HealthyGamerGG - Why Highly Rational People Are Emotional, Subreddit Review | Community Stream

Episode Date: July 29, 2021

Taken from stream dated July 19, 2021. Stream Schedule: https://www.twitch.tv/healthygamer_gg on Twitch. Youtube: https://youtu.be/s5cjlHMkOUM for VoD Archive. Support us at https://ko-fi.com/healthygamer if you enjoy our content and would continue helping making it accessible to everyone! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My friends, let us begin. Welcome to another Healthy Gamer G-G stream. My name is Alo Kanoja. I'm a psychiatrist practicing in Boston, Massachusetts. Just a reminder that everything we discuss on stream today is intended to be taken for education only and nothing is intended to be taken as medical advice. Just a reminder that, you know,

if you all do have a real medical question, please go see a licensed professional and, you know, get it answered. So a lot of what we talk about on stream, and today is going to be a good example of this, is pretty general, right? Like, we have generalities. We're going to talk today about rationality and emotionality.

And we're talking a little bit about shame, a little bit about this, a little bit about that. And these are sort of like general educational things. And I think that our hope is that you can learn a little bit about yourself. But any time we're talking about a principle on stream, when you take an abstract principle and you kind of stick it in the mind, of an individual, that may require some individual attention. So I strongly encourage you all to go see a therapist or psychiatrist if you all have a concern around shame or fear or whatever. Okay. So,

I'm sorry for being a little bit late. We are, you know, I had to do a little bit of training for some folks at HG. So that's a lot of fun. I really enjoy doing it. It's really fascinating to see how much, like, better our community is getting. I don't know if we were just better about finding, you know, potential coaches, but I'm really seeing, like, a lot of really interesting change with just how aware people are becoming, how people are starting to put their lives together. And honestly, it gives me, like, a lot of hope. I've always sort of had hope, but it's really cool to kind of see it happening, right? So that we set out to stream and, like, we, We upload videos to YouTube and things like that.

And we were hoping like, okay, hundreds of thousands of people need help and there's no way that Dr. Kay can work with them individually. So what if I just start teaching people about how their mind works and will it actually help? And it seems like maybe it is. And so jury's still out on that one. Hopefully we'll actually put together a research study on that. And we'll see whether this is just anecdotal or whether there's real data behind Twitch chat improving and leveling up. Hopium bonk it. You know, one of the other things that I never really appreciated was how much I enjoy seeing some people in chat.

And I know that we have a lot of long time supporters of the stream. And I really appreciate when people like donate and subscribe and stuff like that. But I think it's cool to see like, you know, like I'm recognizing some of these people from chat now when they, you know, when they're talking. And it's cool. it's it's really great it's interesting to feel that parasycial relationship developing within me and um yeah so something to explore i'm sure and um right it's weird like what does it what does it feel like to be recognized because like it's it's strange to like recognize and appreciate i feel like sort of like you know when you i almost feel like it's like a you know going to class and like seeing like you don't

really know who that person is, but there's like, there's a dude that you kind of recognize and you kind of like give him the, you know, the, hey man, what's up? It's, it's interesting. I never expected to form relationships with people on chatter to be like, pleased to see someone here. But it, you know, it's cool, actually. So a couple of announcements. So Mitch Jones, I think, is going to be coming on on Wednesday. So we're not really sure what we're going to be talking about. hopefully it'll be good. Huge fan of Mitch. I think he's a solid dude.

Dr. Kay's Guide to Mental Health drops in August. So tentative release date is mid-August, so we're probably talking somewhere about a month away. Seems to be on track. And I'm not torpedoing anything with last-minute scope creep.

And, you know, a lot of people keep on asking Dr. Kay, like, what books do you recommend? And that's the challenge, right? Because when people ask me, like, what books do I recommend, like, how can I learn more about what you are talking about? That's sort of the question that I hear. I can recommend books, but I think when people want to learn more, there isn't one. And it

turns out that I was just going back and looking. So, you know, I wrote 160,000 words for Dr. K's guide. So that's like two to three books right there, two, really. And so I think the challenge that we face is that, like, I don't think that. that, you know, there are good books, like, don't get me wrong, but it's just not, if people want to learn more, I think that this is what we've given you. Way too dank. What's dank about that? Yeah, man, there's a lot of writing. I wrote 2,000 words this morning about motivation. So we're writing more and more and more.

Let's kind of dive in. So today we're going to be doing subreddit review, so we have a lot of good questions on the subreddit. And we also, I'm going to do like a quick kind of like lecture sort of thing about rationality versus emotionality. So I think a lot of people in our community like think of themselves as highly rational people, which makes sense, right? But we're going to dive into sort of the nature of rationality versus emotionality in the human mind. And one of the biggest things that I hope will kind of illustrate is that you can be as rational of a thinker as you want. You can be as logical of a thinker as you want. But despite something logically being good for you, it can be like very hard to actually do.

So what's the relationship between rational thinking and emotions? And that's what we're going to talk a little bit about today. So let's kind of get started. So a lot of times people kind of assume that, you know, if they're highly rational, that they're like not emotional. So we see this a lot in argument, right, where people will kind of be like, oh, you know, this person is a, you know, this person is a, you know, this person is. getting emotional, and therefore their argument is wrong. And it's really tricky because we,

you know, especially like a lot of people of our generation, will think of themselves as like rational thinkers. And part of the reason that they conclude that they are a rational thinker, I am a rational thinker and someone else is not, is because this person is displaying emotion and I am not displaying emotion. So if this person displays emotion and I am not displaying emotion, then I am the more rational thinker, therefore my argument is more correct. And it's almost like we sort of say that the display of emotion becomes like a point against our rational argument. Like if I make a rational argument but I make it emotionally, you know, if I have an argument but I make it emotionally, then it becomes not rational, which is kind of interesting

because that's not really the case. So I know a lot of people think of themselves as like very rational thinkers, but if you really like engage them in conversation and they don't think of themselves as emotional. Like, you can actually uncover a lot of emotion very quickly. I mean, the simplest way to tell, you know, someone who thinks that they're a rational thinker, that they're, you know, a simple way to elicit emotion is to tell them that their logic is wrong. Just be like, no, bro, like you're the logical chain that you are outlining is incorrect. And if you say that, you will see an emotional response. The emotion will definitely come right out, right? So it's kind of interesting because we sort

of think about rationality and emotionality at opposite ends of the spectrum. And in a sense, that's actually somewhat true. And we'll get to the neuroscience in a second. But there is reciprocal inhibition between our cortices and our limbic system. So our cortices is where a lot of our higher order thinking comes from. And there's a limbic system is where our emotions come from. And what reciprocal inhibition means is that our cortices will suppress our emotions and our emotions will suppress our cortices. So there's a reason why some people think that, you know, if you're emotional, you're not going to be thinking rationally. So there's some truth to that. But that's unfortunately not entirely how the mind works. So the first thing that we want to kind of

dig into is that skill at argument does not necessarily make you rational. So a lot of times I'll see this in couples counseling where like one person is like a better debater than the other person. And so anytime they have a conflict, like one person is like able to form their argument. more like coherently and therefore they will win the argument and then they assume that because they won the argument that their logic and their rational thinking is superior to the other persons. It's kind of interesting, right? Because if I win an argument, doesn't that imply that the rationality that I used is more correct than yours? But hold on, like let's take a step back and recognize that like debate and skill at argument is like a skill. So,

If I had someone who was a master debater and I even, like, I gave them a bad premise to argue, they would be able to like even take something illogical and actually like outmaneuver someone who is not as good as debate. Right. So one way that we sort of justify the rationality of our argument is if we can out argue someone else because so if I can convince someone or if I can outmaneuver someone using my skill of argument, then I must be correct. But that's not actually the case, right?

Because skill at argument is just skill at argument. It doesn't actually mean that you're logically correct. It just means that you're better at outmaneuvering another person. And so this is kind of interesting because, you know, like, just because you're able to outmaneuver someone doesn't actually make you right. But then you kind of scratch your head and you're like, but then what does make me right? How do I know if I'm rational if like skill at argument doesn't mean I'm right?

And so it's kind of interesting because if you really look at it from a neuroscience perspective, what you can actually find is that emotions can hijack your skill at argument. Okay. So let's take the example of like someone who's in denial about being addicted to alcohol. So this person, people can approach someone who's addicted to alcohol and in denial with the most logical argument. And emotionally, if this person is not willing to accept, that they have a problem, their rational mind will come up with all kinds of counterarguments. And you will never be able to convince them that they have a problem, right? Unless they are

willing to entertain the idea that they have a problem, you will never be able to convince them. So it's kind of interesting because if you really look at the mind, what we find is that your skill at argument can be hijacked by other parts of your mind. And so, you know, you can kind of get emotional. Like if you get someone who's like very good at arguing, you get them riled up, they will argue with you, their emotion will kind of fuel that argument. And then, like, you will never be able to convince them that they're wrong. And they may even be able to outmaneuver you, and they will walk away from that interaction thinking that they're right. And so people are kind of confused about that. All you have to do is look at politics, right? Because when I

hold a political belief and someone else holds the opposite political belief, both of us, within our mind, are convinced that our belief is logical and justifiable. No one in politics, says, my belief is idiotic. We always try to say, oh, this other person isn't thinking clearly. They're emotional. And both sides will say this all the time. And if you really like, kind of like, ask the person, is your, you know, belief logical? They'll say, of course it is. That's why I believe it. But if we really get it, get into it, what we actually realize is that's not the case, because logic may exist objectively. But when you take logic and you stick it in a human brain, some weird stuff starts to happen. Okay. So let's try to like dig into,

why rational thinkers are actually quite emotional, and how unless you understand the emotional aspect of your thinking, you will never sort of be thinking properly. Okay. So it starts with this. So a lot of people will say, okay, I'm not feeling emotional, therefore I must be rational, right? And that's kind of interesting, but if you look at it, some people are a lexatymic. And so what that means is that they've actually trained themselves or been conditioned to turn down the volume on their emotional signals. If you actually look at these people, their EQ or emotional quotient is like lower than other people who are not a lexathymic. And so I know it sounds kind of weird, but just because you don't feel emotion doesn't mean that there isn't emotion that's active in your brain. So we all have

