough thematic consistency. And what I really, I think this is an amazing strength of yours. I think you do a great job at, or what I appreciate a lot about you is you do a really good job of like helping people understand what they're stepping into. So even saying, remembering that, okay, your experience of, if you're the eldest child, your experience of your parents, your experience of normal is going to be fundamentally different from your siblings. And so going in and knowing that they're not going to understand, right, that you guys are, it's almost like you're playing a game of chess, but there are different board states. It's like, I'm seeing this set of pieces. You're seeing a different set of pieces. So there's going to be some friction there.

Yeah. And then I like the way that you kind of talked about sort of focusing a little bit on your needs. I found the word help is really good. So help implies, because oftentimes what I'll discover is that other siblings will feel like they're stepping into the problem solving role. Like that it can default into that very quickly. They can have that reaction very quickly. Where if you're like, if you're hosting Thanksgiving too much, now you want me to take care of everything, there's a very black and whiteness to it, right? Because that's been there. their experience of the relationship. Exactly. The eldest parent has always taken care. Elder's daughter is always taking care of everything. Now, if she needs help, that means I have to take care of it. Everything. Yeah, exactly.

And so that's the script, right? Y'all are in, so they think that there's, there's, these are the two actors in the play and we're swapping roles. We're not developing a new play. Yeah. So one thing that I found is very helpful is using the word help. So this is something that I need help with because it implies some amount of action on the other person's part without total responsibility.

So help implies, if I ask you. for help, I'm still expecting you to do something, usually. Hopefully, right? And if it doesn't, then you can clarify that, right? I think that's like the, to your point, because of black and whiteness, like, help might also sound like, oh, you want me to do it for you. Like, there's so much there. So just, I guess, go into it knowing that, like, I think you have to go into it sort of

also knowing and feeling okay with, like, what you're asking for help for, right? Because you may not, like the question said, right, it's an unpaid and exhausting job, right? That is how you feel, right? but they may not see it that way. And so you have to understand, like, if you want to share that with them, you may not get the response that you necessarily want. But if that's what you feel like you need to communicate, that's what you need to communicate to some degree.

Because I remember I had this patient actually who he was the oldest sibling of like four. And he told me this story from his perspective. And I was like, oh, he was like, yeah, you know, me and my two other two younger siblings, like we've all had jobs and living with families and whatever, you know, we're successful and set up. but our youngest sibling, you know, still is at home. So our mom needs help because she's getting sick. And so we thought he would really enjoy and appreciate having the opportunity to take care of her.

So that, yeah, that's what he does. And I was like, did he tell you that? No, no, but like, of course he would, right? Like, you know, like, he hasn't really been doing much. And now our mom is sick. So, like, this gives him a chance to, like, contribute and be a part of the family. And to contribute to the family. And he, like, really believe that, like, he was somehow doing this kind of, like, really wonderfully generous thing by

allowing his youngest sibling to take on all the responsibility in terms of taking care of the mom. And they were not. They were white. And so they're talking to family from the New England. And so I, but I bring that up because that's like an extreme example, right? Of just like, oh, wow. Like there is, that is definitely not how the younger, you know, sibling feels. And so I remember I think we had a prompt of like, you know, something is not working out.

Like he's not doing the rest. He's not, you know, showing up in the way that we want him to or, like, you know, not taking care of her in the way that we want him to. And they had to have that conversation. And that's sort of where the stuff came out where the younger sibling was just like, no, man, like, I don't want to do this all by myself. Like, just because I'm not in the same life's position that urine doesn't mean that I want to take on this whole responsibility. It's a lot. And also it's like there are a lot of skills here that maybe I can't physically do for, you know, 24-7. It's a very different type of labor.

So, you know, they made room for that conversation. But I think there needs to be a willingness to hear differing points of view. And if you cannot hear the different point of view, if it somehow bothers you, like, I don't know, you got to take care of that too. Yeah. I got a question why that is. So, I don't know. I just want to give that example because it was really funny when I heard him say that. Just the assumptions that people have about what people in your family are okay with and, you know, people in your.

Yeah, you should be honored to do that. Like you should feel so good about it. Like, look, we're giving him this responsibility. Like, shouldn't he feel good? Like, we've never trusted him to do anything. And now here we are, allowing him to take care of our mother. Like, these were actual words that came out of this person's mouth, you know? And I was like, oh, huh.

