Mental Health Matters - "It's not my fault." and why "My way is better."

Oh.

All right, hey everybody. I don't know, Crabby, you gotta let me know, did you hear me go ding ding ding before the thing started running? Um, so yeah, it's funny, DJ and I are always chatting before this all starts. But wait, let me do a proper intro. Hey everyone, welcome to Mental Health Matters on Saturday night. It's 9 PM Eastern somewhere. Oh wait, that would be on the East Coast. That's where it is. All right, so, uh, why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths that we hear about are actually suicides. And if we want to save lives, we need to talk about suicide prevention and mental health. Why do y'all pop on here every Saturday night with me, keep me company, DJ company? Um, in hopes that perhaps one little thing that perhaps we say or do today may or may not help someone. But if we don't try, the answer is always no. So, um, here we are. Uh, DJ and I were actually just talking about the title, depending on whether you're on YouTube or Facebook. So, It's Not My Fault and My Way Is Better. And I asked him, I'm like, hmm, what does that make you think of? And it It's like, well, if we'd just done it my way, then it would have worked out the way it was supposed to, was one possible way to talk about this. However, um, that's one, one possibility. Now, life never goes according to plan. We've had that conversation here multiple times, and DJ is much better about reminding me to do this, but I think of DJ and I think of this. Is for those of you who's your first time, welcome to Mental Health Matters, formerly known as Suicide Prevention Saturday. And why did we have to change the name? Because unfortunately YouTube has a problem where people actually go on live and do the suicide thing. So Mental Health Matters, formerly known as Suicide Prevention Saturday. This started originally because I needed somewhere to talk about these sort of things. And it used to be 5 or 10 minutes. And now because all of you come out and have so much chat over here and there, that's where it looks like on my screen right now. We get to talk about anything that helps our mental health. Sometimes we need to help ourselves, most of the times we need to help ourselves. Other times we want to have tools and resources so that we can help others or ourselves. So, you know, and this is one of those things where I'm like, all right, crisis, 988, 1-800-273-TALK. Don't want to talk? Then text the word talk to 741741. And the reason it's hard is because I have to do everything backwards. So resources, help, uh, camaraderie is the other reason we show up. Um, DJ will say hi to everybody in a couple minutes when we, uh, get through the intro stuff. So mental health matters. All of us need some help. 2, it's not my fault. Where did that come from? Earlier this week, I screwed up and I was not reprimanded, but somehow very often when we are corrected in things, we feel as though we're reprimanded. Now, I started thinking on this and I'm like, what is the deal exactly? Why in the world do we get distraught when things don't go according to plan. So, "It's not my fault" is often the first thought that I have when someone tells me I did something wrong. So y'all want to know what I did wrong, don't you? Yeah, all right, my dirty laundry. Ready? I cleaned the fridge Now, to be fair, this does not happen all the time, so it is kind of like a unique experience. However, because I cleaned the fridge, I threw something out that should not have been thrown out, and I was not reprimanded. I was just asked, did you throw out the tartar sauce? And the answer is yes, I did throw out the tartar sauce. However, I could not remember the last time we actually had fish or fish sticks or anything that would require tartar sauce, so I made the incorrect assumption that that tartar sauce was old. I did not— I repeat, I did not check the expiration date. Now, the horseradish I threw out because, you know, it turns a different color after a while, so you just know by looking. I threw out some other things that, well, you know, they when things start growing and are fuzzy in the fridge, that's usually when it's time to get rid of them. So in attempting to do something good, i.e., clean out my fridge, I distressed my child because my child had gone out and bought said tartar sauce. My child had gone out and gotten fish sticks for himself, and then I threw out— he went and he made his fish sticks and then went to look for the tartar sauce, and I was nowhere to be found because this was early this week when I worked so late. So the next morning my husband says, did you throw out the tartar sauce? And I said yes. And then I got to learn of the story of my very sad son who did not have tartar sauce for his fish sticks and how sad he was. Now here's what I noticed about this interaction. I felt bad that I made my son feel bad. I'm sad that I disappointed him by throwing away his tartar sauce. However, I also noticed the feels in here was it's not my fault, in that I don't want to take blame for the thing that I did wrong. And that is where the second part of this is my way is better. I didn't get there really quick, but the mental health side of things is understanding how, what, and why we do the things that we do. So I try to do something good, I didn't do something good. I mean, I did, I got other things thrown out that should have been thrown out, but I disappointed someone in trying to do something good. And so that to me, I noticed, tends to be almost like a double whammy. Because I was trying to do something good, serve the family, clean the house, clean the fridge, take care of things. And then to be told, oh no, it disappointed my kid. And then for my husband to tell me the story. So now I'm embarrassed by twofold because I did something wrong and my kid was upset, and then my husband told me about it. Now, was I being reprimanded? No. Not even a tiny bit. It was literally a question: did you throw the tartar sauce up? I, however, took it like, oh, I have failed. And in going down this little rabbit hole of paying attention to how I was feeling, what I was feeling— and it's just tartar sauce, no one died, right? Um, we have to catch these things because so often we just react. We just react to the thing and we don't notice, or we shove it down, or whatever. So one of the things I try to bring to you guys is my stories, because whenever I listen to the thinkers and the people that know more than me and they talk about how they've had to change mindset, understanding where they were and where they're going kind of helped. So it's not my fault. So ready for the rabbit hole? Awesome. With that, Mr. DJ, I will let you run with the hello to everyone because I have actually hidden the comments. And so as per usual, you get to star them as needed. Um, but so this is my cliffhanger. What do you think? Did I do a good job? Do you want to know the rest of the story?

