Special Edition Suicide Prevention Saturday with Jake form WTTA

Ta-da! All right, so hi everyone, welcome to A Great Start Shooting Schools, uh, YouTube channel, because that's usually where these are gonna go. Today I have with me Jake, and I'm not gonna destroy your last name. You say it for me, Jake. Thank you, because I wanna— it's like hors d'oeuvres. If I look at it, I can't read it. Yes, horse d'oeuvre, man. So, um, Jake has been a guest with me before and he's been requested to come back, and it'd been a couple months, so I I would give him a call. So here he is. So Jake, thank you for giving me an hour of your time this morning.

What, what, what? An hour? Uh, what? No.

Oh, all right, well, hour and a half. We could go two. Everyone always keeps saying they want long form, and I'm like, yeah, you're lucky to get me attention span for 15 minutes. So there's that.

And nobody wants to hear me drone on for that long. So an hour it is.

I don't know, I've actually— like I told you, you've got fanboys on my, uh, on my channel. They actually follow you other places. Sweet. Speaking of other places, I forgot to share my screen so I could just pull this up fast. Um, although Jake is wearing his Walk the Talk America shirt. That's what WTTA stands for. And in just a second— oh, that was the wrong thing. It's like, that's not the one I want, not the right button.

Sorry, I pointed the wrong side of my chest because I'm looking at the thing.

Yeah, it's very challenging. All right, so, um, for those of you who have not heard of Walk the Talk America before, I'll try to make this a little bigger so you can actually see this. Um, but Walk the Talk America is, uh, Jake and Mike and I'm assuming other supporting characters that are talking about bridging the gap between mental health and responsible firearm ownership. As you all know, every Saturday night here on, um, whatever channel we're on for a Great Start Shooting School, I do Suicide Prevention Saturday. And Jake and company at Walk the Talk America are also trying to bridge the gap between gun owners and suicide and mental health.

Um, Jake, you have rights restriction.

There you go. So do you have a better elevator pitch for Walk the Talk America before I continue on?

You know, uh, it's just to say that at our core, we're a suicide prevention organization because that's how Mike started it. But the ripple effects of people treating their mental— I'm trying to find a better way to say this because it's— we, we fall into the binary of like mental illness or wellness, and it's like somewhere in between is just paying attention to what your mind is doing, right? So So psychological functioning, I guess, is a good way of saying it. But, but the ripple effects of improving one's own mental wellness or mental fitness go far beyond just suicide prevention. It's better parenting and improved relationships and better communication and boss-employee stuff. I mean, if you're healthy at your core, and that includes physical as well as mental, spiritual, psychological, emotional, then problems just disappear in your life because you're better able to navigate them. So we are trying to do that. And, and really what we're trying to do is bridge the gap. You know, I always say that a lot, but bridge the gap between the two cultures— firearms ownership and mental well-being and healthcare broadly, even— because so many gun owners are so skittish about going and getting care because they don't want to have their rights restricted if they say the wrong thing. And I totally get that, and I have a lot of compassion for that because A lot of people in my own field are, you know, they've become activists and that's not okay. So we're trying to invite people in to get their own well-being taken care of. If you are too far, you know, sick, then go get professional help. But if you're not, help yourself. And part of this is providing resources and information and education and all sorts of things, tidbits and insights to, to stay healthy and just stay out of my clinic. You know, that's, that's kind of what we want to do too.

So, and there's only one Jake, and there's lots of people that need help, so there's only one Jake. So there's a little bit of that. And so as far as resources, uh, if you go to walkthetalkamerica.org, which is the site that I just showed you, there's resources there. And you can also get— what is it—

screenings. So the, the free and anonymous mental health screenings are a key component of what we do. So we've got flyers like this that will sit passively on a counter at a gun shop or, you know, like retail store or range, and it says mental health, it's okay to talk about it. And then at the bottom there's a slug that says wtta.org/love. And then on the flip side, if you happen to be a retail store operator or owner or range operator, you can have one of your local clinicians or agencies stamp their logo on it.. We can send you the PDF if you want to preprint them yourself, that's okay too. But the idea is that this is part of the connection between the cultures. And then the action point is to go get yourself screened because free screening, you know, helps align where you are and gives you feedback. Some people take the anxiety screening, they go, oh good, I only have a little anxiety. That's good. I thought it was worse. Or some take it and go, holy cow, I had no idea how depressed I am. Maybe I don't like that number and I need to go get some professional help. So that's one thing that we're doing. But we also have a podcast, it's called Guns and Mental Health, and lots of people like listening to that. There's some really powerful stories on there. Uh, we try to end it with some, you know, hope and inspiration and an uplifting message at the end. Uh, but, uh, some of them are pretty deep and pretty powerful and pretty emotional. So I invite you to, to listen to the podcast too. And then the, the last thing that we're really aiming to do right now is create a 50-state directory of healthcare practitioners who are gun friendly, and that'll help alleviate a lot of the fear and suspicion I think that people have when they, when they reach out for care. If you can go to a place and you know for sure that you're going to be welcomed and not judged, and the first question out of the person's mouth isn't, you know, do you own guns, then we can, we can go a long way to improving people's overall well-being.

Now, last time we talked, you said that you were trying to get the Psychology Today uh, to have a new category. Has that gotten anywhere?

I wish I could say that it has, but I think it went over like a fart in church.

Okay.

Um, I, I feel— I followed up with my email and, uh, didn't get a reply. Followed up again, no reply. And the initial one said, we're gonna, you know, thanks for the suggestion, we're gonna, you know, send this up the chain to the people who make decisions on things like that. It was pretty boilerplate, and I didn't expect much from it, But, um, yeah, that was disappointing. So I think we're left to creating our own directory.

Gotcha. And for those of you who don't know, uh, Psychology Today, I guess it is, has, um, will have counselors in there listed, and they'll, they'll— they have a ton of categories saying what they're good at. Like, for example, one of the types I run into all the time is EMT, first responders, um, that sort of thing, veterans. Um, so those are some of the categories they have as far as what they specialize in. Jake, I believe your family, like, would be your special— what you specialize in.

Yeah, yeah, you can do, uh, areas of specialization as far as what you treat, which is, you know, I'm really good at personality disorders or whatever, or children. And then the other one would be demographics. So that would be all the, the occupations you listed off, and a lot of them have, you know, LGBTQIA+ affirming. And, um, airline or aviation officials is another one that gets checked on there. And as these categories have continued to expand and augment, now single moms I think is another one. I wanted firearm enthusiasts to be on there, you know, 2A allied, you know, something like that. And no interest apparently.

So, yeah. Well, so if you're a clinician and you're watching this, you go ahead and make the suggestion too, because if we all come together and it comes from multiple directions, they can't ignore it. Well, they can ignore it, but we can make it harder for them to ignore.

For sure. For sure. And in case anybody's wondering, the, the reason this is so important, the reason we want clinicians and practitioners to be gun savvy is not just because we want to like push the message that everybody should own guns, which would be fine, but it's that with approximately 50% of all of America either owning a gun or living with one, our, our field can't afford to be ignorant about the culture. And yet we often are, we bury our heads in the sand. So, so we don't want to be pushing people away inadvertently just because of our own ignorance and asking poor questions, you know? So, so that's why it's important to me and I'm going to keep asking.

Gotcha. That mouse problem is really a huge problem right now. For those of you just joining us, the, the technical mouse—

not— yes, she doesn't have rats running all over.