That's one way looking at it, for sure. Yeah. So next question. How should we approach or process the anger that comes with being a woman due to the mental load expectations and obligations put on us? You know, to each their own. This is a highly personalized process. because you're like the anger is very real it's very much there people call it sacred rage because oftentimes it's not just your anger it's anger from previous generations that you're carrying like

your own mother your grandmother like you know um the yeah the generations before you and so there is a very kind of can be a large sphere of anger um that that comes with this and so like I can't tell you oh this is one routine that's going to help I think it is highly personalized. But I think what is really important about it is allowing it to be. So this kind of comes back to the first question you asked around cognitive load of it's not only that women have cognitive load issues where they're thinking and planning and anticipating and monitoring and kind of doing all the things that to take care of a household or their life. It's that there's that extra layer of super ego or metacognition where they're

judging themselves for it as well. Right. So there's like this inherent judgment that in and of itself is adding a whole new load onto an already difficult kind of very practical plate that they're trying to carry every day. And so you have the judgment, you have the guilt, you have the anger, you have the resentment, all of the stuff where you can't just do these things in peace. And so that anger that you're trying to process is all of the stuff that you are kind of using to judge yourself. And oftentimes you have to push that away or just like give in to, like push it away to kind of just function. Right. So part of processing anger, I think the first step is acknowledging that it exists and being like, hi, like, you are angry. How do I, how am I going to

express this anger? Some people find it really helpful to write it out. Some people find it really helpful to say it out loud, even if it's just for themselves in a room or on top of a mountain, wherever it is. Some people find it really helpful to go for a run or a jogger exercise, and that sort of unleashes some of that emotion, and they're able to cry it out. And sometimes that's enough. They don't even need words. So I think it really depends on kind of each person's individual way that they process emotion generally, right, whether you're neurotypical or neurotypical, whatever that is. And so because that'll be different, right, depending on how you process emotion, understand emotion. And that's, that's a huge first step in it, I think. I don't,

I don't have a perfect answer for this, but I know that's, that's a huge part of it. And then it's almost like, you know, there's almost like a forgiveness that women need as well around having the anger, right? which just kind of goes hand in hand with kind of leaning into it and allowing yourself to express it in a way that feels healthy to you. Because like you said earlier, if you don't express it proactively, oftentimes it can just come out anyways. It comes out somehow in rage and anger, in addiction, in, you know, depression. It can just come out. It's going to come out in some way, shape, or form. So why not take control of how you express it, whether it's through journaling, writing, exercise, and whatever it is.

And then the, yeah, like the forgiveness of, hey, I, I, it's a, it's a, it's a, like I forgive myself for feeling this or are allowed to feel this right there's permission and forgiveness um permission to feel something and then forgiveness because if you even if something is allowed and is okay in the world you might still feel bad for feeling that way so yeah yeah i think that's huge i mean especially with uh it's interesting for women it's anger oftentimes for men it's things like shame where there are some emotions that society views is unacceptable, right? So an angry woman gets called a bitch.

And so there's one of the crazy things, this is really challenging for me clinically, but I found it really helpful, is to help people understand their responsibility. That's just kind of my therapeutic approach of like, what is your contribution to this situation as well? And so a lot of this is society doesn't let you feel angry. You get judged harshly for feeling angry. That's why it's, that's why. That's why that's the one that's really hard to process. So all the stuff that you said, but then also recognizing kind of like what you're saying is that a lot of this anger actually comes from you and are unfair expectations placed on you?

Absolutely. Is there a component of anger there? Absolutely. But then there's also this idea, I don't know if this is going to make sense, but that some people are able to handle those expectations better than you are. Some people are more willing to give in to those expectations. Some people are more will or less will or are less, they're just more, they'll, they'll accept them. And then there's a value judgment that we place on people who, you know, people that fall into line and people that don't. People who resist societal expectations and people that don't.

And sometimes I've seen some really, really interesting kind of deep, I am this way, but I kind of wish that I wasn't. and I'm angry at myself for not being kinder. Yeah. Even though, and it's kind of tricky because if you ask this person, do you really wish that you were that way? No, I'm actually happy with who I am. But there's a part of me that wishes that I was more, you know, that I was like a good girl.

Yeah. And so that tension is absolutely there too that I've seen sometimes. It's like kind of subtle. And then I think a lot of times that anger is actually an internalization of the societal expectations. that you're kind of angry and then you're angry with yourself, you're angry with other people for putting you in the situation. There's a component of wishing that you were better in some way.

And better can be more angry towards other people or less angry towards other people. I wish I could express my anger. And so there's even anger with yourself for being unable to express anger. And kind of like what you were saying, there's that layer of metacognition or super ego that I think is a piece that sometimes can really help. a lot, which is to look at the way that you respond to your anger because that can create more frustration. Yeah.

And I think I remember in residency, if someone once told me, like, anger is just a response to feeling out of control. And so if you don't have any other way to kind of gain control, oftentimes the default is anger. And you could kind of apply that to any situation in which you get angry. It's because in some ways you perform, you feel like you don't have control. And not only you don't have control, but you don't have control. And that is now dangerous for you. dangerous meaning like, you know, whatever danger means to you, emotionally, physically, whatever.

And so, which makes sense from like a nervous system point of view, right? And so, so I think to your point of like processing anger, let alone even understanding and your relationship with anger and why you're angry, how you're responding to it, what your expectations are, that again, yeah, goes back to all of this. Like you got to kind of like tease this apart a little bit because you're, you're allowed to, again, rewind the tape a little bit because of the anger is just like the output of all of this societal expectation, this kind of internal expectation, this self-judgment, the ultimately making you feel like you're not in control of your own sense of who you are. Outcomes anger. It's like, oh, wait, you can't just kind of, yeah, you have to process anger.

