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June 3, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
41:37
1378 Group Convo - Therapy - Freedomain Radio BBQ 2009
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Time Text
I'm now listening to James.
We've been a relationship.
And I was focused on...
And I found this very helpful.
I almost tried to...
Yeah, of course.
It's hard to remember.
Yeah, it is hard to remember, but yeah.
That's a challenge, right?
I don't...
I don't really know why that.
I just went back to the...
As far as we can get our technology.
I kind of felt like the last...
Someone on the podcast, like, we could be unconscious.
I didn't...
What's going on?
I didn't like...
It didn't click with me because...
Maybe it's because of the way I try to listen to it.
Well, if you're going through a lot of personal and emotional stuff, UPV and Conscience, which are both abstract things, not applicable to what's going on in your life, it's going to be interesting, but it's not going to get you viscerally.
Oh, yeah. I'm actually feeling it right now.
Are you feeling what?
Emotional.
It's good to be specific.
Yeah, I know.
I'm feeling funny.
Tingly. Do you want to talk about it or not?
If you want to, that's fine, right?
You're among friends, right?
What's going on?
What an opportunity to talk about it, right?
Without me just being a disembodied head, right?
Is it stuff that's going on at work or personal life? - No.
I was talking about Greg about this before, but it's sort of a therapy thing. - It's sort of a therapy thing?
Like what you're working on in therapy?
Or is it something with your therapist?
It's something with my therapist. Oh, what's that?
It's really been kind of a struggle.
This is your new therapist that you went to when you moved, right?
Yeah. Is it a man or a woman?
In therapy, of course.
In February. Is it a man or a woman?
A man. A man, okay. And how did you find her choosing?
I was feeling a lot of anxiety one day at work.
Right. And I said, this is the time to find therapist.
And so I... There was this emotional escalation on my side.
I came in saying I felt scared.
And I didn't know if I was getting what I wanted out of therapy.
Scared of him? Just scared.
I was feeling scared that morning.
Before therapy? Yeah.
I came in feeling scared.
And the thoughts, I don't know if I'm getting what I want out of therapy.
I don't know if...
Which means you do. Because if I say, I don't know if I'm getting what I want out of this marriage, it means I'm not getting what I want out of this marriage.
Because I wouldn't have the doubt if I didn't have the question.
That's exactly right. The fact that you feel is frozen is negative for you.
Because, I mean, I hope to be doing this in 40 years, right?
I hope to be frozen in time, you know, with new technology, maybe some brain holograph or something.
So that aspect of being frozen is not bad.
But there's some aspect of the frozenness that for you is really scary.
And what aspect of that, of your life, if it doesn't change, is really bad?
Yeah, well, there's several things.
I mean, yes, I've made progress in the weight, but I've also been staying in the same spot for several months.
You plateaued after 30 pounds, right?
Yeah. There's the job, which doesn't particularly thrill me, which is to say not at all.
Right. So you've gone from negative work to neutral work, like you're just bored and motivated, but not tomorrow, right?
Yeah. Not like your last show.
Okay. What do you mean, we didn't talk about it?
I didn't talk about it.
Okay.
Because, you know, he doesn't know unless you tell him, right?
Now, it's important to know why you didn't talk about it, but it is important to know that you're the one who didn't talk about it.
No, right.
Okay, sorry.
Fair catch.
Okay.
Huh.
Huh.
Might as well go ahead and sign up.
Yeah, exactly.
Maybe that's...
Because that's your evasion, right?
Sorry.
That you have...
Sorry. Your evasion, and I don't mean that conscious evasion or any cowardice or any of you who doesn't understand me, but if you're in a situation with a therapist where you're avoiding RTR says something very clear about that, right?
And again, it's not like RTR is true or the Bible, but that's my reference point, right?
Which is that you first have to say to yourself, I have something important that I really need to talk about.
Hi, how's it going? And I'm not bringing it up, but the person I'm paying to listen.
It's like going to a doctor and your elbow hurts and saying, I'm fine.
That makes no sense, right?
Because if you don't... So did you admit that to yourself?
I don't think so, because you said we didn't talk about it in therapy like it was a shared responsibility.
No, yeah, I think that's right.