No, no, my little mouse will not move. So like, I keep like pushing the wrong button as I'm like, oh no, that's where my mouse is supposed to be. So anyway, if you see me while Jake is talking, then that means that I hit the wrong thing again. So, all right, so, um, we talked about fear, uh, gun owners being afraid to get mental health And let's be real, so many people, not just gun owners, are afraid of mental health as far as, ooh, if I'm going to counseling, I'm broken. Oh, we can't let anyone know that I went to counseling. So it's not just gun owners, but gun owners often tend to be more fearful of it because, um, as a gun owner, it's like, it's true. I, I know people who say, yeah, I don't want to go get treatment because I don't want to lose my firearms.. And for me, I've— I was suicidal as a teen. I went to, um, counseling long before I became a gun owner. And to me, I feel like you're broken if you've never been to a counselor, because it's just like all of us have stuff. And this is like the great thing about the resources that Jake was talking about. Let's see if I can share this without, um, dropping both of us, but apparently not. I'm just gonna not share. So those of you who go to walkthetalkamerica.org, click on the resources tab, and you can click on the free anonymous wellness screenings and find out how are you faring. Um, because we don't always know our normal. My normal is not Jake's normal. Jake's normal is not your normal. And so we really don't know unless we do something to assess it.

So yeah, um, I, I teased that intentionally. I put a drop of fear in there because I know that you and I show prepped a little bit to talk about that. Very emotion. But, you know, let's, let's spend a little time discussing why it is that people don't come in to seek help. Um, multifactorial, right? So it's not just one thing, but I do like to, to, to pick on my profession a little bit. So for as, uh, as, as good as we are at being pretty warm and welcoming, you know, once you're in the office, we have done an absolutely poor job of advertising and marketing ourselves and what we do over the last, I don't know, 40 years or so. And what that created was a, a kind of a void. And into that void stepped the Insta therapy companies, Talkspace, BetterHelp, GoodTherapy. There's a zillion of them. And they all say, hey, you know, pay a subscription like you pay for a gym membership, come in and get your mental health care as you want it, accessible on your time, et cetera, et cetera. And it's not it's not researched. I'm not going to say it doesn't work, but the overwhelming anecdotes that come through our agency are that they tried it and it didn't work, largely because it was too brief and it wasn't deep enough. And it makes you feel good. I'll put that in air quotes for the listening audience who can't see me. It makes you feel good, but it doesn't get you good. And if that can, you know, if that makes sense. So my job as a practitioner is not to make you feel better, it's to get you better. And You obviously may need to take some steps along the way. And what these companies are doing is they're making a gazillion dollars off of representing that they're, they're helping, but they're not really helping. If they were, we wouldn't have a burgeoning mental health crisis in this country. So, so that's one problem is that it's being done ineffectively. Now that represents as the most popular way to do it, right, is to do it remotely, do it through the screen. And, um, and insurance companies love this, by the way, because they, they don't have to spend out money on their member benefits by you going into the clinic and me billing your, your insurance plan for it. So, so they love the, the pop-up startup companies. But speaking of insurance, there's another reason that people, you know, don't want to go in because they get the sense that they're broken or whatever, like you alluded. It's because we have to diagnose you with something. So unlike every other medical stripe— dentistry, pediatrics, optometry, primary care— in order to receive services from us and have us bill your insurance company to get paid for those services, We have to render a diagnosis, and the diagnosis is you're broken, something's wrong with you, there's, there's an illness. And then we have to create a treatment plan, and we have to have objectives to the goal to meet the treatment plan. And then when we're done treating, we can go, hey, you're done, go ahead, depart, discharge. And then the insurance company says, great, we, we get to stop paying now. And there's a fight along the way about whether or not they should pay, right? So, so that's a big problem. There is no, like, you know, come in 4 times a year, pop the hood, check the belts and hoses, make sure you're you're doing all right, uh, that we get to get paid for. So that, that result— that results in a, a whole market economy of people who would rather just pay a subscription fee to somebody who doesn't have to do that. So that's a problem too. And then on top of this is the, the overriding cultural stigma of, you know, oh, you're depressed, you must be unfit for duty, you know, or whatever that is.

Or my favorite is tough guys, right? You're— you've got nothing to be depressed about, your life is fine. You just get over it. And I was just like, that's so helpful.

Said no one ever. Yeah. Yeah. Things, you know, do's and don'ts. That's certainly among the don'ts. If somebody says that they're struggling, don't ever compare them through your lens. Right. You don't know what that person has going on in his or her life. They may look like a million bucks on the outside. It might be rotting on the inside. You just don't know. So resist the temptation to tell them why they shouldn't be feeling whatever they're feeling. Right. That's, that would be very rude. But it happens all the time. And it drives people further and further away from care.

I mean, it's definitely one of those things where it's like we joke about— well, sorry, I joke about like people who lose their stuff over not getting their non-filtered iced latte, whatever. And it's just like the reality of that meltdown probably has zero to do with that latte.

With the iced latte, yeah.

No, it has nothing to do with the latte. It has to do with they just lost their grandpa, they just lost their job, their kid just died. You don't know because we don't share. What we're really going through.

I want to play devil's advocate here a little bit because I, I hear you, and that is what our profession is built upon, is the idea that you don't know, meet people where they are and be compassionate. That's fine until you see a pattern of this behavior, you know, then it's like, well, you, you've clearly got something going on because now everybody around you is really annoyed because it's not an episodic one-off that you lost your mind in the middle of Starbucks. It's you lost your mind in the middle of Starbucks, you lost your mind on your children, you've lost your mind at the person in traffic, you lost your mind at the auto mechanic, you lost lost your mind in the grocery store. It's like, all right, now there's something wrong, right? And it— and I think it's incumbent upon the, the audience who's encountering that kind of thing to say, hey, um, you've been losing your mind a lot lately. You might need to get that looked at, right? Um, and it's okay not to tolerate that kind of behavior if you're on the receiving end of it. That's, that's pathological and toxic. So while we can have compassion for people, if we start to notice a pattern, I think it's incumbent upon us to to point it out and say, hey, look, you're, you're not fun to hang around with anymore. Now, that being said, there's always a reason behind that too. So just because there's a pattern of boorish poor behavior or assaultive behavior or whatever the behavior is, it doesn't mean there's not a reason for it. Now, it's still intolerable behavior and we should not tolerate it, um, but we can still have compassion and say, look, I understand you've got like this bag of problems that's been following you since childhood you don't get to take it out on me. Right. So that's, that's where healing can occur simultaneous with accountability. It's not an either or.

Yeah. Yeah. And this is one of the nice things about the QPR training that we do because it's question, persuade, or, and then refer. And it's just like a lot of us don't want to question anyone. We just want to say, oh, you'll be fine, or have a nice day, you know, pat on the head.

See you later. Well, unfortunately, you know, these days, culture, pop culture, and certainly social media culture have made it really challenging to hold people accountable. Because if you want to learn more about this, watch the emotional functioning series that I offer at zephyrwellness.org. You can just go in there on the videos and type in emotions or emotional functioning. It'll pop right up. But, um, but shame and guilt are very important emotions that we have that are neurologically necessary.. And when we've been told that we're not allowed to create shame in others, meaning we communicate that, that they're not meeting our expectations, then we just don't do it anymore. And accountability goes out the door. So when we can't hold people accountable, what ends up happening is those people who are inflicting all this pain and causing all this harm and failing to meet expectations don't get told that because we, the accountability holders who would dare say, hey, stop yelling at me, that's not play, get overrun with other emotions by people who would leverage such things. And again, I explain this a little deeper in the video series, such that we just say, you know what, I'm just not even going to engage that person. They're throwing things in the grocery store, or the kids, you know, bullying on the playground, whatever it is. And it's like, well, that's rude if you tell them to stop. No, it's necessary to tell them to stop because I'm tired of him inflicting pain on all the other kids on the playground. So, uh, we need to be mindful that shame and guilt are not to be eliminated from society. Now, people who are living in shame or living in guilt, you absolutely need to work on that. But we can't go around trying to pretend like it shouldn't exist. It'd be like trying to pretend that anger shouldn't exist. It's like, no, anger is necessary. It motivates usually to make change, you know? So we don't want to eliminate those things.