this part of our brain called the limbic system. And the limbic system is how we feel emotion. And I know it sounds kind of bizarre, but you can even look at, you know, cases of people, and we'll show some papers quickly, but you can look at people who have, you know, neuroscience things going on that suppress their ability to feel emotion. And what you actually find is those circuits of the brain aren't turned off. They're actually turned on in acting in some way, although there isn't awareness that the emotion is present. So I know it sounds kind of weird, but like if you engage in a logical argument with someone, the emotional parts of your brain are not going to be like non-functional. They'll be functional and some amount of awareness will be suppressed. So one of the

places that we actually see this is actually in schizophrenia research. So if you look at people with schizophrenia, their experience of emotion over time can be like blunted or diminished. So people with schizophrenia can develop something called flat affect, which means you can't see emotion in their face. So even though they could be experiencing emotion, the visibility of their emotion is kind of like there's a break between these two circuits of your brain. And similarly, what we see in alexothymia is that the emotion is active on some level in your neuroscience and is actually hijacking your rationality, but your experience of it is not present, which sounds really, really weird, but that's because sort of like you're just not aware of it, but it's absolutely

there. Okay? So this is where let's kind of turn to a little bit of research. Okay? So we're going to explain this principle a little bit better. So inhibition of action, thought, and emotion, a selective neurobiological review. So this review goes into a lot of information that is less relevant for us, but is really interesting. Talks about, you know, inhibitory circuits for thoughts and actions and emotions. But here's the important part for us. Here we go. So, inhibition of emotional responses, okay? Oh, where'd we go? No, we want to go down. Nope, we want to go up. Here we go. So emotional dysregulation is a characteristic of a variety of forms of psychopathology,

and disregulated fear responses play a prominent role in blah, blah, blah. By studying extinction, researchers have made substantial progress in understanding the psychological and neural mechanisms, underlying the inhibition of conditioned fear responses. Below we review evidence indicating that the VM, that's ventromedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus are critical brain regions involved in fear extinction. Okay?

So let's just think a little bit about what this is saying, and I'll try to translate for you all. What this means, if we're talking about inhibition of a conditioned fear response, what that essentially means is that I have a fear response that is activating, but there are parts of my brain that are kind of inhibiting it or suppressing it. So the fear is there and there are certain circuits of my brain that will actually go out of their way to try to suppress it from actually happening. And this is sort of what we see in cases of like Alexothymian argument is that a lot of people won't feel emotional,

but there are actually emotional circuits that are active that are being inhibited from like presenting in a particular way by other circumstances. of our brain. So our ventrometrial prefrontal cortex, which is where a lot of our, you know, logic and executive function comes from, actively will inhibit the experience of things like fear or other kinds of emotions. But the really interesting thing is that there's reciprocal inhibition. So sometimes what can happen is even though we're trying to inhibit that circuit, that circuit can activate and actually shape our rational thinking. Okay. I know it sounds kind of weird. But if you have a friend who's very emotional, let's say that I'm afraid that my

partner is cheating on me, then what happens is that emotion drives my rational thought process, right? And then I start thinking all these things that if my friends try to disprove me, I'm like, no, man, like I'm texting her and she's not answering. But it's like, dude, maybe she's asleep. It's like 1 a.m. No, man, like she's not answering because this. Right? And you can try to argue with that person as much as you want to. But as long as that emotional circuitry is hijacking their rational circuitry, they will never, like, respond to your rational argument, right? And so this is kind of the tricky thing when it comes to the human mind is we have rational thoughts and we have emotional thoughts.

And we tend to think that if I don't sort of think, if I don't feel the emotion, then I must be rational. But actually, what I've discovered, and this is sort of what, what the Vedic, what the yogis discovered as well, is that if you are not aware of your emotions, if you can't feel emotions, that doesn't mean that emotions don't exist. That just means that the action of emotions is not visible to you. And I would argue that the less emotion you're able to feel,

the more likely your rational thinking is actually hijacked by your emotions. And this is where things like cognitive biases come from, right? So if we think about these things in psychiatry, like cognitive biases, denial, defense mechanisms, projection. So what does all this crap mean? Like, why does this happen? Why do we have a cognitive bias? Why do we have these psychological defense mechanisms? When I am in denial, that's a psychological defense mechanism.

So what am I defending against? I'm defending against emotion. So what we tend to find is that hyper-rational thinkers are not actually hyper-rational. they're actually, the conclusion that they come to is, I'm a rational thinker because I don't feel emotion, whereas what's more likely, and this is what we get trained in in psychiatry, is to recognize that there are all these psychological defense mechanisms which manifest as rationality, but that person is not able to experience the underlying emotion. And if they're not able to experience it, it's essentially going to hijack your skill at argument and start disproving. people right and left. So it's kind of bizarre, but at the end of the day, what I've seen is that if you want to determine whether your thought process is truly rational or not, the main question you need to ask yourself is, am I aware of my internal emotional state? And until you become aware of your internal emotional state, there's a decent chance that your thinking is not

actually going to be rational at all, but you'll be recruiting all these weird psychological defense mechanisms and like kind of hijacking your skill at argument to prove other people wrong, but really you're the one who's like woefully incorrect. It's really bizarre, but that's kind of how it works. So if you want to become a more rational thinker, I know it sounds kind of weird, but what you actually need to do is gain emotional awareness, right? Because when we really think about a rational thinker, like someone who makes good decisions, it's the person who says, oh, like, emotionally, I feel embarrassed going to a party. But now that I'm aware that I have that embarrassment, I can act in spite of it and kind of do the

right thing. Whereas what'll happen if we're not careful is that emotional embarrassment will be like, ah, it's not worth going to, right? Oh, I'm not even going to have a good time. Oh, it's so far away. I come up with all of these. I know this is a weird word. I know you guys have never heard this word before. It's a very rare Sanskrit word, rationalizations. Right? And what does that mean? Like, what is a rationalization? It's our brain's emotion, hijacking our skill of argument to come up with a logical response that other people are not able to argue against, right? It's crazy. We even have words in our language where we intrinsically understand this stuff. We intuitively get this when we use the word rationalization.

And what we tend to find is that the more unaware you are of your emotions, the more your rational thought process will be filled with rationalizations instead of real logic. So that's how, you know, you got to be careful. But if you consider yourself a rational thinker and you don't experience much emotion, there's a decent chance, and you guys may know people who are like this too, that actually your emotions are actually running the show from behind the scenes. and that your rational mind is a puppet that's being controlled by your emotions. Questions?

I can't comment on Hassan. I've never really talked to the guy, so I'm not really sure. But I see everyone's mentioning Hassan. I don't understand why. But yeah, people are mentioning Ben Shapiro and stuff like that. Yeah, so, like, I'm not surprised that people are drawing these correlations. I don't really know. Like, I try not to make judgments about people unless I've talked to him personally.

But when someone is saying rationalizing is making excuses, absolutely, right? So this is where, you know, if you kind of think about it, like, why are you making an excuse? It's because there's an emotional pain that you want to dodge. It's a protective mechanism. That's why we call them defense mechanisms. So when people are kind of asking the question, okay, how do I become more aware of my emotions? So I know it's kind of weird, but like, if you just actually sit down and pay attention, you may discover that there's a lot of stuff about your life that your mind is really

working hard to avoid. Right? Because like if we open that can of worms, if we do say, okay, like this was my fault or I am an addict, holy crap, what does that mean? It means I'm letting my kids down. It means I'm letting my spouse down. It means that I'm disappointing the people at work. It means that like I have a problem that like I don't know if I can fix because I, you know, I can fix all of the rational things in my head because my mind is telling me it's just this you can fix that there's a lot of fear with like letting go of your defense mechanisms and like you know in a raw way like facing your problems because you maybe you can't fix the addiction you can fix all this other stuff which you keep on saying is the problem no it's not video games aren't the problem the problem is

I'm just like not disciplined enough I just need to be more disciplined I wish I was more disciplined This isn't the problem. It's not the marijuana. That's the problem. The marijuana helps with my anxiety. The problem is that the capitalistic society and student loans and all this like the world is going to hell. It's not marijuana. That's the issue. It's like look at all of these things. This is what happens. Once the emotions hijack the rational part of our mind, we come up with a lot of evidence, which is compelling. It's not like our mind thinks false things. It's just really selective. And it's like, no, man, like the reason that you're not doing well in life is absolutely. because of capitalism, which is fair. Like, it's, you can say that there's a predatory work environment, you're not logically incorrect there. It's just blaming, you know, the universe is an awesome way to give a pass to yourself. Right?

Because then it isn't your fault. Yeah, like everyone else is wrong, you know? And I see this a lot with like people who are, you know, I don't want to get into this, but there, you know, there are some things that are medically, you know, we know are like medically dangerous, right? So there are certain aspects of the self. And in our desire to be like an accepting society, what some people have started to do is normalize or even promote things that are like scientifically medically dangerous. And they say like, oh my God, like I don't want to deal with the shame of a particular aspect of myself. Therefore, I'm going to

demonize all of society instead of like take care of myself. Right. And it's a a scientist, like, is medical doctor, like, there's clear, you know, there's like a clear right answer about what's healthy and what's unhealthy. And then what, once we get into these, like, psychological, like, games of like, I don't want to deal with the shame that I feel internally, therefore, I'm going to play a really cool trick. Y'all ready for it? I don't have to be ashamed if there's nothing wrong. Right? So I have an O.P technique to deal with internal shame. just blame society and normalize the way that you are. It comes back to if you don't deserve me,

if you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best. Like, why do I need to grow as a person? Like, people need to be more accepting. It's not my problem that I'm an asshole. People need to be more compassionate. It's their problem. Everyone is so mean and cruel nowadays.