So, it's the stuff at work that you didn't bring up with your therapist.
Are you guys hungry?
Do you want something to eat? I'm working.
If you want, there's sandwiches and there's also cookies.
Sorry, should I spell that out for your son?
K-O-O-K-I-E-S. There's some sweet cookies just in the other room as well.
Just kidding. So, yeah, help yourself to food and drink and all that.
So, were you conscious of avoidance of topics with your therapist?
No. One of the things, well...
No, that's not true.
No, I mean, you weren't conscious at the time, right?
No, not at the time. So what were you talking about with your therapist that was in place of this?
Well, for a good half an hour, he was suggesting maybe I should consider medication.
Which was like, it initially surprised me.
And then it was... It was like, well, this doesn't make sense, right?
I'm still feeling uneasy, at least, right?
And he kept sort of...
Not to tell a story, but...
It was like...
Coffee's ready?
Oh great, great.
I couldn't...
Not I couldn't, but I didn't.
We need to joke around, I guess.
I didn't stop that and say...
I don't know what's going on for me.
How did you feel when he suggested medication?
Well, I still felt surprised initially, right?
Because it kind of came out of nowhere for me, right?
But surprise is not an emotion.
No, I know. Because surprise can be good.
Like, hey, a surprise body.
And surprise can be, oh my god, there's an anaconda in my cereal.
Yeah. Okay, I have big bowls of cereal, that's all I'm saying.
Sorry, go.
I was, I mean, I was still, I still didn't feel not scared.
So I was still feeling scared.
It took some time, but then I became conscious that I was feeling anger.
Right?
That's the suggestion of medication.
Yeah, no, like...
Yeah, no?
It's tough, because...
Well, medication says something very specific, right?
Yeah. That either you don't have a thinking problem, or you have a thinking problem that your therapist feels is insolvable.
Right? So, you're either deluded about thinking that it's a problem with your thinking, but it's not, right?
Like, we don't do talk therapy for a toothache, right?
Because it's not a thinking problem with our toothache.
Or, you do have a thinking problem, but you're so hopeless that the best we can do is medicate you, right?
Like, I'm not going to teach you how to use a toothbrush, I'm just going to keep pulling teeth, because you're never going to figure out a toothbrush, right?
Yeah, you don't have any teeth left. Right, but the suggestion of medication is not positive towards your judgment, because your feeling or thought was that it was a thinking problem, right?
Yeah, that it was a...
Or a feeling problem, or some internal state, right?
Not... Lack of awareness.
Something you needed to explore and open up within yourself, not nuke with some sort of drug.
And also the efficacy of drugs in the therapeutic realm has been seriously questioned by a large number of people who can't find any difference between that and a placebo effect.
So it's kind of a brush off in many ways and a rejection.
In my You know, my thoughts about what you're thinking.
I certainly experienced that, like, not consciously again, but I felt, like, really angry as we kept going over.
Like, I kept saying, I don't know if it's a medication.
All I know is that. No, no, no, no.
See, you won't be honest with him, right?
No. And again, there's nothing wrong with that, right?
It's just something to observe, right?
Because you were offended by the medication suggestion, right?
Yeah. I mean, you had to be.
Because you subscribe to a philosophy that is around thinking and introspection, right?
Not about, hey, you know...
I don't say to people, go to a psychiatrist and get medicated, right?
And again, not that I say it means anything, but this is the philosophy that you happen to find very compelling, and it specifically rejects for non-physical-based mental illnesses.
My suggestion is talk therapy, right?
Just, yeah, sure. Hey, if you've got schizophrenia, or you're psychotically deluded, sure, talk computer is not going to help you.
Although even schizophrenia has been...
There's some, yeah, yeah, but I have no competence in that area, so schizophrenic calls me, I'll say go to a psychiatrist, because you certainly need the medical checkup, right?
But from, your depression or anxiety was a sudden onset, right, which means it's very unlikely to be biologically based.
I'm sorry. You said that you just started feeling sad and anxious relatively quickly, right?
Like, one morning you said, I just, I woke up feeling this way.
Oh, no, no, sorry, well, I mean, I struggle with depression for years.
Sure, sure. I was experiencing the anxiety.
I think it may have been with me for a couple of days or tension.