We want to just manage them appropriately. Yeah, no, definitely. It's, it's funny that you bring up guilt because that was something I was thinking about the other day is It seems like on top of fear that we were talking about that we currently have in America, whether it's for mental health or any other issues in the world currently, but guilt seems like to be a huge one that lots of people battle with on a regular basis. It's like not enough time, too much time, not doing enough, not being enough. And it seems like that guilt thing definitely is one of those, um, I don't know, I want to call it the Seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

But yeah, guilt. So as it turns out, guilt's just as necessary. It's a very different emotion than shame, but they go hand in hand. So shame says you failed to meet somebody's expectations, meaning you cause sadness in another person. Guilt says go make it right. So you're supposed to take the shame that you feel, pings the guilt. Guilt says make a repair, you know, apologize, you know, buy chocolates or whatever. And then hopefully forgiveness is extended and then you can move forward, right? You make amends with each other. Well, what happens if that doesn't occur? If the goalposts keep moving, for example, Uh, you and I, you know, have an interaction. I say something, you go, hey, that was offensive. And I say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. And then if you keep— if you keep me on the leash and you keep saying, nope, not good enough, I need more than an apology, now I find myself on a shame-guilt treadmill where I'm chasing you down to get your approval because it matters to me. I want a relationship with you. I don't want you, you know, ignoring me or whatever. Um, but at some point it becomes irrational. Right. If the apology goes from an apology to a gift to multiple gifts to more expensive gifts, and all because of this thing that I did that upset you, I have a decision to make about whether or not that relationship means enough to me to continue down that path. And we get held in these shame-guilt treadmills all the time by, you know, family, organizations, big religion will do this. So we need to make a decision internally, like, do I need to keep pursuing this? Is this really part of the tribe that I want to belong to? If a person's going to never give reconciliation or forgiveness, or do I just, you know, say I'm done, you know, I'm, I'm out of here, I'm going to find another tribe.

And unfortunately, part of it, I guess, is just noticing it because it actually happens all the time. My— I came from two divorced sets of parents in that my dad got married and divorced twice, and luckily for me, my mom and dad were best of friends, and so I, I benefited from that. Unfortunately, his second wife not so much best of friends. And I watched my poor brother get bounced back and forth, bounced back and forth. Oh, don't you love me more? said one parent. Oh, don't you love me more? said the other parent. And what is a kid to do in that? And I'm like, guilt, shame, yeah, all of those things. Because you just want your parents to love you, not make you be the one who they got to talk about.

It requires a great deal of emotional strength to stand up under that and step off the treadmill, because you're going to get yelled at for doing it. Right? It's only going to escalate if it becomes a control thing, and we don't have to dive into that necessarily.

Yeah, no, it was just one of those things where— yeah, I got to see it, and I can honestly tell you my brother did a great job of stepping off the treadmill, um, and he has been happily married for many, many years now, and lots of kids, lots and lots of kids. That's great. So, all right, so, uh, we talked about gun ownership. Oh, is that for wellness? Let's see if I can click the right thing so people can actually see. Oh, there it is. Yep, there it is. So the one you're talking about is the emotional functioning one that everyone should go and watch. Um, so I have one more thing to do today, I guess. Stack it up. Um, so, all right, fear. I, I have friends from all walks of life, um, far, far left, far, far right, way in the middle, uh, and then people that aren't even on the scale. However, Lately I've been talking to everyone and I'm just like, hey, what are you concerned about in America right now? And their answer is our polarization. They're like, we have gotten to be so polarized that everything is a hot button and everything brings out anger and fear, um, and maybe even a little bit of guilt. I'm not even sure, but, um, it's one of those things What, for you as a clinician, what is— where do you start dealing with anger?

I guess is my question.

Yeah. So that's a big question, right?

Yeah. So there's, there's a great YouTube series on emotional functioning with a guy who looks a lot like me and sounds a lot like me. No, but, but seriously, I'm happy to go over this. So we have 10 core emotions. Anger is one of them. Shame and guilt are another couple of them. Fear is one of them. And what you're describing here, uh, also leans into an emotion called contempt. Contempt is when we look down on people like they're not like us, and it creates this us versus them separate, uh, mentality where, uh, where we've divided and now we're condescending as well, right?

So yes, often very much so in both directions, in all directions.

Yeah, we So here's the thing to take away from, from like, if you take nothing away from this other than this, please, please remember that emotions are neither positive nor negative. They're just informative. So the information that contempt brings us is that we need to separate. That's its job. Its job is to, to defend, usually when upon attack, because it's really hard to inflict pain on people unless you like don't think they're like you or you think you yourself are being hurt. So contempt is used for wartime. It's used for conflict. It's used for defense. And part of that defense is setting limits and boundaries to say, I'm not going to be a part of this anymore because you're not healthy for me. I'm not going there, right? They're not respecting you. Okay. Bad contempt done reflexively, just like anger might be reflexive or fear is sometimes reflexive, and then we act out of it without thinking. When we reflexively act out of our emotions, we often do things we regret. So reflexive contempt is when we usually, when we label people as if we know all that there is to know about them and then act on that label. So what we're doing is we're stripping them of their agency to change. We're invalidating all that they probably are beyond what we think, and we're not allowing them to grow beyond the label. So let's say Republican, Democrat, right? That's a big fun one. People toss that around all the time. They go, "Spoken like a true Democrat." And it's like, yeah, did you— do you know the person or do you just know their avatar? That's a contemptuous statement designed to create separation in space. Okay, that's fine. You can have a barrier there. You can have a boundary. But do you know why you're doing it? Is it just reflexive ideology? Because that's not really a super good idea because, as you alluded before, right, you talk to lots of people across lots of political spectra, and most of us have something in common. I mean, in the gun community, the commonality is we like our freedom, you know, the freedom to shoot, the freedom to, you know, defend, the freedom to hunt, the freedom to sport, all those things. And when you restrict gun rights, you're restricting liberties. Okay, that's a commonality, you know. So it doesn't do any good for us to throw around words like libtard and, you know, like, You know, there's liberals that own guns, right?

Right.

There is.

There is a lot of them, actually. There's a liberal gun club.

There's LGBTQ gun clubs. There's liberal gun owners. And not all LGBTQ are liberal either. Many, many, many that I know are actually quite conservative. So like, we want to avoid these labels because it leads to the contempt, which leads to the polarization, which leads to the separation, which leads to the division, which then gives opportunity to big organizations who want to control people. The ability to step in and do so because they're like, 'CC, you're all fighting. You can't get along without us,' whatever 'us' is. It could be a professional organization for your association or whatever. It could be.gov. It could be public health authorities. Anybody at any time who has the opportunity to step in and say, 'You obviously can't figure it out for yourselves. You need us.' And then what are we supposed to do, make friends with the people we just got done slandering? Yeah, that's exactly how you're supposed to do. That's how you collectivize against people who want to control you, but not if you can't get out of your own way. So, that, you know, a lot of people out there saying, you know, the division is purposeful, it's intentional, it's whatever. Maybe it is, but I don't really care. The result is that we're no longer a community, and that's a problem, because when we're no longer community, we don't trust each other, we don't rely on each other. And then we get into the problem of like, you know, let's look at guns and mental health. I'm a gun owner. I got told by the NRA that doctors are out to take my guns, and they said to stay in their lane. Therefore, I don't trust doctors. It's like your doctor might be a gun owner and a really solid one too. Not like the, the, I believe in the 2A comma, but like, you just don't know if you've already decided in your mind what that label is going to be. So we need to get away from that. We need to, we need to see through people's outward representations and meet them where they are, acknowledge that they're deeper than we probably want to admit. Um, and, and really give an opportunity to learn and grow and develop. I mean, most people are deeper than the labels we apply to them.