I do want to know the rest of the story. And after I say hello to everybody, I'm waiting with bated breath style to hear how this, uh, how this ended up. So Crabby Girl, guess what, he was out there first as usual with that pink hand waving. Got Sorry Fan 93 joining us tonight, so is Chasing Ghosts. Hello, Texas Woods! The man from the Great Pacific Northwest is with us. Gizzard Gary, my neighbor to the south. Hello, Kansas Hillbilly up Missouri, nice to see you. And Georgia Jamie, JH586 in the room. DM Foss checking in from the West Coast. And Charles Snyder III is out on the Facebook side. So that's the crew as it comes in, and now I'm really, really ready to find out, uh, what's going on.

All right, so, all right, like I said, being aware of what's going on. So I cleaned the fridge, I thought I did a good thing. My husband brings to my attention that I disappointed my kid. I feel bad because I didn't mean to ruin his dinner. But then I notice that I'm frustrated, sad that I did something wrong while trying to do something good. And I start thinking on this and noodling it a little bit. And hi, Charles, by the way. I know I said I'd call you earlier, later, but that didn't happen tonight. And so I'm thinking on this, it's like, why is that? I had good intentions. It didn't work out the way I expected. So why do I feel mad, frustrated about it, and sort of like, oh, how could I do this? So here is a theory. This is not like textbook or any of that. It's that you and I are tribal creatures. We like being around people that are like us. Um, all the people DJ just called out, I know we're all gun people, right? Um, we either own them or around them, we accept them, that sort of stuff. Now you don't have to be a gun person to like this, but the point is, is like we hang out for different reasons. Hillbilly's out there and his thing is make somebody's day better. DJ's out there obviously, and he's like, if you don't see a smile, be the smile. We like uplifting things, but the uplifting things usually coincide with something we already agree with. So when I am feeling disappointed I notice I get mad, and then I'm like, huh, why am I mad? So looking further into this, because we are tribal, we need to be accepted. And so the madness so very often is actually masking our fear of rejection. Got it? The madness or anger we, we have is often hiding our fear of rejection. Because we need each other to survive. None of us can do it all unless you've won Survivor, maybe, but that's usually by taking other people out. But we are tribal, no matter who you are, whatever, wherever you live, you need other people. None of us can do it all. So if I've done something to disappoint my tribe, I then face the possibility of being ostracized by my tribe. So this is just what I've been thinking about because it didn't make any sense to me. It's just tartar sauce. Nobody died. We can make more tartar sauce. But it was just like, why that visceral response of, hmm, I tried something good, it didn't turn out. Why would I be upset over throwing out the tartar sauce? And it is, to me, it goes back to that tribal thing. And why am I sharing this? Back to the Mental Health Matters. If we want to be better people, you and I have to work on ourselves. I can't make you happy. I can't make you mad. I can do things that might piss you off. I can do things that might make you laugh. I can do things that might make you cry or punch something or some of that, but the truth of the matter is also choosing our words because the other thing that I noticed was When something happens and I feel something, I have to remember that I am in control of how I am feeling because my husband did nothing to make me feel like he was berating me. He did nothing to suggest that I was doing anything wrong. He just asked me a question, and because of that question, I then had all these other feels going on all at the same time. And he can't make me mad or happy or angry. I get to decide how I feel. However, the only way I can make that decision is to be aware of what am I feeling and why am I feeling it. So the whole thing of it's not my fault— next time you feel that, check in, find out why are you feeling that way. Were you trying to do something good and it didn't turn out, and now you're disappointed because you're