HealthyGamerGG - Why Men Are Bad at Relationships, and Reddit Review | Community Stream

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

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Okay, so today we are going to talk a little bit about why men struggle in relationships. And this is a really important topic because I think that a lot of times we're conditioned in a particular way, we're raised in a particular way, and it tends to create problems in our relationship. So this lecture is really geared at people who sort of like fit the following kind of like criteria, okay? So if you feel like the stuff that I'm about to say applies to you, hopefully this will be helpful. So the first thing is that you're confused by inner turmoil. Like when you're in a relationship, sometimes you feel angry, sometimes you feel frustrated and upset, but you also feel really stupid for feeling that way. Second reason to, you know, that this may apply

to you is that you feel like sometimes other people do a bad job in a relationship, but you have a lot of trouble articulating what they're doing wrong. Third reason that this may be relevant to you is that you're someone who kind of feels cold or numb in a relationship, kind of like a robot. Like some parts of you want to connect with people more authentically, but you keep them at arm's length. You tend to become really uncomfortable when people get too close, but you also don't want them to leave. So it's sort of like you get stuck in this kind of like limbo zone where you want to be closer to people, but you kind of push them away if they get too close. And at the same time, like you don't want to really leave or you don't want them to leave.

And so sometimes you get so frustrated with it all that there's a part of you that's like, I just want to piece out of this and just be done with it all. And so this is something that I've seen more commonly in men. It can certainly happen in women as well. But we're going to talk a little bit more specifically about men because some of the things that I think some of the way that we're conditioned and raised as men tends us, makes us more vulnerable to some of these states. Now, the next thing to kind of think about is that you all could be. dating someone who's like this. So if you're in a relationship with someone, here are some of the

signs that it looks like from a partner's perspective. The first and foremost is mixed signals. Okay. This is where like someone will say to you, like your partner will say to you, I'm fine. Nothing is wrong when like clearly something is wrong. Sometimes your partner will get moody without a clear explanation. And when you ask them like what's wrong, there aren't, they either don't tell you or they're not even able to tell you. Like you're clear, it's clear that they're upset. about something, but when you're like, what's wrong? You're like, nothing. Nothing. Nothing is wrong.

Nothing's wrong. And in good cases, you know, usually we see this pattern where, like, people will be moody for, like, a week, and they'll kind of, like, naturally come out of it, and they'll be back to their normal selves. In more severe or kind of, like, negative situations, what actually happens is that people will, like, hold onto and harbor resentment. That moodiness sort of lingers in a relationship and can really start to create toxicity. Sometimes partners can get very confused when like, you know, your partner gets mad at you for seemingly like benign or trivial things.

And the last thing is once again that people will, your partner kind of keeps you at arm's length. So like they're kind of sending you mixed signals that they want to be closer. Maybe they want to be more intimate, want to be more authentic, want to be connected. But any time you try to get close to them or you start to get close to them, they push you away. So this is kind of like, you know, it's been my observation that men sometimes struggle in relationships due to these things. And so what we're going to try to do, this can actually, it can certainly happen to women as well, or, you know, non-binary people. But at the end of the day, I see the pattern more commonly in men. And so what we're going to do is try to explain to y'all, you know, why does this happen?

Why are we socialized this way? what is sort of going on psychologically and scientifically, like in our minds and our development that leads us to this way. And then we're going to end up with sort of practical tips as to what to do about it going forward. Okay? So it turns out that a lot of this stuff has to do with something called attachment theory. Okay. So what we're going to do is explain a little bit about attachment theory. So, this starts off with discussing something called the strange situation. There was a great psychoanalyst named John Bowalby, who I think back in the 70s designed

a really interesting experiment called the strange situation. So in the strange situation, which you've got is a mother, usually, in a kid, and they're in a room. And then what happens is mom leaves the room, and then a strange situation. enters the room. Okay? So stranger comes in and mom leaves. So now the kid is suddenly like alone with a stranger. And then what happens a little while later is mom usually comes back into the room and is kind of back. And so what Balby kind of noticed is that there are actually like a lot of different ways that the child actually responds to this situation. And so over time there were other

researchers who kind of contributed to this work, and eventually they sort of came up with four kinds of what we call attachment. So the first kind of attachment is something called secure attachment. So what happens in this case is the parent leaves the room an insecure, in secure attachment. The child may start to cry when the stranger enters, so they'll cry. But when mom comes back, they are easily comforted. Okay? So they like calm down real quick. Like if mom is around, I'm totally fine. Like it's not a big deal.

They also notice that there was a second set of kids who when mom leaves, they also start to cry. But when mom comes back, they seem to be like really, really like torn. So they start to get like kind of clingy, but then also like are sort of like not quite as clingy is another set of kids. but they tend to like get a little bit frustrated, get a little bit angry, tend to be like kind of like confused. Like they want to go to mom for affection,

but they sort of like feel torn and they seem kind of like stuck. They kind of start to send mixed signals. Okay. And then the third type is the anxious avoidant attachment. And these kids, it's really interesting. So like when they, when mom leaves, they start to become anxious.

they may start to cry. But when mom comes back, they actually like don't go to mom for comfort. And instead what they do is they sort of like become kind of like independent. And they'll sort of like they won't go to mom for comfort even though they're kind of upset. And they'll sort of like remain independent. They'll move somewhat close to mom. So they'll like move like a little bit closer. But they won't actually go to mom for like comfort or security.

And then the last category of people. So like they sort of remain independent. And the last category of people have insecure attachment, which is they freak out when mom leaves the room. And even when mom returns, they're inconsolable. So they'll start to cry when mom leaves. And even when mom comes back, like, they'll still continue crying. And what we're going to focus on is actually these two. Okay?

So this is like what we're going to talk about today. So the anxious ambivalent attachment style and the anxious avoidant attachment style. And essentially what Balby discovered is that these kinds of responses are actually have a lot to do with the way that we're raised, or that was his theory anyway. And he sort of realized that when caregivers give us inconsistent responses to our need for affection, we end up as anxious ambivalent. So what that sort of means is if I like hurt my leg and and I get a boo-boo and I go to mom, how does mom respond to me? So for the people with secure attachment, every time I get hurt, mom is there and is comforting.

For insecure attachment, it can be, it gets a little bit complicated, but generally saying, speaking, we can say that mom is not very comforting or parents aren't very comforting. For the anxious ambivalent attachment style, what we see is inconsistent caregiving. This is going to be somewhat true of avoidant as well. But sometimes, like, so sometimes mom is like really warm and loving and other times like mom is like not warm and loving. And so what that does is tends to confuse us. And so we never know like this child, the anxious ambivalent child, never knows like what to expect.

And so what that means is that there's a part of them that's like, okay, let me go and like get comfort from mom. But then there's also part of them that's like, well, sometimes when I get comfort from mom, like mom sort of gets like, you know, doesn't give me what I need. And so what that sort of results in is kind of this like clinical presentation of mixed signals. So like this is what this kind of looks like. So it's really characterized by mixed signals, okay? And what we mean by mixed signals is like these can be internal or external. So in the relationship, you can send signals to someone that, you know, you're upset. But at the same time, like if they ask you, are you upset?

You're going to say no. So are you upset? And then you say no, but you mean yes. So that's one key characteristic of the anxious ambivalent attachment style. The other thing is that this mixed. signal doesn't have to be external. It can also be internal. So these people have inner turmoil. So they feel a lot of like internal conflict, feeling frustrated, angry, upset. And then they also feel like very stupid for feeling that way. So they're like kind of confused internally. They're like, I don't

understand why I'm so upset or angry. Like I don't really know what's wrong. And sometimes what happens is that these people actually like they have, they have a lot of difficulty. in relationships because there are things that will set them off, so they get ticked off, but they're not really able to articulate what it is that's wrong. Right? So this kind of goes back to the mixed signals because, like, are you upset? Like, clearly I'm upset, but I'm not able to articulate, like, what's wrong. And the reason for that actually has to do with the roots of how, like, these anxious, these attachment styles develop, which is emotional mirroring. So what happens when we're young, okay, we're going to just go to this for a second, okay?

So what happens when we're young is that we don't really understand what we feel emotionally. And so the way that we discover and start to learn our internal emotional state is through the mirroring of the adults around us. So this is best exemplified by this example of like, you know, when there's a kid that's running around like a toddler and they trip and fall. and then like there's a brief moment where the toddler will look around at the adults in the room. If the adults in the room freak out and express to the child, oh my God, are you okay? Then the toddler will start crying. But if all of the adults start laughing, the toddler will be like, I've not heard at all. So it's kind of like really fascinating because early on, like you can think about, you know, if I'm a one-year-old, like how do I know what I'm feeling?

The way that I know what I'm feeling is through the emotional expressions of people around me. So like when I'm a child and I get a boo-boo and I go to mom and mom is like, oh, you poor baby, let me like help you, let me make it feel better. So I'm feeling hurt. Mom expresses concern and the world makes sense. So things get really confusing when that emotional mirroring is inconsistent. So when I'm hurt and mom tells me to like, shut the hell up and sit down. then it's like, I'm like, wait, what? How does this work? When I feel this way, and mom tells me to shut the hell up, did I do something wrong? And then at other times, when mom's in a good mood and I hurt myself and I go to mom and she's like, oh, you poor thing. And so it's like really confusing. Like, what do I feel? Is the feeling that I have good or is the feeling that I have bad? Like, what is this emotion? And so children are actually like, they're not, they don't know what their internal feeling is. This is further.