Without a doubt. Yeah. I mean, tons of people are like, oh, Brooke, you're a Republican. I'm like, no, I'm actually not. But okay. But, but this is just, it is like you said, the avatar. Everyone always assumes, oh, you're a gun owner, therefore you must be a Republican. It's like, no, there's plenty of gun owners that are not Republican.

But the other thing, let me, let me piggyback off that for just one second because this might be illustrative. So when we do that, when we, when we do the avatar thing, right? Gun owner equals Republican equals whatever conclusion I draw. And then you push back and you say, actually, I'm not. What the person who's doing the accusations has to do in order to meet reality where it is, is to acknowledge they were wrong. And we don't like that. No, no, no, most of us don't. So this is it. This is something I'd invite listening audience to do too, is practice noticing when you get defensive in yourself, because that's probably an area you need to examine. Because if you're not defensive, you're just like, hey, whatever, this is what I believe. You're open to challenge on it. And when you're open to challenge, you hold things loosely. If you hold things too tightly, especially beliefs and ideas, when those beliefs and ideas get questioned, it feels in the brain— and I'm pointing to my, my brain where the limbic system would be, it's our emotional center— it feels to the brain like we ourselves are being challenged or we ourselves are being confronted. It's not, it's just the idea. But if you make that mistake of conflating what you think with who you are, when what you think gets attacked, your brain says, uh-oh, I'm under attack. And that's a fear response. So the fear then comes forward and says, look out, there's a threat, fight it. There's not a threat to you. It's just a threat to what you think. So we want to be constantly evaluating what we think and knowing why we believe what we believe. And then if it gets a challenge, we know why we believe what we believe and we don't have to defend it. We can just be like, yeah, okay, whatever. I'll take in new information. Maybe I'll accept it. Maybe I won't. But I don't have to reflexively defend it. Defend myself against something that's not real.

Yeah, one of my favorite Jordan Peterson quotes is, um, imagine when you're talking to someone that they know something you don't know. Because we also often tend to talk, but then we're listening to wait for the pause so we can say what we want to say, versus actually listening to what the person is saying. And this is why, like, I love, like, in teaching, when someone asks me a question, I'm like, okay, is this what you're— are you asking me this question? And re— re-say what it is that they're telling me to make sure I understand it in my words. Yeah, um, because if I'm not engaging that way, then I am waiting for the pause to be able to say something.

Yep. Listen to understand, not to reply. Yeah.

By the way, I love that when anytime Jordan Peterson gets cross-referenced with me, that's We got to see him live in New York just before COVID That's cool. And have dinner with him in the same restaurant. Not with him, but it was still fun. It was like, look, there he is across there on the other table.

Yeah, that'd be fun if you said I had dinner with Jordan Peterson. What'd you guys talk about?

Oh, not much. Yeah, we just pointed— my husband pointed him from across the room. Look, there he is. Um, so anyway, no, don't do that. We've got pictures with him that we do.

That's cool. That's super cool. Big hero of mine.

Unwitting mentor, he is. Yes, yes. Well, I have a feeling he is for lots and lots of people. But, um, yeah, he's actually one of the few long-form YouTube things that I will actually watch. So, but, so to me, there's an example of someone— one of the first times I ever saw him was Jordan Peterson versus Sam Harris. And it wasn't versus, but theologically they have two separate belief systems. And I, I would say I'm going to put a link in here for that particular one because that gives you an example of two people who disagree or have different belief systems trying very hard to understand the perspective and the point of view from the other person. And I think we could use a lot more of that.

It seems it— we can. We, we do need more of that. I think, I think sometimes the pendulum goes a little too far though, when we get, say, supervisor and subordinate relationships where the subordinates demand that the supervisor understand them, the supervisor is like, I just need you to do the job. This isn't a negotiation. It's not a debate. We're not trying to reach a greater understanding. I need you to get the job done. And so, it's a little bit of this, and we don't have to tread into postmodernism, but that's part of what culture has done too, to tear down and separate and divide. Is to tell people that their unique individual understanding of the world is the best one, right? And everyone should respect it. It's like, no, there's stratification and there's hierarchies for a reason. And if you tear those down and don't replace them with something equally useful, then all you get is chaos. So we don't want to continually tear down things without having something to replace them with. And unfortunately, that's where we are. We're tearing things down.

Because it's in vogue, um, but we're not, we're not building anything back up, right? 1978, just so you know, 8 years old, sitting at the kitchen table with my grandmother. We're discussing society in general. Um, the car, she decided, was the downfall of America simply for the fact that prior to us each having cars, we relied on our neighbors, we relied on our township, we knew everyone and we had that connection, like whether it was good or bad, in that, you know, that there were cliques or, you know, the bad person, you know, that sort of stuff. But it was just like, that was like one thing that, again, a long time ago I'm like, oh, we're starting to get further and further and further apart. Now she's, she's not wrong. And so there's that. And now we've gotten further and further apart because I'm in Connecticut, you're in Nevada. We're having a conversation.

Yeah, wherever it is, Vegas.

Reach through the screen, throw my water on you. Wait, are you sure you don't want to do the—

what?

No, sorry, the— your, your expired can of stuff.

I'll finish then.

It'll give me a better week later. But it's one of those things, we're, we're losing our, our human humanity. And what you were talking about earlier with the, all we have to do for me to treat you like garbage is insist that you are not like me. Right. And unfortunately, that immediately makes me think of Nazi Germany because I am confident there is not a single person that worked at a concentration camp ever imagined that they would be able to just walk people into death chambers or just sit there and shoot them and watch them fall into graves. And it's just like, when I studied the Holocaust, I'm like, how in the world did Hitler do that? And then as you were explaining that whole thing where if I make someone different enough from me, they are no longer my equal, therefore I can do harm to them. Yeah. And so it's one of those things. And also back to Peterson reference, uh, the Gulag Acapulco, just like people don't know what they're capable of and they're like, oh, I would never have been a guard at the, uh, at the concentration camps. And it's like, as we get further and further apart and we don't have this connection, we don't have this respect— and like you said, the hierarchy is there for a reason. It's like you say yes ma'am to your parents, you say no sir to your dad, you, you treat, uh, um, people with respect due to their age and whatnot, whether you— they're smarter than you or not. That has nothing to do with it. It's, it's— we need that hierarchy. And yeah, with everybody throwing the baby out with the bathwater It's just like, oh, it's a little bit rough.

It's, it's a tough balance to continue challenging authority while wanting to respect it, right? Um, at which point, if we, if we forget to, to do both and to balance them, um, we're going to have chaos one direction or another. We're going to have, you know, authoritarian chaos where nobody has liberty, or we're going to have no authority at all and, you know, anarchy. So we want to, we want to continue striking that balance. But your point isn't you know, is well taken about the, the Nazi Germany comparison. I know there's people who recoil at that because, as a good friend of mine, Elliot Mallen, said on the Noggin Notes podcast, is we don't need to do comparisons of grotesque things. Grotesque things can stand on their own. Liberty violations can stand on their own without the cross-comparison to, you know, Hitler or whatever. Um, but we also forget about Mao and we forget about Stalin who killed way more people than Hitler. And, uh, we, we just want to make sure that we're paying heed to the patterns and trends that emerge. The othering of people who didn't take a vaccine, the othering of environmentalists, the othering of any group, right? If you throw them into a category and label them, it makes them more likely to be condescended if you were ever to be in charge. I mean, I dealt with this with my own professional community, which is absurd to think, but the marriage and family therapists at one point in the state of Nevada absolutely did not want professional counselors to be licensed. And then when they did get licensed, they did not want them to treat couples and families because they saw it somehow as a threat to their occupation, as if there's not enough hurt to go around. Nevada has been dead last in behavioral health for like ever, forever and ever. And yeah, so we got these marriage and family therapists, of which I am one. I am a marriage and family therapist by license. I'm no longer part of the association because the association was saying garbage like this, that there's threats to the profession from other professionals. Like the psychiatrists in Texas, for example, they did try to eliminate the marriage and family therapist license, uh, I guess so they could all work for them or something. They lost in court, you know, so it— like, it's not a threat anymore. But the point is they continue this, this fear-based garbage that separates, and it's like This is why clinicians like myself cannot get into network with Medicare. It's because we don't get along well in the sandbox with the social workers and psychologists and professional counselors. Like, if you just play nice and realize we're all out here to help people, it would be fine for everyone and the rising tide would lift all boats. But no, we have to, we have to do this othering thing. And then who gets hurt in the end? Our patients, right?