You have to be able to be okay with the anger. So you can push it aside and actually get to all this other stuff that's actually fueling it to begin with. But a lot of people, don't do that because oftentimes the anger is so big and so present and so overwhelming and very obstructive that it takes up all the attention, you know? It's like, give me the attention. That stuff doesn't actually matter, right? Loudest person in the room, like the loudest person in the room, right? Like that whole idea. Anger is an umbrella emotion and there could be other things going on. So some of that emotional processing of anger could happen if you dig into whatever is fueling the end. anger. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. That we were saying it.

So we have time for maybe one more. So I read a good chunk of the book Invisible Women and realizing that to consider women is to see their needs as niche. My boyfriend appears to be more burnt out by me after much less. For example, his job is the bins and he takes them out about once a week. Every week he gets upset at the same thought that it's too tiring to do once a week and he would rather we incurred less waste so he could do less. I really don't understand that. It's just part of running a home. My question is, what is really going on?

Is it patriarch? It is, I don't know if there's a type of here. Is it patriarchy? Is it patriarchy, invisible needs of women? Are men more prone to exhaustion and stress? Do women push themselves more? Are men just more checked out when it comes to tasks? What do you think?

Oh, look. So I think a couple of things. So the first is that I think things that we're used to doing become easy for us. So I know that this was like, so like, like, you know, I was talking about earlier how my wife like plans all these like things around my kids' birthday parties. So she grew up in a household where I think her mom was very like socially attentive. So she sort of is like a natural at that. I don't know if it's really talent or not, but I think sometimes we take, so just because something feels easy for you,

like taking out the trash, doesn't mean that it's easy for the person who's doing it. So I think that there's a couple things to keep in mind when it comes to the patriarchy or how men and women are raised differently. So I think one of the big challenges that I had to learn was that stuff was like cognitively way more difficult for me because my brain was not used to doing it. Yeah.

So it used to be that early on, you know, my wife would be like, she would make the grocery list and then I would go pick up the groceries, but she's still doing the cognitive load. So now as I learned that cognitive load, as I learned to check in the fridge, it's interesting, we've actually swapped. So now she doesn't know what we have and I kind of sort of mentally manage that. So I think one thing to keep in mind if you're working with a, you know, boyfriend or dude or whatever is that there's a learning curve here, which like we assume, Sometimes we don't assume there is. We're like, oh, it's simple. Well, it may be simple for you because you've been doing it the whole time. So that's one piece of it.

Second thing is that I oftentimes find that I'm going to just say this. Boyfriends are just whiny little bitches. Like sometimes like dudes are like that where we just like, we're like whiny little bitches. Yeah. And it's like really like taking the trash out once a week. Like, what's going on there? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, and I'm sure you have a much more elegant, sophisticated way of describing it. But like, I think sometimes like, I don't know, and this is where I think it comes back to the conditioning. It's like, what is your resistance to this thing? Why is it so hard to take the trash out once a week? Like, what's so difficult about that? So I think really having a conversation about this person's experience.

I also do the same thing where I advocate for my wife to do like way less. Like I'm like, I don't understand why we're doing like these 15 things at once. I think there's some merit to that. I think taking out the trash is like, you know, what's your, what's this person's relationship with that? A couple of things in terms of men being more prone to exhaustion and stress. So I think one thing is just what you're used to doing is easier for you. And we as men are not conditioned to do this kind of work.

So it's very foreign to us and requires a lot more investment, oftentimes, which is something that I don't know if a lot of their partners really understand. It's like new for me, therefore it's going to take me some time. And there is actually some evidence that some aspects of this are biologically different. So one thing that I learned recently that I was never understood, but makes a lot of sense, is that when my wife gets sick, she's way more functional than I am. Oh, yeah. But I think there's like the immune response and the inflammatory response for men is actually far greater than women in terms of like illnesses. And that could have an, I saw some papers to, to suggest this. So like, we feel sicker when we get a cold because literally our inflammatory

response is more robust. This could have something to do with the fact that men are oftentimes fight. So we're more prone to injuries. And so you need a more robust immune system to protect you from infection. So sometimes there are biological differences. But I'd say, you know, if you're a woman who pushes themselves more and men who are like mentally checked out, I'd say like start with a conversation. And I think that I've seen enough healthy relationships to where, you know, bluntly, like if men and women are both working, right? So if we're both making the financial contribution and we're both working 40 hours a week, there needs to be a more equitable split within the household if you want an equitable relationship. So. Yeah. It has to be actually conclusive.

I think outlined. It can't just be like an assumption. Like, oh, I just assume he's going to do this, right. I'm going to do this. And then it's going to be, you know, magically I'll get done. And I think there are huge, huge ramifications of this. So I think we see this a lot. Like there's a there's a huge gender conflict that's like in South Korea.

