The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unreported: Domestic Abuse is an Unreported Crime, and Learning to L.I.V.E. free is a journey… by Ms. Veera Mahajan

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Unreported: Domestic Abuse is an Unreported Crime, and Learning to L.I.V.E. free is a journey... by Ms. Veera Mahajan UNREPORTED is a book for increasing awareness about domestic abuse. Through amazing real stories it provides a step by step guide for finding your way to freedom.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com, the chrisvossshow.com. Hey, welcome to the big show we certainly appreciate you guys coming by and being part of the show today

we're always so thankful for our audience because you guys are always so cute and wonderful and delectable and I don't know I'm just really trying to butter my audience up this morning because we just love you guys remember the Chris Foss show is the family that loves you but doesn't judge you at least not as harshly

as your mom does now Now go clean your room. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. Be sure to refer this year to your family, friends, and relatives. Give us a five-star review over the iTunes there. We get the most loveliest reviews, and they're so nice. Sometimes I sit and weep. They're so loving and wonderful. So make one up there.

Put one up if you would. We certainly appreciate it. YouTube.com, Goodreads.com, Fortunates, Chris Foss foss see the big linkedin newsletter all the stuff we're doing on linkedin lots of new linkedin stuff great that's that's like the last ditch with all the stuff that's going on twitter and stuff right now and facebook seems to be suspending a friend of mine on facebook got suspended for saying happy birthday to somebody the other day so that the bots are crazy over there so go see what we're doing on LinkedIn and also on TikTok. TikTok seems to be the place everyone's at now. So we're trying

to master that. Today, we have an amazing author on the show. She's the author of the book called Unreported. Domestic abuse is an unreported crime and learning to live, L.I.v.e.free is a journey we'll find out what that's about miss vera hajan is on the show with us today did i get your name correct vera yes you did correctly yes it's always good we don't like to butcher names on the show that's always bad business and we like everyone to get represented really well. So she is an inspirational author, speaker, and passionate advocate for the eradication of domestic abuse and empowering women. She's an advocate for joyful living through peaceful dispute resolution. Her book talks about domestic abuse awareness and getting rid of abuse from your life for

good. I believe we all deserve, she believes, we all deserve a happy and absolutely free life on our own terms. And it's definitely important. No one needs to be abused. Welcome to the show, Vera. How are you? I am very good. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for coming. We certainly appreciate having you on the show. Give us your dot coms or wherever you want people to look you up on the interwebs, please. You can just look me up on my name website, Vera, V-E-E-R-A

Mahajan, M-A-H-A-J-A-N dot com. There you go. And you can find me on Instagram, full name at Vera Mahajan, Facebook, full name at Vera Mahajan. And you'll find me on LinkedIn.

I'm not that big on Twitter. Once in a while I do post something there, but these three I kind of keep pretty active. Twitter's kind of going some crazy places. So I've kind of been like over on LinkedIn doing a lot of stuff. We have our big LinkedIn newsletter over there. We have a big 130,000 group. We have the LinkedIn newsletter that goes out on weekdays.

And, you know, it's just so much more professional there too. But Facebook, we have five Facebook groups or three, oh, it's a two-page, three Facebook groups. Facebook seems to be doing okay, but, you know, they just laid off a bunch of people. And I've gotten suspended over just telling two jokes that were just like, we, we did joke about the Netflix Jeffrey Dahmer show and Emily can't do jokes

about serial killers anymore. I guess that's crazy out there. And the, so we're just loving our LinkedIn stuff and that's good. Instagram is doing similar things. They're just taking people off. They verify. Yeah.

It's, it's, it's weird. So anyway, it's weird. So anyway, it's good to have you on the show. Give us an idea. What motivated you to write this book? What motivated me?

Because I hate to call myself that, but that's what I feel that I'm an expert on domestic abuse. I lived as a child in domestic abuse. And now that I think back, that's what kind of groans you. When you live that, you think that's a normal. And when you find a little bit better, and then that's what I thought my husband was. He was at least not as bad as my dad. Because my dad was very physically abusive to my mom, mostly at my older brother. Wow.

But we all got a little bit out of it, you know, not out of it, but we all got abused, but not as bad as my mom and my older brother. And then you kind of get used to standing by the wall and watching your mom being yelled at or hit or whatever. And then when you think your husband is a little bit better who may turn into eventually the same you're groomed into that right yeah you have learned how to accept it and how to live in it so that's what i'm doing right now and after i anyway you are saying how what motivated me because i did not want that to go from my mother's generation to me

and then to my children. So I made sure even though my ex also started, my kid's dad started to be very abusive and was abusive as the years went by. And I lived there because I knew it was going to be most worse if I had to leave because then you get into custody battle and he was threatening me on that. He will take my children away and custody battles. Plus I was always afraid that he's going to go get married again, which he did even after I waited 23 years very quickly. But then who's going to protect my kids when they're not with me? I was protecting them, you know, and at least we were together and then at least he was gone a lot. You know, we had business and they were traveling.