So yeah, we got to be— Shortage enough as it is.

I know we have to, we have to be really mindful of that. And whenever you see that occurring, that, that should be a big flag to you. Like, don't, don't go that route. Um, if you feel those words come to the tip of your tongue, like, uh, stupid libtards, stupid, you know, alt-right, you're like, do you really know what you're saying? And do you know those people? Do you know all of them? Probably not.

Maybe, maybe meet them on an individual basis and value people for who they are rather than whatever label you were told to put on Right now, as a kid, I'm like, you know, life could be so much simpler if everyone who likes blue could live in a blue city, then everything would be fine. And everyone who likes green could live in a green city, everyone would be fine. The problem is—

look at that over your head now.

Sorry. Yeah, thanks. It's all right, it's all good. But it's one of those things where it's like, I— again, it brings me back to the focus on what we have in common. And the humanity that we all have. Because it's— and I'm so glad you're putting it into words, I guess. What I'd always thought of— I didn't realize— is like the— it's the othering. It's everybody wants to do the othering. And it's just like— because I've had people like— like, I went to a Moms Demand Action meeting, and, you know, gun owners like, oh, how could you do that?

Because, I mean, you've gone a little bit better and turned into a pile of dust right before everybody's eyes.

Well, it was— that's like, how could you stomach that? Yeah. Yes. And it was just like, I'm like, you have to understand people. They're— and unfortunately, this comes back to the fear thing. It's like, why is fear such an amazing tool to motivate people? Because when I listen to lots of things, it's about the fear. It's the— we were talking— we briefly talked about red flag laws prior to we started the recording, but it was just like the fear of, oh, we could save a life if, and guns are bad. And I've been to DC enough and sat through, sat through lots of testimony and we're like, here are preventative maintenance, here's preventative stuff that we can stop the violence from happening, not just gun violence, but violence in general. And like, nope, it's just guns. And it's just like, how can you not want to actually save lives? We are saving lives. Guns are bad. And it's just like, Okay, I still don't know how to have that conversation still.

Do you know what I mean? I do. It's tough to get into, you know, a robust discussion with somebody who's circular reasoning, you know, or circular logic-ing their way around. So, um, and just to define that, so it's also known as begging the question. Almost every announcer uses begging the question wrong. It's like, you know, he hit a home run last night, which begs the question, is he going to hit one today? No, that's not begging the question. That's raising a question. Begging the question is a logical fallacy that presumes the premise upon which the statement was made in and of itself. So you say we're saving lives by restricting guns because restricting guns saves lives— that's begging the question. Like, well, how? It just does, like, because I made the statement. Okay, so you can't have a nuanced conversation about something like that with, with a person who does such a thing. Um, the, the fear thing though, to get back to your, your question, which I think is your question, at the heart of it is what is fear? Fear is, it's, it's again, it's an emotion. And the information that the brain is giving us is there's a threat or a danger present. So physical threat is something that's, you know, walking through the forest and there's a mountain lion in your path. Fear, right? Okay. First surprise and then fear. So fear says there's a threat or danger. You push through that emotional wave. And then logic returns in the frontal lobe, and you go, what do I do? You act out of reason in that moment. What do I do? You can say, nice kitty, you know, throw a steak or something, or, you know, pick another path or whatever it is. But you're acting after the emotion, not out of the emotion. Here's the thing, though. You can have ideological emotion just as much as you can have physical, like, environmental stimulus emotion. So let me give you an example of ideological emotion. I challenge you on a belief, you get scared. What are you scared of? The threat to the belief. It's not a threat to self, it's not a threat to your physical body, it's a threat to the belief. Now, why would you be scared of having your beliefs challenged? Well, sometimes it's because you don't know who you are without them. So, like, being wrong— sure, you don't like being wrong, right? For sure. Um, and that's all, that's all ego stuff. Uh, and an ego is not a bad thing. An ego is just the familiar, comfortable place that you have about what the world is, but it's a threat to the ego. And if you're threatening somebody's ego, meaning their worldview, what you're really threatening is their grasp of the world. And it's very, very scary not to know things, especially in our society. In the West, we're driven by science and certainty and medicine and logic and all these things that like have conclusions and predictions and guarantees and, you know, warranties and all sorts of things, right? If something goes wrong, we'll give your money back. So it creates this comfort level of sort of believing that we know the future and we don't. But when we don't, we're not good at embracing mystery. We're not good at embracing uncertainty. So I can't, I can't let go of my ideas if I'm uncomfortable not having them. That's why we get defensive when an idea gets attacked, when a belief gets attacked. It's like, I don't know what I would do without it. Who am I outside of my occupation, for example? It's like, well, I don't know. It's just a job. You got lots of other things you could be. You could be a forklift driver, or you could be an accountant, or even a mental health practitioner. You'd be lots of things, right? You are those things. Well, that just speaks to the infinite capacity of a human being. So therefore, we probably don't need to be afraid when our beliefs or ideas get attacked because we're so much deeper than all of them anyway. And if you really want to get your head wrapped, um, chances are really strong that what you believe isn't from you anyway. Saying somebody else put it there. For it starting from little, little tiny baby stage all the way into adulthood, how many beliefs, how many views of the world you have that you actually challenged, wrestled through, and concluded on your own are actually yours? And then of those, how many of those would you be threatened if they got challenged? Probably not many because you did the legwork. It's the stuff that you didn't do the legwork on when somebody challenges it that you get reflexively defensive and fearful because you haven't, you haven't concluded what it is that you need to conclude. You're acting out of somebody else's belief. They— your parents told you that this demographic is bad or that behavior is good or whatever it is, right? And when that thing gets attacked, you go, no, no, no, no, no, and your fists come up. It's like, well, was that really yours or was it from somebody else? And that sounds like somebody else.

What are you defending? Yeah, it sounds like insecurity for sure. Yeah, is what it like sort of is boiling down to.

In my brain. And insecurity is not a bad word either. I think we need to get used to the idea that, you know, like Kanye said, we're all insecure, I'm just the first to admit it. Um, we, we have insecurities and that's okay. What we want to do is turn them into securities. We want to, we want to analyze them to the point that we get not insecure anymore, right? Um, but the only way to do that is let go of what you think you know and receive new information, right?

I was watching Lena Miklik video the other day, and I loved what she said. She's like, I'm very— I'm so good at what I do because I suck so badly for so long. But she knew that she tried and failed and tried something else and failed again until you find what works. And I feel like we're in such an instant gratification. I want it now. If I didn't get it the first time, then obviously I suck.

And she's like, we are.

Yeah.

And the other thing at work here is the idea that if we fail, we're going to be mocked mercilessly for failing or for changing our minds even. You know, he's a flip-flopper. And you call me a flip-flopper, you call me inconsistent. I go, yeah, you're right. Cause I'm always evolving. Right. Oh, I don't know who you are. Go, well, that's not for you to know. It's for me to know who I am. Like, I'll tell you where I stand and then you can know where I am. Like, I don't. It's not my job to announce to everybody where I'm going, what I'm doing. It's theirs to respond in kind. And so it becomes really, really— I don't know, it becomes gutsy to make a stand on anything. Oh God, yeah. Because the mob is just waiting for you to pivot, and then so they can point out the inconsistency. It's like nobody has the ability anymore to be like, yeah, I used to be there, but I'm not anymore. Now, if you go back and forth a bunch, that's probably not great. You're like, well, I was for abortion, now I'm not, now I am again, now I'm not again, based on the political wins.