Right, right. But it wasn't like slowly growing over months, right?
No. Right. So it's more likely to be some trigger.
And the reason that I would suggest that it's thinking based is that if you have depression and anxiety, you go to talk to a therapist and you're very open and honest about what you're thinking and feeling.
Then you know that you're not in a state of dissociation, right?
So, oh, I'm aware, look, I just got really offended and upset by your suggestion that I should be medicated, and here's why, right?
Here's why I think I felt it's no offense to you, but this is what my feelings are, and this is what...
So if you've been able to do that, then dissociation would have been eliminated as a possibility, and actually then the possibility of medication would go up, right?
Not in my opinion, but relative to the way many people think, right?
But because you weren't able to tell your therapist what you actually thought and felt, Dissociation then becomes a problem, and dissociation and depression are very related.
Because it's self-numbing, which depression really is, right?
And then, you withdrew, but you didn't leave.
And that is dissociation, right?
You withdraw from the environment, but you don't leave the environment, right?
Yeah, I said about 15 minutes or so before the end, it's like a really fighting desire to just get up and walk out the door.
And that is also not a feeling statement, right?
Right. Because there is no desire called get up.
There's fear, there's anger, right?
There's no desire that translates to that, right?
Right, so if you're watching some horrible movie like Saw and you're just completely horrified but you don't leave the theater...
That's a self-dissociation, right?
And so if you're in a situation where you're paying somebody to be honest, and you're not being honest, but you're also not terminating the therapy, then you're in a situation of induced dissociation.
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Right, okay. So the question then is, what purpose was this induced dissociation serving for?
Why was it better to refoo than X? Because this is the refoo, right?
Right, all right. This is your family situation.
I'm there. I can't be honest.
I can't leave. And I have to kind of get my opinion across in a very oblique way.
So that's, I mean, if I remember rightly, and tell me if I'm way off base, but that's what I remember from your flu situation.
Yeah, there's obliques sometimes that you work, but yeah, that's...
Yeah, but that was your strategy, right?
You could only hint at the truth and hope somebody would pick up on it, because directness would be attacked, right?
Yeah. So, why were you referring to therapists?
And paying for the privilege for science, right?
Yeah, right. Could you ask questions?
I'd be happy to, I mean...
I mean, I think...
The thing I could think about before that was there's sort of the drive A drive?
Like he was suggesting, making suggestions.
Go meet people locally?
Yeah. Were you going to like a clan school therapist or something?
I don't know. This is like to see a therapist who says you deal with your phobia about phones by picking up the phone and dialing someone.
It's like, oh really? It's a phobia.
Of course you can't do that, right? Your therapist was saying that, right?
Deal with your phone therapy by phoning people.
Right. Yeah, okay.
So, this is, you know, go meet people is not therapy.
I tell you, it's not therapy.
I mean, has anyone ever...
Am I rough based with that?
It's never helped.
It's not therapy, right? Oh, you're lonely to go meet people.
Oh, meeting people.
Smile! So this is crap, right?
And it puts the onus on you, which is going to make you more depressed, right?
It's like, well, okay, I should go meet people.
I'm not going to go meet people.
I'm failing, right? Which, down and down we go, right?
Yeah, it goes right into the...
There's a couple of meetups I tried.
Oh, so you went to do it?
Holy crap! Where the hell did you go, my friend?
Psychologically, you went really far out from where you were before, right?
You got involved with a crap therapist.
You paid for a refug.
You took the crap therapist's advice, which caused further self-attack and anxiety.
You go back and...
You had a bit of a stumble there, right?
No disrespect, right?
But this is not the direction you were going before, right?
You mean in therapy? No, in life, like with yourself.
I mean, it seems that you were getting more comfortable, a better relationship with yourself in the past, and then since your move, I mean, you've talked to Greg more, obviously, than me, but Greg, would you say since this move to gender?
Since the move, it's been up and down really.
Yeah, but we're looking for the downside, right, which ended up with this refueling.
Probably the last two weeks or so.
Oh good, okay, so recent. That's good, okay.
The sooner is better, right? So what's the refu serving?
Now, the refu serves, I mean, in my nonsense opinion, right, the refu serves one of two purposes.