reinforced by especially this is thankfully changing now, but like, you know, by the conditioning that we tend to do towards boys versus girls, right? So this is like starting to even out, but if you go to most parts of the world, it really isn't. Where, you know, boys are told to like not express emotion essentially, right? We won't say that explicitly. We won't even say don't express emotion because we don't even have that degree of EQ. What we'll say is like man up or stop crying or boys don't cry or you need to do this or you need to man up or like whatever. Right. if you're hanging out at school and you start crying, like, what are the other kids going to do to you? Like, the kids are going to make fun of you, right? And like, even teachers will sometimes, like,

treat you poorly. You know, parents, siblings, things like that. Like, we're not taught to express emotion. And so the interesting thing is, as we are taught to not express emotion, our ability to learn what our emotional state is gets handicapped. Right? Because remember, the way that we learn what our internal emotional state is, is is through the emotional mirroring of other people. So when I stop communicating with people about what my emotional state is, like even if I don't know what it is, if I stop talking about it and I just kind of manage it on my own, what I'm essentially relying on is like parts of my brain to like acclimatize and just turn off. So I don't actually learn anything. So there's, there's interesting research that shows that, you know, if you get angry, you're not going to stay

angry for 10 years. There's our, our brain has a natural homeostatic mechanism, which sort of explains the weak of moodiness, right? So you feel really moody, you feel upset by something, you're not quite sure what you're upset by, you feel kind of angry, you feel kind of confused, and this is all because you were never taught, like, how to understand what you feel, because people tend to be socialized or conditioned to not express their feelings and, like, not communicate with other people. This gets further compounded by the fact that, like, if you think about, you know, dads, like your dad, let's say you're 20 years old now, and your dad, dad became a dad in 2001. And so then, like, you think about your dad's upbringing, right? So, like,

your dad may have been born, like, in 1970. And so what was his emotional understanding? And how does he pass on that emotional understanding onto you, right? Because, like, how is your dad going to teach you if he never learned, like, how to be in touch with his emotions? So we see, like, definitely a conditioning effect, a socializing effect that leads to ignorance of your internal emotional state, probably through a lack of mirroring as well as like social conditioning, that leads us to be confused about what our internal emotional state is. And so we wind up with this anxious, ambivalent attachment style, which is one of the two things that we're going to cover, which is sort of like all about turmoil, confusion, ambivalence, and like mixed signals. And this can

make relationships really, really difficult because like there can be something that upsets you, but then you can't articulate to the person, like, what they did wrong. And the reason that you can't articulate maybe because of some amount of emotional vulnerability, some amount of self-judgment. So this is really common where people, like, they feel stupid telling this person, yeah, like, you, you know, did this, like, you didn't call me, like, on Thursday, and, like, that really hurt my feelings. Like, we're just not taught how to say things like that.

Because what we're actually taught, like, you have this voice in your head that's, like, you shouldn't feel that way. Like, what difference does it make? Like, you should be able to handle it if your girlfriend doesn't call you on a Thursday, like, even if it's kind of an important day to you. Like, you should go the fuck up, man. Like, come on. Right. So, like, that's that anxious, ambivalent attachment style kind of like coming through, right? And so as that kind of shame and as that self-judgment arises, it makes it difficult for you to communicate and then causes problems in the relationship because then your girlfriend is kind of like, I don't know what I did wrong.

Did I do something wrong? You're like, no. No, I'm fine. I'm fine. And then you just kind of like wait a week and then you start to feel a little bit better and then you kind of forget about it. So a couple of other interesting things.

So people with an anxious, ambivalent attachment style also have a couple of interesting behavioral correlations. We're not going to go too much into that. But it's really interesting because these people have low self-ful esteem, which sort of makes sense. They also have a low amount of intrinsic motivation, which is really fascinating. So for a lot of people who feel like, oh, I'm lazy, I'm undisciplined, there are actually studies that show that low intrinsic motivation is associated with a particular kind of attachment style. And sometimes you all may understand this because, like, you know, there are the people who are just,

like, good at life that are not like us. Like, they're emotionally in touch with themselves. They're, they're, like, confident, they're brave, and they go out and they work hard, and they do their resume on time and they study for their tests and they apply like for things at the right time like you know there are those people and we get so confused because like why do these people have what seems like everything and we have nothing and it turns out that they're actually like correlations right like so there are correlations between secure attachment confidence and intrinsic motivation okay um and if you're one of those people fantastic so i used to be an anxious ambivalent kind of person or even anxious avoidant, which we'll get to.

And now I think I've got pretty secure attachment. All right. So anxious ambivalent attachment is what we call a resistant attachment. So what this means is that it's an attachment that's characterized by feelings of both anger and helplessness. When the caregiver returns, the child is ambivalent. They seek contact, but also rebuff it. It's kind of like this conditional strategy to preemptively take control of the interaction. So what this sort of means is that I'm going to keep you at arm's length so that you can't

hurt me by leaving again. But I also want you to be close to me. I don't really like this situation, but it's the best thing that I can do to protect myself. Like it's kind of you're stuck between wanting more in a relationship and also not wanting to be hurt again. Okay. So what this sort of means is like this is what the mixed signals are because there's a part of you that's like, if I put myself out there and I let this person connect to me, which is really what I want, what that means is that they could leave the room again, and then I'm going to be left like all on my own. And so like, you know, it really is sort of like this protective mechanism that we sort of engage in, where there's a part of us that wants to reach out and connect, and there's a part of us that's

like, don't do that because they're just going to hurt you again. And so what this means is when people sort of kind of going back to the motivation, thing with this kind of what this ambivalence means. So ambivalence means being like, you know, 50% yes and 50% no, being on the fence is this is what sort of leads to this like intrinsic lack of motivation. Because what happens is these people are always on the fence, right? There's a part of you that's saying like, I want to apply for this job. And there's a part of you that's saying, but if you apply for the job, you could get rejected and that's going to hurt. So this is sort of what the anxious, ambivalent attachment style looks like, which is a resistant attachment. Like, I am attached,

but I'm like not thrilled about it. Okay. So that's the anxious ambivalent attachment. Now what we're going to talk about is the anxious avoidant attachment. And just to go back to this real quick. Okay. So the anxious avoidant attachment is going to be like present like this. okay, so it's going to be like the emotional robot is what I call it. So you guys may know, you may feel this way or you may be like this or you may know someone like that. So it was people who are like numb and cold. So like they're also fiercely independent. Okay.

And so we'll go more into this. But like this is people who have like sort of a safe zone. And what I mean by that is that like you kind of have this place where you like to hang out. And that place is like not too close, but also not too far, right? You're not like antisocial and don't form relationships at all. What it is is like you want to be in this really safe zone where like you can remain independent. You don't have to rely on anyone where like you don't have to feel emotionally hurt and you don't have to feel connected. From a partner perspective, these people, so from the partner perspective, these, your partner keeps you at arm's length.

They don't want you to come close, but they don't. don't want you to get too far. So we're going to like, we're going to stay in the safe zone. And the problem with this is that these people, even though they feel numb and cold and they, they kind of feel like they're emotional robots, the safe zone is very unsatisfying. So it's safe, but it's like not a fun place to be. So sometimes people who have anxious avoidant attachment styles, like they want more. Like they recognize that they shouldn't be this way. They recognize that they're missing something important in the relationship. They just, just don't know what to do about it. Okay? So let's try to understand a little bit about what happens

in the anxious avoidant attachment style. So going back, remember, this is the situation where, you know, the parent comes back and the kid is like not really too messed up about it. They kind of remain unruffled. So I think the best way to kind of categorize this is using the word unruffled. So they're calm in the face of separation. And at the same time, they, they actually like, even though they appear calm, this is actually a mask for their internal distress. So these people may appear fiercely independent, but internally, they're like really, really distressed about it. And this is what's really cool about this is so, you know, when researchers, they were doing this study like with two-year-olds, right? So what researchers were trying to figure out

is, okay, it seems like the kid actually doesn't care whether like mom is in the room or mom is not in the room. And they were theorizing, like, maybe this is a mask for distress. Like, we're going to pretend to be strong and we're going to say, like, even though they're internally, like, they're really freaking out, on the outside, they're like, yeah, it's no big deal. Like, I can handle this. I'm cool. Like, it's a shell. So what researchers did was measure the heart rates of the children who appeared to be completely fine. And what they actually found is that physiologically, these children are depressed. I mean, distressed. Okay? So what happened is like they would measure the heart rates and what they'd find is that like the kid is putting on this facade of being like

totally fine and not needing connection and being independent. But internally, their heart is hammering. Right. So they actually are physiologically very, very distressed. And so the anxious avoidant attachment style is sort of like a protection against like the emotional hurt. Okay. So what this actually means is that the kids are not actually fine, right? They may appear to be fine. And even in the case of the anxious avoidant attachment style, you may feel cold and numb, but it's not actually healthy. Like you've learned how to adapt to this circumstance, but it's not actually good for you. And so this is caused by an infant's and emotional needs. When a child, so the anxious avoidant attachment style is caused by when a child

communicates their emotional needs and they essentially get like no response. So remember the ambivalent attachment style is an inconsistent response but the avoidant attachment style happens when you communicate your emotional needs and you get like essentially like a neutral response or no response.

That's when you learn to become avoidant and also like fiercely independent. Right. So what this, what researchers sort of discovered is that when the parents' response, to you is not influenced by you expressing your needs, you put up this emotional wall and you sort of like really rely on that independence. So when voicing your needs essentially does not get a good response. So like a classic example of this is like being told to man up, right? This is like the most classical example. Like I'm hurting. I go to my dad and my dad is like, why are you crying?

Like men don't cry. Man up. And so this is a also caused by your emotional needs being rebuffed. And this sort of creates like a really problematic cycle. And this is something that I see a lot, which is that like, as men become more unable to communicate their emotional needs, their subtle attempts at emotional connection tend to be perceived as rebuffed. So remember, if I'm like independent and I'm an island and like, I don't want to hurt myself, I don't want to risk being hurt. And furthermore, if I'm like kind of alexathymic and I don't understand what I feel or why I'm even upset. Remember, I'm emotionally numb. So if I'm emotionally numb and don't feel a whole lot of stuff, when I like communicate to people that I have

emotional needs, like I'm going to be really bad at that communication, right? Because I'm not going to be able to say like, hey, this really hurt me and I was really looking forward to spending this weekend with you, but you went out with your friends and I felt like emotionally neglected and unlovable. You don't know how to say that. So instead, what you do is like, you just, ask your partner, you're like, hey, do you want to hang out on Sunday for brunch? And they're like, oh, I was planning on doing this. And you're like, okay, cool. And you don't tell them what it means to you. And then inside what you feel is like that rejection, right? Because you never signal to them. And the more you get rejected, the more independent you become, the more you like stay in that safe

zone where you don't want to like get too close. But you also like really like your partner, right? So you don't want to like break up with them. And so you end up by withdraw. So these infants withdraw from their caregivers. And this is where things get really weird because actually what we do is like we withdraw just enough, but we never leave entirely. So we enter this like paradoxical like limbo zone, which is also like the safe zone, where it's like, I'm never going to get close to you, but I want to be close to you, so I'm never going to leave. And so it creates this kind of really tricky situation where like men have difficulty connecting. Women can do this too. but I think that men once again are more socialized to this kind of behavior.

