YouTube Challenge : Recognize and Address Manipulation : Live AMA

Foreign. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another live Monday Ask Me Anything. Today we're talking about manipulation. But there, you know, as usual, I will kind of COVID whatever y' all want to talk about as far as what to do in order to live a happier, healthier, more rich and meaningful life. So. Hello, CRH and hello, Chile. Always good to see you. Hello, Adriana. CRH asks about gaslighting and manipulation and gifts. Gaslighting is a form of manipulation. Is it passive aggressive? Maybe when someone's gaslighting, they're intentionally, most of the time telling you things that they probably know aren't true in order to make you question your own judgment, in order to make you question yourself something maybe it rained yesterday and somebody who's gaslighting, you would say, it hasn't rained for a week. I don't know what you're talking about. It didn't rain. And you're going, yeah, I walked out on my deck. It was wet, it rained. Now, obviously, you could be in two different locations, and maybe it rained one place and not another place. But in terms of gaslighting, we're talking about the same place. People get gaslit a lot when it comes to religion, when it comes to politics, when it comes to even laws and. And things. Because of different interpretations of what's going on, they may switch. You see this in politicians a lot. They say something in 2022, and then in 2025, they say the exact opposite, and they say, oh, no, I never said that. What you. You think I said back in 2022? Never said that. I've always believed this. And you're like, I know you said that. Which, thanks to modern technology, a lot of stuff can be dug up and you can confront people with, no, back in 2022, you actually did say this, and now you're saying this. So you need to, you know, help us understand the difference. Did your perspective just change or what? And that's fine, but the gaslighting is the part where the person says, I never said that. And you're like, I know good and well you said that. Okie dokie. Hello, L.T. hello. Call me Glitter. Great to see you. Hello, Lucretia. Always good to see you. What questions do you have again about how to live your richest and most meaningful life, whether that means dealing with manipulation or dealing with something else? Unfortunately, in society, and I won't even say in today's society, it's probably happened since the beginning of time that people were manipulative. Why are people manipulative? Because they want to get something they want to get their own way. We see small children, they can be very manipulative if they know that if I say this or I do this, then I'll. Then this will happen. Likewise, parents can be very manipulative. And we can say if you do these things, then we'll go out for pizza tonight. Now, is that rewarding a behavior? Yes. Is it manipulative on some level? Well, yeah. We need to look at the spirit behind the manipulation in the. In terms of the child and modifying behavior. Generally that is done with the spirit of trying to help the child develop good habits. And so that's not harmful. If somebody's manipulating you in order to get you to do something that you don't want to do in order to get you to do something that only benefits them and potentially harms you, that's something else. In addiction. Drug dealers are very manipulative. They want you to buy their product. Salespeople are very manipulative. One of the things you can do when you feel like you're being manipulated, you feel like somebody's pushing you in, in one direction instead of letting you make the choice, is step back and evaluate what's going on based on the facts in this context at this time. Always come back to fit. Cat, what do I know? And for example, if you're on a car lot and the car salesman comes up and he's trying to convince you to buy this car and he's telling you all the good stuff, well, that's great. But of course he's not going to tell you the bad stuff because that doesn't benefit him. Is he being manipulative? Yes. Part of his job. It's up to us to step back and say, let me see both sides. What else is this person not telling me? What else might I need to know in order to make an informed decision? And it's really important. When I find information for the presentations that I do, I typically try to go directly to PubMed and read the studies themselves. And I try to read the studies critically from the perspective of was this study done well, what were the outcomes? And could there be other interpretations of those outcomes? And a lot of times the answer is yes, there could be different interpretations. So assuming that the conclusion that the authors came to is the only conclusion is often faulty, the now do they. Are they motivated to come to that conclusion? Well, yeah, most of the time they really are. We say in science that we're trying to prove the null or whatever, but in reality, a lot of scientists get into something and there's a part of them that really wants to see something be true or something be false. Okay, that's fine. It's human nature. As consumers of that information, we need to step back and say, what else? When we're reading the news. The news has been extrapolated from research articles or from theoretically objective information by a non objective person. None of us is completely objective. So it's important that we ask ourselves what else? What am I missing? What am I not hearing on my social media profiles? Which is where I get a lot of my news. Because I don't have the bandwidth to watch long news shows, I try to subscribe to multiple different channels. Some right leaning, some left leaning, some