That's, that's not—

yeah, that's not good either. We We want to be consistent, but we also want to be consistently evolving, which means that you have to be open to feedback. You have to be open to changing your mind, you know, and that comes with holding loosely to ideas and being able to embrace mystery.

Yeah. Yeah. And the uncertainty is why we're all afraid of the dark, right? It's like just naturally, if we don't know, then we should be afraid.

Yeah. And, and that's if you don't know what's in the dark room, right? If you've been in the room a million times, there's no reason to to be afraid of it, uh, because the things that were there in the daytime were still there at night.

Yes, but the, the monsters go under your bed when you turn the lights off, don't you know these things? They're very quick. Yes, sneaky, sneaky, fast monsters. These sneaky, fast monsters are under there. It's like, don't reach in there, don't reach in there. Well, because Halloween— it's, it's getting close to October, so, you know, it's like when we were in like first grade, I think we did the whole peeling of the, uh, grapes and put them in a bowl. And part of the deal was you had to put your hand into a box and you didn't know where it was going and you had to feel them. So the idea was supposed to be like eyeballs. Eyeballs. And then it was spaghetti that was brains and stuff like that. But it was like, it wasn't touching anything that freaked you out. It was putting your hand in the box and you didn't see where your hand was going.

Right.

So we are very much, I don't know, it just, fear is just a very strong emotion. Um, it feels like it's being overused a ton currently. Um, I don't know if it's just I'm tired of it, but it just seems like everything is fear-based. The news— I mean, God bless the people who still watch the news because they need blessings from God. Um, just because the news is horrible. The news is like totally fear-based.

Having that attack and response, knowing why can help combat that. So, okay, it's not, it's not for no reason. It's very, very purposeful. So I have a journalism undergrad and I learned in journalism, uh, things like don't, don't use yellow journalism headlines. That, that was a, used to be a thing of yesteryear, 100, 100 years ago or so. Um, publishers would put, or editors would put these, uh, these screaming headlines to get people to buy papers. Okay. Now that's all we see, screaming headlines, and they're, they're sensationalized and they're ridiculous. And I just saw one, I actually retweeted it this morning with a joke because literally last last night I canned, uh, some banana peppers from our garden, and I took a picture and sent it to some friends. And then this morning I see somebody posted a screenshot of a Canadian magazine, online mag, that says, um, gardening, canning, and other alt-right behaviors you should be aware of. I was like, well, I was— well, I'm— I was gonna post this picture, but I didn't know what the internet would think of me, so I didn't. And I posted the picture anyway. I was You know, haha, I'm mocking myself because I'm an alt-right conspiracy theorist because I can vegetables or whatever. But, um, but the idea is like they, they scream those headlines like, be afraid of people who have gardens. It's like, right, why would they do that? Okay, well, I'll tell you why. All right, because it gets clicks. And as far back as the advent of the newspaper— extra, extra, read all about it! You know, the newsboy standing on the corner screaming at you, literally screaming. This is an extra copy, right? It's not the regular copy. It's the extra edition. Extra, extra. Oh, I need to, I need to pick that one up.

Yeah, because what's important enough to put a whole other one out.

Pull the dime out and hand it to the kid and get your extra paper, right? So advertisers picked up on this. What do, what gets people's brains involved? This is long before algorithms and all the metrics that we have. This was just focus groups and people sitting in a room. Trotting out a product with some packaging on it or an advertisement with colorful pictures of Joe Camel smoking a cigarette or whatever it was. It says, what's going to drive eyeballs the most? And it was fear and excitement. Fear of, well, there's some dovetailing off this, but fear of missing out. That's a real thing. FOMO. The FOMO is real. It's a hashtag and a punchline, but it's a real thing. Yeah. Get the new iPhone because you don't want to be the one without it. Be the first on your block to collect all 6 from the cereal, right? We remember these things from our childhood. What is that pinging in your limbic system? Fear and excitement. Chase the new thing. Be afraid of not getting it. Or they'll trigger you with a different fear. The economy is going to collapse. Buy gold. Gold is enduring. Gold, you know, it's like Bitcoin, same thing, right? What's the motivation? Fear. Now, we can— we can navigate that fear intentionally and thoughtfully. If I think supply chains are going to collapse, I'm going to go buy extra toilet paper in advance. Okay, that's fine. If I buy 17,000 toilet papers, that's acting out of the fear, not using the fear to act rationally. So there's ways that we can navigate this as long as we know that we're being purposely manipulated by media, big corporations, whatever, to, you know, Coke versus Pepsi. And they all have their tactics, right? If we know that it's done out of an emotional state, we can better navigate those emotional states and not just hand over our control to them. We can be in charge and be like, haha, I know what you're doing here and I don't need to upgrade my phone yet. Like, I'm in charge now because I know what's happening with me. And similarly, like I said, you know, God bless the people who are watching the news because they need God's blessings because they need to tolerate the constant fear stimulus. And that's unfortunately, there's a competition out there among all media outlets to drive eyeballs and clicks. So they're going to use what has worked for time immemorial, which is fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. And we mock it like, oh, more fear porn. It's like, it's a business. What do you expect them to do?

It's bad when government does it. I just got back from London and we did a big bus tour.

How's the bridge?

Is it falling down? It was not falling down. I went over it. It didn't fall down. Although it was funny because we did learn the bridge that we think is London Bridge is not. It's Tower Bridge. So anyway, well, we did go on the Big Eye. But one of the things that was a back to the us versus them thing was they— we were at the square where they used to do all the public hangings, and they were talking about how the public hangings were like the favorite, like Saturday Night Football now, right? Everyone couldn't wait to get into the public hangings, and there was parties and dinners, and it was, you know, they were upset if there weren't people getting hung. Wow. And it was just one of those things I'm like, yeah, you don't know what will drive you. And it just seems like— but to me, that really also accentuates the us versus them, because one of the things that they were talking about is, yeah, some people were celebrating, they weren't the ones on the gallows. Yep, that's right.

And it's just— yep. And you, and you don't know, you know, I mean, there's so much written about this across time about what we need to be preparing for and expecting and looking for, the patterns, you know, things that government officials say things that corporate executives do, uh, and, and we're just— I mean, it's like Rome all over again. We look back and we're like, you know, how could they fall for the bread and circuses? It's like you're watching Netflix while consumer price index is being manipulated. Are you serious? Like, you're, you're glued, you're glued to Sunday football when the cost of gasoline is crippling you. Like, right.

How—

what do you mean you can't mock the Romans? It's literally happening right now. You want to go do something? Go vote. Go run for office yourself. Do something that takes a sacrifice instead of, you know, posting about it and then closing your phone down. Um, but yeah, I mean, you don't know when you're going to end up there, and you don't know if you're not on top of your psychological functioning. It's really easy to be pushed in one direction or another, and then you turn around and go, how did we get here? It's because the inch by inch creeped into your life. And every— there is no big they. It's just, it's all they. Like, it's Apple selling you something, Amazon selling you something, uh, Pfizer selling you something, uh,.gov is selling you reelections. Uh, that's why, by the way, we, we aren't addressing root cause mitigation, at least from my viewpoint. Yeah, root cause mitigation for violence prevention takes a generation. That's 15 to 30 years, right, before we can actually start to move the needle on that. That's not going to win you a reelection bid. What's going to win you reelection bid is, guess what? Same techniques the advertisers use. Because guess what? Politicians hire advertisers for their campaigns. So they're going to scream at you, gun violence, gun violence, gun violence, like as if a gun can be violent. It's an inanimate object. It's not even a thing, but we use it, right? And then you and I in the gun community, we pick the stuff up and parrot it too. It's like, well, I guess I'll just use their verbiage to— no, no, stop handing that power over. Use verbiage that makes sense. Say violence perpetrated with people who have guns and use them inappropriately. But that doesn't make a good headline. It's a little bit worrying. Yeah, but it's accurate. So if we want accuracy and we want to push back against some of this ridiculous narrative that's driving fear into people, it's driving contempt and wedging, you know, people further apart, we have to be accurate with what we're saying. We also have to be mindful of our content and what, what we intake into our minds so that we don't give over to it. You know, it's not okay to, to be, you know, saying contemptuous things about people. It's not okay just to hand over your authority for language because somebody tells you to. We need to reassert ourselves.