And so we kind of stay at the threshold of a close relationship. And we're scared to move closer and we're scared to move further away. Okay. So that's the anxious avoidant attachment style. Fiercely independent. I don't want to get too close. I don't want to get too far. I'm kind of safe over here, but I'm also unsatisfied.

I have a lot of difficulty communicating my emotional needs. Okay? So then the problem, so now the question becomes, okay, like, what do we do it about this? Okay? Like, okay, so like Dr. Kay, this is fine. This is who I am. You've described me. I'm either the anxious ambivalent or the anxious avoidant person. I'm a situation. I definitely fall into the camp of being like emotionally torn and having inner turmoil or you're dating someone who's sending you mixed signals. Hey, are you upset with me? No, I'm fine. Did I do something wrong? No. It's fine. I'm telling you. It's fine. right like that's one example or the the avoidance like yeah like whatever man like you can do whatever you want to and then like you're like wait are you upset no man i'm cool it's all good like you do it's fine like really like and then sometimes what what you can even see is like you know fear of becoming dependent where it's sort of like this is like where fear of commitment

or like these other kind of you know societal things that we say oh like this dude is afraid of commitment. It's not that he's afraid of commit. I mean, maybe that's a good way to put it, actually, but like there's other stuff going on, right? It's not like he doesn't, he doesn't just dislike commitment for the sake of commitment. It's sort of that, it's not that he's like afraid of commitment in general. It's that like he doesn't know if he can trust you. And this is where things get really confusing because like he sends these like minor, minor signals to his partner that are sort of like, hey, can I trust you? Are you like able to see what I'm feeling here? And then the partner is oblivious, which is not really their fault.

because the signals are very, very tiny, and then they get rebuffed, and it sort of creates this, this, like, vicious cycle. So we kind of end up with this anxious, ambivalent attachment style, and anxious avoidant attachment style. Now, if we go back to the original research by Balby, what Balby kind of hypothesizes

and what other people later hypothesized, is that all this stuff is formed in childhood. So, like, if we sort of look at the people who are, like, intrinsically motivated and securely attached, they lucked out because they had good parents. and like I got the short stick because my parents were not emotionally available to me. So it turns out that that's actually not true. So what we really, and now we're going to go to a really interesting article from current opinion and psychology.

So as people have started to look at the origin of attachment style and how attachment style develops, there's a really important lesson to be learned here, which is that foundations are not fate. And what this means is that your attachment style for early on is determined by socialization. So what this means is this is the parental influence. Okay. So like when I'm a one-year-old, my attachment style is absolutely determined by my parents for the most part. Okay. But the cool thing that researchers have developed is that when you look at adults, the way that you are raised starts to matter less and less and less.

And what matters is what they call selection effects. So socialization is your environment and selection is your choices. So people play an active role in selecting and shaping their interpersonal environments, which means that if you fall into one of these categories, your parents may have gotten you off on a particular trajectory, but it's ultimately the people that you choose to hang out with, which is going to determine whether your attachment style stays insecure or becomes secure. okay so this is your spawn point right like this is my starting gear but as it turns out the further

I go into the game just like video games the further I go into the game I have more of a choice about how I play right because when I spawn like this is my starting equipment like it's the same like I can't do anything about that but every every level that I gain and every time like I get a new shop I can start to control you know what my gear looks like how I spend my skill points etc So the cool thing, so if you're worried about this and you're asking me, what do I do about it? There are a couple of really simple things that we can do about it, okay? The first is to understand that your fate is not set in stone. And essentially, the people that you hang out with will determine how your attachment style evolves.

So this is where you have to be really, really careful. So like, are the people that you're hanging out with able to emotionally, like, help you out some? can they be supportive? Can you turn to someone and say, hey, I'm feeling kind of confused right now. Can you help me figure out how I feel? So we're going to give you actually some very key dialogue, okay? So if you fall into these categories, anxious ambivalent or anxious avoidant, what I want you to do when you're feeling a particular way, and remember, these are the signs, right? So if you're anxious ambivalent, you're going to feel angry, frustrated, confused, and you're going to feel dumb. Right? So like you're going to have those feelings of anger and frustration. You're going to be kind of kind of confused why you feel that way, and you're going to judge yourself for feeling that

way. That's the presentation. So if you find yourself feeling that way, who is someone that you can communicate that to? And just communicate it to them directly. Like ideally a romantic partner, so that's sort of the assumption we're having here. And you go to your partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, and you say, hey, I'm feeling, and if they ask you, is something wrong, you can even say something like, hey, I can't tell what's wrong, but something feels wrong. I am upset, but I don't understand why I'm upset. I am upset and I feel stupid for being upset. So you literally communicate with them, to them, what you're feeling.

Now, why is this hard? Because when we think about emotional communication, we think that we should have everything figured out on the inside before we're we communicate with someone, right? Because we think to ourselves that, like, what the hell is someone going to do with that? Yeah, I'm upset, but I don't know why I'm upset. Like, how are they supposed to deal with that? So then we feel ashamed for even communicating something that's like half-baked. Like, how would they deal with that? And I know that that feels like very, very, like, stupid to do, but that's exactly what we need to do. Because here's the cool thing, right? Remember that attachment style that has to do with emotional mirroring. So as you share a...

half-baked communication about your feelings, that gives your partner the opportunity to be, like, confused with you. They don't have to figure it all out, but then the two of y'all figure it out together. And so then they may say something like, okay, I don't know what to do with that. And then you're going to say, yeah, I don't know what to do with that. And that makes me feel stupid. And like, this is like, and then, like, you may feel embarrassed for sort of saying that, but it's really amazing if you give your partner the opportunity to support you, you know, and then, like, they may say like, okay, I don't know what to do, but like if something occurs to you, like, please let me know. And if you are the partner and someone shares something like that with you,

you can kind of be honest with them. Hey, I want to help you, but I don't know how to help you. And, you know, I'm going to try a couple things or maybe you can make a suggestion or like maybe we can work on this together. Right. You don't have to figure out the answer. Because fixing your attachment style is not about figuring out the answer. It's about not facing your problem alone. It's about emotional mirroring, not emotional correction. It's just about the other person meeting you where you're at. Okay? So to recap, the first thing that you need to do is, you know, be a little bit careful with who you hang out with.

And try to find people that you can share a half-baked thought with about your internal emotional state. The second thing that you need to do, so this is where if you look at research for people who are securely attached versus people, people who are not securely attached. What you find is that securely attached individuals accept their own emotional needs, while insecurely attached individuals, especially anxious avoidant folks, do not. So like people believe that they can't rely on other people's support, which sort of makes sense, may have something to do with the historical way that they were raised. But the second thing that you need to do is acknowledge your own emotional needs, right?

And that can be really confusing because you may not know exactly what they are. are, but acknowledge whatever you can. So you can at least acknowledge that I'm feeling angry and I'm feeling frustrated and I feel stupid for feeling this way. And if someone did do something that hurt your feelings, you have to be really careful because you have an emotional need and what you do is denigrate or devalue your emotional need. And in your mind, you say it's stupid for me to feel upset about this. And in doing so, you're actually not acknowledging your emotional need. So the second thing that you need to do is really be careful because if you're calling yourself stupid for having a particular emotional need, that's what you need to like turn around, right? It's okay for you to have emotional needs that other people don't understand. Now, this is also where like you don't have to blame them for it, right? But like acknowledging your own emotional need is separate from someone else fulfilling or not fulfilling it. So you can even go to them and you can say, hey, like, I know that your friends were visiting from college. and I still really felt like I wanted to see you last weekend.

And I do think objectively that you should spend time with them because obviously, you know, they're only here once a year and like I get to see you every week. So it makes sense to me to objectively for you to see them. And at the same time, I still really like felt like I wanted to go to brunch with you. And like I felt kind of emotionally rejected. And I acknowledge that that may not make a whole lot of sense. But it's honestly, it's the need that I had. Like, I felt lonely that weekend.

Last weekend was like, you know, I felt lonely. So you can kind of like acknowledge your emotional need and be, you know, you just have to acknowledge it. You actually don't have to fulfill it. They don't actually have to change their behavior. The key thing is that securely attached individuals accept their emotional needs. And so this is the really tricky thing is that like a lot of people like, how do I fix this? And this is where people get really confused because really fixing it does not actually have to do with changing much on the outside. Your partner doesn't actually have to change,

and this is what's so damn confusing for them, is like, when they ask you, like, is something wrong, and you say no, and then they're like, I don't know what I need to change. No one needs to change anything in terms of behavior. All that really needs to be changed is awareness, acknowledgement of your emotional needs, and then sharing those emotional needs for emotional mirroring with other people. Your partner doesn't actually have to skip out on the weekend with, like, their college friends to go to brunch with you. That doesn't actually have to happen. All that has to happen is you need to acknowledge that emotional need. And like they need to hear you and sort of like mirror it back. And they can say just like, hey, you know, I understand that you feel lonely like this is really

important to me. Can I make it up to you next weekend? That's all, all that has to happen. Okay. So just to summarize, I think a lot of the reason that men struggle in relationships has to do with the way that we're socialized and conditioned and can be explained best by something called attachment theory. What attachment theory kind of relies on is this idea that how we relate to other people has to do with the way that our emotional needs were mirrored or met by our parents early in life. So for some people, our parents were really, or not necessarily parents, but just key emotional figures. So for some people, our parents were very like, um, inconsistent with the way that they responded to our emotional leads.

Sometimes they were loving and sometimes they were neglectful. And that results in something called an anxious ambivalent attachment style, which is really characterized by turmoil and mixed signals. I feel angry. I feel frustrated. I feel stupid. I blame myself for feeling that way. When people ask me what's wrong, I say nothing's wrong when really something is wrong.