He had a traveling kind of, you know, business. So the thing is, we find different names, small names for the big problems so we can survive them. So we can kind of say, oh, he's just angry. He just drinks. He just does that. He just does that. And then, but if we give it a bigger name, then you know it's abuse and you're not, should not be taking it. So that's what the message I'm trying to give to people and educate

women and families that what happens to the wives, to the whole family. Our husband's not happy either. He may be abusive, but he's not happy, right? If we find a way to live a happier life and more peaceful life, then it's good for everybody. But otherwise, if you've tried everything, and I'm not saying just first time, just go get a divorce, right? You have to try to make it work, especially if you have children.

But if you've tried, you know you should not be in abuse. Then you have to leave. That's true. That's what I'm educating. But, I mean, to just leave, a lot of women say, what will I do? How will I do? How will I take care of the kids? And that's what I'm trying to teach

in this book also, domestic abuse awareness, first of all, that are you living in abuse? That's why I called it unreported crime. Nobody talks about it. People just like, oh, don't wash, whatever you call, dirty laundry, put it out to people to see, keep it behind closed doors. We don't know what's happening. It takes two to fight or two to do this or that. No, sometimes it's just one way of use. And the other one is just taking. Marriage is a compromise. If it's a compromise back and forth, yes. But if it's one person only getting and the other person only giving. So all these things, I'm explaining that what changes it into abuse and how to get out of it. And if you do decide to get out of it, that was my big thing. When I was going through

divorce, my lawyer would say, I'm not your therapist, go talk to her. And I'm like already crying here in the middle of the story. And now it's like, oh, I have to wait for an appointment to go to the therapist. And the therapist said, well, I can't advise, give you legal advice. You got to go talk to the lawyer. I'm running back and forth, $400 here, $500 here. They're not cheap and they don't do when you're in the middle of it. And then the hour ends when you're in the middle of the

story. All those things that they weren't explaining, I'm explaining in this. So this little book is made like that on purpose so everybody can read. And even if it's not so expensive, it's small, you can read, get enough information, keep it for a guidebook or just give it to somebody. Easy gift. If you know someone is going through that, just give it to them, read it and pass it on. And that's the message I'm trying to

pass on to as many people as I can. I was doing mediations, which you mentioned in the beginning. I am a trained mediator from Pepperdine University at their law school. And I was teaching at schools and I was teaching and doing mediations for people to resolve conflicts, to keep you out of courts, because that way you're making decisions for yourself. And I was teaching at school to teach children from start, and the principal said I was able to reduce violence and conflicts by 75%. Wow, that's pretty awesome. You do that as well. I was looking at your website here, where you work with kids who get bullied in school and playgrounds and help them with your communication, coaching, and mediator. Tell me this.

You know, one thing a lot of people don't realize is, and I'm asking you to verify this, but a lot of people don't realize that the imprint that we get from our parents and the relationship that we see our parents have not only with with us, but with each other, it gets imprinted on to us. And we expect that sort of, we go, okay, this is what a relationship is. And if that relationship with your parents is abusive, you know, like you saw between your mother and your father, or between the child, then we tend to seek out sort of people that replicate that. And I heard psychologists say one time that we do that because we're trying to resolve

and heal that wound. And we think that we can take the same sort of situation, the same sort of people, the same stresses and problems, and that we can fix them where our parents couldn't. And really the problem is, is the toxicity of whatever sort of person or broken people those folks are, you, you, the situation can't work. And so you're just replicating a failed model and trying to, and trying to reconcile it. And, and by, it's just, it's gonna, it's a guaranteed fail. So, um, it's interesting to me how people go through that process and they're trying to you know like i said reconcile that and did you find

that's the same thing with people then abuse situations that's one side of the story because psychologically without knowing subconsciously we just feel a little bit safer because that's what we know. Yeah. We feel that safe. Yeah. We know how to deal with it. We've dealt with this all with our lives. So we know the pattern we know. So that's another thing that in my speaking and when I speaking to people either on stage or in groups that if our children don't even know what a good normal is, they're going to accept abuse as a bad normal. But at least it's normal, something they know what to do with, right? So we have to teach the children.