Yeah, I know. It's— well, and then this goes back to the bridge building thing that originally I want to talk on a little bit more, is that— not London Bridge, no, not that. No, not the Tower Bridge either. But they were fun, and we actually went in the dungeon as well. That was also fun. But anyway, in there, just get the crown jewels. Uh, my kid, my husband, and my son did, that was the day that my daughter needed a down day, so we stayed at the hotel for a day. But, um, but you know, we got to see the crown on the casket, you know, that's sort of— that's cool. So there's that. Um, all right, so bridge building. So the first thing we have to do is become aware for ourselves and be aware of the fear that's happening, notice and realize and use it the way it's supposed to be versus just feeling like we're always being attacked? Because I don't know, I think that word attacked is like used a lot. Like people just feel like they're constantly being bombarded and attacked by everyone and everything without feeling like they do have control.

Yeah, well, that's, that's an important point. And it's an important distinction, the distinction between feeling and thinking. So feeling like you're under attack is only good so far as it's an emotion of fear related to said attack. Then what do you do with the, with the decision after the fear has passed, if you allow it to pass? Some people just choose to live in fear. But again, it's why I really invite everybody to watch the emotional functioning videos, because I explain this in form of a wave. If you push through the wave, you get to the other side, and then logic returns. And out of that logic, you can say, am I actually being attacked? Is this a perceived attack? Then you have some choices to make. It's a perceived attack and you're not actually being attacked. You can go, well, that was foolish of me to use that kind of language. I'm not actually being attacked. Or if you are being attacked, you have this choice: run, defend, engage, right, or debate. So we want to be precise with our language. And for the people who seem like they're constantly under attack, I would ask What is, what is up with the environment that's doing this to you? And also, what is up with you continually putting yourself in the environment? So if the environment is workplace and you're constantly under attack at the workplace, you got to examine like, what's the reason for that? Is it because you're just not showing up on time to work and your boss is always yelling at you? Well, that's a you issue. But if it's because you're being harassed because, you know, some dude can't like keep his trap shut about your clothing or whatever, that's something actionable. And you want to use that emotion legitimately to take action so that it stops. And if you go up the chain, you go through HR and the harassment doesn't quit, leave. You leave your job, right? And you file a lawsuit, you hire an attorney, whatever it is. So you still have options, but the options come from the logic zone. Christian Conte, who is a big friend, a big influence in my life and a dear friend, C-O-N-T-E is his name. And he's got a great book out called Walking Through Anger. If you want to learn more about this stuff, It's about yield theory. Yield theory has 3 components: listen, validate, explore options. You have to do them in that order. So, when you listen, you can listen to somebody else, you can listen to yourself, hear what's really going on. Then validate is the second one. Validate just means to make real. It doesn't have to make sense except from their perspective. You say, "It makes sense to me that you would feel this way." Even if you can't understand it, it does to them. It makes sense to them, right? It doesn't mean you condone. It doesn't mean that you endorse. It just says, "It makes sense to me that you would be doing what you're doing." And, when you validate, you can also self-validate, say, "In my position, this makes sense that I'd be feeling this way." You drain the limbic system, you get the emotional functioning to diminish a little bit. And then, third one is explore options. You cannot explore options, which is a cognitive logic reason-based frontal lobe activity. You cannot explore options unless you get out of the emotion first. First. So once that happens, then you can take action. But if you start screaming at somebody to make decisions while they're in an emotion state, it's not going to happen. You're literally talking to the wrong part of the brain. So when we listen, validate, explore options, we use those yield theory concepts from, from Dr. Conti. Um, what we end up doing is we can reassess reasonably the situation, say, okay, I, I understand what Twitter's telling me to do, I understand what what my public health officials are telling me to do. I understand what my school is saying. I understand what my boss is saying. Now I have choices instead of constantly being in reflex mode out of defense or out of instinct or out of impulse. We're acting out of logic, right? So, we want to listen to ourselves. We want to validate what we're feeling. Be like, "Wow, I'm really mad right now. Why am I mad? Okay, I'm mad because this person disappointed me. Oh, that's not mad. That's sad." Okay, that's disappointment. Now what do I do? I communicate with them that they didn't meet my expectations. You know, I don't have to go shrieking at the burger store counter person because they overcooked my burger. I can go, wait, I'm just disappointed right now. It's not the end of the world. I got an overcooked burger. Hey, excuse me, can I have this remade please? In the meantime, I'd like to drink my soda or whatever, right? And then they can take some time. We can act reasonably. We're not acting out of emotion. And if we, if our pattern is such that we've told ourselves that we're constantly under attack, everybody's out to get us, the world is on my back, right? That negative self-talk narrative can change too. That's also a decision that I have power over. So maybe you are having a bad time at work. Maybe people really are attacking you. And then you go to Burger King and they fail your order. It's like, see, see, see the world. It's like, those are two separate instances, right?

Yeah. Don't let your confirmation bias run. Well, yeah, I was gonna say confirmation bias is hard, um, and most of it— most people don't know what that is.

So short version, it's, it's seeking to confirm what you think you already know. So if I've told myself that the world is out to get me because my work environment is horrible, when I get onto the highway and somebody cuts me off, I can personalize it, perhaps make that overgeneralized conclusion that it's the world out to get me. And I've just confirmed my bias that the world is out to get me because I saw that car cut me off.

That's what it is. Yeah. See, that's way shorter than the way I'd explain it.

Um, so I thought it was far too long, but no, no, no.

My, mine was that the first thing that you learn is the thing that you believe the most. And no matter how much stuff you get, you're given that doesn't support that, you're still going to believe the first thing that you learned.

That is a different bias. And I can't think of the name of it right now. There's all, there's all these different logical fallacies. Two great books to read, um, You Are Not So Smart. Wait, what? No. And Now You Are Not So Dumb. I'm serious. Uh, and they're both by a guy named David McRaney.

Okay, hold on.

Well, before you go further, is this the right guy that we were talking about before? Yep.

Drchristianconti.com.

Okay.

Um, since we were talking about the whole watching fear thing.

Yeah, yield theory is a great thing. Book is called Walking Through Anger. But then, um, McRaney's books, uh, M-C-R-A-N-E-Y, McRaney, David McRaney. They talk all about logical fallacies. If you want to become a better communicator and especially really good at standing up to other people's baseless rhetoric, you learn these, these, these logical fallacies and cognitive biases and you can punch right through them the next time they pop up. It's really cool.

It's very, very useful to have. And another book which you may or may not have read, Having Impossible Conversations. But I have no idea who the, uh, author is. I'll have to get that to you later. But, um, having impossible— it's— it kind of goes back to the whole thing of a little bit what the short version of Jordan Peterson's of imagine that they know something that you don't know. Yeah. When you're, you know, listen to listen, not to respond, that sort of thing.