I'm also seeing it in India. Like I think South Korea is like one of the worst places in terms of just a lot of like just the society is not calibrated. Yeah. on a social side to balance out the entry of women in the workforce. So South Korea apparently has a very patriarchal society. And women are expected to really do a ton of housework. And dudes really don't help out much at all.

Except now women are also in the work grind. So it used to be like one or the other. But now women are doing two and men are doing one. And it's like causing a real problem. So super low fertility rate, a lot of problems in dating. And there's even like political platforms that are somewhat like men are very anti-feminism, like very openly politically. They think it's like an evil. So there's all kinds of weird stuff going on.

What do you think? Yeah. Oh my God. That's like a whole other. Yeah. Absolutely. So many thoughts on that. But I think, you know, inherent in this question even is like you can hear that this, this woman who's asking this question is questioning is something wrong with me for wanting him to do this or asking him to do this.

Like is this something that is. this too much? Is this reasonable? Like, you know, I don't, like, I think it's reasonable, but maybe it's not. Maybe I'm wrong. Like, she's actually really questioning her perspective on this task that she thinks is reasonable, but she's willing to consider that maybe she's not being reasonable. You know what I mean? Or there's some other reason to explain why this person is saying it's too difficult. And to your point, right? Like, yeah, people sometimes just whine, if they are uncomfortable, they don't want to do something. You know what to mean? Sometimes they just, there is, there is like, yeah, if you're comfortable on the couch, like you don't want to get up. There's too much inertia. If you're not used to discomfort, no, you're not going to tolerate it very well, right? So there is a practice that mean you have to get used to. Like you're not used to getting up six in the morning and you have to do it. Yeah, it's going to feel uncomfortable initially. But then you push through it. It's like, oh, actually, this is maybe better for me in the long run. So there is that a bit of like practice and ability to tolerate discomfort that I think sometimes this runs rampant. Even these small

little examples of like, I have to get off the couch, then get the trash and take it outside. Like, it can feel like this huge burden. And you're right. A conversation sometimes is really important. And I think what's really important for her specifically is even if your partner has that kind of reaction, that does not mean that what you're asking for is unreasonable. And you don't have to then cater to that in some way of like, oh, I guess, yeah, we'll put away less, right? It's like you're allowed to, you know, feel confident in this arrangement, right? And if you feel like this is an arrangement that was made that was not explicit, then we have to figure out something else. at the same time, if, you know, cognitive load, he is in charge of the bins or trash, I don't know where she's from, the trash, right?

It's like, at what point do you give him some autonomy in terms of like how he's going to manage that? Cool. That is your issue. If you feel like we should be doing less, like, no, I have trash that I'm throwing out that I need to get rid of. Come to me with some ideas how you think we could do that reasonably. Put it back. Yeah, that can be his responsibility, right? That's not your responsibility to figure out, like, how to do it.

make the trash less. Maybe he has an idea. And maybe it's reasonable. Maybe it's not, right? You give him the chance to express it. If it doesn't seem reasonable and you talk it through, then that's been nixed, right? But you're allowing him to see some agency in making his load lighter in the long run. If that's how he's choosing to manage that task and responsibility. And same goes for whatever it is, you know, that you're kind of talking about. Yeah, I love that kind of step, right? So it's like, okay, fine. If you're proposing that we use less trash, that's your cognitive load, you figure out how to do it. Yeah, come to me some ideas because I don't know what that means because I,

we have trash and we throw it away and I don't get it. So help me understand what you mean by that. Two pieces of toilet paper instead of three or like, what are we talking about here? Yeah, yeah, like help me understand what you mean by this and how we can actually play the tape through to the end and put that cognitive load on that. Because yeah, because you'd be like, hey, yeah, I would love to make less trash for the world in the environment. That would be great. Help me. Yeah. So I think that, um, it's, it's so interesting.

Yeah. I think what's interesting is oftentimes we'll say things like that. But oftentimes if someone else does come up with an answer, we're very resistant to it because we don't want to do it that way. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But that's what I'm saying, right? But at least he has a chance to like give you an option. And it's like, do you really think that's reasonable?

Right? And sometimes it's like, cool, let's try it for a week and see what happens. Right? Like this is not like a, I think both parties have to understand that like maybe it's not the bins. Maybe it's something else, right? Whatever it is. Like maybe there is some third way to do things, right? That's like what couples therapies all about is like you have a perspective, you have perspective,

and we're going to create a third way of doing things because it is combining both of you. Right. And so what is like your new couple of reality? And so yeah, there is going to be some kind of like compromise and adjustment that occurs. and both parties have a say in whether or not, you know, that works for them or that makes sense. Yeah. And it's difficult why that is, you know, and there can be, like with ADHD and I'm taking out the trash can be a really big deal because you may forget to do it. It might feel hard to get, you know, going.