Most commonly, it's because you don't want to step up, so you've got to step down, right?
So there's something in your life that you were going to break through on, which caused a huge amount of anxiety, and so you went back to something that was familiar in order to manage the anxiety of moving up.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, it makes sense. Because you had a breakthrough with your weight.
Congratulations. Massive, right?
I mean, losing weight is damn hard and keeping it off is hard.
So the fact that you've lost weight and not regained it is still, you're still on the plan, right?
So that's fantastic for you.
You moved, you got out of a relationship that was...
A bit soul-sucking, to put it bluntly.
And there was then something waiting for you that was next, right?
And that, I'm guessing, provokes...
It's the growth anxiety, right?
The mass talks about it a lot, right?
that happens more as one effect to growth anxiety in the culture, right?
Yeah, it's talking about growth anxiety.
Right?
Right, so my suggestion would be that there was something that you were going to step up to that caused self-attack and then put you back into the dungeon of history.
Okay.
Thank you.
And the reason that I say this is that you've got a lot of people in a community who care about you and a lot of people who are experienced in choosing therapists, which is a very difficult and dangerous thing to do, right?
Because a great therapist can be fantastic and a crap therapist is your pain to be re-abused, right?
And I'm not saying he's abusing you, I'm just putting it in a relative to your history, it feels that way, right?
Sure. And so, when you're in a community of people who could really help you with that, it's nothing to do with me, it could be anyone, right?
You know, it's a huge decision, right?
Who's going to be my therapist?
You make the calls, you have the conversation, you need to check in with you, but you plowed on.
You just plowed on, right, without getting feedback?
Yeah, yes. You didn't say to people, I had this feeling and, you know, I'm not sure about this guy, yes or no, blah, blah, blah.
I only called one guy, right?
I didn't call a bunch of people and so on, right?
That's right. And so you isolated yourself from people who could have given you some helpful feedback that would have saved you time, money, and stress, right?
And there was a reason that you did that too, right?
Self-isolation is the preparation for the refoot.
Not reaching out, not getting community feedback.
I mean, it's an amazing resource that people, I mean, they're on the board.
I mean, it's free to talk, they're on Skype.
Most people are very happy to respond to emails.
I know I am. Right?
So you've got an amazing resource and you're starving to death at a buffet, right?
And that's kind of crazy, right?
Because there is this great resource and so there was an isolation that has occurred which prepared you for this, right?
Yeah. It's not because you went out and strangled a cat, right?
Or you had, you know, 12 one-night stands with a donkey or whatever, right?
Like, it's not because you did something bad that you dissociated, right?
As far as I know. Is there anything that you need to tell me about the donkey?
No, is there any... I mean, you don't have to give any details, but I don't...
The only thing that was, I want to say suboptimal, was moving.
In January, I had a roommate situation when I moved to Denver.
And that lady was crazy.
I didn't get it over the phone initially.
When I got there, it's not that I couldn't leave.
And was there, when you think in hindsight, was there any indications over the phone that might have been a clue?
I can't think of any, I mean, it might have been, it might have just been too subtle for me to get consciously, or...
Because that's another thing to do, you know, call someone and, you know, I'm sure everybody's happy to spend 10 minutes on such a big decision with you, right?
Say, this is the interaction, what do you think, you know?
I mean, to me, that's, because I do that with Christina, like, until she maces me, right?
So that's, it's an important thing to use that resource, because it's a lot easier than, you know, what happened, right?
So, okay, so that, but that's not your show.
Hi. Hello. You are?
Aaron. Aaron, pleased to meet you.
You are first in the alphabet, I think.
Aaron, you're right before Arfa, not yourself.
And you are? Chris.
Hi, Chris. You guys, you got your food, your drinks, you're all set up.
You met the wife, so okay, you're all set up.
Okay, sorry. She took care of me. Good stuff, good stuff.
I'm sorry, they're probably the most boring brownies based on your haircut that you've had all weekend.
I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.
It's all jealousy, you know that.
Sorry, we're just in the middle of talking to James and we'll catch up in a sec.
Okay. So, but that's not your shame, right?
I mean, you got involved in this, but you didn't do anything.
You just didn't avoid something, right?
I'm sorry. I mean, you didn't beat up your landlady or whatever, right?