That's why I was teaching mediation at school. So if they know how to resolve conflicts, children started to say, even though I was going there twice a week because they don't need a mediator every day, children learned how to wait for me to come there. They said, I don't want to fight. I want to have a mediation. And they were willing just in that, when you make space, when you're angry and you're not shouting, yelling, throwing things at each other, that lesson itself gives you a lot of things resolved by then. The anger

is gone. You don't want to kill somebody. You don't want to hurt somebody, right? And the same thing with at home, if we start showing children by our relationship, you know, husband, wife, or parents, or our friends, and with children, what a good normal is. How should somebody be treated? Like I, as a child, I could be yelled at for laughing at a joke on TV just because they understood it was a mixed message or whatever, like they say, double meanings. And if I laughed, I understood it's not my fault. It's a good thing I'm understanding, right? But I yelled at that. And I was told I couldn't do this. I wanted to be a doctor.

Oh, you're too skinny. You're too short to be a lawyer. And so all education was picked for me. My father was literally used to tell me, focus on learning how to make round chapatis, you know, the bread, eat a bread. Otherwise, who's going to marry you? That was like if my,

and that was the end of me. I'm crying and I'm like doing homework they won't let me do it and then he would laugh at me or get upset at me for that again now she's not cooking or studying now she's just upset but then who did that you know

he would just say things like that go make proper rotis otherwise who's going to marry you and so that was more important. Education, what he thought was right. So our dreams, I remember that I wanted to learn gymnastic or learn music. It was literally like 0%. I couldn't do it. I only was allowed to do what I was told. And it happens now. People tell you or they make you feel bad about what you want to do. So your dreams just die inside.

And you're just living a life for either making money or having a house or having whatever. You know, a regular life, which is not a happy life. We both work not to be happy. So for the rest of your life, that's not good, right? It's not good at all. We're not encouraging children and understanding what do they want to do and support them in that. And especially on top of that, girls are controlled even more. They're prepared to be even here. I see it's not just India.

And my book, most of the interviews are American girls. Yeah. Some men too. And I mean, there is a divorce abuse. I don't want to say that it's all men abusive and all women are victims. It does happen the other way too. But for the sake of writing, instead of saying he, she, he, she all the time, I used because mostly it's men perpetrators.

So I use he for perpetrator and she for victim. But anybody who is in abuse, and then I have a foolproof test to see if you are in abuse, which is, I call it a garage door test. Anybody who's listening, please think about it. I have it in the book too. If you are in your home, right, and your husband, wife, partner, whoever has gone out, again, I'm going to say mostly husbands, if they come home late and you're doing whatever, even the garage door opens, what are you feeling? Are you feeling scared? Like, oh my God, now what? Or are you excited about it, right? If you're happy when your husband, your partner comes home,

you're good. You know, ups and downs are everywhere. And that's normal. You discuss, you may be upset about something and that's fine. But if you are afraid that that person is coming home, that is not a good relationship. That's true. That's true. I've, you know, I've, I've been on the side of, abusive girlfriends uh one of my girlfriends was an alcoholic uh and and there were times where i was having to you know cross my arms to cover myself while she was punching at me and and uh would corner me in room and and uh i mean it didn't happen often but you know when she would get drunk she was one of those people that when they would get drunk they would become a different person. Yeah. And they become, instead of being a fun person,

when, you know, most of us drink, she'd become very angry. She would literally physically change physiology, uh, change. And, and you'd be like, it's like very much Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. And I've seen a lot of men, uh, take abuse. In fact, a lot of abuse gets, gets away with, with men where, where women, you know, we seem to allow women to hit us because, you know, women don't punch as hard as men. And I see a lot of guys get hit and I'm just like, wow, dude, I wouldn't tolerate that at all. And we let a lot of that slide. Yeah, I mean, we let a lot of that slide. But no, it's good to recognize abuse. Like you say, I've been in relationships where, yeah, when you hear the crutch door open, you're like.

Yeah. But you know, like women don't talk about it for many reasons like fear and all. But men, it's actually worse when they are in abuse, are the victims, because then they are very embarrassed, very ashamed. Yeah, we don't speak up about it because it's very. You're like a mature man. How am I getting beat by this little girl? Yeah. I've been in domestic court

and watched the... Is it called the dais or whatever the court thing go by? One time I was appealing a speeding ticket. BMWs, I go a little too fast. And so I tend to appeal the speeding tickets to see if i can get

out of them as much as i can i'm a lawyer at heart but um so one time they put me in domestic court for the appeal because they they just need to have a court to hear it and they pass they usually pass it around so i ended up in domestic court at the end of the docket because my name's a boss and so i had to sit there for hours and watch domestic court. And it was extraordinary. And I mean, I think about 25% that came through were men. And you could see the shame on their face. You could see the guilt.