middle of the road. I have a couple of outliers on both sides, just for giggles, to see what's being said. But the truth lies somewhere. Usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle of what's being said because neither side is generally telling you the whole and complete truth. Is that unfair? Yes. Is it a reality? Yes. When we watch television or even YouTube, you'll have these clothes, clickbait, teaser titles that make you think, oh my gosh, I've got to click on this. You're being manipulated. A lot of times the news unfortunately manipulates us through fear. If you don't read this, if you don't watch this program, then you're not going to have the knowledge you need to stay safe. So people tune in and because they're afraid of not being safe, back to the facts. Given the facts in this context at this time, what is the likelihood that I really need this information? Based on my prior experiences with this news outlet, what is the likelihood that this story is really all that earth shattering versus clickbait and they're trying to gen it up a little bit. And those are the things that I consider when I'm looking at information. When I do the presentations on Wednesday, in addition to going to PubMed and getting the articles directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak, I look for articles that contradict it. I want to see what the naysayers are saying. When it comes to oxytocin, when it comes to peptides or gut microbiome or depression treatments, there are people who obviously are very supportive of certain treatments. Great. You know, that's wonderful. They're going to tell you all the positives of the treatment and they're going to minimize the negatives. Then there are people who are against the treatment. And medication assisted therapy is one of those things that you have very polar belief systems among a lot of professionals. It's important to know what do the people over here that disagree with it, what are they thinking, what's their perspective? And from my perspective, integrating the information, where does reality lie? Hello, Roller girl. Yes, call me Glitter. I do have a couple of videos directly on boundaries and I'll just briefly go over them because it's one of my favorite topics. I think it's one of the things that we need as human beings. We need to be aware of, be able to set and be able to maintain in order to feel safe and empowered. If your boundaries are getting stumpled all over, all the time. Stompled, that's a new word. Stomped and trampled together. Stompled. Anyhow, if your boundaries are being violated a lot of the time, then you're not going to feel safe. If your boundaries are too rigid and nobody comes in, you can't. You don't feel loved, you don't feel accepted, you don't feel supported. Then on the other end of the spectrum, you may not feel afraid of other people, but you may feel isolated and alone and fearful that you can't handle everything all by yourself all the time. So your boundaries, peace, the peace mnemonic, physical boundaries. That's my person, how close I allow people to stand to me when they're talking to me, what have you. Even if we're on the train, you know, how close do I am I comfortable with people being now sometimes it's close, crowded on the train and everybody's like literally touching one another. I don't like that, that's uncomfortable to me. So what can I do? But anyway, physical space that also includes staring and non verbals. If somebody is staring at you, it feels like their eyes are penetrating into your soul, into your body. And it can feel very unnerving. So I put that under physical, physical boundaries. We all have physical boundaries that we're comfortable with based on how we were raised, based on our prior experiences. And that's okay. I remember going to meetings, 12 step meetings, and the first few times everybody was, you know, giving hugs and holding hands to say the final prayer. And I was totally not comfortable with that. And it was important for me to be able to acknowledge how important those things were for those people, but also say that's not something I feel comfortable with right now. You know, I will, you know, I compromised. I was okay with holding hands during the final prayer, but no hugging, no hugging from strangers, not yet. And people generally understood that when I put it nicely, that it makes me uncomfortable when people get too close. All right, you know, so physical boundaries are the first one. Interpersonal boundaries, those are boundaries that say who you can be friends with and how quickly or not quickly your relationships develop. Some people get into a relationship and they are all in in 30 seconds. Now, that's not really healthy, but we all know people who do it. Some people get into relationships and two years later, they're still not all in. That's their. Their pace is a lot slower. They have more avoidant attachment, so to speak. The first one is more anxious attachment. And then somewhere in the middle is, how quickly do you start feeling comfortable? How quick, quickly are you able to develop trust with people? And that depends on the individual. You're not. There's no timetable that says within two weeks you should feel this way in a relationship, and within six weeks you should be feeling this way and doing these things. No, it depends on your prior history. If you've been abandoned, if you've been abused, if you've been, you know, had bad experiences in your relationships, it's going to take you a little bit longer to feel comfortable with others, to be able to trust not only them, but also yourself. So interpersonal boundaries, how quickly you get into those relationships and who you're