So it's like filled with mixed signals and can make relationships really difficult. For other people, they were sort of their emotional needs, actually like not really answered in any way. Or when I expressed an emotional need, what I was told is that like my emotional need is like not important. It's not necessarily neglect or abuse, which leads to a different kind of attachment style. It's this is the quintessential. This is when like I go crying to my dad at the age of seven. I say, hey, this person bullied me. And my dad is like, you need to man the F up and and you know, you have to, if he pushes you, you've got to push back. It's like when when kids,

are in a situation where they express an emotional need and they're met with like a wall, what the kid learns to do is put up the wall themselves. And so as adults, these people become fiercely independent, are afraid of forming connections and keep people at arm's length. And so the solution to these things, and the good news is that early on we thought that this stuff was determined in childhood. Now because of the primacy of selection effects, which basically means early on, you can't control your attachment stuff.

but later on, it turns out that the people that you hang out with and how emotionally available they are can actually fix your attachment style. So the people you hang out with are going to be crucial. And what we want you to do to fix your attachment style is, first of all, become aware and acknowledge your own emotional needs no matter how irrational they are. And secondly, communicate your half-baked, confusing, idiotic emotional needs to your partner and let them emotionally mirror. Remember, they don't have to fix anything.

They don't have to change themselves. They don't have to do any of that. All you really need to become more securely attached and understand your emotions better is for someone to just mirror and acknowledge what you feel. Okay? Questions. Okay. So this is fascinating.

Okay. So, okay. All right. A lot of people are, I can't tell if you all are trolling, but I have a, I've got a paper for you all. Okay. So, people are asking me. the question. Dr. K, what happens if I don't have friends? It's interesting, right? So, like, what happens if I don't have friends? How does this have to do with my attachment style?

So it turns out, let me find this quote, so if you look at this paper from the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction that's talking about social media, we're going to see something really interesting. Okay? So it would appear. that the majority of insecurely attached adolescents, okay, so this is from 2012,

so this was back when people were using Facebook, use Facebook after being admonished by their parents. Sometimes I try talking to my mother,

but she always says she's too busy, so I end up logging onto Facebook and talk to my friends instead. Consequently, it appears that using Facebook

fulfills the need for care and affection and replaces and compensates for missing affection from family members. Using Facebook becomes a means for social compensation. Okay?

So now this gets really interesting. So let's take a step back from Facebook for a second because they were, this was looking specifically at Facebook. But what we tend to find, for those of you say, but what if I don't have friends? So it turns out that if you look at the studies on attachment style and social media usage, there's also, by the way, in this, we can do another, we can do another study on this or another lecture. So adverse childhood experiences dissociation anxious attachment style and risk factors for gaming disorder. It's so interesting. So for people who say, I don't have friends, it turns out that there's a damn good reason for that.

And it's not that there's anything wrong with you. It's that you were predisposed to this anxious attachment style and that it turns out that there are some technological interventions like Facebook that the reason social media is. is so successful is because it actually, in a bizarre way, fulfills some of the needs that friendship provides. On a neuroscientific level, on a psychological level, it fulfills some of those needs. And so what it actually does is by fulfilling some of those needs, it actually makes the pressure to create real friendships go down. So it's kind of like, you know, if I have an easy access to like soda in my living room, but if I have to walk a mile to get water, what I'm going to end up doing is drinking soda all the time. So this is what social media does.

Like for people who say, oh, what if I don't have friends and this fits me, I have an anxious attachment style. Like, what do I do about this? How do I make friends? It's actually really fascinating because it turns out that using social media actually fulfills and compensates for the lack of friendship, which sort of makes sense. Like, we kind of know that, right? Like, we don't need research to tell us that if I'm lonely, I can log on to Discord or log on to Twitch or like whatever, and I can form this parosocial relationship that fits some of my emotional needs. And it turns out that a lot of this stuff has to do with the anxious attachment style. So this is where, you know, you guys ask, okay, what do I do? So this is where like you've got to

be a little bit careful because just like we just saw from that research paper, right, where this person, what we tend to actually find, is that, you know, sometimes I try talking to my mother, but she's always says she's too busy, so I end up logging onto Facebook, and I talk to my friends instead. So if we look at this example, what y'all will find, if you do not have friends and you spend a lot of time on games, Twitch, or social media, what you will find is something very similar if you really pay attention to yourself. What you will literally find is there are times where you reach out to make a friend. There are times where you try to socially engage with someone. And something happens where you hit a hiccup.

The friend is not available or is too busy or something like that. And instead of like pushing that relationship or waiting or tolerating that lack of response, you go to the easy out. Right? So you invite a friend over and you say, hey, do you want to hang out on Friday? And the friend says, nah, man, I'm busy. And so you're like, screw it. I'm just going to play video games all weekend.

because everyone's busy and I have no friends. And that's where, like, if you really think about it, because you have that easy out, right? Like, you can just hop on Discord and engage with people. So, like, why bother with this whole friend thing? Whereas, like, really the right answer to this is hard, right? Is that, like, you may want to reach out to someone else. Or you may want to reach out to that person again next weekend.

Be like, oh, you're busy this weekend. How about next weekend? And they say, oh, I'm busy then too. And this is where I know this is really challenging. But then like sometimes you can even have an honest conversation with this person. You can be like, hey, bro, I've invited you to do like things two or three times. I'm just kind of confused. Like, do you want me to continue inviting you or like, are you not interested in hanging out?

Just ask them. Should I continue inviting you to stuff? Right? Because for all you know, that person has social anxiety and is like, oh my God. I feel so socially anxious. And just ask people, like, are you barking up the wrong tree? Right? Like, it can feel really terrifying to, like, put yourself out there and let them, like,

really reject you, like, in your face. But that's what you should do. Because then you can devote, like, you can start inviting other people instead of feeling like an idiot for inviting this one person over and over and over again and getting rejected and getting rejected and getting rejected. Okay? So for those of you say, I don't have friends. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, actually, because there is a vulnerable.

So people have had anxious attachment styles since the history of humanity, since humanity began. Now we're in a really interesting situation because there's a particular psychological vulnerability which has been existing for the history of humanity. And we now have technology that is predatory towards that vulnerability. And in a sense, fulfills that emotional need in a way that nothing has in the history of humanity until now. but by fulfilling that need in sort of like, you know, like a very processed and like artificial way, it actually cripples us at making friends. Other questions. So someone's saying internet is really bad for mental health in conclusion.

So no, that is incorrect. So the internet is not bad. Social media is not all bad, right? Because at the flip side, this is something that we're studying right now. Video games actually have positive effects on mental health too. So I hate to break it to you all, but it's not black and white. And what we find is that much like any tool that humans have developed, right, like you can look at things like alcohol, for example. And you could say that alcohol is all bad.

And I think generally speaking, alcohol has far more negatives than positives. But you can also look at research that shows that having up to two drinks per week is correlated with improvements in mental health for people like who drink up to two drinks a week. And so, you know, it's probably not the alcohol that's directly affecting your mindset. chances are what it is that alcohol is a confounding factor for like a social event, like people who socialize once a week and have two drinks and like limit it and don't get drunk are correlated with like positive mental health outcomes. So I don't think the internet is a bad thing. I don't think social media by definition is a bad thing.

Right. So social media has allowed us to gain awareness of a lot of things that are like going on wrong in the world and stuff like that. It's just that like we have to be careful as human beings because our parts of it predatory. absolutely. Our companies, sometimes exploitive, absolutely. So we have to decide, like, what are we talking about? Are we going to, like, become Amish and, like, turn off the internet for humanity? Like, that's not an option. I guess maybe it is. Maybe it'll happen at some point. But my approach is that you should understand, like, what this does to your mind. Right. Like, understand what your vulnerabilities are. Understand how these things are predatory towards your psychological vulnerabilities. and work on fixing those vulnerabilities,

work on managing the predatory aspect, right? It's like an evolutionary dance where like a predator and prey are constantly evolving. And as human beings, what we have to do is evolve to deal with the internet. And that's what we do here at Healthy Gamer, is we're trying to equip y'all with the skills to like deal with these things.

Because I know it sounds kind of weird. Here we are talking about anxious, ambivalent attachment and how it leads to not having friends. And y'all are in Twitch chat. asking a question that then a dude on the internet is going to answer that will hopefully help you, that's what I'm here for, overcome that problem and make friends. Right? So like, is Twitch good or is Twitch bad?

Because Twitch sometimes fulfills a parisocial need, or fills a social need that creates a parisocial relationship, and can also be used as a positive thing. Like, so is it bad? Like, yes. Is it good? Yes. we need to be in control, right?

Like, we need to understand what's going on. We need to understand the rules of the game so that we can play it to our advantage. Great points. So I want to apologize. For people that I'll... So the person who said, conclusion, internet bad,

I didn't mean to call you out. I didn't use your name on purpose because I think that that kind of... That sentence is actually, like, really healthy for propagating the discussion. I'm really glad you said that. Because it doesn't... Just because I don't agree with what you said

doesn't mean that it isn't a vital thing to say and explore. Other questions. Okay? Do you like jazz? Not really. So are internet friends real friends or no? I think they're real friends, man, to be honest.

So I think that like, I mean, like, I've told this story a couple of times, but what? Do I like jazz? I just don't like jazz. Sorry, chat. Am I supposed to like jazz? Maybe I haven't heard good jazz. I just, I don't understand jazz. to be honest.

I can't tell if y'all are reacting to the jazz thing or the friend thing. I think that internet friends are real friends, man. TBH. Like, I was, like, I started playing StarCraft with this dude. Like, when I was, like, 13. Never met the guy. I invited him to my wedding. Like, I haven't talked to him in a couple years now, but, you know, we went to T.I.

together, like, a couple years ago. Like, it was dope. Like, we went, like, we met in Vegas once as part of a man trip. That was awesome. Right? Like, are internet friends, real friends? Like, I think they really can be. And sometimes they're not.

Just like real people. Oh, my God. That Vegas trip. There was someone who is, highly, highly, highly recommend. You know, so like, I really have enjoyed my main trips with my homies. I think it's good. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?

All right, shall we do Reddit React? Reddits? Chat? Let's move on to Reddits. Okay. All right. We'll see how many we can get through. I got a lecture to write today.

So we're probably... Oh, and we need to do meditation too, right? We're going to do third round of chakra meditation. Okay. All right. Let's start with... Okay. Let's get started, chat.

I am Gujarati. That is correct. Okay. All right. It hurts to see people happy. Ouch. So I'm a teen girl. Recently around two months ago,

I decided to leave my school. I already had the required by law education, so I had the right to do so. Props. I did it because my depression was spiraling out of control. Not so props. I had suicidal thoughts and thoughts of self-harm again. School wasn't helping at all.