Maybe you're depressed. It's hard to activate. Like, yeah, there are many reasons as to why that could actually have definitely very difficult. But how is your partner going to know if you don't have the conversation or tell them and you just jump towards, I'm not going to do it. It's too much, right? Once again, I think I appreciate how compassionate you are when I'm like, dudes just being a little bitch. I mean, that's also a possibility. Yeah.

It's very much a possibility. Sometimes happens. But I mean, I think it's, it's, I, I've always appreciated your compassion, your, your perspective, right? So like, I tend to, I've always appreciated your lack of premature closure in terms of answering things, right? So you don't jump to Oper-Tal. I'm like, he's being a little bitch. Like, and you're like, oh, maybe he could be depressed. Maybe he's got ADHD.

Like, oh, yeah, like, those are all real possibilities, you know. But in this context of a conversation, right? Because, yeah, we're having a mental health cut. And I think the, the, just like what Dr. Arragam or Gorey is saying, right, I think it starts with the conversation as opposed to jumping to an answer. Yeah. I don't know where the specific question is, but I limit me, this is the last one we'll do, if you've got a couple of minutes.

Yeah. I don't know where the specific question is, but I hope they talk about how having to educate your oppressor on how you are being oppressed, while still being expected to cater to their fragile emotions, is itself another cognitive load, if not another form of oppression censorship. You can't speak your truth plainly because even if you aren't cursing or using abusive or abrasive language, because some people just can't handle the realities that some people have to go through. And keeping these issues to ourselves and making things a woman problem to avoid having to do the work of trying to educate them in a way that doesn't feel critical to them, excludes men from the equation when it takes all of us to enact true change. Yeah, this is a way to choose the last question all of my goodness. This is, I think, a huge conversation in and of itself, right? because this is a very important, this is a hugely important question. Because you're describing like so many cultures in which people are kind of in an emotionally

abusive relationship or setup, which is kind of what this person is describing, without any real out. And so you're asking for like, how do you survive within what seems like an abusive relationship where having these kinds of conversations that are somewhat rational? can't even exist because that other person you're with is like working from a completely different rulebook, completely different view of the world. And your view of the world and the way you're bringing it to them just is going to be flat out rejected. Like there's no room there to enter or have that kind of conversation and there's not a room to exit. And so I think she's right in that

that end of itself is how the emotional load that women carry can get really taken advantage. of, right? It's like, there's the nice way of the emotional load being like, hey, we're going to take care of each other because we want our partner to feel happy and while taking care of and good. And then there's this, which is like, oh, no, only one partner gets to feel happy and good. And the other partner sucks to be them, you know, like that is that kind of like fully, kind of unequal black and white kind of division of emotional kind of well-being is, I mean, that that's abusive, right? And so I don't, it sounds as person, it's not even asking a question because there's probably some understanding of like, how do you actually get out of this or how do you work through it?

And really, you know, oftentimes self-preservation is the goal oftentimes in these situations until an opportunity presents itself to kind of have things be different. But I will absolutely acknowledge and see that what she's talking about is more than just a cognitive load, right? it is an abuse that's being, it's abusive. And so if we want to kind of reframe abuse as cognitive load, sure, but I don't think we should use niceties here. Like that's abuse. And so the cognitive load that you're carrying is the impact of abuse, which is a whole other conversation, which I know you've already started to have in other kind of arenas.

And what you're talking about is cognitive load of maintaining safety. That is a huge cognitive load, right? because you're you're having to create a situation in which you will feel safe enough to get through your day, whatever that means for you. I don't want to get yelled at. I don't want to be belittled. I don't want to be, you know, scolded. I don't want to be cast aside. So what do I do? I'm going to make this a woman problem just to not have to deal with it. You know what I mean? And so yeah, I mean, that's it does exclude it from the equation. Like it fully enables kind of their behavior. and how to get out of that, I mean, that is very, I mean, to me, they're very context specific. I think somebody else could probably speak better to kind of how to get out of that kind of situation. Someone who ignores different perspectives and is got a premature closure. Like, just leave, you know? Maybe that's all possible.

Like, yeah, that would think the ideal answer is like that seems like it may not, if you're a oppressor, like that may not be a great situation to be in, but we very, no, much know, that's not an option for a lot of people. So, yeah, I think, like you said, I think it's. It's a, it's a, it's a whole conversation at a minimum. It's, it's not a question. And I think you highlighted a couple of things that I would kind of like completely agree with. So the first is the way that I understood or pulled a question out of this is if I'm in a situation that has an uneven power dynamic where one person is an oppressor, maybe is abusive, right? So I got those tones as well. there's another layer of cognitive load because now I have this figure that I'm dealing with.

And I can't. So we've been talking about have a conversation, have a conversation, have a conversation, have a conversation. That's like a central theme to like our answer to so many of these problems. But what do you do if having a conversation is not a possibility? Or that you have to censor what you say so much because this person has very fragile. emotions, has very fragile ego. Right? When the right answer is to have a conversation, what is the play when having a conversation

isn't an option? Yeah. And so this is where I think, you know, I think even the words used were awesome, like entry and exit. You have to have a way to enter into the conversation or you have to have a way to exit the situation, which is practically, I think, a beautiful framework for when I've worked with people who are in these kinds of situations. Yeah. Oftentimes exit comes before the conversation.