Like, I don't need to improve. People need to be nicer to me. Right? And now everyone's so be careful. Be careful. Be careful. be careful because now everyone's like, oh, like, you're taking your particular, the people that you dislike or you disagree with

and what is your mind doing. Yeah, the people that disagree with me, they're the ones that do what Dr. Kay is talking about. They're the idiots that he's talking about. Yeah, that's them. That's the take your pick, conservatives, liberals, this person, that person, take your pick. Whichever side of the argument you're on,

what are you doing right now? you're putting the other people that you argue against. You said, Dr. Kay, that's these people. No, bro. Like, you could be that people. That's what we're saying. We're not talking about the people you argue against. We're talking about you.

It's crazy. Do you see how your mind does that? It's so damn quick. Because now it has a justification to disprove the other person's point. It's like, yeah, I'm right. Dr. Kay said so. Be careful. Okay?

Be careful. We're not here to talk about other people. This stream is here to talk about you, right? Why do you take this piece of juicy, juicy evidence? Because damn, it's a good piece of evidence. Did you guys see that scientific paper man? Oh, man, it's definitely this person. And it could be, you could be right, right?

I'm not saying that they're not like that. But just be careful about how your mind, what does your mind emotionally feel when you assign this idiocy to your opponents? Oh my God, doesn't it feel so good? Feels so good. Oh, look at these nobs that are like this. And then look at that emotion.

And what do you think that emotion is doing? It's hijacking your rational circuitry. And it's saying like, oh, look, now I get to feel better than them. That is my favorite thing to do is I need to be better than that person. Oh, that feels so damn good. Be careful. Be careful. Okay? Be careful.

So we're not saying, and this is the key thing to remember, when your emotions hijack your rational circuitry, your rational circuitry never comes up with stuff that's wrong. Okay? This is the tricky thing. Because you think, oh, doesn't that mean my rational circuitry is wrong? Incorrect. It's selective. Huge difference. It's incomplete.

Right? So if I ask a girl out, girl says no. then I feel hurt, rejected, and ashamed. Oh my God. Until I start dissing her. It's like, oh, she doesn't deserve me. Oh, then I don't have to feel ashamed. Her loss.

Oh, my God. I get to feel better about myself. I was doing it as a favor. It was charity on my part. If she doesn't want to accept the charity, I'm too cool for her, beautiful. She wasn't even that attractive, right? It doesn't have to be, I'm just saying that because, you know, my experience, when I, you speak in the first person, I adopt a heteronormative masculine perspective.

Because these are the thoughts that I had when I was like 19 years old, a freshman in college asking a girl out and when she turned me down, that's what my mind did. Came up with all these reasons that protected me from feeling ashamed of myself. Right? It goes the other way. Like dudes can do this with dudes. Women can do it with dudes. Women can do it with women. It doesn't matter. Doesn't even have to be romantic.

Right? It can be like a job interview. It can be like you can invite a friend to a social event. And then they can turn you down and then you feel rejected and like you're not good enough for them. And then the mind flips over and says, oh, like it's his loss. Right. So where I'm not trying to demonize y'all, I'm, y'all are great. Y'all are fantastic.

Let's understand these parts of ourselves. Right? and let's understand that it's actually okay to feel shame. It's okay to feel rejected because sometimes we get rejected. And as we start to look into that, right, as we start to face our problems and we face like, oh, wow, like I really feel like shameful and rejected. As we start to acknowledge those emotions, then we can leverage our truly free rational thinking on it.

And then we'll discover one of two things. I know it's not crazy, but we're going to discover one of two things. One is, oh, crap, maybe I deserve to be. rejected. Maybe there's something here that I need to get better at, right? Like maybe like I'd do a better job at romantic relationships and people would say yes if I, you know, groomed myself. So you that's how you make progress, right? You sort of notice that there are particular things you can do wrong. Other option. Maybe you'll discover that they're toxic fucker, right? Because some people reject you and it's really not fair. Like some people reject you because they've got an

ego thing going on. They've got emotional crap going on. Maybe you'll discover that there's someone in your life that persistently makes you feel a negative way and that that actually isn't fair. But you're not going to know the answer to that until you authentically and calmly look at it and face what you feel. Oh, wow, this person routinely makes me feel really bad about myself. Right? So then once you're like, oh, and then it's kind of tricky. I know we're kind of going off on a tangent here. But if you're not careful, what that'll turn into is like all kinds of things to make yourself feel better. When you have a toxic person in your life and they reject you, what do you actually do to suppress that emotion? You bend over backwards for them, right? Oh,

like this person rejected me. Let me, oh, do you want to go out to dinner on Friday? Oh, you said no, and I feel hurt and rejected? Oh, it's my treat. I just got a bonus and I'm looking to celebrate. I'll pay for your food. And then the person is like, okay, fine. And then they come out, right? And then it's kind of interesting because then what happens

is you start engaging in all of this behavior to avoid that feeling of rejection and propagate the toxic relationship. Right? It's really tricky. But that's where, once again, the solution is still the same, as long as you're able to notice that shame,

notice that rejection, be aware of it, even start to tolerate it because that's a big part of it, not even being aware of it. Awareness is like 50% of tolerance, to be honest. Right. And so as you're able to do that, then you're like, oh, actually, like, I feel ashamed. And once you acknowledge the shame, once you feel the shame, it's no longer secretly working behind the scenes to, like, manipulate your behavior into propagating toxic relationships. Okay? Does rationalizing ultimately feed a negative

self-image? Absolutely. So remember, the goal of rationalizing is to support whatever you feel. Right? So if you look at like Dumers, okay? Like, Dumers, actually maybe Dumers is not a good example. Let me think about this. So, does rationalizing ultimately feed a negative self-image?

Absolutely. Let's look at someone who's depressed. So in the mind of a depressed person, they have a core feeling of low self-worth. Okay? And then like rationally, they'll give you a thousand justifications. why there's low self-worth. And you can argue, I can, I can argue with my patients. There's so much

reason to live. Like, you literally have three kids that are telling you that they hope you get better and they want to see you again and they love you very much and they don't want you to go anywhere. They're literally telling you that. And then the stronger the emotion, the stronger the rationalization. They're just saying that they don't understand that like, I'm causing them so much pain by being sick. they would be so much better if they could like worry about people who deserved their love. It's like the strength of the rationalization supports the emotion. It's crazy. Right.

And so it absolutely can reinforce the negative self-image. And that's why talking to people logically about why they should live doesn't work very well. I mean, it can help some. And that's where you've got to acknowledge the emotion first. Then you can talk to them logically about it. Right? someone's asking how do you deal with a string of toxic relationships by looking at the common variable I'm not trying to be mean there but like what is it that you do what are the emotional needs and this is the really tricky thing

because people who wind up in strings of toxic relationships there's something really powerful that's drawing you to that person that's what you need to understand okay it's a fantastic question but it's this kind of thing where like I know it sounds kind of weird but if you look at people who are routinely in toxic relationships, the person in the toxic relationship makes you feel the way, makes you feel the way that you feel about yourself. That is why people wind up in toxic relationships over and over and over again. They confirm what you believe about yourself. And so human beings will go for like confirmation and order over pain. So you will like, human beings are just wired this way. It's like the way that we've evolved. We'll accept a pain that we understand and are familiar with because there's a part of your mind that's like,

we can survive this. We've done it 10 times before. This is home field advantage. And so if you believe something about yourself and then the toxic person reinforces that belief, it fits. It's like, oh, that's, that's, I knew it. I knew it. So it's really tricky. But that's the problem. Because I mean, it could be circumstances and stuff like that, like maybe just literally your social circle is filled with people who are toxic. But generally speaking, what I find is that people who engage in toxic relationships over and over and over again, I know it sounds kind of weird, but when they come into my office, we don't work on the people that they're dating. We work on them. And so I encourage all of you to accept responsibility

for your situation in life. Because if you accept responsibility for your situation, you also have the power to control it. Right? I know that sounds kind of weird, but if other people are to blame, then I can't do anything about it. Because I can't change other people. You can try. It's not going to work. But if you accept responsibility for your situation, that also means that if it's your fault that you're here,

you could have done things differently, which means that you can do things differently. So it's really tricky, but responsibility and empowerment come hand in hand. With great power comes great responsibility. It's absolutely right, because that's the only way it works. So if you all feel, if you're saying to yourself, it's all your fault, that also means that it's within your power to change it.

And that's just like, are you willing to carry that burden? Okay? Yeah, it's interesting. So if you blame others for your current situation, that can be true too, right? So let's be clear. Like, let's say that, like, I grew up in an abusive household. And, like, my sense of self-worth is not was created because I was abused. Like, that's not your fault.

In fact, if you really think, think about it, what's happening is most of those people think it is their fault. So this is where it's really tricky, but you have to figure out, okay, if this person is responsible for my situation, which obviously, like, there's an element to play there, right? So you have karma. Like, you have your actions. So every action you take, so is a karma for the future. But then you are also reaping karma from sources outside of yourself. Arguably, if you believe in the past live stuff, all that stuff is your past karma too. but that's not really scientifically supported, so let's step away from that.

So there's like a certain amount of R&G about your spawn. Like you can't control the RNG of your spawn, but you can control what you do with it. Right? And that's really important too, because if you really think about, okay, if other people screwed me up, then why am I upset with myself? It's not my fault. I should learn how to forgive myself. And that's exactly what you see.

You see people who get abused, blame themselves, like, oh, it was my fault that this, that mom and dad got mad at me. I should have gotten straight A's every single homework assignment and every single test. I wasn't at the top of my class. It's my fault. Because people who are victims of abuse are taught that things are their fault. And that's why they stay stuck because it's not actually their fault. So you just have to assign the appropriate fault and the appropriate power.

And as you learn to acknowledge, oh, actually, it's not my fault. My parents were actually ridiculously, you know, Tiger parents. and I'm actually like in the top 10% of students in my class and that's awesome. I should be proud of that. So you have to learn self-forgiveness and you have to learn actually like some of the stuff isn't your fault. So it can be both sides. It's just figure out what's real and what is it.