No. Right, so that's not your shame, right?
Yeah, you left. You could have done it slightly sooner or whatever, right?
But that's not your initiation, right?
No. Right, so that doesn't count, right?
No, it really doesn't.
That's like the only thing that...
I mean, there's also work.
I started feeling more bored with work.
Right. But that doesn't really, it doesn't really seem like there's anything that I've done...
Right....in that way.
Right, right. Okay. Okay, so then it was probably because you went to Denver with...
Again, I'm just... Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. There was a donkey thing.
Okay, come on.
No, well, um...
Did the baby go off?
Uh...
I remember we got the call about me acting out, right?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah. And that was from pretty much my birthday.
When was your birthday? February 10th.
Right, right. I got the letter from my mother, and I didn't reach out then either, right?
Oh, a letter from your mother. I'm sure that's not a problem.
No. So what's the stuff that comes up at the end that's the most important, right?
Let me spend three hours on my roommate, and then...
So, okay, yeah, you got your letter from your mother, and that was on the 10th?
On my... yeah. On the 10th, okay.
And then, you didn't talk about that with anyone, right?
Well, I was kind of sending out unconscious players on Twitter, you know?
I was on my way home, sort of sending out notes to people.
Like what? I don't remember the content, but not like saying, hey, I need to talk to somebody explicitly.
Didn't have the best day in the world kind of thing?
Sort of. Well, I mean, I was saying how I got a letter from my mother, but not...
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So the problem then is passivity, right?
Yeah. Right? Passivity with your...
It's a roommate situation.
Passivity at work, which results in boredom.
Because if you're bored at work, you can reach out for new opportunities.
You can say to your manager, I'm bored, I need new opportunities.
You can be proactive, which is not easy, but you can do it.
When you got the letter from your mother, you are passive in requesting help, as opposed to saying, you know, collaring anyone, right?
Yeah. And then you were passive with your therapist, right?
And let him kind of dictate things that were offensive to you and only made very mild protests and let him suggest things to you like go meet people, right?
That's a symptom, not a problem, right?
Yeah. And so passivity is probably, we get an increase in passivity when we're finally getting frustrated with passivity and we want to change, right?
Then we want to become more active in our lives and then what happens is all the anxiety that we were covering up with that passivity before overwhelms us and often will drag us back into the underworld, if that makes any sense.
Right, so I would guess that the challenge that was beginning to arise in you was really wanting to take the reins and be more proactive in your life and get what you want.
Because you're not satisfied with where you are.
You left a situation.
You moved to a new situation. Lo and behold, everywhere you go, there you are.
And so maybe there's something around really being proactive.
And it's really hard.
I mean, everybody has troubles with proactivity.
And we all fall down and get annoyed with ourselves for not doing the things that we want to do.
But it sounds like, it seems to me, that you're ready to make that leap, to really make that commitment, to be proactive, to get what you want.
But it's really scary, right?
Because proactivity in your history resulted in savage attacks, right?
Which you've internalized, right?
Every time you wanted to take initiative, it would be struck down, right?
Every time you wanted to will something to be better in your life, it would be struck down, right?
So it's really, really scary to stand up and try and get what you want in life, right?
Right, so just tell me what you're feeling when I talk about that.
Are you feeling an increase in tension or a relaxation of tension?
It's not a relaxation.
It's not scary.
Scary to think about being more proactive?
Yeah. Right, right.
No, I understand. No, no, I'm apologizing.
It's just a soul sneeze, don't worry about it.
They're just feelings. And that comes out of desire, right?
You want to have a life that's shaped not by your history and by attacks in the past, right?
You want to have a life that you can forge ahead to get to where you want without feeling like the cobras of history are going to strike you down, right?
I mean, Lord knows we all want that, and Lord knows we all have trouble with it, right?
And it doesn't matter whether you had a good or bad childhood.
We were all in public school where initiative was crushed, right?
It's not all to do with the family, right?
So there is, I would imagine, a great desire within you to not be bored, to not be passive, to be more proactive, to be more confident, to be more certain in the positivity of your actions and not to feel like a cork on a storm-tossed sea, right? Floating around wherever you can, you know, and only having a tiny scrap of will that you can exercise in a pulling case of emergency, right?