But, you know, they bring in the wife or girlfriend in an orange jumpsuit and you just be like, wow. And, you know, and it'd be like some skinny little guy and some kind of burly woman and uh yeah you'd hear the stories but you know it's it's it goes both ways on both sides and uh but there needs to be a way to fix that and it's good that people have your book as a resource now in the title you have something called live l.o.d. yes that actually uh was my original cover i can show you that too i changed that just a second okay now does the the live acronym does that original cover okay that's only what you found yeah on amazon i this is also on amazon

because you know with the unreported sometimes it was hard to explain to people what's unreported. Okay. I'm also making a film, but you can explain more in the film. Okay. With the same title. And then I had Learning to Live as a Journey. Because, you know, that was, I wrote right after my divorce. And I was really, by the time I did, I was very emotional.

And then I started realizing that I have to explain what it is. It's about domestic abuse. So I changed the cover. Book is the same. So it's domestic abuse and it's an unreported crime. So I tried to make it more clear and learn how to end it, right? This is also on Amazon. Does the live stand for something then? Yes, yes. I was going to tell you that. Live is how I live my life now by the letters. I've used the letters to remind me every day that I need to live my life and my terms and be empowered and not be afraid. The main thing is not be afraid of anybody, right? It's my life and I'm allowed to, I deserve to live.

So L stands for loving myself, right? It's my life and I'm allowed to, I'm deserved to live. So L stands for loving myself, right? If you remember these four letters, L for loving myself, I for insisting on freedom. You cannot be like you were saying, it happens not very often, but that abuse comes sometimes. So that freedom has to be all the time. Not sometimes and not 25 or not even 75 or 80% of the time. It has to be 100% of the time, right? You should always feel free in your home. You can't be living with someone who scares you either by yelling or even if they pounce on the table, you know, they're telling you that next time it could be you punching the walls, you know, or whatever. They're punching a hole in the wall. They're telling you next time it could be you and then it will be you one day, you know, and or whatever, they're punching a hole in the wall, they're telling you next time it could be you. And then it will be you one day, you know, so that fear

should never be there. And the freedom to just be live yourself, your life should be all the time, 100%. So insisting on freedom, and then V is for victory over victim syndrome. Instead of keep blaming or complaining that, oh, my God, he hurt me, he hurt me, she hurt me. What are you doing to not make that happen? Set your boundaries. Make sure the other person knows they are not allowed to cross those boundaries. And otherwise too, if in a circle of abuse, there's a perpetrator and there's a victim, right? If you remove one perpetrator, somebody else will come. If you remain the victim, right? You have to remove yourself as being the victim. So you stop saying, oh, he hurt me. If somebody, there's a simple example. If somebody, let's say, I mean,

it's kind of gruesome. If somebody knifed you in your stomach, right? Yeah. And now you're curing, they knifed you and they're gone. And you're walking around telling people, he knifed me, he knifed me, he knifed me. You're bleeding, that person's gone. Who's doing that now? Who's putting the knife in you now? Right?

You've got to stop doing that and start putting some healthy boundaries around you and loving yourself, you know, right from start. If you love yourself enough, then we won't be so kind of sad to want, not feel whole without someone else loving us or someone else hurting us. So we're loving ourselves, insisting on freedom. We are not anybody's victim, not just removing one perpetrator. Like when I got divorced, I literally told everybody I divorced. My family was not supportive of me, my mom, dad, my brothers, because of the culture, they were like upset at me for divorcing. So I divorced everybody. I'm like, I am leaving. I

moved from Michigan to California. And I told them I've already divorced him. I'm like, I am leaving. I moved from Michigan to California. And I told them, I've already divorced him. I'm moving because of you. I need to get rid of all of you who are just being mean to me, you know. So you have to not be anybody's victim. Today, I feel so empowered. I'm nobody's victim. So that's where you have to be. And then, of course, the E is for empowered living.

You have to remember, this is my life and I've got to make something. Like now I wake up and I'm like, okay, whatever I want to do, there's nobody pulling me down. I can take chances. I can win. I can fail. I can drop. I can get up. But nobody's pushing me down.

Nobody's saying, oh, really? No, not do that. You know, I moved to California and I will. When I was younger, I never did a pageant right here. I was divorced and I had 20 some year old two sons. And I come here and I went to a fashion show, just watching a fashion show. And there's another Indian newspaper. They started taking pictures of me at one of their photographers.

And I'm like, why is he doing that? And then he sent me the pictures. I don't know, it just looks so beautiful. I'm going to send your pictures. I'm like, okay, whatever. And I mean, he was official. He gave me his card and all that stuff. And then they nominated me to run it for the pageant, Asian pageant. And the only reason I agreed to do it is because for the first time, I looked around and said, I don't have to ask anybody. Okay, I'll do this. You know, and it was such an amazing experience.