What's your contribution? What's the world's contribution? Yeah, we can talk about past lives at some point. Okay. Okay, so good. Such good questions. How do you know who's actually at fault? Okay, so this is where, you know, so here's the process.

The more that you acknowledge and understand your internal emotional state, and the more that you reduce your ego, you'll get to the right answer. Okay. So if you think about like going to see a therapist, how does a therapist know, like, whose problem it is? So like when someone comes into my office and they were like, how do I figure out, is this person like narcissistic and it's like their problem? or is this like the result of like abuse or whatever, right? The real answer is it's always somewhere in the middle.

But the real thing, though, is if you think about the role of the therapist, what is the therapist able to provide? They're able to provide an emotionally distanced and egoless perspective on your situation. So if you want to be your own therapist or you want to really figure out what the real answer is, the goal is to be aware of your internal emotional state and to reduce your ego's impact on the situation. And then when you're operating from pure intellect, or buddi or right knowledge is potentially called it, then you will come up with the right answer. The problem is that our faculties of analysis are influenced by our emotions and our ego. And so as we work on those two things, then you will come to clarity.

So sometimes, for example, so I'll give you guys just a quick example of a generic patient, okay? I had a patient come into my office who was afraid of getting fired, and they were filled with anxiety. And they're like, oh my God, like, I feel incompetent. I'm at this job. Like, everyone must think I'm an idiot. People like my team, like, left and they didn't even tell me. Like, they scheduled these meetings without me. Like, oh, my God, I'm afraid I'm going to get fired.

Help me with my anxiety, Dr. Kay. So we work on the anxiety for a while. And then, like, eight months later, they quit because they're like, holy crap, this is a toxic work environment. I actually don't want to work here. All of the anxious thoughts that I had were actually true. People were cutting me out. People were like playing all these political games. And you know what?

I actually don't want to be in this situation. So it is shocking. 30% of the people who come into my office make a career change within one year. And it's like, how did that happen? How did we go from, I want to do everything that I can to appease these toxic people so that I don't get fired? To fuck them. I'm moving on with my life. and they are doing fantastic, by the way.

Right? It's crazy. So how do you get from there to there? What's the difference? How do you know what's really at fault? Emotional processing, reduction of ego, emotional awareness, and then you're left with rational thought. Okay? I don't usually tell them.

I'll tell them early. I'm like, by the way, I got to warn you. I know you're afraid of being fired, but 30% of people who come in in this office one year later decide to quit. You got to be prepared for that. Okay? Is pure buddi fallible? No. Beer buddi is not fallible.

So you guys want to... So buddi is the Sanskrit term for intellect. Okay? So pure buddi is actually includes the laws of physics. So if you really look at Mahat, which is the purest form of buddhi, I know it sounds kind of weird, but like if you look at the universe, there's like order and intellect. There's like, it's not really intelligence in terms of intentionality, but there's like an, and there's a logic. because Buddha also includes logic. There's a logic to the universe.

There's sets of laws and principles. And the closer that you get to Mahat, the closer your Buddha becomes purified, you become like a manifestation of like cosmic laws. And that's when you get to like truth with a capital T. It's weird. Weird. We'll talk, maybe do more spirituality stuff later.

We got Reddit stuff to... So any last... Last questions before we move on. Okay. Mahat. Noobs. Get right. Okay.

Dr. Kay, putting the tea in toxic. 2021. You guys taught me. So, you know, let's remember that this is an exchange of information. Okay, chat. This is a parosocial relationship. You guys give...

I give we both give and receive what do I get from you y'all taught me how to put the tea in toxic okay oh man so many good questions oh crap okay so first thing is that a lot of this stuff so we

we had a um I think we had a YouTube thing there's a thing on YouTube because I don't think Vods stick around on Twitch forever right so we had a thing about dealing with narcissistic parents um So, y'all check that out. I think we've got it.

We've got, so check that out. There's a lot of questions about, you know, not feeling good about yourself and how do you become more emotionally aware? How do you find confidence? So, like, a lot of that stuff is in Dr. Kay's guide, especially, I know it sounds kind of weird, but a lot of it is in the meditation portion. So there's actually a section called the, what's it called? the Atpunpada, which means the path of self. And so it's like about understanding, like, who you truly are. And like what's, I mean, it doesn't go into too much detail about this.

So I'm going to have to think about how to, you know, answer some of these questions in more detail. But there's stuff like, I think you guys will get a really good basic understanding of like a lot of the stuff through the guide. There's some stuff about confidence and ego, for example. Like there's a lot of basics. And then we may do something like a Q&A like for people who have watched the guide and have. subsequent questions, like that seems like a good idea to me. But basically the whole point of making the guide is so that when people, it's like everyone, like, we need to all learn the basics, okay? Because the problem is that right now it's patchy. Like if you guys caught stream two weeks ago,

you saw the thing about narcissistic parents and how to set limits with them. If you weren't there, then whatever. If you caught the communication webinar from like literally 15 months ago, you saw about how to communicate with people and stuff like that. So it's like all patchy. So watch Dr. Kay's guide and then hopefully we'll have some space to like, ask questions for people who watch the guide. So learn the basics so that we can get to the more advanced stuff, because a lot of stuff is in the guides. That's why we made them.

Yes. Will you talk about the emotional effects of emotional childhood neglect? Yes. So two things. So one on YouTube and one in Dr. K's guide. So we talked about why men struggle in relationships, and that introduces attachment theory. There is a more kind of like start to finish,

explanation of attachment theory in Dr. K's guide under anxious personality. So the video is called anxious personality, but some people have an anxious personality. It's not actually a diagnosable condition. But if you think about it, some people are more prone to worry than others. Like, some people are naturally confident in relationships. Some people are naturally anxious in relationships. Where does that come from and how can we understand it? Okay. Um, last question. Does the guide include stuff about learning, effort, and increasing intelligence? Yes. There is a section called the Nyanapada, which is the path of knowledge, once again in the meditation guide.

And then there's a Siddipada, which is like the path of accomplishment. So how can we understand, like, from a meditative perspective, how to accomplish more stuff? Nyan. Yeah, it sounds like Nian cat, but it's not. Okay. Let's do questions. instead of me just telling you guys about the guide, how about we actually answer questions

so that we can learn something on Twitch today? How does that sound? Sound good? Okay? Enough questions. I mean, enough talking about the guide. All right. Okay.

So hard work doesn't matter. Only results matter. For the longest time, I've had the belief that it doesn't matter how hard you work in life. It's only really the results that matter. People won't really care about how hard you work. unless you give them the results they want to see. You can spend days studying for a test, putting countless hours into something, or dedicating a lot of time towards whatever thing

you're working hard at. None of it matters if you don't produce results that you or others find satisfactory. This mentality has pretty much been more harmful to me than it is helpful, as it has pretty much stopped me from working on anything with any amount of effort. I pretty much look at anything I want to do and go, I wish I could do this, but I don't know. if my work can produce the results necessary to achieve success for me or others, so why bother? I really want to improve my life and work to make myself a better person, but I just fear that I won't get the results needed to feel like I accomplished anything I want to do. I really want to stop thinking like this, but it's just been really hard to get out of this mentality. If anybody

wants to help me out with why hard work matters or how to get out of this mentality, it would be appreciated. Sorry if this comes off as a ramble or anything. I've been really nervous to post this. Okay. So you know how sometimes I make it, I try to bully Twitter chat and I say, oh, G-G. So I want to actually give this person MVP. Because I can imagine that this person, when they were thinking about posting this, maybe their mind said, I wish I could post something and ask for help. But I don't know if posting something and asking for help, will actually help. Therefore, I'm not going to bother.

And what did they do? They posted anyway. So this, whatever happened here, is the first step to fixing this problem. And what do you guys notice about this sentence? Awareness of your internal emotional state instead of this logical pile of shit. Do you guys like,

how more simply can I say this? It's a beautiful illustration. Hey, I think this way. It doesn't help. I'm nervous. And they act. It's a perfect example of exactly what you need to do. Right?

Because this is what the mind is going to tell you. It's going to produce the false rational thoughts. Wrong knowledge. And so the first thing that I'd say is how are you able to make this post. What did your mind tell you what happened if you made this post? Right? It's kind of interesting. But let's let's answer in a little bit more of a complete way. So if your mind is telling you all the time that results are the only things that matter and because results are the only things that matter and look at all the evidence that I have, no one cares about how much you studied.

They just care about your grades, right? Like when I apply to college and here's the evidence, right? So here's the rational mind. When I apply to college, they don't ask how much I studied. They ask me for my transcript and they make the decision based on the transcript. It's a good argument, right? It's true. It's good. So remember that when your intellect gets hijacked by some emotion, the arguments that comes up with are never false. That's why you can't convince someone because the arguments they come up with are logical on some level. I don't have an alcohol problem because I'm not in jail. And I know someone who has an alcohol problem and he's in jail. He drives drunk. I don't. Therefore, I don't have a problem. But if you talk to a thousand alcoholics who are in denial, they'll draw the bar of who has a problem so that they are on the safe side. That's where they draw the line. The line is a little bit past where I am. Right? That's just the nature of rationalization. So how can we approach this? Okay, how can we help someone who thinks to themselves only results matter?

Now, I want you guys to pay attention to a couple of things here, okay? None of it matters if you don't produce results that you or others find satisfactory, okay? Achieve success. So I'd start with this question. What do others find satisfactory? And what is the nature and origin of success? like what does that mean? Like what is the target you're shooting for? Because it's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If success means a 4.0, then you're right. The only thing that matters is

great. Like, obviously. Right? If my standard is like, if success to me is a 4.0, if my success is an outcome, then of course outcomes are what matters for that success. It's like kind of a no-brainer. So if you have a results-oriented perspective on success, then results are going to matter. It's sort of like, you know, if we're judging, if we have a height contest, what matters is your height. It's like the way that we set things up. So instead, what I would encourage you to do is like think about this post. Was this post a success? Was it, what's the bar that you're measuring against?

and this is a common problem that I have with the medical students. I don't work with many of them now. But like a lot of times like medical students are so grades oriented. They're so results oriented. At some point I kind of like, you know, metaphorically slap them upside to head. And I'm like, you're not here for grades. Who cares about your clinical grade? Like, do you get that two years from now?