But you want to be more proactive instead.
Fair to say. And certainly the work that is involved in philosophy is around that.
When you study nutrition so you can change your diet.
You study philosophy so you can change your life.
And you've certainly studied a lot of theory and you've done a hell of a lot of incredible work, particularly on the self-attack, which is your hobgoblin, or at least the one in charge of the other hobgoblins.
Right, right. So you want to make that leap because otherwise you wouldn't be falling down, if that makes sense, right?
We don't fall if we don't walk, right?
So you want to make that leap and then the challenge is how do I do it and deal with the self-attack that's going to emerge, right?
And so my guess is that there is a disaster scenario that occurs in your mind when you consider being proactive.
And what is that? So you sit down at work with your boss and you say, I want to be a great employee.
I really can't if I'm bored and I'm bored, right?
And I bring this to you as an opportunity because I know I can do a lot more.
How can we sit down and figure out how you can get more out of me and how I can get more out of this job?
So if you think of something like that, whatever you say, you say, right?
What is the disaster scenario that comes out of that?
Does she turn into a hydra?
Is there an asteroid that hits the building?
What is it that happens when you take that step to be proactive in your life?
It seems... It seems that...
The way it rolls is...
They're like, oh, you're bored, so we'll give you more work.
I can't do the work. I get fired.
I can't get another job because I just feel depressed about it.
And I end up just wasting away in the gutter.
Right, right. So not too bad.
A slow, painful death.
Right, right. It will end eventually.
Okay, okay. So if you assert yourself and say the work I have is boring, your boss is going to give you more of the same as punishment, right?
Because clearly that would be punishment, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jake, bad banishment, right?
I'm bored with this, here's more of it, right?
That clearly is just a passive-aggressive attack against you, right?
Yeah. Right, so your boss is your parents, right?
Because we all, I mean, not we all, I shouldn't say that, but a lot of us would have those kinds of parents where you'd say, I'm bored.
It's like, here's a list of chores, right?
It's like, that doesn't really help me with the problem of boredom, right?
It's not like pulling weeds. I had that at school a lot.
You had that at school? I mean, all the time I had that at school.
I was constantly bored through school, both public and private school, and the response wasn't to try to find what interests me.
Of course. The response was, here's more work.
And then when I didn't do the work, You'd be punished, right?
So proactivity and complaints bring attack, right?
Even legitimate complaints bring attack, right?
And is there any evidence that your boss is so dead set against her own economic value and advancement to reject someone who's got greater potential from achieving that potential?
Because it's good for business. If you give someone who's bored more stuff to do.
The teacher in a public school system is annoyed by that request because they're not a profit-based institution.
They're not charging you based on how well the students do.
So an exceptional student is an annoyance.
Up here in Canada, it's become almost impossible to get your child placed in a gifted program.
You actually have to sue now to get To get your child, because all of the resources are going to other things, right?
Teacher salaries, and now they've got a lot of ESL and disabled kids and so on being thrown into the public school system.
So a gifted kid in a public school system is...
Anathema, a curse, a horror, annoyance, right?
Because everybody should just sit and do the same work.
So a public school teacher will definitely, well I shouldn't say, will very likely, unless they're exceptional, attack you for indicating boredom.
They'll take it personally. I had that bit on truth, right, where I fell asleep in the classroom because the guy was so boring and he yelled at me, right?
Yeah, yeah, we got a lot of that, right?
So you're not crazy for having that fear, right?
I mean, we've all experienced that to one degree or another.
And certainly for parents who are not engaging their children, when their children say, I'm bored, the parents will take it personally, right?
Because they kind of feel bad down for not engaging their children, for being dissociated, for not stimulating them and so on, right?
Like if I'm sitting there playing with my iPod when my daughter is rolling around and she ends up getting bored and frustrated, I would probably feel guilty, right?
Because it's like, I probably should have been.
I might take it out on her, right?
Oh, just, you know, daddy's going to be just a few more minutes.
Stop being such a whiner or whatever, right?
So the feelings that you have, to me, would make perfect sense.
And I think everybody would have felt this at one time or another, right?
I mean, in our lives, if not fairly constantly, right?