afraid you're going to get kicked out of the tribe? Now I'm using this as an extreme thing, but it's just like all of these things are rooted in us. Like, Jamie's out there, and Jamie's a man of God, and, um, there's 5 million different flavors of Christian out there, but it's, it's like we like being around people who know the stuff that we know. Churches are one of those places though. It's just like, let's see, I was a Baptist, right? I don't know, it's very confusing. There's like 50 different flavors of Baptist. It's like we did actually used to make the joke about— and Jamie, I apologize, I don't know what denomination you are, but it's like we joked about Baskin-Robbins and Baptists being the same thing. There's 53 flavors or something along those lines because I asked my pastor, I'm like, how many different versions are there? Um, and that's just one form of Christianity. But within churches, people will be like, oh, this is what the scripture means. And when everybody agrees with your point of view, then it's easy to hang out. However, once you start disagreeing, this is where you're worried that you're not going to fit in anymore. And so anytime we're afraid, anytime we're scared, mad, frustrated, angry, try to think about the fact: did someone really make me angry? Does this really make me mad, or am I disappointed or fearful? Because so often violence prevention is about understanding what are you afraid of. Fear. One of my students and I were talking about that today. It's like, she's like, Brooke, I put live ammo in my gun and I'm afraid. And I'm like, okay, maybe, maybe not. Maybe you're excited. And so I gave her the example of Tony Robbins' story where he works with performers and he'll have one performer come up to him and talk to him about how they've got such amazing anxiety where it's like they're about to go on stage, they have to perform in front of thousands of people, their throat gets tight, their heart starts beating super fast, and they're just so anxious and they could barely breathe and they're anxious. Now they have another performer come up to them and say, dude, I am so excited. My throat gets tight, my heart goes crazy, and I'm just so excited to serve. I cannot wait to get out here in front of these people. Exact same physical reaction, but each performer gets to choose what words they're using to define that feeling. And so when I'm talking about it's not my fault, this is me trying to get out of the blame, which no one put any blame on me except for me, and understand that I can still be accepted because what I did was not that horrible. However, the mental gymnastics were kind of a bit ridiculous, quite honestly. So Um, I hope that makes at least a little bit of sense. If we want to change things, make things better for ourselves, the first thing we have to do is notice what we're thinking. And then once we actually start noticing how we're feeling or thinking, we have to start asking those questions. What could this mean? Or how can I make this better for myself? Because one of the things in my crazy life as of late is I keep saying out loud and to me is what do I need to do to be the best wife I can be? How can I be the best mom that I can be? How can I serve my mom and be the best daughter that I can be and the best sister to my brother and the best aunt to my nieces and nephews? And remembering that servitude and taking care of others, we have to take care of ourselves first. All right, Mr. DJ, are there any comments that I should be paying attention to because, yeah, I want to bring every— everything hidden.

You know, sometimes it's a case of the other person, as it was in the tartar sauce incident. And Chasing Ghosts is on your screen now saying, I have the same argument, but it's usually Amy threw something out and I'm mad. I don't think she feels bad about it though. Some people are able to deal with that much better than I am, and apparently you are. And, you know, what we take on is that extra stress that we have imposed on somebody, or we didn't mean to create offense. And, you know, backing up with the hands out in front and palms up— what did I do? And what can I do to satisfy the situation and reduce the irritation or the anger or the absence of tartar sauce? I mean, tartar sauce happens. It can happen.