I lost all my friends. Teachers would bully me whenever my mental illness was brought up. I felt exhausted of it and figured my education doesn't really matter if I'm going to kill myself in the next several weeks. Oh, wow. Okay. So I've been to five different counselors and none of them helped me with anything. The only person who I feel like have done their job was a psychiatrist,

prescribed me meds for my depression and anxiety. I remember feeling happy as if it was the first time in my life. I could sleep and not constantly wake up. I could function like a human and, not constantly be tired and sleepy. I stopped being afraid of things that were supposed to be my routine. Unfortunately, something went wrong and I had a terrible panic attack, so my mother advised me to stop taking the meds. I haven't seen a psychiatrist in two years. Okay. I also moved out of my parents flat. I feel much better now. I'm starting to make money selling drawings on the internet.

I have really good boyfriend, but I still feel lonely. If I'm going to, going somewhere outside, I start to think of a conversation with someone in my head and talk to myself. Most of the time when I see people hanging out together, I feel jealous of them for a short while, and after I get reminded of my loneliness, I feel terrible. My boyfriend sometimes brings me to hang out with his friends, and I always see it as an opportunity to socialize, but I can't help but feel awful around people.

I easily get triggered into bad thoughts and emotions, and it feels inappropriate to dump it on someone who you see for the first time or second time in your life. life. So I usually bury it all, I'm assuming, inside and try to keep conversation away from myself. Anytime I tried to share my feelings, it almost always ended up hurting everyone more than if I avoided it. Anytime someone else speaks of their education, I feel like a failure. And most of people my age are students. I used to be a perfect 10 out of 10 student until depression hit, and teachers just assumed I turned into a lazy self-centered teenager.

It's basically impossible for me to get into any college because my grades are bad. At the same time, I realize that education in my country specifically is just useless. It's outdated, regulated by law in a counterproductive way. Overworked teachers aren't actually interested in their jobs. It's just a waste of time and mental health. So I don't want to get into college. Yet I feel ashamed and I frequently have nightmares about my decision. I sort of know what to do and how to deal with depression.

Since it gets better and better each month, I kind of feel confident about that. it will just take time for me to before I find a therapist to make it quicker. A more difficult issue is I want to have friends, but how and where do I find them? Okay. Great post, by the way. So first of all, I'm going to give that an updute. You know, it's probably buried now. So I really appreciate when people, you know, post stuff like this because I think it's, you know, highlights a lot of common experiences.

So, you know, what this post is basically about, it seems like, you know, this person was very depressed, really kind of like life sort of screwed them over. They started to come out of it, sought mental health treatment. It wasn't helpful back then. Started taking medications, was convinced by their mom to stop taking medications, hasn't seen a psychiatrist and is slowly putting their life together, which is like huge props to you. Sounds like you've moved out. You know, you're starting to make money. you're starting to feel better about yourself. You have a boyfriend who's really nice,

but you still feel kind of like lonely and it hurts to see people happy. So let's go over a couple of basic principles. The first is that, you know, if you all try therapy and it doesn't work, that can sometimes make sense. In periods of extreme depression, this is why we sometimes will do things

like prescribe medication. Because sometimes if you're so depressed that you can't really, engage in therapy in a productive way, things like medication are a good first step. So my first thought is that, you know, be really careful. If you have a bad side effect to a medication, then you should talk to your psychiatrist about it. Like, that's their job, is to help figure out what went wrong and, like, adjust the medication so that that doesn't happen. Because this sounds amazing. I could function like a human and not constantly, and not be

constantly tired and sleepy, I stopped being afraid of things that were supposed to be my routine. Like, that sounds like the medication is maybe doing something I could sleep. Like, that's like, that's why we as psychiatrists sometimes prescribe medication because for some of the people that we prescribe it to, this is how it changes their life. And that's a good reason to take medication. So the first thing is that, you know, if you're super, super depressed and therapy isn't working, you should talk to a psychiatrist and consider medication. I'm not saying that medication is going to, you know, your mileage may very, very, very

but this is the reason we have it. Second thing is if you have a problem with your medication, your mom may care about you, your family members may care about you, but it's the job of the prescribing doctor to like find a medication regimen that gives you benefits and has side effects that like are not that bad or are outweighed by the good things. Okay.

Now this answer, now we get onto the second part, which is sort of like, you know, now that you're putting your life together, it feels like there's a lot of stuff from the past that's kind of cropping up, right? When you see people hanging out together, you start to feel really jealous. And anytime anyone else speaks of their education, I feel like a failure. And so this is where I want you to appreciate this for a second, that when you get like emotional, when you go through emotionally difficult or traumatic stuff, like dropping out of school and having like teachers that bully you when you talk about your mental

health issues, when you go through those psychological experiences, right, when you take that damage, like your HP pool starts off full and then you're like taking damage like every year, right? That emotional energy stays with you and needs to be worked through. So when this person is asking like, how do I like stop hating people who, are happy, you have to process that emotion, that resentment that you carry with you, because why can't you be happy for another person? It's because of some degree of like envy or resentment, right? Like, you wish you could be like that. And so, like, you have to be really careful is, like, what are you actually feeling? Do you envy them? Do you resent them from being happy?

Like, do you feel like you were deprived, were you entitled for something? And you weren't able to get what you deserved? Like, people should have been more supportive of you. you, those are the kinds of questions that you need to work through and ask yourself, right? What is the nature of this, like, jealousy or, like, being frustrated by other people's success? And as you work through that resentment, you can do it through, like, coaching, you can do it. This is really a chance where I'd say you should see a therapist, really, and really recommend therapy. But since it sounds like things are clinically not that active for you right now, then coaching could work, right?

So our coaches are well equipped to deal with these kinds of things. or you can even do things kind of on your own, right? You can talk to your boyfriend about it. You can do journaling. You can do other kinds of exploration of yourself. Like if you're making artwork, like you can make artwork. Like I would say make a piece of artwork that captures how you feel when someone else talks about their educational experience. Make a piece of art that on one side of the art on like the painting, for example, shows them.

and on one side of the painting shows you. Because there are a lot of emotions that until you work through that emotional energy, which is stored up, it doesn't just disappear. You're going to continue feeling this way. And it's okay to feel that way. It's just, you know, why, if you're having difficulty recognizing the happy, or like, you know, if someone's happiness makes you upset, I would explore the following emotions envy.

Do you wish you could be like them? Are you jealous of them? Resentment. Do you feel like you got a bad beat and that you deserve that and you didn't get it? Why didn't you get it? That's what you really have to work through. And unfortunately, you can start to build up your life, you know, and you can process that stuff. There's some amount of subconscious processing, which is, you know, on autopilot.

But generally speaking, you need to work at it. And seeing a therapist is a really good option. Is art therapy? It can be. There is art therapy. right? Last thing, last bit of practical advice here is I want to just highlight one other sentence. So like, I think it's okay to share a little bit. So I get the sense that when you try to share, like you share maybe too much. So most of the time when I see people hanging out, I feel jealous.

Yeah, so it feels inappropriate to dump it on someone who you see for the first or second time. in your life? Yeah. So like don't dump it all. Okay. This is where like part of the problem is that, you know, you can develop some degree of control over what you share with people emotionally. So this is where like, you know, practically what I'd recommend, like just real detail is the next time you go hang out with your boyfriend and someone asks you, how are you doing? You can just be a little bit honest and you can say like generally speaking, my life is on an upward trajectory, but I'm still struggling to like let go. That sounds like too much. Generally speaking, things are good, but sometimes, you know, life is hard. Just be generic. And then be, then other people will be like,

yeah, man, I totally get you. Or let me give, like open the door for them. Don't force them to walk through it. Don't drag them through it. Don't say I'm fine. But leave a door open for people to walk through. So if you guys are having trouble connecting with someone, you know, and you overburdened people, leave a door open and let someone else walk into it. Signal to them that you're not fine, but don't, and then they can follow up, right? Like, let them have the power to engage in the conversation or not engage in the conversation. And that'll help you feel way more secure because if they engage in the conversation, like, you weren't forcing them into it, right? Like, they chose this. And so if they say, oh, like, what's been hard about your life recently? You can say, well,

like, you know, this may sound ironic, but actually coming here is tough because I'm working on making friends. And like, sometimes I get anxious in groups of people. And then you laugh about it. And you don't say more. And then you let them, once again, you're leaving a door open. You let them like, like, they can come in if they want to. And they can be like, yeah, I feel anxious when meeting new people too. And then, like, you know, they'll say like, oh, is there something that I can do to make you feel less anxious. So like let them, you know, like, you got to hit the ball across the court over the net and then like wait for the ball to come back. You don't want to be a tennis ball machine. It's just shooting balls at them constantly. You want to, you know, give people a door to

walk through and let them walk through it. Practice that. Okay? Great post. Okay. Next one. I'm not okay with never amounting to anything. I'm not okay with never amounting. Good. So it's healthy. Throughout my life, I've always dreamed of becoming a professional artist. I've always wanted to create or simply work on shows, films, or video games as an artist. But when it comes to actually creating or improving my skills as an artist, I rarely have the motivation to do these things, especially when preoccupied with school or work. Okay? Throughout my childhood, I've always struggled with school and it cost me a lot of mental energy.

so when I came home from school, I turned my brain off by playing video games instead of drawing. I'm 21 now, and I recently made a tough decision to attend university for a computer science web design. Everyone I know says this is a good decision, but I don't feel the same way. I absolutely dread the thought of having a career that I dislike, coming home every day mentally and creatively exhausted, and never amounting to anything in my life. I'm not in school or working right now, so I've had the time and energy to improve my art skills the last few months. But I feel like this is all for nothing. When I start taking classes, I will probably rarely create art again, and my dreams will never be reached.

I'm not okay with just living life, just to live. I want to make an impact on the world in people's lives. I want to inspire people the same way I was inspired by amazing works of art when I was younger. I feel like I can't achieve goals when all of my mental and creative energy is spent on school or a job I don't want. I've had this dream throughout my life and letting this dream go would crush me. Is becoming an artist really for me if I have a hard time being motivated to create art? Is there a way for me to have enough energy to do school and work and improve my skills as an artist at the same time? Fantastic post.

Okay. I need a moment to compose my thoughts. All right. Okay. So this person is... So here's the situation. You want to be an artist. You want to create meaningful art.