So, so like, you know, being safe, the first step to any kind of trauma treatment is safety. Yeah. So being safe. And so this is where sometimes when I work with people very, like, in a calculating way, like, I'm thinking about people who are in abusive relationships, like with abusive parents. And then, you know, what we'll really focus on between 17 and 18 is like, how can you get independent at 18, you know, like, are you going to take out, oh, my parents say they're going to pay for college. Maybe you should apply for loans anyway, because if you ever challenge them, they're

going to use that against you. Yeah. So I think oftentimes the first step is like concrete exit and safety. And then you're in a position to do some of the things that we talked about. Yeah. I think there are a couple of really good books that sort of explore this stuff. I think walking on eggshells is really good. It's about, it's a book about how to have a relationship with someone who has borderline personality disorder. Being the kid of emotionally immature parents, I haven't read that whole book, but I think like that's another really good example of like something that teaches people a lot of really concrete skills to navigate this kind of stuff. You know, and I think this person is saying you can't speak your truth plainly because even if you

aren't cursing or using abusive or abrasive language because some people just can't handle the realities that some people have to go through. So I think that is a very, very unfortunate truth of the world. And I see this so much in our community where people that are like, I have this friend or my partner is this way or my parents are this way or my sibling is this way. And I don't know how to get through to them. Yeah. I don't know how to make my friends respect me. I don't know how to make this relationship succeed. Yeah. And I think the really challenging thing about these abusive and oppressive relationships is that,

first of all, I think it takes two to make a relationship succeed. And some people, especially when they're in a position of power or oppressive, they have a vested interest to not fix the relationship. They're actually not, they're actively opposing that. Yeah. And so I think a huge part of what I've seen, really works for people is I like this point about visualization is really visualizing what your life, what kind of life you want. Yeah. And moving towards that life in a very concrete way that has

less to do about winning this person over. Exactly. Right. Because that is a losing battle it sounds like. And it sounds like speaking your truth plainly, if you're able to identify what your truth even is, then you're already steps ahead of, I think, other people in this, some of the situation because many people may not even feel like they have the room to even consider what their truth is, whatever that is, you know what I mean? And so it's like, how do you, yeah, like, what, what do you want your life to look like if you know who this person is? And in some ways, it's helpful to know exactly, like, if there's a predictable nature to this, it's like, okay, I kind of know now what this person's like, who they are, what they expect from me, what, you know, I can, or cannot

expect from them. And in some ways, I can, can maybe help you do what you're talking about to some degree. again, this is primarily in situations where conversations not available. Leaving is not an option. You're at least physically safe, right? We're not asking people to stay in a use of relationships by any means. That's how this is about.

But I'm talking about cultures in which beyond America, like beyond even Western America, like even with an immigrant and kind of minorized cultures within America. Like, that's not an easy option. You can't just judge someone be like, oh, they should just leave. It's like, that just may not be a possibility

even if there is abuse. And so I think to be very honest about it is the toughest part of this. But yeah, no, I think speaking her truth plainly, I think that from experience and what I've seen, the fact that she can even identify

her truth to some degree and see that situation for what it is and clearly, and if she's able to kind of understand and visualize her own life, that is already steps ahead from what I've seen. I think there's a kind of

an interesting, there's another perspective which I would layer in, which is that sometimes when people, there's a bunch of resentment built up, we, so I've thankfully been, I've had some patients who have been able to actually have conversations with people that they view as oppressors, people have been oppressive. But like I'm thinking about, you know, parents who have been, parents can be abusive and still love you. Yeah. Right? And parents can be abusive and feel guilty and want to change. Like, I've absolutely seen that a ton. And so sometimes there are ways to have conversations with people like this.

But the real issue comes down to how invested is the person in making the relationship work. Yeah. And I think, as this person is kind of pointing out, like, you know, fragile emotion speaks to me that this, like, you know, the person they're dealing with is not in a headspace to where they can set aside their own defensiveness and really move forward. Yeah. And that's where, you know, it's super challenging. But I think sometimes working on your own resentment, working on your own negative emotion,

I think that's kind of what you've advocated for, right? It's like speak your truth and try to balance it up. Start the process of the gratitude yourself so that if you can soften your own emotions in some way, if you can sort of understand the complexity of things and see things not as black and white, it puts you in the best position, not necessarily. necessarily to communicate with them because they may not be in a place to listen, but to bring yourself internal peace. Yeah. Which reminded me of a question that someone kind of asked, which I think is like speaks to the point.

I don't understand what we are meant to do. This is not, this is from chat. I don't understand what we are meant to do when we try to be honest with someone and ask for what we need, but then they react poorly. How are we meant to deal with those bad reactions? And, and I think the point that I've been hearing you make is that, first of all, why is it your responsibility to deal with the bad reaction, right? Yeah. I mean, there's a certain practicality of it, but like you're not responsible for that.