friends with. It's your choice. Obviously, if you're in a relationship with somebody and they say, I don't want you to be friends with this other person you know, do you have a right to tell me who I can be friends with and who I cannot be friends with? And that is something that only you can decide and determine. And generally it's on a case by case basis. But that's part of interpersonal boundaries, how quickly you get into relationships and who you're friends with. Emotional and cognitive boundaries. We'll do those together. How you feel and what you think, your perspective on things. You have the right to feel your feelings and think your thoughts, have your beliefs, without somebody telling you, you're wrong, you're incorrect, you've got to believe or feel or think my way. No, no, I really don't. If you grew up in a chaotic household, you were probably taught, don't trust, don't feel, don't talk. And so you may have learned from childhood, from the dysfunctional environment that it wasn't safe to have your own feelings, to have your own thoughts, or even to have your own relationships outside of the house. And those are things you need to, in recovery, you need to start examining and saying, you know what, it's okay if this makes me sad, perfect example. My mother in law, y' all know I, I love her to death, but she and I have very different perspectives on animals. She doesn't think animals have a soul. She is much more detached from animals than I am. You know, I talk to my animals, I believe they're expressive, I think they have feelings. You know, I have a different relationship with my animals. It's not my place to tell her she's wrong. Those are her beliefs, that's fine. And she doesn't tell me I'm wrong. She respects my beliefs and we leave it at that. And the same thing's true about feelings. You can get upset about something. Something that may make me really upset often doesn't blip on my husband's radar. Not because he's not caring, but because I tend to be much more of a, a feeler, if you want to think of temperament styles. And I lead with my heart, he leads with his head. Nothing wrong with that. We're both leading, but we experience the world in slightly different ways, so. And then environmental boundaries, that's your stuff, your diary, your closet, your house. Holding those boundaries. What right do people have to come into your. To come into your space? Who has the right to read your diary? Who has the right to borrow your clothes from your closet without asking? Who has the right to let themsel into your house? Or when you have somebody over for lunch or coffee, you know, they come in. Maybe you're not be besties yet, it's a neighbor or something. They're not going to be going wandering around in different rooms of your house, just exploring. That's not appropriate. That would be a boundary violation. They're going to hang out wherever you're having your meal and they may go to the bathroom and come back, but it would be inappropriate for them to go exploring. So those are the five types of boundaries that we really need to consider. And in the video I talk about boundaries as being a house. And boundaries help us feel safe. There are certain people we're not even going to open the door for. There are certain people we'll open the door, but we're going to leave the storm door locked. There are certain people that will open the door, but they're not coming in. You know, you see my point? As you get to know people better, you trust them more and you make yourself a little bit more vulnerable. First opening the door, then, you know, allowing them in the foyer, and then maybe once you feel really comfortable, you have them come in and sit down for coffee. Or something. But you're not giving them a key to your house for quite a while. It's going to take a while to earn that kind of trust. Okay. I spent way longer on that than I thought I was. But again, I think it's really important. And when it comes to manipulation, let's bring it back full circle. Oftentimes when people manipulate us, they are violating our boundaries. They're telling us what to think and what not to think. You know, I want you to look over here. I want you to see all the good things. Oh, you don't need to know about all the bad things. You know, we're just going to ignore that. So that is. That's cognitive manipulation. If somebody pushes you so you don't have a chance to think, that's also manipulation because they're not giving you a chance to get. Get grounded and actually evaluate what's going on. All righty, Let me go back up here. All right. I missed a lot of stuff. That's awesome. Not that I missed it, but that there were so much conversation. How to differentiate between is it manipulation or is it a boundary laid by the other person that have violated has consequences. Just like behavior modification, we need to evaluate what's going on and whether the person is doing it so they can feel safe, or they're doing it to try to convince you to do something that benefits them but not you. You can only be my friend if you go and shoplift and prove that you're one of the crowd or something. That's manipulation, and that is harmful manipulation. If you set boundaries and you say, if you're going to be my friend, you can't lie to me, well, you know, that makes sense. I'd probably say the same thing back to them. If you're gonna. If we're gonna be friends, you need to be honest. That's. And if you're not honest, then these are the consequences. I wish there was a clear line I could say that we could draw and say, this is manipulative and this is healthy. But recognizing when somebody gives you an ultimatum or sets a boundary, okay, you may feel angry