You're going to walk into a room or you're going to be like at a party and someone is going to ask the question, is there a doctor here? and then like someone's going to point to you they're like that that person's a doctor and then you're going to have to figure out what to do with another human being that's why you should study

who the hell cares what grade you get like you're studying because the information has value in and of itself that will become practically useful for you at some point it's absolutely terrifying it's the scariest damn thing right

and so I'd say like how do you define success And how do you define what is satisfactory? How do you define what other people find satisfactory? Like, where does that come from? Because as long as you're playing a game that is rigged to be outcome oriented, you're going to find that no individual thing will feel like enough. There's a second cognitive trap here,

which is that the feeling of enough is like, will paralyze you. So let me just give you guys an example. If I'm results focused, let's say I want to climb to the top of a mountain. I look there and I say, okay, how do I get to the top of that mountain? And I take one step forward. And then I look at the top of the mountain. Have I made progress? No.

Am I any closer? No. It's still the same distance away. Every step you take is going to feel insufficient if you are focused on your end goal. Technically, have I moved forward? Yes, but that's not what my mind is going to tell me. Because remember, my mind is thinking about the result, right? like, what does this person's mind, this person's mind tell him, I wish I could do this, but I don't know if my work can produce the results necessary to achieve success. So why bother? Why bother trying unless success is guaranteed? And if you think about it, like, nothing you do is going to guarantee success. And so you're setting up a situation for yourself where you're unable to act, which is exactly what this person's problem is. And they even recognize it's a problem. So what do we do? And so it's odd, but what you have to do is let go a success. Right? So then, like,

Like, the bar is not getting to the top of the mountain. The bar is, how many steps am I going to take? The bar is not getting six-pack abs. The bar is not losing 50 pounds. The bar is, am I going to, it's not even going to the gym every day. Be careful, because that's an outcome. The bar is, am I going to go to the gym today? Am I going to exercise today?

So you need to shift your mindset from a performance. oriented mindset to a growth oriented mindset. And this is work that Carol Dweck did an awesome job of sort of thinking about. So she hit on it that way. The other way to kind of think about it is from a yogic perspective, Garmafar. As a human being, you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. All you are entitled to is actions. As a human being, you do not get to control results. I know it sounds weird. You don't get to control results. All you get to control is actions. So as long as you are concerned at all about controlling a particular outcome, that is something that you will never be able to succeed in. I know it sounds kind of weird, but we think we can control results,

but we can't. Any job interview I go into, I don't have the ability to get that job. I can't control that. All I can control is whether I walk into the interview. All I can control is whether I do my homework the day before, whether I learn about the company or not. I can't control whether I get an A or not. All I can control is whether I study. And maybe if I'm woefully unlucky, and it turns out that out of the 100 questions, 11 questions were from the one lecture that I missed and couldn't find notes on because my buddy who I relied on for notes never came through, then I'm S. I get a B. G-G. I can't actually control getting an A. All I can control is what I study. So Carol Dweck sort of talks about this from a research psychological aspect, but this has been no

in humanity and in the East for literally thousands of years, that as a human being, you don't control outcomes. You only control actions. So when I got on stream today, can I help you? Think about it for a second. What's going to happen if you come and listen to our streams? What's the outcome? You have no clue, as do I. I have no clue. What are we going to talk about? I don't know. Am I going to make sense? Maybe. Am I not going to make sense? Is it going to be confusing? Is my Vata going to get the better of me? Maybe. But we're going to show up and we're going to try.

And that's why we stream usually three days a week. We're going to roll those dice as much as we can. We're going to keep trying. And if you roll the dice enough, this is what the law of karma says. Generally speaking, if you roll the dice enough, things will end up in your favor. So stop focusing about the success.

Adopt a Genshin impact mindset. You've got to grind. got to put your wallet where your desires are, right? Seriously, life is a gamble chat. Right? You got to, the way to succeed, like, how do you get a five-star character against your impact? You roll the dice many, many, many, many times. So who is the one who succeeds?

It's the people who roll the dice over and over and over again. So if you're someone who says, I don't know if this is going to work, therefore I'm not going to do it. You are correct. it may not work. But it is because it may not work, that is why you should do it. Because it's never going to work until you keep trying. Right? Yeah, so also, chat, I've kind of cooled off on Genshin Impact.

It's getting kind of grindy, and I'm not so sure I'm going to continue playing it. So, you know, but I will say, yeah, so like when someone was the 0.01%. So, chat, I will explain to you all. Okay, last example of RNG. When I graduated from college with a 2.5 GPA, people know this story, I'm sure. I applied to 140 research positions, got one interview and 139 rejections. The 141st research position I applied to was Harvard Medical School, and I got it. So keep trying.

On my wall, my biggest regret from applying to medical school for three years in a row is that I did not keep all of the rejection letters. What I want on my wall, what deserves to be on my wall, is not my certifications from Harvard Medical School. What deserves to be on my wall is the 90 rejection letters I got. That's my story. It's not about the one that I got right. It's about the 90 applications that I sent out. That's what I'm proud of.

And so I encourage each and every one of you, when your mind tells you it's not going to be enough, okay. So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to try anyway? Are you going to let external circumstances dictate your actions? Because if you want to take control of your life, you have to stop letting external circumstances dictate your actions. Controlling your life is about acting. And losing control of your life is letting other things control your actions. Whether it be a toxic relationship, whether it be like applying, are you going to let your anxiety control you or are you going to ask someone out? You can let your anxiety control you or are you going to apply for a job?

You're going to let your anxiety control or are you going to sign up to learn how to play the piano? What do you control? Very little. And the problem is that everyone is so bent out of shape. Everyone spends so much time trying to chase success that they forget action. And what you essentially find is that the people who are successful are the ones who devote themselves to action. So devote yourself to action. That's all you need to do. Just get up and act.

And you're like, but it may fail. Yes, you're correct. it may fail. It will probably fail. And then if you do it again, the chances of failure are lower. You do it again, the chances are lower. You do it again, chances are lower. And then depending on your beliefs, you know, if you believe in God and whatnot, hopefully there's a pity timer.

You never know. So I think maybe getting into HMS as a research assistant was my five-star pity timer. Okay. It's terminology from these gotcha games where like if you spend a bunch of stuff, and you don't get something based on R&G, they basically guarantee you it. Okay. All right.

Next question. So, happy to see others fail. Okay. Hey, everyone, I'm posting this on a throwaway. Hope that's okay. Totally fine for what it's worth. So I have this guy in my class whom I have feelings for,

but he's straight as an arrow and I'm a guy. Of course, I won't tell him about my feelings, but we are very close friends, and it has become really draining. He's the kind of guy who walks into a room of strangers and befriends them all within five minutes. It has become so bad that I'm actively avoiding school since he always comes and sits next to me. And recently we had tests which he bombed thanks to a blackout, and I was really happy about it. I don't really know how to feel about it, but it feels like he's hurting me by sitting next to me. And I dislike him for it, but he doesn't know about it, so I can't blame him.

and that's only adding to the frustration I have towards myself. But I don't want to ruin the friendship we have. Tough. Okay. So let's try to understand. Where does happiness from seeing others fail come from? Okay? So where does delight in another human being suffering come from?

So this actually turns out to be somewhat simpler than you may expect. Okay? No, it's not envy. It's not insecurity. it's not jealousy. What is the root of all that stuff? Right? Who do you want to hurt?

It's the people who hurt you. It's that simple. So if you look at some of these things like, you know, if you look at like toxicity, right? Like where does toxicity and its most fundamental form come from? It comes from like hurt.

So like we have this circuit in our brain, right? I don't know exactly what circuit it is, but I'm sure it's there because it's conserved across the human. race. Where if you hurt me, I want to hurt you. That's how we respond, right? So, like, we've evolved because, like, if you look at, like, you know, animals fighting over territory, it's like, we're going to, like, if you're going to cross into what's mine, I'm going to repel you, and we're going to fight. We're going to joust. We're going to do whatever. So human beings have,

like, this retaliatory mechanism. And so, like, that was one thing when we were, like, animals fighting over territory. But now human beings, it's changed. Like, what is territory? What, you know, what is hurt? What? What? What? are we entitled to? What's mine? What's yours? And so what I've seen working with a lot of people who are like very angry at like other people. So I've worked with a fair number of in cells at this point. So that I think they fall kind of in this category. Right. Where a lot of them like they have a lot of hatred. And it's not just incels. I work with people who have like strong political beliefs. And what I tend to find is that like when someone with strong political beliefs has hatred

toward something else, a certain amount of it is like conditioning and indoctrination, and then like a certain amount of it is like hurt, right? And we'll see this like kind of all over the place where generally speaking, in my experience, people who delight in the suffering of others are usually people who have been hurt themselves, right? Even if you like look at movies, like if you look at a movie where, you know, there's justice in the end and boy, does it feel good when the hero beats the bully. Right? And like the bully's like humiliated. Like it feels so good.

Like why do you think it feels good? Universal? Like why do movies like that succeed? It's because we can empathize with that character. We know what it's like to be hurt by someone. And we know how good it feels to like hurt them back. To win. Sometimes we call this justice. Right?