Yeah. You know, yeah, something just popped into my head. I don't want to go too far without saying it. Um, if people have heard me talk before, they'll have heard me say this, and those of you who have not, this might be new. But, uh, I frequently say I had to come out of the closet as a gun owning practitioner. And what I mean by that is I knew from the circles in which I ran for many years that most of my peer colleagues were not fans of firearms. And so when I met up with Mike and we did our podcast on Noggin Notes, and I said to him, and I forgot about this until he just reminded me a few months ago, I told him, hey, we can talk about your organization, but we can't talk about how I'm a gun owner. And he was like, all right, cool, whatever. Uh, but, and I'd totally forgotten that until he mentioned it the other day, and I went, man, it was really bad back then. But I do remember going through a process about 6 or 8 weeks where I said, if I'm gonna do this and, and I really want to help this community, like, get access to care and demystify a lot of what we do, I've got to do it with both feet in the pond. I can't, I can't straddle it. So I— it was, it was bold for me to come out, and I understand, appreciate how bold it might feel for a lot of people to step into something foreign based on what they think their peer colleagues believe of them. Here's what I did. I said, I don't care what my peer colleagues think because they're not paying my bills. You know who pays my bills? The people who come into this agency. And if I am neglecting them or otherwise just being complicit, going along to get along with the rest of the orthodoxical narrative of counseling, you know, hates guns or whatever, then I'm harming people and I'm costing myself business. So I just said, I don't, I don't really care what my peer colleagues think. I'm going to do the right thing because firearm suicides are way too high. And I think it's probably because of this issue here. And so I said, I'm going to solve this issue by being one of the first, not the first, I don't even know, loud person out who said, yep, I'm a concealed carrier who works in mental health. And I did incur blowback and I did hear whispers and rumors and it was not fun, but I didn't care because those people don't matter to me. That's a good use of the contempt emotion where I go, that's fine. I'm not here to appease you. I'm here to invite in a whole bunch of other people who otherwise won't get counseling if I don't do this. And that was way more powerful to me. So if you feel that draw and you're conflicted, you're like, man, this issue is really important to me, but I don't know what my neighbors are going to think. Well, weigh that against whatever it is that you're trying to communicate. Weigh that against your children, your family, your tight circle, right? Well, I think a lot of times we get into this situation where we think that the world writ large, millions of people, uh, are, are to be appeased. No, your small tiny community needs to be appeased.

Dozens, not thousands. Yeah, how about you first? Make sure you're happy with the person that you are.

Yeah, if you can't sleep at night, um, because you're, you're stuck or you're, you're being compromised or you're ethically conflicted, uh, or you just got something on your chest you need to get off, deal with that for sure. You're no good to anybody if you're, if you're a wreck, you know. So, so get through that stuff, whether it's, you know, big ideological concepts or you're slaying dragons in the world, or if it's just you, you know.

I am trying to save the world.

I do everything.

I am too. I just want to save the world. Not big things here, just make it so everybody is— I don't want everyone to like everyone, but I, I'd love to see respect and peace and, and calm. It's one of those things. You, you want to join Fight Club and beat the crap out of someone? Fine. Just make sure that the person you're beating crap out of also wants to be in that club. That's all I'm asking. You know, it's, it's not that there's, there's not ever going to be no violence in the world, but there are people who like being violent. Let them go play. Um, it's consent matters. Yes. So, all right, sir. Well, I've taken over an hour of your time. I know you have something else you're doing right after this.

You didn't take it.

I gave it to you. All right. Yes. I appreciate that. Um, and as always, it's great chatting with you. Yeah. Um, is there anything else before we wrap up and go? Um, I think I'm gonna have to bug you for a cut. I think I wrote down most of the, uh, the books and everything, but I'll, uh, check in with you on that.

Yeah. I mean, just probably the last thing to take away, you know, apart from the emotional function videos is, and it's related. It is if you're, if you're well, if you're well, whatever your definition of healthy is, if you're well and healthy and you got no bitterness and you got no complaints, um, you're more likely to not fall into these, um, traps of, you know, suicidal impulse or, um, violence or, um, just neglect, you know, neglecting important things in your life, whether that be good diet, or even your own children, right? Like, if you're mentally well, if you're physically well, and you're taking care of those things, you're maintaining them, then the suicide issue just goes away. The violence issue just goes away. It's incumbent upon the individual to look within his or herself and say, I need it. I need work in these areas. I'm good in this other area. I'm excellent over here and can give back, right? And be honest. And that of course, you know, combats fear, or, you know, you have to combat fear to get through that. It's hard to look in your own mirror sometimes. But if we can do that, you know, this whole conversation about suicide and taking other people's lives or taking your own life or self-harm, it just falls by the wayside because everybody's healthy and functioning. That's why I want— I'm so insistent on getting people to watch things like, you know, mental health YouTube videos, you know, emotional functioning. Because if you can take this information and go improve your own world, then you stay out of my agency and I get to work myself out of a job. That would be great. I wouldn't mind going to work for Home Depot to pay the bills if it meant that I'm working with healthy people. And so that's, that's what I want to do. I want everybody to take this on, do it themselves, be healthy, be well, and then invite others to join you along the way. And if, you know, sometimes shit happens in life, right, and you need professional psychotherapy, that's fine. We'll be here for that. But I don't want that to be the default.

Right. Be the light you want to see. Sorry, I just can't help it. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, there's so many things. So what change you want to see in the world? Well, I mean, to me it's like, if I want people to treat me with compassion, I need to be able to treat them with compassion. If I want to be understood, I need to be able to understand someone. Um, yeah, it's like, I don't have to agree with them, but I can at least try to attempt to understand And so yeah, compassion's big. Stay off Twitter.

Yeah, no, I don't do it. I'm taking a sober October actually. So there's the sober October, you give up your favorite substance or whatever. I'm giving up Twitter. I'm going to go dark because to me it's the most intoxicating thing in my life. And I'm going to go dry and see how that works. Twitter has been very, very edifying to me. It has been very useful, and I love the people that I've met. I mean, really good friends that I never would have otherwise seen. I've had influences that I never would have otherwise had, and I'm very, very proud and grateful for that. But I think it, it needs a break, and we'll see when November rolls around if I even go back. You know, I've given everybody ample opportunities to connect with me outside of that, so we'll see. But, but the constant stream of screaming headlines has, uh, has taken a toll on my own psyche, and I do this for a living. So if it's doing it to me and I notice the negative impact, chances are pretty good that other people who don't practice this every day, day in and day out, are probably impacted as well. So be mindful of that. I'm not saying you all need to quit social media, but think about it.

Well, or make sure that you're asking the 3 questions— listen, validate, and explore your options— to check in with yourself to find out how things are truly affecting us? Because I definitely feel most of us are at the point where it's like, oh, this, this next one slapped me in the face, and that one slapped me in the face. And then it's like, wait, what does this really mean? What could this really mean? That was the Tony Robbins thing, is what could this mean? Um, just, you know, give yourself a moment to, to, to ask the question of, oh wait, what is this really? So, and if you forgot what those things could be, go back and watch watch because you can just hit the rewind button because Jake covered most of them. So, all right, sir, well, thank you again for your time. Thanks. Um, whenever this airs, I'm sure there'll be comments and questions for you. Uh, it's going to be Saturday night, which I know is your, your sacred Saturday night.

It's with family. I miss having the comments. I might have to carve out a time to do it live.

So do it live. We'll do it live. Well, no, but so here's the thing, this one is coming up this Saturday. So it's gonna be posted up on Saturday, and I, I will be there to moderate it, like, oh, okay, answering people's questions, that sort of stuff. So I'll be able to give you the questions if you want to know, or go in and answer them. Um, if for some reason you have a break in your family Saturday night from— I don't know what time it is, it's 9 Eastern, so we will be up at the cabin actually.

We're gonna be camping this weekend, so I will not be available because we don't have cell reception there.

But good for you. I, I so wanted to go do one of those vacations where like just nothing, nothing gets through. It's just fall break for the boys, so fireplace, all that good stuff. So all right, sir, enjoy your weekend. And thanks again. And I gotta get my mouse to move to click on the stop broadcasting thing or end things. So bye everybody. Oh my gosh, it's being so difficult. Is that really for real?

It's