When you're in school and when you're working, you don't have the energy to create art, to practice your craft, to learn how to make art. Right? You feel exhausted by the end of the day. So you end up veging out on video games. Totally get it. Furthermore, you have to like support yourself somehow

right? So you decided, okay, like, I don't know if this art thing is going to work out. So you decided to enroll in a class at your university on like web design and computer science. Everyone's like, that's a good idea. You can like pay your bills that way. Like, good job. Now you're stuck because you're like, okay, do I commit myself? Because I know that when I study and when I do, like when I'm working and doing school, I don't have the energy to create art. It sounds like for the last few months you've had time and you've made art and now like you're kind of stuck like you don't want to give up on your dream but at the same time you don't really know how to pursue your dream and still be like sort of a functional like human in terms of paying your bills and stuff like

that because it's a really good problem to have i know it sounds kind of weird but when this person says i'm not okay not amounting to anything i say good for you so this is where like like there's actually like a really practical element to this so i i want to want you all to appreciate for a second how fatalistic and permanent time feels for this person. They kind of say, like, if I study computer science for the rest of my life, this is the way that things are going to be. I'm signing up for 40 years of misery and giving up on my dreams permanently. There's a lot of permanence to each of these paths. And simply put, that's not how life works. Right? So life can change. Your circumstances can change. Your abilities can change. Your

energy level can change. And very practically, what I'd say is that if you're doing school and work, you're not going to have the time or energy to, like, pursue passion projects that you really care about. And so what I'd advocate for you is, like, really plan out, like, how many years you're making the sacrifice for. So if you decide that, okay, I've got to do, like, like, web design, and learning is tough for me. That's okay, actually. You can focus on your art when you have the energy for it, but you're not going to be a student forever.

So it sounds like this person is maybe in school and working, and you don't have bandwidth for three things. You only have bandwidth for two. So this is where I'd say, if you've decided that you want to get a computer science degree, like that's fine. Will a computer science degree lead to a job? Absolutely.

Will that job negatively impact your art? Absolutely. Does that mean you will never become an artist? absolutely not. Because over time, you will get better at your job. You will become more efficient at your job. You will no longer be in school. And as you have additional bandwidth,

I strongly encourage you to work on your art. Whenever you get the chance, you should work on your art. It sounds like you've been working on it for a few months. And this is where, like, I think, I mean, even if we look at the way that, like, I started a healthy gamer, it was like, you know, I was like, okay, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like, should I do a healthy gamer or should I, like, work as a doctor. And I was like, maybe I should work as a doctor. And there were parts of it that I

liked, but parts of it that I really didn't like. It really wasn't working with, you know, a ton of people that I really cared about. Like, what I really care about is like the internet or digital generation. That's who I want to work with. That's like, that's the kind of work that I want to do. And so like, I started out by like, you know, I didn't have a whole lot of energy for it. So I did it a couple hours a week. I'd spend like four or five hours a week, like talking to random people on the internet, started back in 2016, 2015, and just helped gamers with what little time I had. And then over time, like, eventually decided that I was going to start streaming, spent, like, nights and weekends, like, working at the hospital, you know, to support my family.

And then we started streaming for a few hours a week. And that was kind of fun. And then, like, as I got better at it, started to, like, balance my life out a little bit. And now it's like, I see patience for like five to ten hours a week. And most of what I do is healthy gamers. So I flopped it. But that, you know, I started walking that journey back in 2015. And now we're 2021.

So to go from like 9010 to 1090 took seven years, six years. And so this is where, you know, I would be really, really careful about assuming that your future is set in stone. Because it makes sense to me that you're not going to have time for creative pursuits if you're doing school and working. But you're not going to be doing school and working forever. Or when it comes to things like computer science or web design, you could become like a contractor where you're doing 20 hours a week, 30 hours a week, 40 hours a week, whatever amount of work that you want to do. And then I'd say start carving out the future that you want to. So when people talk about, you know, giving up on their dreams, you don't like give up on your dreams, but your dreams also

don't become a reality. You have to like carve your dreams out of like the stone of your life. it ain't easy like each step of your dream has to be like carved out one day at a time and you don't always have the the ability to like work on your dreams now like i didn't i mean i didn't know what i wanted to do when i was 21 i wanted to become a monk for a little while but like you know like your dream will evolve your dharma will evolve and this is where you know there are all kinds of really interesting like intersections that you may not really be aware of right so like this is where I mean, a lot of people that I work with will combine their day job with their passion project and create a unique niche.

If you kind of look at like Healthy Gamer, like, that's what we did, right? I really liked playing video games. I really like understanding the mind. I wanted to become a monk. And so there's actually like an intersection of these three things. There may be something around intersecting like, you know, computer science, web design, and art. Like definitely web design and art. Like that's like I would definitely, you know, I mean, I can say this.

we've hired people at Healthy Gamer to do design who are very, like, artistically oriented. It's awesome. We love them. They're so good at what they do because they care about the artistic side of things. And, like, the U.X designer that we have, like the U.I designer is amazing. She's spectacular. And I think she understands some stuff about, like, programming and stuff. I'm not sure exactly what her skill set is. But I think there's definitely, like, a way to move forward with, you know, these two things. you just have to be a little bit careful about your own mindset. That just because you don't know how to get from point A to point Z doesn't mean that you should give up on point Z.

It just means that you have to focus on getting from A to B and then B to C. So it's great because you're working on your art for the last couple months, right? And then you're going to be back in school, so that's going to take a back seat. I've been thinking about video game addiction since I was 16 years old. So it took a backseat for a while. in 2010 it took a backseat

in 2014 it took a back seat in 2015 it got some space and so like work towards it work towards it okay great post we have time for maybe one more okay

let's take a look at this one Updute How to do with unbearable boredom during digital dopamine detox I spend a lot of time watching things on YouTube that I don't enjoy. You may need a dopamine detox. I've thought in the past that it would be a good idea to completely cut out YouTube and some other things from my life for a few weeks.

After watching Dr. Kay's video, psychiatrist debunks dopamine fasting. I again want to try it the way he proposed at the end of the video, which is the same thing, basically the same thing I've tried in the past. The problem is that I've always failed after less than three days. mostly this was caused by the unbearable and prolonged boredom which I experienced during eating meals. I'm a young physically active man living alone, so I eat large portions, meaning it often takes 30 to 40 minutes just to eat the meals, and there's nothing to do during that time. Since I experienced this boredom for over 30 minutes, things like uninstalling apps are no longer large enough hurdles to keep me from watching YouTube. I actually have less trouble just sitting there

drinking a tea and doing nothing in between tasks during the day compared to doing nothing when eating. What can I do to deal with this intense boredom or what can I do during eating that wouldn't be counterproductive to what I'm trying to do with the fasting? Thanks for your help. Okay, this is fantastic. So what I like about this post is it really indicates like how success happens, which is when you get a generic formula, as you try to apply the formula, the formula isn't going to work 100%. Because you have individual idiosyncrasies. You have your own cognitive history. You have your own somers. You have your own mindset. That's going to make particular things hard and particular things easy. So the first thing that I want to point out is the principle of positive

deviance, which says that the answer that you're looking for is already there. It doesn't have to be discovered. It already exists. So this person says the problem is that I always failed after less than three days. So my question is, how did you succeed for two days? Because presumably you ate like, let's say three meals a day, which means for six meals, you actually succeeded, right? So how did you do that? Because that could be your answer right there. The second thing is I think a lot of behavioral triggers are anchored in our environment. So when you say I eat large portions, I would say that if you can't control the portion and if it's meal time, that's your weakness.

And this is how this happens, by the way, when we're sort of overcoming an addiction or we have relapse on behaviors. What you can also do is like think a little bit about where you eat. So it may be the kind of thing where if you like leave your phone at home and you step outside of your apartment and you go eat outside, like there's like a bench out back that you sit there and you eat your food, like that could help a lot. There are environmental triggers that you can do. Okay. So principle number one is positive deviance, which is that the answer is already exists. Principle number two is take a look at your environmental triggers,

which this person has already done. Take some 30 to 40 minutes to eat the meal. And there's nothing to do during that time. Okay? So you can try to change your environment when you eat. And when you say, if you experience boredom like over 30 minutes when it gets unbearable, like you could also stop eating at 30 minutes, right? Like you could let the food that you eat, like you can put a cap on it. Another interesting thing that you can try to do from a meditative perspective is I'd say eat

with a blindfold. See how that changes your experience. Okay? the last thing that I'd recommend is to understand that so people think people are looking for a strategy to succeed and this is where if you look at if you look at like how overcoming a behavioral addiction works I want you all to understand that every time you try and fail you are leveling up so what you hear from people who become sober from alcohol is it's not like they wake up one day and they say like, well, I mean, sometimes that's actually what they'll describe. But, you know, the process of

becoming sober does not happen like a switch. They're working at it, cognitively or practically. So when I have patients who are like sober, you know, who will get sober, like they'll be sober for six weeks and then they'll relapse. And they'll they'll be sober for two weeks and they'll relapse. And then they'll be sober for six months and they'll relapse. And they'll be sober for two years and they'll relapse. And then they'll be sober for a weekend and relapse. But each time that they try to become sober, you are leveling up your ability to become sober.

Right? That is actually a skill. Restraint of Vyragia is a skill that is practiced by yogis. Okay? It's bizarre. But like, restraining your mind and getting it to listen to you is a skill. And every time you try to do the dopamine detox in, fail after three days, you are doing push-ups and you are getting stronger.

So, oddly enough, I'd say at the end of the day, like, sure, you should lean on positive deviance, try to eat with a blindfold, you know, try to keep your eating to 20 or 25 minutes, and maybe eat more snacks. You can try stepping outside of your room. You can leave your phone behind when you go eat, right, improving access. There are all those kinds of practical things. But the last thing is, I'd say, don't let your prior failures, stop you.

And just practice. Practice the dopamine detox. Practice dealing with boredom. You know, see how much boredom you can tolerate and learn how to deal with it. Just practice. Leave your phone. Yeah, it's crazy.

I like your funny words. Magic Man. Yeah, practice. I'm not saying just do it. What I'm saying is practice. Right? You can level that up. And then practically,

I would say try eating with a blindfold. It's quite the experience. You can even make it fun. And like, you know, if you do meal prep, alter the meals in some way. You know, use like one herb and one meal, a second herb and a second meal, third herb and a third meal. Mix them up. See which one you get. Okay. Um, okay. So we're going to do one more. Okay. Uh, I haven't used food to cope with my mental state for the past five days, which is the longest streak in five years. Good job, DXB throwaway.