And luckily, I also won Miss Asia California contest. But yeah, but it was more, even till now, I don't care about that. It was just that amazing experience that I don't have to ask anybody. And I had the time. I'm not making some stupid choices for myself. I'm making good choices, which we have to do. And that's what we are supposed to be taught and encouraged, how to think and how to plan and dream.

And yes, figure out how to get those dreams instead of, oh, really? It's not good. Really? How are you going to do this? And then our dreams keep getting shelved and keep getting shelved. Then we stop dreaming because we're afraid of dreaming. Just do whatever little thing somebody says, this seems okay. You know, I was told to do computer science and math and I did that. And by the day I graduated, I was told do computer science and math. And I did that. And by the day I graduated, I knew I didn't want to be in front of the computer for 10 hours a day. Yeah.

Because I'm a people person. I like to talk to people. Definitely makes all the difference. Oh my God. At the end of those four or five years, because I was studying in India, I was doing my math, science and all that chemistry. I was good, but I was told what to do. And then I moved here.

I was like, computer science is big. I did that. But after all that, I graduated. I didn't want to do that. There you go. There you go. Coming in from LinkedIn, we've got a thing here. Justin Lancaster, thanks for chiming in.

I have PTSD from long-time and extreme abuse from ex-wife, which I feel now in the garage door test when a new wife comes home. So he loves that idea of the garage door test. Right. That really is a thing. I'm going to start garage door testing while on my dates. Almost anybody I have asked, it has made sense to them. It does.

It does. I remember the extreme case was my alcoholic girlfriend. She was, I mean, she was a, she was a wonderful gal when she wasn't drinking. She had an addiction and a genetic, you know, disposition that she'd gotten from her father. And, and it was very sad. She ended up dying of alcohol abuse. And, but she, she, you know, when she, when I would hear the garage door open, I mean, it was like, oh, God, I don't know what road. Sometimes it was me coming home and opening the garage door.

What am I going in for? She's sober. After I moved her out of the house for two years, I found vodka bottles hidden all over the house. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was a crazy time. But, you know, no one needs to live in an abusive situation. And, you know, people need to identify abuse. I'm sure your book helps people.

You know, am I in an abusive situation? You know, there's some people that they're very toxic and they cause a lot of situations. They pick fights. They don't understand that they're creating an environment where, you know, they end up creating fights and arguments and stuff like that. They end up creating drama. Do you help identify people if they're the one being the toxic person in the relationship that's causing abuse, I've had some people that they will just pick at you and drive at you and pick at you and argue with you and screw with you and do everything to set you off.

And their whole thing is to try and set you off for whatever sort of toxic thing they learned from their parents. Do you teach people that and help them identify if maybe they're the problem? Yes, yes. In the one lady that I was interviewing for the book, and I'll tell you the story, a little bit, you know, backstory. The husband's family was always abuse fighting, right? And the wife's family wasn't, and they got married. So the husband, even though they were fighting now, the younger couple, but he was used to it, right? The old pattern that we were talking about for him, it was no big deal. His parents were married 50 years. They were still fighting and everything's fine. They still go to parties together, family gatherings. And the woman,

she became really angry and abusive towards him because he was used to it. So it was no big deal for him. So he would just take it. Right. And now she was dishing it. And she at one time told him that because now they were married like four or five years and that he wanted kids. And she says, I will never have kids with you because I don't want them to, I don't want the chance or the thought that they could turn out like you. I mean, that is a horribly abusive thing for someone to hear. Okay, I'm not going to have children for one. And the reason is because she thinks they could turn out like me. So I'm that bad, right?

Wow. So and she thought she was in abuse. So when I was interviewing so many people, she was one of the ladies I was interviewing. And then she said, maybe I'm the abuser because I have said so many things and done so many things. He just sits and takes it. He's just like a quiet person who doesn't know any better. He just grew up in this bad thing. And for him, it's no big deal.

You fight and you're together again. You fight and you go to the church again. You. You fight and you're together again. You fight and go to the church again. You go and fight and you go shopping, movies or whatever. Right. Yeah. He didn't know any better, but he was still the innocent, vulnerable person. Yeah. He became abusive. And then she actually told me that, that this was, uh, yeah. And my physical therapist, he bought a book from me and then he came back and bought more books for his guy friends. And he said, now I know why my wife hates me, why she's always angry at me. So yeah, read my book.

The one thing that's really come home to me over the years is the shaping of that, like we mentioned before, the shaping of that childhood relationship and what you learn from your parents. And if your parents are toxic and they have a toxic relationship, you're going to go looking for those sort of same replications in your partners. And then you end up in the same situation. You're like, why is my relationship with my partner the same as, you know, the craziness I grew up in? And like you said, there's a safety there. And it's really weird sort of sick safety because it's abuse.