So the feelings make perfect sense.
But you're in a private sector position now, more or less, right?
Which means that if you have an ability that's not being utilized, the company will profit from helping you to be satisfied.
Not just because of the investment they put into you as an employee, but because the more productive you are, the more profit they make, right?
So, that doesn't mean that they're not insane.
That doesn't mean that they won't attack you, but it means that you're in a different cause and effect environment, a different stimulus and reward environment, if that makes sense.
If it's a net negative for your parents and your teachers, it is a potential positive for your employer.
Does that make sense? Now, if your employer is a good employer, then she will...
Is it a she? Transgender?
No, no. They?
The twigs and berries will.
No, so if your employer is a good employer, they will want to help you increase that, right?
They will respond positively to you being bored, right?
If they are a bad employer, they will take it personally and attack you, in which case you should leave and find an employer and shape your resume to be more along the lines of what you want.
Before that, it's better to come in as an employee, it's better to come in not just with, I'm bored, you fix it, which is not exactly how you put it, but I'm bored, here's three It would help the company that would be better for me, blah, blah, blah, so that they get something they can manage, right, rather than just solve my problems, which managers usually can't do without some framework, if that makes sense.
So you can do that.
I'd be happy to have you roleplay it on a call or something like that so that you could get more comfortable with that.
But it's important to recognize that it is a net positive for your employers if you do well.
And of course, you know, if they are good employers, the more you are passive, the more you are bored, what is the most likely thing to happen?
You'll get canned, right? So there is no good solution other than to step up and be proactive to get what you want in your job.
Because getting what you want is not at the net expense of other people in your environment, but to their benefit.
I mean, no one wants to fire an employee.
I mean, it's a terrible, horrible thing to have to do, right?
But if you don't step up to get what you want in your job, you will end up getting canned.
You will end up taking that personally and taking that to the next job where it'll just be that much harder to do it, right?
It's like it's easier to quit smoking after three cigarettes than 300 or 3000, right?
So this, I would say, is what you...
And I would imagine that you sense that potential in your work environment, which is why it's so close that you can taste it, and you ended up having a refoo to avoid it.
Do you know what I mean? Like, if you didn't feel it was at all possible, you wouldn't be feeling any anxiety.
So it must be that you feel that you're in an environment, which you should be proud for getting into, that you're in an environment where this is actually possible, right?
Because if it wasn't possible, you wouldn't be screwed up about it.
Is this...
They've been making a bunch of overtures.
Yeah, it's sort of related to this feeling of...
That's what it is.
If they're making... Sorry to interrupt you.
Oh, I should absolutely let talk, but let me just share this.
If they're making overtures to you, this is the perfect time to negotiate for what you want.
There's no better time, right?
It's like, I will take a permanent position with pleasure.
Here's what I need to be a better, happier, more satisfied employee.
Because there's a change of environment.
There's a change of relationship that's going on.
That's the perfect time. You can't negotiate it two months after you take the permanent position.
Because then they'll say, well, why the hell did you tell me two months ago, right?
Sure. So, is that...
Did that happen? When did that happen?
It's actually been...
Twice. When did it happen most recently?
I had a call the first time.
The most recent time otherwise was...
Wow.
Nah, that's too much of a coincidence, I think.
It's been about two weeks since you've been...
Now it is.
Let's go back to your mother. That coincidence is probably not a coincidence, obviously, right?
So your desires, which didn't happen in your last job, right?
So you're obviously impressing them to the point where they want you on a permanent gig.
It is the perfect time to negotiate.
You have leverage because they want something from you, right?
And so this is probably why it's coming up, that you have the potential to change your history, to write a different future than the inertia of the past, right?
But that is fucking stressful, right?
Because it's facing down all the demons at once.
But you only have to do it once, I'm telling you.
It's not like it never comes up again, but it'll never come up this way again.
And that's why you can taste that opportunity.
And that's why you're running back into the past, right?
so you don't have to take that next step up.
No.
That's nonsense.
That expands my part of the name.
Now, I'm not a therapist, but that's what a good therapist would do, right?
What was that, half an hour? No, seriously, that was like, I'm not a therapist, right?
But a good therapist won't say, here's some medication, go meet people.