Just a disclaimer, I don't really watch the Twitch stream. I've discovered Dr. K on YouTube about a month ago, and I'm incredibly grateful for that. No big deal. Everyone's got to start somewhere. Very long short story short. Okay. 27 years old, male from Eastern Europe,

lonely childhood and lonely life all the way up until I started college. Absolutely addicted to video games from four years old until about 21. C.S. War III, Wow, Starcraft, lull, the good stuff. A real connoisseur, chat. Discovered some passions in college and straightened up, hit the gym, got a good job. Cool. Developed a very unhealthy relationship with food due to my temporary obsession with looking better than others. My hypothesis, after discovering that food makes me feel a bit better, at least temporarily, that unhealthy relationship developed into a binge eating disorder that I struggled with ever since.

ever since. Looking back on the past few years, I just remember all these times where I stopped whatever I wanted to actually do. Meet someone, work on a project, work, just go out for a walk, and instead gorged myself for no reason, really. Maybe only to feel horrible the day after. I've never told anyone about it, not my parents, girlfriend, sister. It feels so stupid, especially since I'm outwardly successful and good looking, as I exercise to overcompensate the eating. Anyways, I watched at least 10 different streams on YouTube and I can't count how many times they've made me cry.

Even though each person and their problems were different from those I have, I saw many similarities. I have no purpose. I wish I had good friends and family that I had good bonds with. Work in progress, I guess. Okay. Okay. So this is a great post. So on the one hand, you can look at this point.

post and you can say, why is this person posting? Right? And at the same time, I'm so thrilled that they did. Because like, is that a question? Is there a question in there? No. Are they asking for something? Not really. Like, what are they doing? So this is a perfect example of what I say when I talk about sort of like sharing something for the sake of sharing it. It doesn't have to be complete. Like, we have little thoughts in our head, right? Like, I can imagine that this person had the thought in their head of like, what are people going to think? Like this post, people may think that this post is stupid. But share it anyway. Right. It's okay to just share where you are. This is a prime example of everything that we've been talking about. This guy is opening the door for other people

to respond. So it's got a lot of upvotes, right? And then like, like, there are people that will respond to it. So I think this is great. So this person, you know, struggled for a while. Sounds like they've made a lot of progress. And like they said, work in progress, beautifully put. Do you guys see how the sentiment is very different from like some of the other posts that we've looked at where the future is determined? It's not a work in progress. It's like either I go down this road and then the next 60 years of my life are like this, or I go down this road and the next 60 years of my life are like this. If you guys want to understand how to make change, it's work in progress. And I love this post because it indicates so many things that people can

look great from the outside. Like this other person who is like, I have trouble dealing with people because they seem happy. Like, it's hard for me to be around happy people who are social. Like, I'm sure that this person comes across as like successful in having been put together. And so this is posted a weird way. It really, I think, exemplifies so many the principles that we've shared on today's stream. Right? The first is that you have to carve out the future that you want to live and it like, it's work each

step of the way. This person was addicted from 4 to 21 to all kinds of games and found a passion project, started working on themselves, started exercising. You know, it seems like they like swung the pendulum too far and became kind of obsessive with their appearance, got an ego about looking better than other people and things like that. But still has internal struggles and they work at it. Are they going to be perfect down the road? Who knows? Probably not. But you got to work at it. and share with people where you are.

Open the door for people. And let them respond. Let them meet you halfway. Let them come inside. Invite them to, like, have a discussion with you. You don't have to dump everything on them. And this person, I think, also did a good example of, like, sharing enough for a decent Reddit post, but not like, it's not like a three-page long, you know, treatise about

their life. And, and, like, that's great. So, like, I commend this person for being on their journey, and I'm glad you found us through YouTube. You know, that's why we're there. And totally fine that you didn't find us through Twitch as much as I love Twitch. And we're happy to be where people are. And we're happy that we've helped in some small way.

And also happy that I'm glad you've watched streams. And like, like, I mean, this kind of stuff surprises me as a clinician and like as a scientist that watching stuff on the internet can actually make you a better person. But I do believe that's the case. So when people say is YouTube evil, it's like, sure, but it also seems to be helping people. So, you know, like, I think it's the tool that we've got is a double-edged sword, undoubtedly, like most things that human beings create. Right? Like nuclear power is a good example of a double-edged sword.

Could be great. Could also be the end of the human race. So, you know, I don't know, but hey, like, look, if it helps, that's why we keep doing it. Like, the reason I keep showing up is because people say that it's helping. So as long as it's helping, I'll keep showing up. Okay. Meditation? Fallout.

Yeah, maybe it's not the end of humanity. It's just going to be the real fallout game. Yeah, it's scary, man. Like, you know, when it comes to human advancement, like, you never know, like, what we're going to end up with. Like, all these dystopian sci-fi things. It's like, you know, the AI, like Ready Player 1, like, you never know, man. You know, you never know. Malice by John Gwynn.

Silo? I have read Malice. But there may be more than one book named Malice. Yeah, I haven't seen Psychopass. Okay. Let's meditate. Listen to the sound of my voice. Okay.

So we're going to do round three of the chakra meditation. Okay, now this one is going to be tricky because if you guys have not done it. So this is a meditation that y'all need to have done, like, been practicing chat. You need chat to practice. Dude, I really do not like this new Windows update. This is annoying. So if you guys haven't done this, it's going to be tricky, okay? but we've been doing a chakra meditation for the last few weeks.

So we're going to do, I'm going to teach you guys round three today. Okay. Okay. So just a quick refresher. So last time we talked about the seven chakras and doing a chakra rotation for the back of the chakra, as well as like the front leading point for the chakra. So what we did is a, we did a full breath where when I'm breathing in, I'm going to start, let me think about this.

Yeah, so I'm going to start out at kind of the back of my head. And then over the course of the inhalation, I'm going to move down my spine through all the chakra points. And through exhalation, we're going to come up the front. Okay, so you're going to pay attention to where your chakras are during inhalation along the back of your spine and exhalation along the front. Okay. Now what we're going to do is we're going to add as you stop on any given chakra on the way in

and on the way out, what we're going to do is add a mantra. And so what we're going to do is start with three mantras for the three basal chakras, okay? So lam for the mullahdharah chakra, which is the perinium. Vam for the Swadistana chakra, which is. the top of your pubic bone and rum

for the Manipura chakra okay so it's Lum, Vam and rum so what that means is as we're breathing in as you get to the belly button you're going to repeat the sound rum

as you move down to the pubic bone it's going to be Vam and then the Mooladhar chakra is lam and then as you come as you exhale it's going to be the reverse, right? So it's going to be lum, vum, and rum. You all with me? Yeah, you can say them out loud. Okay, so people are confused. All right, let me demonstrate. Cult vibes. Yeah, man. Call time chat. Okay. I shall demonstrate. All right. So, this is our spine. So let's say this is our spine.

And then let's say this is the front of our body, okay? So this is our forehead. eyebrow center. And then we have a corresponding point on the back of our head, right, which is over here. So this is actually our Agna Chakra. Okay. And then below that, we have the base of the throat and sort of the, I guess, the top, kind of the bottom of your cervical vertebra over here. So if you kind of think about like the opposite of the base of your throat, so kind of the top of your back.

Okay, so we could say Back of the head Here, okay? Then we've got Solar Plexus kind of mid-back Then we've got Navel

And then opposite that we have like lower back This is along your spine, okay? Then we have Top of pubic bone And then along the back we have Your coccy right? Tailbone. And then we have the perineum, which is also known as the taint. Okay? And then the Sahasrara chakra is at the top of your head. So what we're going to do is as we breathe in,

we're going to pay attention to these parts like this. And as we breathe out, we're going to pay attention to these parts like this. So it's going to create a cycle. And then now what we're going to do is we're going to add a mantra component. So this is Lum. This is vam, and this is rum. Okay. So we're going to say these things when we're over here. Does that make sense, chat? Y'all got me now? Is this in Dr. K's guides? No. King Krish. Okay. So this is for, so just to specify, so remember, we're going to breathe in, breathe out, and then we're going to kind of complete the circuit by breathing in again. And we're going to focus on Lum, Vum, and Rum today. So as you go down the back, it's going to be rum, lum,

um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, okay? So, I see a lot of questions. So let's, let's explain what on earth this is. Okay? So people, so we teach a lot of meditation on stream. Generally speaking, the meditation that we teach is reliable, has good outcomes. I use it a lot in my clinical practice.

and even has a certain amount of science to support it. So, for example, there are scientific studies that show that, you know, the nerves in our right nostril actually connect to our sympathetic nervous system, and nerves in our left nostril connect to our parasympathetic nervous system. That being said, I have learned practice and occasionally teach a lot of meditation that is more esoteric, more spiritual, and less scientifically valid. So the struggle that I have teaching meditation is that a lot of times the more powerful techniques require like a lot of advanced practice. Like they're learned in a stepwise manner, right? So this is just the, this technique that I'm showing

you guys today isn't even a meditation technique. It's actually a should be or cleansing technique. After that, there's a whole system of meditation practices that you do afterward. So now I'm sort of faced with a challenge, which is like, okay, do I teach the same introductory meditation every time? Or do I start to like teach something that's a little bit more advanced? Like a lot of people like the scientific meditation, a lot of people like the physiologic meditation, a lot of people like the meditation that's more oriented towards clinical stuff. I started streaming in 2018, I think, or 2019, I forget. Right? So we've been streaming for like two or three years now.

and what about the people who are interested in, like, more advanced techniques? What about the people who are interested in the more spiritual stuff? Like, do we just forget that? So that's why I'm teaching this meditation. So, you know, there's a minority or maybe not minority, maybe majority of our viewers are, like, into more, like, advanced meditation. So that's why we're teaching us. Okay? Okay.

So we're going to go ahead and practice now. and I think that we have a YouTube video, someone's asking water chakras. I think we have one of our webinars is about chakras, if I remember correctly. I think we've explained this before. So this is also why we have Dr. K's guides because people like, you know,

anytime I teach stuff on stream, it's sort of like half the people know what I'm talking about, half the people like weren't there for part one. Right? So the whole point of Dr. K's guides, in fact, I just got a message from someone that we need to have a glossary of 200 terms is part of the guides. So like we explain everything from start to finish there.