But you're like, this is all I know. So this is what is supposed to be a healthy relationship to me. And I really wish more parents were educated. And they really should. I mean, I believe parents should go to college for a few years before they have kids and learn to be good parents and maybe work out some of their issues beforehand because they imprint that on the children and then the children go forth.

And, you know, if you're a father, your relationship with your daughter is incredibly important because you're showing her what a, what a man is like and, and, and a, and a good or bad man is like, uh, if you're, if you're showing her what a man is like and a good or bad man is like. If you're setting her up for failure, you're teaching her, men bail you out of all your problems. Same thing with a mother and a son. That relationship between them, whether it's

healthy or toxic, it sets the tone for the women he chooses throughout his life. You know, men are stoic. We learn that when women get too much in their emotions, and sometimes it can get abusive or verbally abusive, we just shut down. And we've learned that if we engage, it just makes things worse. And so a lot of times we shut down and we we we've learned that if we engage it just makes things worse and so a lot of times we shut down we give women time to go figure out what's upsetting them and and resolve it and work out their feelings and so yeah we so usually we shut down and you know that's that's

kind of our our thing that we've kind of learned then yeah but there's a healthy way to even shut down you have to still verbalize yeah i'm gonna let you do what you have to do. I'm going to go for a walk. So they have to have boundaries. They have to know that this is his boundary. He's not just ignoring me. He's literally giving me time to do whatever I have to do. Same thing like with men, if they start yelling at you, you have to say no. Stop. You know, like somebody told me that, oh, most people will just punch with the roll. Are you even hearing you? Punch me?

Or roll with the punches? I am nobody's punching bag. This is not happening at all. Not happening. Don't even say that. I mean, people say stuff, but they don't hear what they say. Why would I roll with anybody's punches? It's almost like no big deal. Oh, I'm better than most men. I don't want better than most men. I want a good man. If not, you're bad and you were a little bit better. That doesn't

mean you're good. Boundaries are so important. People need to learn to set them and hold them and say like, no, we're not doing this. And make sure the boundaries are there and rules in your relationship. Because things could get out of hand. And if you let certain people get away with stuff, they become like children. They just want to keep pushing those boundaries. Because once you let them yell at you or hit you or whatever it is, and you don't do anything about it, don't set boundaries, don't have any consequences, or don't shut them down, you're pretty much giving them permission for the next time. And if it happens many times, now it's become a normal.

When you really get tired of it, sick of it, like we had it, and now you're screaming or calling the police or whatever. The other person is completely confused. Like, what happened? We were fine. Literally, my ex used to say, we're fine. We're in the middle of the divorce, like almost to the end of the divorce. And he's still asking me to stay. I'm like, okay, what would be different? Nothing.

We're fine. Like, no, we're not fine. There's a reason I'm leaving. What? There's not fine. There's a reason I'm leaving. What? There's not fine. He didn't get it. You know, the word abuse was very painful to him because he didn't think he was abusive because everything that he was doing was just normal to him.

And it was gradually growing, you know, and then it got so bad and it was getting so bad. He didn't even see it. The garage door test I was talking to you, I could sit on the floor and just tell him to just stop. I can't breathe. He wasn't stuck. He didn't know how to stop. Did he grow up with a lot of abuse? Did he grow up with a lot of abuse?

He was very tight-lipped about his family. Oh, really? He wouldn't talk about it. That's probably a bad sign. It was like everything. I was great. My family was great. One thing I've learned in dating and relationships is when I date people,

one of the first things I do is I inquire roundabout. I try not to make it direct. But I inquire, number one, what a woman's relationship is with her father and what her relationship was growing up. For women, it's asking what her relationship was growing up for women it's you know asking what their relationship was with their mother um you know because i've seen i've seen mother abandonment issues with with the sons uh i've seen you know i've experienced or not experienced but i've seen it with my friends where i'm like your mother didn't hug you enough that's kind of the joke i

use or um you know your dad didn't hug you enough. You know, and it makes a difference and it sets a tone for all of our future relationships. What in the book haven't we touched on or the work that you do as a coach and mediator? Yeah, the mediation came after the book. So that's kind of a different thing. This is about domestic abuse awareness and knowing the signs and then what to do if you

have to leave. I have all that in here, like what lawyers told me and what therapists told me, but not together. They weren't telling me to help me, but I was gathering this information. And then from, you know, talking to everybody else, there was becoming a pattern. Then when I stopped interviews and then I started writing the book and then I made six characters out of that to give enough examples and I'm one of them so you guys can guess which one I am but mediation is what I learned after because I was like okay I'm out of it right but then you still have this in you but why did I have to go through this and why