A good therapist will help you to fucking understand what is going on in your heart and in your life and the triggers so that you can, with some courage and knowledge and context.
Take the step that you need to, right?
And that's why I'm saying, if you're with a therapist who's saying junky stuff like, just call people and get over your phobia that way, or here's some meds, go meet people, right?
Hit the eject button as fast as you can, right?
And again, I'm not a therapist, but because, I mean, this would be much more lengthy in a therapy session, plus there'd probably be a few people observing, right?
Most therapists won't go to this level, though.
Most therapists won't, exactly.
Won't what? Won't go to this level.
That's why you're picky. Okay, can't, but that's why you're picky.
That's like saying, well, you know, most women or most people I could date aren't very deep.
It's like, well, so be more picky, right?
Right, right.
And a good therapist will help get...
But this is a very high level. It is a very high level, but you're paying for it, right?
And now that you've seen this, right, you'll be able, the next time you feel that sudden stab of anxiety, you'll look at it not as the onset of a negative, but the desire for a positive, right?
Because it's almost always the reverse.
That's why everything is so confusing in your unconscious, right?
Anxiety, not because a bad thing is happening, but because a good thing is happening, right?
We all have that too, right? The growth panic, right?
Because we feel negative because we've got that, right?
You never feel so, if you've ever had this, you're kind of thirsty, you're kind of thirsty, and then just as you're opening that can of pop, you're dying for something to drink.
Like there's nothing more than that, right?
And that's because it's so close, you get that incredible desire the closer it becomes, right?
And that's the same thing. Sometimes it can be a good feeling, like when you get a bit of nerves just before you're going to engage something you enjoy in, it's your body getting ready for it.
Yeah, because if you didn't notice the change, it would be kind of crazy, right?
Like, if you didn't notice that you were taking the reins really seriously, consciously, for the first time in your life, that would be kind of mental, right?
Because if you wouldn't notice the change, that would be not healthy, right?
So, yeah, anxiety, we all think anxiety is a bad thing coming along, right?
But anxiety can be an incredibly positive thing, as long as we don't let it take us under, right?
Because it's the moment we want to grow, we fear the growth and we want to run back and hide in the past, right?
That's inevitable and that's natural.
We all have that inertia, right?
And that would be my suggestion.
That's the kind of quality that you need to get from your therapist and you need to get that kind of insight or thoughts of those kinds of insights, instinct that that's even possible in your first call when trying to find a therapist and definitely in your first session.
If you're not walking out of that first session with some new information that was really startling or exciting, There's a part of me that still wants to just...
Totally, yeah. Of course.
I can't banish that, right?
I mean, otherwise it'd be, ah, replace your brain.
I'd be doing it with an ice cream scooper.
Yeah, yeah, but what I mean is, do you feel like it has some sort of context that makes sense?
Like, it's not just an overwhelming feeling out of nowhere that makes no sense, right?
And it is, I mean, the real sympathy that I have is that the opportunity is experienced for you as a disaster, right?
No, and really, I mean, with all due sympathy, and it makes perfect sense, given your history, that opportunity would come across as a laser on your forehead, you know, that's sort of steady.
But that's what it is, I think.
And you have, I think, I mean, if what we're talking about here is right, and you can obviously let me know as you think about it some more, If it is right, then you have a plan to alleviate your anxiety by spiking it, usually now, right?
By sort of thinking about how you can have a conversation to get what you want in your job.
And that doesn't mean you're going to get it, right?
Because you can only control your side of the negotiation, but at least you will have the satisfaction.
And efficacy of having made the negotiation.
Because, you know, you never know if it's going to work or not, but that doesn't matter, really, fundamentally.
The only thing that matters is that you do act in a proactive manner and see what happens.
Because you have something that you can do that can alleviate the anxiety.
Well, enormously, but otherwise it's just groping around, so to speak, right?
And, you know, that's why some people do end up on medication or end up doing things that aren't productive, because they haven't made that connection to anxiety as potential.
We're running out of oxygen in here.
We're running out of air in here, right?
No, I think that's alright.
Do you guys want to go back outside?
How is everyone feeling? It does look pretty nice.
Sure, let's do it.
Sorry, you're in the jet stream with Bahani Air 2.
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