So if they react poorly, like that's kind of on them. And depending on the power dynamics and the degree of oppression, you may not have that luxury. But I think the big thing that I'm taking away from you is like, you know, this is a process of advocating for yourself and being authentic and not being responsible for how people react. really doing something that doesn't inflame their reaction, so we're not saying be an asshole, but also, you know, people are allowed to react poorly. And sometimes that's a step along the way to healing. Like you have to say something to someone that they don't want to hear and is painful to hear is challenging to hear. But then just because they react negatively the first time doesn't mean that there aren't options down the road where you can really get into it and they can kind of emotionally calm down and maybe y'all can have a productive conversation about it. So anyway, I know I've been... Yeah, no, I think I would agree, right? Because, and if any part of that person's question also is about, you know, sure, you can't be, you can't control their response. You're not responsible for their response, but their response still has an emotional impact on you, right?

And so how do you kind of process that emotional reaction that you're having to them getting angry or not, you know, accepting what you're saying? Because, you know, like you're being vulnerable, you're putting yourself out there, you're sharing something. And if someone reacts strongly in a negative way, that might make you sort of question what you even said to begin with, right? It might re-trigger your feelings of guilt or shame or like, oh, why did I just do that, right? Or regret. And so so much of that is you kind of like feeling like you're tumbling backwards. But so much of what we're talking about is being able to stay planted in your own two feet in spite of how they respond. Because that usually comes from having a kind of sense of confidence and assurance in what it is that you're

communicating to begin with that like I have a right to have needs I'm allowed to have needs my needs are worthy like not in some kind of like you know touchy-feely sort of way but in like a very real human like the the truths of humanness it's like no I'm actually as a person allow it's supposed to have needs I'm supposed to have needs like that's what it means to human and so if you feel like you can respect and again like oftentimes you have to kind of do a check-in with yourself, if you feel like good and confident about how you are communicating something to somebody, you feel like, hey, I am sharing what I have to say. I'm considering them, of course. I'm not going to be an asshole. I'm going to say it. And sure, maybe I can also start with to work

on my own communication and how I communicate these things for sure. But like, you also have to realize that oftentimes that person's negative reaction is a projection. It's not usually at you. It's usually at themselves or something that they've experienced. Like you start to realize as time goes by that like that reaction actually is not super personal, which I know people have probably heard a lot of people say in the past. Like, oh, yeah, someone reacting at you. It's not personal. Sometimes it is personal.

But the point is, you know, no one says you, like there's no reason for people to start yelling at you. Yeah. Right. Technically. Like, or to be so negative. If they can communicate their own needs or why they disagree with you. in a way that is respectable, then that actually is a skill that they're lacking, you know, so.

Yeah, I think that's, it's such a great thing that I think we learned in our training that, now that I think about it, a lot of people don't do. So everyone's like kind of basically wondering, you know, how do I deal with this person's reaction? Yeah. Well, a huge part of that is recognizing that this person's reaction honestly has very little to do with you. Yeah. So when you say, hey, I don't like, you know, like, let's take the case of the eldest sibling, right? So if, if, if says, if someone says, hey, this is like too much for me, other people will react negatively. So a huge step of that is, is realizing that the reason that they're reacting negatively oftentimes doesn't have anything to do with you. It's because they know deep down sometimes that they know they're not doing their fair share. They feel guilty. So one of the most interesting things that I've seen is if you say something to someone and you get a very, harsh, negative, angry reaction, the number one reason for that is the person that you're telling it to knows it's true. That's why they react poorly.

It's not even about you. It's that they know you're right. And this is something that they've tried really hard to suppress. And when you make such a convincing case because both you all know it's true, they react really negatively to it. And one of the things that I remember, I mean, you know, Dr. Argym and I learned in our training is to not take reactions personally. Like when I'm working in the ED and someone's high on K2 and they tell me that I'm the worst person on the planet and then I'm a terrible human being and all those kinds of things, you begin to realize. Oh, like, this is nothing to do with me. This is just. And to extrapolate that out to most human beings.

And if you think about, you know, your own reactions, like we see this all the time on the internet where you'll read a tweet or whatever. And then you're, you'll like read something in Reddit and then we'll like get really angry, right? what are we react we're not reacting to the person we're reacting based on our own internal stuff yeah and so the more that you begin to realize that if someone is reacting negatively towards you that actually is not mean doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong it's not your fault it's just this person's reaction is like based on their own internal psychology it can help you really handle a lot of negativity way better yeah and at the same and in terms of person responsibility if you feel like hey maybe i could communicate something differently right not

because to cater to them, but because you feel like if for your own communication ability and for you to respect your style of communication and for you to feel effective, like if you want to be able to communicate differently, then that's great because that's how you want to do it. But that doesn't guarantee someone's going to respond like we were talking about right. Well, but it does mean that you can like feel good in yourself as well about yourself who you are, et cetera. Absolutely. We only build self-confidence.