So like we have a word for that. But I'd say even deeper than that is like a sense. of like, you know, justice, karma, but like if you hurt, if I get hurt by you, I want to hurt you. And we see this a lot in relationships, too, right? Like when one partner, let's say, like, is unfaithful to the other, like, to make it even, like, I want to make you feel the way that I feel. It doesn't have to be with a lack of faith. It can be like any kinds of other things. If I feel emotionally neglected, I'm going to, like, act out and make you feel bad, too. So human beings in general, so I choose to believe this. There's certainly people who are, you know,

a little bit more on the sociopathic side, conditioning. There are all kinds of other reasons why human beings hate other human beings. It's not exclusive to this. But generally speaking, I'm a psychiatrist and I work with a sample size of like one person at a time. So what I've seen in 80% of cases, if not more, is that most people who are angry and feel satisfied when they see someone else get hurt, it's coming from they themselves being hurt. right? Because like if you think about it, you know, when you see someone get hurt, our usual reaction is like compassion and empathy. So what gets in the way of our usual reaction? It's us being hurt ourselves. And so how do you, what do you do about this? I'd say the first thing is to kind of acknowledge, right, that this person has like hurt you in a lot of ways. And I don't know if you sort of recognize that. And you may have trouble admitting that someone has hurt you if you. If you they've done it unintentionally, right? If the person doesn't know that they're hurting you,

you don't want to blame them for it. Like, it's fair to say it's not really their fault, but it also still causes damage, right? Like, if I'm, like, if I'm walking around and I've got, you know, I'm trying to figure out what the right analogy is, but, you know, I can cause inadvertent pain to people, and it may not be my fault, but the pain still exists. The hurt still exists within you. And I'd kind of ask yourself, you know, how do you feel when this person walks into a room and makes tons of friends, what do you feel in that moment? I know it sounds kind of weird, but like really pay attention. Because I'd venture it's one of a couple things.

One is that you wish he would make friends with you, right? You wish that the attention that other people got that the way that this person was like acting so friendly and like laughing with that other person, like you want to be that other person. And you blame him for not letting you be in the other person's shoes. because you, it sounds like you've got feelings for him. Like, you want to be the recipient of that intention. Like, anytime you look across the classroom or whatever, and you see him like laughing with someone else and like patting him on the back,

you're like, I want that. I want you to do that with me. I want to be part of that interaction. And so it's your yearning for that and your inability to be a part of that that probably hurts. And then you kind of like subconsciously you blame him. Right? You're kind of like, why don't you do that for me? And then there's a lot of other stuff that kind of goes into that where like you want to be a part of that interaction. Maybe you envy him in some way, right? Maybe you were like, oh, if I was like that friendly and that awesome, if I was that likable, then people would like me. Like I'd be the one who walks into the room and then everyone would want to be my friend. And if everyone would want to be my friend, maybe someone would be attracted to me. And then maybe I could be with someone. Maybe if I was as friendly and open as likable as that guy, he would like me.

So I think that there's a lot of different stuff that could be going on here. And I think at the end of the day, you really have to pay attention. If you feel happy when someone else gets hurt, Schadenfreude, right? There's a word for it. This doesn't feel to me quite like Schadenfreude, but I think there's more there, more here. And, you know, I would really think about what, oh God. Can you guys see this? Okay?

I really think a lot about, you know, what this, you know, what you feel. Like, so this person says when this person sits down next to me, let me find the exact phrase. But it feels like he's hurting me by sitting next to me. So I'd really try to understand that. I think you've got, you know, the beginning of the thread and I'd follow that thread. What hurts by him sitting next to you? What hurts? Because it could even be something like, you know, that you,

He treats you the way he treats everyone else. And that can be one of the most devastating things to feel if you're in love. Right? It can be so painful to be treated just like everyone else. So I, you know, be a little bit compassionate towards yourself. Be a little bit understanding towards yourself. And really pay attention to like what is the nature of these feelings? Bring awareness to them.

And as you bring awareness to them, you'll be able to start to process. You'll be like, okay, that's what it is. that I really do want him to treat me differently. And then once you realize that that's where the hurt is coming from, you can start, you know, working on it. Go see a therapist, do some journaling, go for long walks, you know, maybe talk to people on Discord, work with a coach.

And I think that's where you got to look at, you know, are you envious of the people that he gives affection to? Are you envious of him? Do you think that if you are more like him, he would spend more time with you. And then the third thing is, are you really upset that he does treat you like everyone else? Because you don't treat him like everyone else.

Because that certainly sounds unfair, right? Because you're treating him a certain way in your mind, but he's not treating you the same way. So there's like an imbalance there. And this is where it gets further complicated because you can't really blame him for that stuff. And if you can't blame him, then you feel stupid and you feel guilty and you feel like,

if I can't blame him, I shouldn't feel this way. And so you disregard all of your feelings instead of like accepting them and owning them. Can this apply to friends too? Absolutely. Doesn't have to be love. Okay. It's tough. It's a good post. Thanks for posting, friend.

Okay. All right. Would Dr. Kay make a video about shame? I've recently come to realize that my social anxiety and low self-esteem is rooted in a core of feeling of shame and not the circumstances around me. I say feeling because as much as it is a belief, I am bad. It's also this overwhelming sensation that seems to hijack my life. I can't remember much about my childhood, so it is hard to identify if this is something that was learned, but I felt this way my whole life. Therapy has been slow but helpful, but my therapist seems to focus mostly on a CVT-driven approach.

The problem with this is that I struggle with an overwhelming emotion sensation and not so much a thought. Feeling shame makes me feel even more ashamed. You know, this is why shame is the elite mob of emotions. It's really the best emotion that makes you feel more of the emotion. And when the shame gets bad enough, it leads to anger, hatred, self-sabotage, and inability to hold relationships. That is right. Things that I'm curious about. How core shame becomes implanted in our minds and what it really,

really is. If understanding the origins of our shame can help us overcome it, and if so, how. Notable physiological patterns that might serve as helpful tools to overcome shame, meditative approaches. This has been a slow grind for me, and one of the biggest things that keeps me going is listening to Dr. K. Break down these topics. Okay. Thank you and take care. You're very welcome and thank you for posting. I think, friends, it is teaching time. Can you all hold on a second? like to blame my children, but today I have only myself to blame. So let's talk about shame. Okay, but I'm going to go get, I'm going to go get, I'm going to go get the thing. Hold on. Alrighty, chat. Stay with me now. Great, great question. Okay, let me collect my thoughts

while I. Okay. So let's go ahead and think through this. So the first thing, but I want people to appreciate. So, you know, I'll, I'll say things like become aware of it, notice it, notice what you feel, see where the hurt is coming from. So I want you all to pay attention to this sentence first. I've recently come to realize that my social anxiety and low self-esteem is rooted in a core feeling of shame and not the circumstances around me. This is a huge step forward. Okay. And this is why I think this person is already getting better because they've come to realize that what shame is, shame is tricky.

Okay. So the first thing to understand about shame is that it's a tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky. tricky one. Okay? So the first thing with shame is that shame comes from within, but it's sneaky, sneaky one because it tricks you into thinking it comes from outside. So this is the first thing to understand about shame. And this actually is the thing that leads to the most stumbling. because if I assume that shame is coming from the outside, then the solution is on the outside. But like, so let's say like, you know, let's say once again, like an abusive relationship, okay? So if I'm in an abusive relationship with someone who's emotionally abusive and makes me feel ashamed of myself,

what I will wind up doing is trying to appease that person because that person kind of controls the lever on whether I feel ashamed or don't feel ashamed. Right. So then what happens is I wind up doing like all these. kinds of appeasing behaviors and then like it just propagates the the negative experience. Okay. So that's the first thing to understand about shame. So if you want to overcome shame, the first step is to try to figure out, you know, your mind will be telling you, you know, you aren't as smart, good, competent, likeable,

lovable, et cetera. You take your pick. Right? And then what it'll do is it'll cite evidence to that effect. You'll say, because, oh, look at that person. You see, he got better grades than you did. This person is more likable.

This person is more competent. This person is better looking. So once again, as we sort of talked about, you know, once you have an emotion, it hijacks your thinking, your rational mind. And then what happens is it misattributes, it mis assigns where the problem lies. Because then like if all of these things are true on the outside,

then you really do deserve to be ashamed of yourself. Okay? That's the first thing to understand about shame. And so, you know, like where does this come from? So what shame is, I know it sounds kind of weird, but we think about shame as an emotion, right? So, like, we think, like, you know, emotions include shame, anger, you know, fear, etc. And so I know it sounds kind of weird, but then our approach is like, okay, how do I stop feeling this emotion?

Whereas we actually don't, we can't stop feeling an emotion. Like, I know it sounds sort of weird, but these are just byproducts. There are things that our mind produces. due to other things which we're going to get into. So it's sort of like, you know, if I think about how do I deal with fear, dealing with fear is not, I don't want to deal with the emotion. I want to deal with like the associations that create the fear. So let's say I get afraid every time I'm in a social situation.

That fear is the consequence of something else in my mind, right? There's something else. So either a sum's God, but in this case, the real thing is a hum god or ego. So I want you to understand that the problem here, when we talk about core shame, okay? Because even this person describes it as core shame, it's not just an emotion because emotions come and go. Do you guys get that? So like this is something neuroscience-wise. Emotions equilibrate.

And this is this is really sad that they really do. Okay? So if we think about, we think about bridesillas, right? So the bridezilla is like, I want everything in my wedding to be perfect. They want everything. They're going to spend so much money. Everything's going to be perfect. It's going to be my perfect day.

So if you create the perfect day and you destroy your relationships and you spend so much money and everything is perfect, how long do you stay happy? How long does the happiness last? If it was a little bit more perfect, would the happiness last 40 years? If it was a little bit less perfect, would it last 30 years? So the truth of the matter is that emotions equilibrate. It's just how our brain is designed. Even major depressive disorder and depressive episodes tend to be generally speaking time limited. So the evidence suggests that even if you're depressed, that that depression will go away over time.

Okay? If you're angry, it'll go away over time. So where does core shame come from? So it's not actually an emotion. It is something that continuously creates or triggers emotion. That's the difference. And where core shame comes from is the ego. So the Ahamkar is continuously creating new shame.

And so then you asked the question, okay, what is the Ahamkar? What is the ego? It's a sense of identity. And as long as this sense of identity persists, it will continuously increase your shame. It's like a shame generating factory. right? Because the shame is just the emotion. Like, the emotion will go away on its own.