did I have to go through this why did my did I have to go through this? Why did my kids have to? That's always another layer of pain that people live with, right? Even while they're in abuse or when they get out again, it's like, okay, thank God that I'm free. It's not happening now, but why did I have to go through it? So that's why I want to make my life have a meaning and help somebody else learn from my experience. But then I learned spiritual psychology to get kind of a base of making sense that I'm okay. And this is like a life curriculum. Like you were saying earlier, you go out to learn what you are feeling, how to fix it or how to not do it again and how to make yourself whole. That's the relationship you want to look for. First, you have to be whole.

Then you find a whole person. That you complete me is such a bad thing. Nobody completes anybody. That's a good point. I like that point. Then you're constantly trying to complete each other, but you're not even complete yourself. So is it better to sit down and fix yourself first before you run around? Is it better to sit down and fix yourself first?

Oh, totally. Totally. Otherwise, you're waiting for somebody else to make you happy. Nobody's going to make you happy if you're not happy. And you can try your hardest and you're not going to make somebody else happy because there's something else, again, is going to come out in them that makes makes them not happy and you're constantly working on making them happy yeah you know so you know the big problem that people do is they just don't go to therapy or get help or read a book yeah you know i see all these people that do all this bs they're like well i'm gonna go do energy crystal healing okay no go to therapy or get a book and educate yourself. You know,

all this feel good. If I just feel good, maybe everything will be okay. Maybe everyone else is the problem and it's not me. No, it's probably you. It's the mirror. Go look in the mirror. Uh, I noticed on your website, you, uh, as we round out, you've got several different things here. Uh, you've got strategy calls people can do with you. That's maybe insurance and coaching. Yes. Mediation sessions, workshop, a three-month plan to empower a child so he or she becomes bully-proof. I love that sort of thing.

I was teaching in schools, I was telling you, and I have a course that I can give people that they can do it themselves because I can't be everywhere like I can be in one school. So I can give you those tools so you can do your own mediations and teach your children how to resolve conflicts. So when they grow up, I'm hoping for the next generation, they know how to resolve conflicts. They can be better husbands and wives. They can be better bosses, better teachers, wherever they are, better employees, coworkers employees, co-workers, if they are not living

in this victim syndrome, right? It's only somebody else's fault. And you take some responsibility and also make a decision. I'm not going to yell. I'm not going to fight. I'm not going to shoot you. I'm not going to call you to court. We're going to talk, right? Be in that level place where I don't get too excited, but I don't also get i mean it'll help you save so many mental issues because then you don't have to go through depression you don't have to go through this over excitement go through drugs and actually gang fights you know yeah it's so important yeah i'm telling you the trajectory if you want me to finish that i went through the spiritual psychology and then went to pepperdine law school to learn actual skills of mediation and now i put them together

when i use uh when i do mediations or coaching yeah uh we've got another comment here from uh i believe daisy daisy i hope i'm pronouncing your connection rightly. You cannot expect that someone else is going to give you what you are unable to give yourself. That is so true. Same thing. Be whole yourself. Find a way to be happy first. Then, you know, like they say, when they say, I want to grow old with you, you want to have somebody that goes parallel with you in life. Like my ex and I were fine.

We married so early. And in some ways, I don't blame him because we were so young. He grew differently. We did not grow together. He grew here and I grew here, right? And that's why we just tried to stay together, right? Because we were just growing differently. He had his own ways that didn't work with me.

I stayed with the family and the kids and all that stuff. I was taking care of that while he was just going on his own tangent. And then it just wasn't, we were not growing together, you know, and then it's a conflict constant and yeah, it just didn't work. So it's hard when you have kids, you are strong and they're strong whole people that he can grow together there you go well your message resonated with a lot of people today and uh on the podcast and and uh it will help a lot of people uh anything more you want to plug out before we go well uh that's my message right now that teach our girls our young children first, that while you're teaching them, you'll teach yourself

also, but at least let's start from there. So our next generation feels more empowered and they know what a bad normal is and what a good normal is. If they don't even know what a good normal, they're living in a bad normal, then they will keep doing what you're doing. There's no chance of change. So imagine if a girl knows that she's able to do anything, she's not stopped, she's not living in fear. And if she finds this person who tries to do the opposite, tries to insult her, abuse her, yell at her, she's going to say, what the hell? Get away from me. You know, this is not normal. And that's how we need the same thing with our boys, right? They will also know that this is normal when they're taught not to take abuse, have some boundaries, and they'll know when they grow up, relationships will be better. They won't have enough, too many reasons to fight because they'll have their boundaries already. They won't let people cross those boundaries to hurt them. And then they also know not to cross other people's boundaries.