And again, not arrogance, just confidence and like, reassurance in yourself. Because yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, like, we can't, we have to be really careful about how we are justifying our own bad behavior or somebody else's bad behavior in ways that can feel like fair or, yeah, in ways of actually kind of getting in the way, right? Because oftentimes a big emotional response can be very manipulative. It's like, they might not be consciously being manipulative, but they kind of want you to stop telling them these truth that they don't want to hear. They want you to let it go. They want you to feel bad about it so that you don't bring it up again. Right. And in doing so, that ends of controlling your behavior.

Yep. Maybe not consciously, but it does, right? Unless you feel grounded enough in your truth of what you're saying and communicating that you're like, no, I feel pretty good about this. And I see that you're having really, like, this is like, you know, this is tough for you. And I obviously very angry. But like, no, I think this is happening. Like, I think this is real. I think this is true. I think you need to take the bins out once a week. You know, I understand that's really hard for you. I'm sorry, let's talk about that, though, but like, I'm okay and asking you to do it. Just to bring it it full circle. Yeah, so I think we're at time for today. So thank you for bringing it full circle. Do you want to just tell people one last time where they can find you and who you are and what you

do? Yeah, so I'm Dr. Gowrie Aram. I'm an adult psychiatrist. I'm based in San Francisco, primarily focused on women's mental health. And currently I have started a podcast called Sense of Self. You can find it at Sense of Self pod on Instagram. And you can find me at at Gowrie Arragom. And my spelling, my name is somewhere, I think, on the H.T website. And please follow along. We're just getting started with the podcast.

It's kind of like an experiment. We have a few episodes out. Response has been awesome so far. And I think, yeah, I would just love for anybody hear, get feedback, we want to make it better for next season and I'm really excited to share more stories. If anybody's ideas, please, yeah, feel free to reach out, tell Aalok, Dr. Kaye. Yeah, so I really can't recommend the podcast enough.

I think it's, it's this, in a sense, the same, very similar substance to what we do, but done in a very, very different way. And I think, Gori just, Dr. Argonne brings her, like, own awesome perspective. to like the way that she talks to people, the way that she just catches completely different things from what we kind of how we approach things. And so for me, it was really interesting to hear a lot of the problems that we talk about in our community being explored from a different perspective. And I learned a ton from it. Oh, awesome. That's so great. Thanks a look. A lot of that stuff was kind of like foreign to me, honestly, like as a dude. Like even as a psychiatrist, like it was like just the way that you frame the conversation and what you talk about. And the, you, questions that you choose to ask, I guess this is the biggest difference is that the questions that you choose to ask are different from the ones that I would ask. And so you end up with the same starting point, same person, but you end up understanding them in a very different way. I feel

like it's very complimentary to the kind of our approach to things. And I think it's probably, yeah, so I think it's great. So definitely check it out. Yeah. And the easier you get to actually could also be like w just sense of self pod.com. Cool. That's why easier. Cool. Thank you. But thanks all.

So thank you for the kind words. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me here. This has been great. Yeah. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye.

Okay. We, yeah. So check out the podcast, y'all. Well, legit. And Dr. Argonne's awesome.

So I think she's clinically absolutely brilliant. You know, it's interesting. We were at, we trained together. And she's definitely like one of those psychiatrists that if I had a family member who needed like help, I would send them to her. Like I wouldn't send them to all of my colleagues that I trained with, but she's definitely at the top of the list of people who, you know, we would highly recommend. So I think her understanding, I'm sure you guys saw this that, you know, we'll overlap in some areas.

But very, her perspective is awesome. And she just thinks about things in a different way. So it's cool. What do you mean trained with? We were both at Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, and Harvard Medical School together. So we were taking call together. We were rotating together. We were covering each other's pagers.

We were sitting in classes together. So that's what I mean. So we go back a ways. So yeah, she's fantastic. And yeah. So, you know, I hope today was helpful for y'all. I know we weren't able to. We had a couple of posts.

a couple of questions that we didn't get to. I saw a ton of awesome questions in chat, which we just didn't have the time for. But I think we've had a couple of really awesome guests recently, and I think that there's like an appetite for more. I wrote down 13 things that I wanted to talk to her more about, just her take on things. I think, you know, it's interesting because she said that she's like so like it's an individual situation. and you have to take things very individually and you don't know exactly what the perspectives are. But also if you just like, you know,

what I really appreciated about her is that she actually does a really good job of breaking things down into frameworks. And her kind of five-step process of decompress negative emotion or decompress the negative approach to things, think about your expectation, think about the environment,

think about internally, what are you feeling? And then what else are you bringing from the past into the present? Like that kind of framework, I think is awesome and exactly what this community really resonates with. So stay tuned, y'all to socials. And then we'll catch you all later and thank you for coming today.

Take care, everybody. I hope it was helpful. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if, like, what if it doesn't hold up?

That sofa was boring. He's old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.