If you're someone who's dealing with core shame, what you really need to understand is what is the identity structure that creates the shame? Okay? So I hope that that makes sense. And so now this person is asking, how does core shame become implanted in our mind? What I would say becomes implanted as a sense of self. That is shameful.

And now we can even see, so the person sort of says, I don't know exactly where this comes. from, but I felt this way my whole life. A sense of self that is shame generating. Okay? So when this person says things like, oh, I've been feeling this way my whole life. Like, I don't understand,

you know, it's not, it's been, it's like normal for me. And yeah, that's because it's, you carry it around with you constantly. It's your sense of identity. Okay. So then they have another question. So if understanding the origins of our shame can help us over. come it and if so how yes absolutely so what i would say is that the way that this is going to work for you if you want this to if you want to stop persistently feeling ashamed of yourself you have to dig into this identity and as long as you are someone who is like deserves to be ashamed of

yourself the shame will continue and then what you have to do is remap your identity so i'll give you guys just another example of this okay something i referenced a little bit earlier so i want you all I'm going to say something that's sort of self-positive, but I think it illustrates the point. So I want you guys to think about the person who got 50 rejections from medical school and then 60 rejections from medical school and 70 rejections from medical school. Ended up getting into medical school. I was really happy, right?

I was a dude who persevered. I overcame my weaknesses. I persevered. I was like, oh, man, I was so good. Then I wound up at Harvard. And then I had really overcome my weaknesses. I'd overcome my weaknesses. That's who I was.

That was my identity. I was first a failure, and then I was someone who overcame weaknesses. And now, I know it sounds kind of weird, but what am I? What do I want to hang on my wall? I don't want to hang the diploma from Harvard. I want to hang the failures. And so now what I've come to realize is that this was never a failure to begin with.

This is incorrect. It's part of who I am. I am. Period. That's it. I am what I am. I am neither a failure nor successful. I am neither a special nor worthless. I'm just me. And so what I've observed within myself is like an interesting remapping of identity.

Because I know it sounds kind of weird, but like when you get into Harvard, that's what you want to hang on your wall. Right? When you get it framed, you're like, man, I need, when I was looking at my office, my ego was like, well, I hope there's enough wall space for all my wonderful diplomas. right? Because this is ego. Oh, look at me. I am triumphant. Ha ha. But you can't triumph unless you failed. These two come hand in hand. So with my identity of failure comes my identity of triumph. And now actually what I've done is I've crossed it all out. I am. That's just it. I'm neither special nor worthless. And so what you really need to do if you want to stop this sense of shame is to remap your identity. So start to ask yourself like, who are you? Okay? Like really, like,

who are you? Who have you become? Who were you? And really pay attention to like what comes up there. And so then the last kind of question that they've got is there are there particular physiological patterns that might serve as helpful tools to overcome shame. Absolutely. We'll talk about that in a second. And meditative approaches. Okay. So now, if we're talking about overcoming shame, there's two elements. We got to take a two-pronged approach. One is identity. And the second is emotion. Because remember, even if we have the identity, it's still, you're still feeling ashamed in the moment. And that makes it hard to do things, right? So we still got to deal with that. So we're going to deal with this one first. breath. So there's other stuff you can do, but let's start with this. So when you experience an

emotion, your pattern of breathing alters as a result. And when you breathe a particular way, it alters your emotions. This is scientific fact. We kind of know this now. Okay? I know it sounds kind of weird, but like it's actually what happens. So I don't know if you all realize this, but in scientific experiments, when they are testing somethings, when they are testing anxiety, if you're looking at treatment for anxiety, the way that you reproduce anxiety in a laboratory, right? So if I'm testing, let's say, a medication for anxiety,

what I need is a lab full of like anxious people. So how do I create all of these people and how do I induce anxiety in the moment? what I do is increase the CO2 concentration that they inhale. This literally is the scientific standard for creating anxiety in another human being for research purposes. So you give them a gas mask that has a higher level of CO2 concentration. It's wild.

That's like literally what you do. I hope it's increase. Maybe it's decrease. I know it's 7.5%. Can someone check whether atmosphere if that's lower or higher than atmospheric concentration. I'm pretty sure it's 7.5% CO2. And so it's interesting because you can literally induce an emotion

by altering the CO2 in oxygen concentration of what you breathe. So breathe. Okay? So with shame, let me just think about this. So I guess that shame has a relatively deep and rapid breathing pattern. Okay? I'm not so sure that it's actually shallow. But if you alter your breath, your mind will change with it.

So what I would recommend is Nari Shuddi. That's our go-to. And it's a go-to for a reason. If you want to do something a little bit stronger, you can do Oam chanting. And just chant the shame out. Right? Aw, just let it out. And you can be like, oh my God, that's so embarrassing.

I'd feel like an idiot. Yes, exactly. And just chant through it. We'll practice that today. Okay? So that's what I would do. So in the moment, this is how you physiologically handle shame. Next thing.

Identity. What do we do about that? So this is where there's a lot of stuff we can talk about. I think, once again, the Atmanpada. Like, there's a reason why the Dr. Kay's guide is what it is, chat. It's because, like, most of the stuff is in there. So if we think about, you know, who are you and what? Why do you deserve to be ashamed of yourself?

Like, why are you deserving of shame? So there's dealing with the actual emotion, but I would ask yourself the question, why do you deserve to be ashamed? And then I would ask yourself, you know, how long have you deserved to be ashamed? And I'd really pay attention there. And then the third question,

is what happened, right? To take a look at like, you know, remember when you were five years old, were you ashamed of yourself? And then when you were eight years old, were you ashamed of yourself? And you'll say yes. Okay.

So what happened between five and eight? You may not be able to uncover anything. But then I know it sounds kind of weird. This is tough. It will require some introspection. And if you do these practices regularly over time, this part will become easier. Okay?

Then what I would do, let me just think for a second. Then what I would do when you experience the shame, and this is kind of how to tie it together. So in a moment of shame, I would ask yourself one last question, which is, are you someone that deserves to be ashamed right now? Or are you ashamed right now? I know it sounds kind of weird. but like think about the identity versus the circumstance. And what you'll discover is that there is a part of your mind that basically assumes that you should be ashamed.

Okay, so now someone is saying five-year-olds don't deserve shame. Okay? But I want you all to understand this. When you don't deserve something and it happens to you anyway, that is what re-werewerew. your perception of what is deserved. Do you guys get that?

Like, that is it in a nutshell. That's where the core comes from. When I don't deserve something and it happens anyway, it reprograms my understanding of what is deserved and what is not deserved. And then I carry that programming through life, which is where you carry the identity

entity of shame. So that's where you have to go back and remap it, figure out, oh shit. This fundamental principle, which I have grown up with, like gravity, like do you guys get that when you're five years old, you're understanding, you're laying down the cement to understand gravity and social interactions and identity? A one month old doesn't know who they are. They don't have the capacity to know who they are. The five-year-old just sort of knows on a broad sense whether I'm good or I'm bad. Have I been a bad boy or have I been a good boy? And when some things happen to me that like I'm just playing with my blocks, when dad comes over hits me upside the head because I'm playing with my blocks, oh boy, is playing with my blocks bad? No, because I play with my blocks at

school. So how do I explain that? Oh, it must be me. Kids play with blocks all the time. I saw these look at all these commercials where people are playing with blocks. Why am I getting it? It must be me. And it changes the idea of what you deserve. And then you carry the idea forward

that you deserve to be ashamed. So you have to go back and re-examine that. Right? And recognize, and this is really emotionally painful, by the way, liberating painful. And we've done this on stream a lot, right? Like, I'd say, who's the, there's the guy who's in the cult where, like, I encourage you all to watch that. And there was the other guy who hadn't cried in a long time.

He's tired of crying. He doesn't need to cry anymore. Watch that one, too. But I think it's like, these people were taught that this is what they deserve. This is your lot in life. And so you have to go back. And hopefully, you know, you can do it to a certain degree on your own. You can absolutely do it in therapy.

like some of our coaches can probably handle this kind of stuff. Actually, a lot of them can. It's something we deal with a lot. And then the other thing is it doesn't have to be through that, right? Like, you can just grow as a human being and begin to realize like I did that, like, I was never a failure and I was never a success. The whole paradigm is incorrect. There's no such thing as either one, right?

Like, it's just, I am what I am. And I have just as much reason to be proud of all of my rejection letters as I do of my diploma, right? Like the rest of it, the shame and the failure and crap like that, that's all crap that my mind creates. It's not real. And once you kind of realize that, then it changes who you are. That's how you remap your identity. Okay. So, um, okay. Oh, man. Okay. We've got, well, maybe one more and then we'll meditate. Okay. Okay. Dr. Kay, how do I tell my estranged parents that I was sexually assaulted by a teacher in school without hurting them or raped. I was raped by my guidance counselor in school, and for the past seven years, I've kept it a secret from everyone

aside from a few close friends, even amongst those trusted friends. I have never told them that I feel a great deal of shame about what happened, and I always try to make it sound like I was in control during the incident as a way to save face. For a long while, I did not want to to acknowledge what happened as rape because it made me feel emasculated and cowardly. I want to bring this up with my parents, but they are extremely conservative, so I really would not know how they would react. I'm afraid they would blame themselves, yet I also have this disturbing feeling of joy if they do have an adverse response. I hold feelings of resentment against my parents because I blame them for the events that led up to my rape. They removed me from a school I was happy in and placed me in the school where I was raped because they believed it to be more prestigious despite my objections. I want a sincere apology for my parents, but I don't want them to blame themselves too much because I understand that their decision came from good intentions. What would be the tactful thing to do?