Well, and it's just— and you never know, right? Is because, like, I mean, to Tara's Point Chasing Ghosts is my grandmother died and my aunt came in the house and she just started chucking stuff. Like, the rest of us were very distraught over the fact that she just decided she had to clean. And it was just like, it was, it was stress, because when people die, it's stress. But it's just like when someone else throws something out that you want, the first thing you have to go back to, I again, back to the Tony Robbins stuff, is what could this mean, right? So for me, I was just cleaning the fridge. Uh, as far as I knew, that was old, old tartar sauce. I didn't know. And my aunt, she was trying to work through her grief in the best way she knew how, but because she was so far into her, her, her grief, she obliterated the rest of us. Not intentionally. So it's like, whether you're the person making the mistake or someone's made a mistake around you, It's like, what could this be? Was Amy trying to be spiteful and mean? No, probably not. She loves you and that's why you're married, or at least hopefully that is the case. And it's one of those things where just, what could this mean, helps open that door to, um, I don't think Amy threw something away just to piss you off, right? But at the same time, it's like, check in, be like, all right, wait a second, Did I tell her? Did I have that communication problem? Because that is the other challenge that we have all the time is communication. And we're not trying to make other people feel good or bad. We're trying to be the best us that we can.

Um, one of the notes that I made initially on that, um, when you were starting the spiel was there's always the opportunity to make your preferences clear sort of thing. I mean, I don't think that all of us think as we place, uh, tartar sauce on the shelf or in the refrigerator that we need to announce, hey, nobody throw this out. I went to the store, I bought it, it's mine kind of thing.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we can all— I think we can all be a little precious about some of our things. And, you know, knowing that your teenage son went out, efforted, got this stuff himself and brought it back— I can hearken back to times where I was, um, only an infrequent contributor to what was the barter in the house or in the refrigerator for me. And oh, was I so territorial about that. Course, I didn't have all the adult education that I do at this point about the value of these things or how I even came upon the money to go out and buy. I'll give you a short story. I went and I bought a single large white button mushroom because my local grocery store growing up didn't carry a lot of produce and I really wanted to do that. I wanted to sauté it in some butter and it ended up being used for something else. My mom thought it was gonna be a great addition to the beef stroganoff, which had mushrooms in it, but my mom used canned, not fresh. So here I was, why did my mother take this? It was mine. Why did she put it in something that she doesn't usually use in the same fashion sort of thing? I thought that it was, it's the kind of thing where you think it's an attack on you. And when you get outside of your fields and you do realize that tartar sauce can happen again or the mushrooms will still grow, it's not so bad. In the stressful moments as it happens though, that transference of that sort of negative grind that might exist in other parts of relationships, you're talking about a family, you're talking about food and getting together and all eating at the same time, that itself is a huge challenge, let alone making sure that everybody's plate has the representative items on it that are to their preference and done to their liking kind of thing. So yeah, tartar sauce can happen again. We can always take the opportunity to make things clear to others. And something tells me yes and no.

Like you said, we're not always going to remember that we should or need to. So correct.

And errors can be corrected. We have the opportunity to, you know, hopefully to do it again. I mean, fish sticks will still be produced, I believe, tomorrow. And yesterday being a Lenten Friday, it's kind of ironic that you chose this, uh, well, yeah, based on your—