That's the whole point of it. Yeah, there it is. Cool. Okay. So let's go ahead and do the practice. Okay. And so Lum, Vum, and Rum. So it's going to start with rum, vum, and lum.

And then coming back up, we're going to do vum and lum. So I'm going to do it silently because that's just how I do it. But y'all are welcome to say lumb, bum, rum, rum, rum, rum, bum, and then going back up, rum, rum, rum, rum, rum, rum, rum, rum. Okay, got it, chat. So you start with rum, bum, bum, lum, and then going back up, you can do lum, rum, rum. All right, so go ahead and we're going to start by just doing three breaths, where I'll tell you guys where to focus. focus in the body. And then we'll start the mantra practice. Okay?

So as you breathe in, pay attention to the back of your head, top of your back, midback, lower back, tailbone, and perineum. And now as we exhale, perineum, pubic bone,

navel, solar plexus, base of the throat, and eyebrow center. Now we're going to breathe in again. Go slow, back of the head, top of the back, mid-back, lower back, tailbone, perineum. And now exhaling, perineum, pubic bone, Navel, solar plexus, base of the throat, eyebrow center. Now, inhaling for the third time, back of the head, top of the back, midback, lower back,

tailbone, perineum. Exhaling, perineum, pubic bone, navel, so. solar plexus, base of the throat, and the eyebrow center. Now I want you to continue on your own, and we're going to chant rum, vum, and lumb, starting at the midback, sorry, not midback, lower back, tailbone, and perineum, and then lum, vum, and rum with the perineum, pubic bone, and navel. So now do it on your own. We'll practice for about 60 seconds.

Go ahead and finish the round that you're on. Let yourself sit in the space of the meditative practice. And when you're ready, go ahead and come on back. Yeah, so I imagine you'll have lots of questions. So let me just think about this for a second. I think what we're going to have to do, maybe what we do on Monday is maybe what we do is we do a lecture about this stuff. from the top. I'm going to have to think about this. So here's the last thing I'll leave with y'all. So if you guys are trying to overcome a basal desire, I would focus on Moolandhara Chakra. So focus

on your perinium and do lam. If you guys are having trouble in your relationships, focus on your Swadistana Chakra, the pubic bone, and do vam. And if you guys are focused on emotional digestion and want to let go of resentment and stuff, focus on your Manipura chakra and do rum so this is where i'll include this i'll have to do a lecture but i'll give you guys just a quick perspective on my understanding so like a couple thousand years ago there were a bunch of these yogis who sort of said that like if you focus on these chakras that you'll develop certain faculties or gain certain kinds of benefits and they thought that there was this system of like spiritual energy that traveled through your body that basically got blocked up there

and while the spiritual energy couldn't flow through that point, you'd get problems. So, for example, if you want to overcome addiction, you should do, like, Mulavara Chakra practices. Vinge eating, for example. If you have trouble in your relationships and connecting with people, Svhhhādhisana chakra is what you need to work on. Now, a couple thousand years later, like scientists have looked at this stuff, and there seems like there's no science supporting any of this. Like, there's no system of chi, there's no system of brahna, there's no evidence of

the existence of spiritual energy or anything like that. Then something kind of interesting happened. So there are two scientific things that sort of occurred along with the search for chi. One is that we did discover that different kinds of meditation actually affect your brain in quite specific ways, including some studies that have shown that the EEG pattern that is created through mantra meditation is different from any other kind of meditation. And so what we do know scientifically is that meditation does very specific things to your brain depending on what kind of meditation you do.

The other thing that we sort of discovered, which is very fascinating, is that even though there's no evidence of chi and brahna, that practices that are designed to affect your chi and brahna, outperform physical practices when it comes to clinical improvements. Okay? So I don't know if that makes sense, but like basically like even though chi doesn't exist, anything that works on your chi outperforms exercise when it comes to actual physical health improvement that can be measured.

Exercise, for example. So now we get to a really interesting space as physicians or clinicians or clinicians or scientists, right? So like when you have a group of people that have been saying for thousands of years that meditation will bring your mind to peace and you have a. system of science that says depression is different from anxiety, which is different from schizophrenia. But these guys manage to figure out an intervention that seems to work for all of them. So when you have a group of people that is saying, hey, y'all should do this. And the reason you should do this is because of all this energy stuff. And then as a scientist, like a couple thousand

years later, you study it and you're like all the energy stuff doesn't seem to exist. But the actual practices seem to be clinically verifiably, like, useful. No, this is not a case of placebo. This far outperforms placebo and has a clinical effect. Right? So it ain't, even though the underlying theory behind it is not scientifically valid at all, the actual effect of the practices has been scientifically shown. And then furthermore, there's evidence that different kinds of meditative practices affect your brain in different ways. So the best that I can come up with, right? So how do you reconcile these things? The fact that this theoretical background does not exist. But all the crap that is based on the theoretical background seems to actually like scientifically have a benefit that far outweighs our understanding of like the brain and the body. So the best that I can come up with is that chances are the yogis stumbled upon like different neuroscience circuits. and realize that for whatever reason, and we don't quite understand why,

that particular meditative practices appear to affect different parts of your brain. So the best that I can come up with is that doing anahat chakra practices or solar plexus or heart chakra practices somehow affects the particular part of your brain that involves like empathy and compassion. That somehow the Manipura chakra practices, which involve like emotional digestion, are the things that are the kinds of practices, if you look at like two people who experience a traumatic event, both of them won't wind up with PTSD. Right? So why is it?

It's because one person's brain is able to process that trauma and then another person's brain is not able to process that trauma. If you look at certain kinds of psychotherapy, you can process a trauma and then that person will no longer suffer from PTSD. So there is an actual mechanism that happens in the brain, presumably, right, as well as physiology, but in the brain that can, like, cure someone of PTSD. I think what the yogis essentially stumbled on is a meditative practice that stimulates or works on the brain in the way that, like, psychotherapy treats trauma,

which is why Moneyboro practices work for trauma. Now, is there evidence that this is real? No, not at all. This is just my attempt as a scientist to come up with a biologically plausible explanation for a clinically verifiable observation. The clinical observation is there. The basic science research is there. Now our job as scientists is to come up with a rational hypothesis

that explains the actual observations that we make. And that's the best that I can do. All right? Maybe we'll do a whole lecture about it. Who should we raid, chat? Who is the right person to raid now? So I would check out So like here's an example I can try to find you a reference for people who are saying it outperforms exercise

I think you should Chen Chen Wang There's a paper by Chen Chen Wang published in the New England Journal of Medicine On osteoarthritis and Tai Chi That I don't know exactly what the references But I there's a paper in Nedgeam New England Journal of Medicine which is the most influential and like probably the best medical journal in the world. And there's a paper in there on Tai Chi and osteoarthritis, which you should check out. So just about as high quality evidence as you can get.

My phone is dead. Who are you? Okay. Raid Slack? Oh. Can people learn more about meditation chakras in the guides? Absolutely. So we don't go into a lot of detail specifically about chakras.

Some. But there is a lot of... about meditation and chakras in the guides. Absolutely. So there's a whole segment on like meditation. There's like hours of meditation. There are like 20 somewhat 20 plus videos about meditation and then 30 plus videos that are actually meditation techniques. So yes, absolutely. So like that's why we made the guides. So if you guys want to learn more about like meditation and chakras and all that kind of stuff, like from the beginning. Check out the guide. So like the meditation guide starts with what is meditation? Is it the same as mindfulness? What is the history of meditation? Like how did meditation evolve? Like what is

mindfulness? How does it fit into the tradition? What is the relationship between chakras and like zen? Like how does all this stuff fit together? What is a mantra? How does a mantra work? How does a mantra work on a psychological level. How does it work on a neuroscience level? How does it work on a spiritual level? So all that stuff is in the guide. So it's like a complete guide, right? So it's like, we start with the history. And then the next question that people have is like, okay, so which one should I do? And then I explain the styles of meditation. So you can look at it historically, and then you can also look at like the different styles of meditation. So some meditation techniques are grounding and will pull you away from your mind. Those kinds of things are very good if you have trauma or

a panic attack. That's very different from a Zen meditation, which is like opening up your mind and observing whatever is there. That will cause all of your defense mechanisms that are keeping your buried trauma buried to become undone and your trauma will come rushing up. Right? So like understanding all of those differences, the different axes through which we can look at a meditative practice. So if you have a particular kind, are you goal oriented? Is that why you're doing meditation? Are you treatment oriented? Is that why you're doing meditation? Do you want to to learn who you truly are? Do you want to develop confidence? All of those kinds of things are in the guides. That's why we made the guide. Because there's like a thousand questions.

And so we try to like teach everything, right? So like what's the history? What's the metaphysics? Like what did the yogis actually believe about the nature of human existence? We even talk a little bit about all this BS around quantum mechanics and like yoga and whether that's real or not, right? So it's like we talk about a lot of stuff. And then we actually get to the practical side. So there are like five branches in the meditation guide. So one is the path of the self. One is the path of accomplishment. One is the path of the mind. One is the path of knowledge. And one is the path of happiness. And so what can meditation and what do the meditative traditions teach us about these five things? How can you understand what you are? How can you

become successful? How does your mind work? How does knowledge work? And how does happiness work? So that's what they're there for. Okay? So, and we're going to raid. Yeah, so the meditation, I'm talking about the meditation guide, but there's stuff on meditation in the anxiety and depression guides too. But those are actual meditations. So those are like meditations for particular problems. So someone's asking, will there be part two of the guides?

Look, let's start with part one. Before we start on part two, can you guys please just try part one and let me know if it's good? because if it's good and y'all like it and if it's helpful, then we'll consider part two. But I have no intention. I spent like six months of my life making the guides. So why don't y'all try that first and see if you like it. And if you all like it, then you'll let me know.

And then you guys will figure out part two later. Okay. Okay. We want to rate Hikaru? That's fine. Send Hikaru some love. Chat. Part 10. Let's work on part two.

Remember, chat. Life is carved one stone at a time, okay? Don't worry about Z. Like, we're focused on A. Like, we want to see if A works. And then we'll get to B and C. Part 1 in August. Take care.