I don't know if you guys can see this. In my honest opinion, the comment, top comment, seek therapy ASAP. That is the right answer. Okay, so when it comes to real cases of sexual assault and stuff like that, I strongly strongly encourage people to go see a licensed mental health professional. this could be particularly challenging for this person in particular because it seems like they had some kind of guidance counselor or authority figure that took advantage of their trust so seeing a therapist can actually be challenging. You may have some, you know, a little bit of trauma around

that relationship that should be trusting and you got taken advantage of. So be prepared for that. But I definitely do think that this is a good example of like, you know, we can talk about this on the internet. But like, really, this is. is something that if you guys have been in a similar situation, I strongly encourage you to go get the benefit of licensed mental health help. That being said, we can talk about this a little bit. Okay? So the first thing that I want to say is, how do I tell my parents that I was raped by a teacher in a school without hurting them? You don't. So this is the really tricky thing, right? So I know it sounds kind of weird, but when it comes to situations of sexual assault, so much of the problem,

around sexual assault and people not talking about sexual assault are not out of like intimidation or shame or things like that. They're actually protection, right? So what motivates this person is like a desire to protect and love their parents. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but I want you all to really think about this, right? So you're trying to avoid this bad consequence and you're trying to walk this tightrope of how do I tell them, but not hurt them? And the short answer, is you don't. And this is where I strongly asking, this is what happens when people get assaulted, is they start to feel responsible for other people's feelings. Right? Suddenly, like, I know it sounds kind of weird, but like really look at what your mind is doing. Your mind is saying,

the action already happened. Like, the pain is there. It's done. But somehow in your mind, you are controlling whether they get hurt or not. And as long as you don't tell anyone, no one needs to get hurt. It's love. It's a desire to protect that keeps you from speaking. It's really strange. But I think that that's what makes this so hard is like, you know, should you tell your parents, honestly, I'm not sure I can't really comment. Like, I'd have to understand more about your situation. You said they're religious and you're not sure how they would react. There is a possibility that, you know, they could react in a way that's a little bit traumatic or toxic. It's possible. I don't know. That's why I'd strongly recognize.

recommend that you see a licensed professional so that they can help you through that in case your parents don't react in a good way. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but you can't tell them and them not get hurt. Like, I think part of telling them and part of overcoming this is acknowledging that there's like pain that is spread out. So when we look at situations of sexual assault and abuse, the pain is not localized to one person. And I think one of the most devastating things that victims do is they try to tank all of the pain from the assault by themselves. Right? That's why they don't tell people. Is there shame involved? Sure. Do you feel emasculated? Sure. Do you feel cowardly? Sure. And you're going to tank that for everyone. And that's what's so dangerous, right? That's why people don't tell people, especially the ones that they love. What are they going to think about you?

You know, like, there's all kinds of stuff. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but this kind of comes back to what we were saying earlier. you're like, you can't control the way that they feel. You can't control it. Now, there are certain things you mentioned tact, which is an interesting word there, but there are certain ways that you can frame the conversation because I think the other interesting thing is that this person does blame them, right? They say, like, they put me in this situation.

And so, like, how do they, how do I blame them just enough, but not too much? And I think this is where, I know it sounds kind of weird, but I think your road forward should not be protecting people from blame, I think your road forward should be, instead of like, insulating your parents from this, let them know, let them feel guilty, let them feel blamed, and then forgive them. So this is going to eat you away inside. It's going to eat you away. It's going to eat you up, gobble you up.

The way to let go of this is to blame and then forgive. But what everyone tries to do is tries to protect people from blame. And as long as you protect people from blame, it just stays inside you. if you want to heal, what you really have to do is, I mean, I would encourage them to tell their parents, but I would see a therapist first, especially because it sounds like there are some dynamics. You know, I would strongly encourage you to do that. Generally speaking, if you guys want to learn how to move past something, it's not about not blaming. It's assigning appropriate blame and then forgiving, then letting go.

And sometimes that blame falls on you. Sometimes it falls on other people. And to tell your parents, hey, there's a part of my mind. Like, I know you guys were acting with your best intention. You were doing what you thought was good for me. But there's a part of my mind that blames you for being in this situation in the first place. And is that thought going to devastate them? Absolutely.

Should it devastate them? Absolutely. And then you can say, I love you anyway. And I hope we can move past it. that's how you form strong relationships. You do not protect the people in your life from the emotional pain that you have. If they're the important people in your life, you let them carry with you. Right? You share that. That's the whole point of like family and friends and loved ones.

We carry it together. That's what AEOE healing is all about. We carry that shit together. and like there are not a whole lot of people in a lot of y'all's lives, right? So that's what we're here for. That's what Twitch chat is here for. That's what Discord is here for. We're going to carry this together because it's too heavy to carry on our own and we don't need to. Is it going to hurt other people? Yes.

Yes, it will. So instead of trying to like sell ourselves a fantasy of like, oh, I can just tell my parents and like not hurt them too much, let them be hurt. they kind of put you in that school in the first place. Is it their fault? I don't think so. But when you acknowledge that blame and then you sort of say, hey, it's not really your fault. Like, I kind of blame you for that.

But there's a larger part of me that recognizes that you guys were trying to act with, you know, the best intentions in mind. Obviously, if you knew this was going to happen, you wouldn't put me in that school. And so I know it's kind of weird, but like this is what we mean. it kind of goes back to, you know, I'm not a failure and I'm not a triumph. Like, it's painful. It's like you can't protect people. Like, you got to let them have it and then help them through it.

Then you guys carry it together. That's how you move through with things. Okay. Okay. And, you know, the last thing, just from a Pardibik perspective, not to lay something else at your feet because it sounds like you've got a lot to handle. But like, I'm kind of curious, you know, did anyone ever know? And is that guidance counselor still working?

So I think the other thing to really think about, And I know this sounds kind of challenging and may sound a little bit uncompassionate. And if you don't have the bandwidth to like report them, then don't. That's okay. Forgive yourself for that. But at least acknowledge that you can't handle that right now. And also acknowledge that at some point, hopefully with your parents' help, and as you guys kind of work through this and you support it, you may actually want to tell someone. Right.

I don't want to lay responsibility or blame or guilt at this person's feet. It sounds like they've got a lot. I genuinely mean that. And at the same time, we have to be honest with ourselves. right? Maybe it's maybe that's what you should get your parents help with. It's like they can complain to the school. But if you're not ready for that, so be it. It's not a big deal. You handle what you can handle. We each have our own struggles and our struggles happen in time. And this is something that I understand as a 38 year old psychiatrist is that I can't, what I can accomplish

in terms of making the world a better place now is far more than I could accomplish at the age of 20. And so when you're young and before you have your feet firmly on the ground, you don't need to save anyone. Just focus on saving yourself. And then once you become older, once you level up, once you gain some experience, then when you're on a solid foundation, try to help someone else. Okay? Be patient with yourself. You guys think I don't look 38. Wait till you see my dad bud. Okay. Let's go ahead and meditate. And, uh, yeah.

Okay. All right, so own it. I'm not exactly in the best shape of my life, but just own it, right? It's okay. Working on it. I did about 10 minutes on the rowing machine yesterday. It was good. It was good.

Okay, so wait for you. I need to pee. Okay, go pee. Kogi, we will wait for you. Coggley. Cogley. I don't know. All right.

Who are you writing, chat? Why don't we figure that out in the meantime? Yeah, we're going to meditate. So we're going to do oam chanting. We haven't done oom chanting in a while. We're going to meditate, but we're waiting for this one person to pee. So go pee. We'll teach you om chanting in a second.

Okay. So, okay. So let me explain what oam chanting is. So chanting is like a really powerful meditation technique. You can chant different mantras to cultivate a different kind of spiritual energy. We're going to actually do oam chanting, so chanting of oom. So, oom is actually composed of three syllables. Ah, ooh, and um.

So we start out going, ah. So we take a big deep breath. We start out with a mouth that's completely open. Um. Okay, and we go to completely close. So when we chant, we do a couple of different things. One is that there's a certain breathing component to which I'm sure has a physiology to it. But what we really want to do is project out that energy.

We want to like energize. Okay, so we're going to be loud. And the other thing to remember about chanting is chanting is not about sound. It's about energy and vibration. So what I want you to pay attention to is not what you hear, but what you feel with each of the syllables of the om chant. Okay. So what it'll be is like, ah, ooh, there'll be a period of silence. we'll take a deep breath again. We'll do another round.

So we'll do seven rounds of oam chanting. And then we'll be silent for about 60 to 90 seconds, maybe two minutes, five minutes. I don't know. It just depends on how I feel. Okay? All right. So I want everyone to sit up straight,

back straight is very important. Okay? Just take a few calming breaths. All right. Now we're going to begin. So I'm going to take a deep breath in. Ah. Again, deep breath in.

Again, again. Two more, make him count. A lot of energy. Big deep breath. Maximize vibration. Big deep breath. Oh. Feel with your eyes closed.

So in the quiet space afterward, I want you to just feel the person that you are. Whatever is there, let it come out. If it's sadness, if you feel stressed. If you feel good, great. If you feel energetic, wonderful. But if not, just let that crap out. So if we think about what vibration does, vibration facilitates movement.

If I've got something stuck, shake it, starts moving again. So whatever needs to come out will come out. Watch it with awareness. Breathe it in, breathe it out, and just do it. Seven breaths, nine breaths. Increase the power of the vibration. Increase the energy of it. learn to take bigger, deeper, deeper breaths with practice,

and more and more stuff will come out. So much anxiety, but yeah, we got to let it out, man. That's the problem, is that right now it is inside you. So let it out. And then you'll be anxiety-free. Don't keep anxiety inside. Let it out. If you just want to cry, then cry.

Let it out. The tears are there. If you hold on to them, they'll stay there. If you let them out, they'll go. And so if you want to understand what enlightenment is, as you chant, as you meditate, what you think you are continues to come out. Oh, I'm ashamed. I deserve to cry. I'm anxious. I'm worried. That comes out and you let it go. And you let it go. And you let it go. Whatever is there. Let it up. Joy even comes up. Let it go. Let everything within you up and out. And when you are completely

empty on the inside, when you are shunya, then you will attain Moksha, enlightenment. All right, chat. Thank you very much for coming today. We'll see you all on Wednesday with Mitch Jones. Wish you all the best.