Right. Yep. A lot of men make that mistake. They just try to appease. You know, we try and make everyone happy. And we're, you know, we deal with a lot as being men going out in the world and fighting our battles and we want to come home and have peace and and so you know we'll we'll sell we'll sell ourselves for peace we'll be like okay whatever just this this make her happy whatever it takes just make her happy and not setting those boundaries is really important i see a lot of men that don't do that i see a lot of that in my gaming community because we'll spend hours on gaming and i'll hear the abuse going on in their house the verbal abuse i'm going to tell all my friends you will never make her happy i mean just remember that because you give her nine things there's a 10 thing she wants

yeah and you'll never make her happy if that's your ball because something else will get her attention and she'll want that. And if she wants that from you, she's never going to be happy. But if she can be happy on her own, then she's as happy that you enjoy that. Of course, you do nice things for each other, but then they're done out of just when you want to do, you want to be kind, but not to make her happy. If it makes you happy to give, and if it brings joy to the group, but that should not be like the words you said at, I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy. You want to die to make her happy?

Really? And people are doing that, you know? Some people, you know, you give and you give and you give. Anyway, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you very much for coming on. Oh, thank you. Thank you. This was amazing.

And people, another comment here from Daisy. It's about sharing happiness with someone as opposed to waiting for someone to make you happy. Definitely is. You have to be a happy, complete person before you bring yourself to a relationship. And it makes all the difference. If you're waiting for someone else to complete you or fix you, you did the wrong thing to do. And please go to therapy, folks.

Just stop. I was watching somebody was sending me something where it's like, well, we're going to do energy and crystals to fix your relationship. Go to therapy. And you know what? Whether you think it's you or not, it's probably still you. So go fix you, and and you know what whether you think it's you or not it's probably still you so go fix you and then you know you're not the problem go to therapy see a psychologist

by the problem by beer his book i just assume i'm always the problem and always is also part of the problem you know this culture we have where everybody's a victim and we have like victim competition we're like i'm a bigger victim than you are it's like hey why don't we shut up and go see a therapist yeah i mean they have to know in a cycle of abuse there's a perpetrator or victim you want to keep finding new perpetrators uh yeah if everyone's the victim all day girls and it's like oh so the last 10 people in your relationship were all narcissists? You know that narcissists are maybe like 2 or 3% of the population, the diagnosed ones?

So, you know, if every guy you date is a narcissist, it's probably you. It's always interesting to me. Yeah, the common factor is me. Okay. It's always interesting to me. So anyway, common factor is me. Okay. It's probably you, you know, I'll see a lot of these Tik TOK dating. There's,

there's these gals who go on a Tik TOK and they complain about their dates. And it's really funny. They've been doing it for years. And you're like, like hundreds of dates. And it's always the guy who's the problem. And I'm, you know,

I think at this point probably isn't the who's the problem and i'm you know i think at this point probably isn't the guys are the problem it's but you and maybe guys are the problem but why are you allowing that why don't you have healthy boundaries you know sometimes i i honestly from all the problems that i've seen i mean i've seen a lot of issues with between fathers and daughters and the the problems that the fathers create, I mean, I've seen a lot of issues with between fathers and daughters and the, the problems that the fathers create that they send in the world. Sometimes it's abuse. Sometimes it's alienation.

Sometimes it's growing up without fathers, you know, and Chris Rock has a great thing. You know, if, if your, your job is to create a great relationship and set it and set her in a good example of a good father.

Otherwise, you know, she's going to end up seeking attention from men. You know, she's going to end up working in different trades that are going to be bad for her just to get men's attention. And so, you know, it makes all the difference in the world. But thank you very much, Vera, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.

Give us a plug one more time for your.com. Vera Mahajan, V-E-E-R-A-M-A-H-A-J-A-N dot com. There you go. Yes. In order of the book, wherever fine books are sold, you can find it,

wherever fine books are sold on Amazon, all those different places, unreported. Domestic abuse is an unreported crime and learning to live free is a journey.

And really important that we always identify abuse because, you know, and give it to your friends too. If you have friends that have toxic things, you know, help them set boundaries. Pass it on. There you go. I have the book on audio too. If people don't want to read or can't read, it's on audio also. There you go.

I love audio books. Anyway, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks to everyone for being on and listening. And thanks for the commenters and people engaged in the show. We certainly appreciate that as well. Go to youtube.com, 4chesschrisfoss, goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, all our places on LinkedIn, all those different places across the internet. Thanks for tuning in.

Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time. Thank you, Chris.