I've been talking about, uh, fish Fish Fry Friday a lot since Easter season started, so there is that. So maybe it was just meant to be the tartar sauce conversation tonight. Um, all right, so Charles, the same thing happens when body or fearful of something or when you're anticipating something. So short, short version is the only difference between the two is mindset or choice. And here's the thing, you can only make the choice if you're aware of the fact you can make the choice. Which is why, uh, again, trying to share these little bits and pieces of what my life is like, where I come up with this stuff. Because the other part of it is, um, it's like your experience is your experience. It's like, and we all know that depending on how much sleep we got— DJ, you don't sleep enough anyway— how much sleep we got, how much Dr. Peppers are in us, coffee, etc. We're always in a different mindset, and it's just like when we have the opportunity to grab onto, oh wait a second, what could this mean, or what else could this mean. All right, on to your next one. Daddy say if you don't make mistakes, that means you don't do anything. 1,000%. Um, only I don't know, a lot of lately has been we learn so much more by our failures than by our successes. In that, um, even with my students, like, I— we have this conversation all the time, is that, you know, they have a target and they're hitting the target, and no matter how they're hitting the target, whether it's the entire thing or just a small thing they almost always wanted to be smaller. I'm like, this is your first time shooting, you've never done this before, why do you expect perfection? And you don't even know what perfection is yet. Um, and because there is no such thing. Those of us who know about shooting, one of the things that makes it so amazing is that no matter how good you get, you can always get better. So let's say you started like this and you got smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until you have this one little hole in the middle of your target. Well, All we got to do to mess that up is make you go faster and move it further away, and then it goes back out to here again, and you get to refine, refine, refine. And this is the beauty of our mental health, in that just like shooting, we get to always refine it, make it a little bit better, have that moment of pause, and start paying attention to how we actually are feeling and what we are actually doing. So Is it going to work every time? No, of course not. I would love to say yes, you just figure this out once and it works every single time. And I think one of my biggest things is just be curious, right? It's like if you find that your friend or your family does something and you're feeling victimized or like they're picking on you or they just wanted to crush you, think about, hmm, hold on, hold the phone just a moment. What could this mean? Could it mean you have vindictive people in your life? Yes. Yes, of course it could. However, let's give humanity the chance that perhaps that is not the actual case. And even if it is, you can't change them. Whatever they are doing, you have zero control over. However, the internal dialogue that occurs here, which again, have this conversation with my students all the time, what's happening up here and what we're paying attention to. Hence the reason I haven't watched the news since 2005 when I got pregnant, because when have you ever watched the news and felt better afterwards? That would be also probably never. Um, but it's just like once you start observing, paying attention to, understanding that, asking the questions, where is this coming from? Where is this going? How can I be a better person? How can I deal with this better? Because we have family and friends that perhaps we don't want to spend time with because of the way we feel. I've got them, um, and I have friends that— and family that I can love on and love them to pieces, but I don't have to spend lots of time with them because I don't have the mental ability to do that all of the time. But the more we practice something So this is my dry fire finger, right? Okay. The more we practice something, um, the better we get at it. So, um, wait, I'm like, I sort of read this and then, uh, perception of choice decision that was measured to be roughly an average of 1/10 of a volt choosing any angry tartar sauce coming down to 1/10. All right. So, um, my friend Charles here over on the Facebook side, he is a firefighter. Um, he's also my marketing guy. So, um, but yeah, and we've been— we've known each other for a while now. So anywho, that's what I have for you guys tonight. Uh, update, let's see, next week will be the last live show until we return I did already record one show for you guys that will be going out on the 11th. No, that's a Friday. On the 12th, because 9 PM Eastern on Saturday, April 12th, I'll be somewhere in the air. I don't know where, um, but I will not be on here. Because it'll be 4:30 AM Sunday morning before we hit the ground again. Yes, konnichiwa, Charles. So, um, yeah, sorry, konnichiwa gozaimasu if I'm going to be, um, but— oh, Viejo, nice to see you. And I'm sorry, DJ, do you want to go on with the final thing? Because I know we didn't hear Vio's, and I'm not sure who else has joined us.

I'd be happy to do that. And it was, it was great. I'm glad that you brought up, uh, Charles's second comment there. Um, I've forgotten to start that. So on the Facebook side tonight, Charles E. Snyder III was in the room. And on the YouTube side, we had Crabby Turtle, Sorry Fan 93. Let's— I, I need to do this though. Do I appropriately reply I/O to that one? Let me know before we go today. Uh, also had Jason Ghost out there. Woods, uh, joined us. Soda Gizzard Gary Hill was out there. Jamie JH586 and Viejo So thanks everybody for coming out this week. Bring a friend next week. Before you leave tonight, please thumb up if you haven't already, and as soon as the stream ends, if you can wait just a second, refresh and leave a comment. That really helps out the algorithm. We'll have even more people joining us next week. So until we see you then for pre-recorded, otherwise in the air or in the future, be safe, have fun, take care of your crew and yourself, and rawr, we're out.