at first. You may feel resentful, put off at first because they're telling you no, or they're saying this has to happen or else, and that takes away a little bit of our power. So it makes us feel often defensive. All right? Recognizing I feel defensive because somebody has set a boundary. Somebody has given. Taken away a little bit of my power. So I'm not just all powerful. Imagine that. All right. That's okay. Let me ask myself, does this boundary make sense? Is it a healthy boundary that this person puts person is setting so they can feel safe and empowered? If you're living in a house with somebody with an addiction, alcoholism will say, and their boundary is, if you want to drink, that's fine, but you cannot have alcohol in the house and you cannot come home wreaking of alcohol or you need to move out. You know, that's obviously a roommate sort of thing. That's a reasonable boundary. Because those two things are huge triggers for somebody in early recovery. And the person who's moving in has the choice, is this something that I can live with in order to help Sam continue to feel safe in their own house? Am I willing to compromise? Am I willing to do this? And a lot of times when people set boundaries, once we get past being defensive and we ask ourselves, why are they setting this boundary? It makes a lot of sense in terms of how it helps them feel safe and empowered. Being manipulated makes me feel dumb. Like they look at me as disposable, easy target. I hear you. I hear you. It makes me angry because when somebody's manipulating me or when anybody's manipulating anybody, to a certain extent they're taking your power or trying to take your power. And that makes me feel unsafe around that person. I'm like, well, if they're going to manipulate me about this, what can I trust them on? And I can see where it might make you feel like they think you're dumb or disposable because it feels like they're toying with you. It feels like they're not taking you seriously and clearly they're not respecting you as a human being. Whenever someone's kind to me, I unfortunately think, so what? What are you wanting from me? I probably push away a lot of well intentioned people. Unfortunately, a lot of us do that. Now. We have become a very suspicious group over the years. And asking instead of mind reading is really important because the cognitive distortion we're using when we do that is I think they are expecting or wanting something from me. They just haven't told me yet. That's my assumption based on prior experiences. So ask them, you know, I can do this for you, but what are you or what are you wanting in return? Or can you do this for me? What are you wanting in return? If somebody's being nice to us, we also and we start getting suspicious, like, why are they being nice to me? Are they buttering me up for something? Think back to prior experiences where Somebody has been nice to you because they wanted to get in your good graces because they wanted something. All right, you've had that experience. Evaluate this experience based on the facts in this context at this time. Is this person being nice to me because they genuinely care about me? What a concept. What evidence do I have that they're trying to get on my good side so they can use me? And as I said earlier, ask them, say something like, you know, I'm really appreciate what you're doing and. Or I'm very flattered. Everything you're doing, it. It makes me feel good. And I've had experiences before where people have, you know, tried to do. Do things to get on my good side and then they wanted something from me. And I have a hard time trusting and feeling confident if I don't know what the underlying motivation is. And they may have a. May need a second to process that. But a lot of times the person, once they've had a chance to process, can say something like, I'm sorry that people have used you in the past and I have no ulterior motive. I just thought it would make you happy. Does it make sense that my doctors are telling me every diagnosis I have? They don't know the root cause or how to cure it? I don't believe them. Well, without knowing the diagnoses, I can't really answer that. However, I would encourage you to examine for yourself, because inflammation is at the root of a lot of disorders and uncontrolled stress, ongoing stress, whether it's physical stress, interpersonal stress, emotional, cognitive, environmental stress, any kind of stress, if it's ongoing, throws your nervous system out of whack, reduces cortisol's availability or ability to do its job, and leads to systemic inflammation. That systemic inflammation alters your gut microbiome, alters the balance of your gonadal hormones, alters the balance of your neurotransmitters, which causes and alters your A1C, your blood sugar levels. All of those things can end up causing other issues in terms of mood, cognition and, and physical pain and immune issues. So I would encourage you to step back and try to examine what is the root of your inflammation, where, what stress is going on right now that might be contributing to that inflammation. And instead of approaching it, potentially instead of approaching it from a this is my diagnosis, what do I do about it? Approach it from a, this is a symptom I'm having that is significantly impairing my ability to live my rich and meaningful life. What can I do? To address this symptom and then just start going through those symptoms one at a time to start addressing them as one symptom starts to heal. As there's positive progress in one area generally, not all the time, but generally you have reciprocal positive effects in multiple areas. So if I'm having difficulty sleeping because I'm in pain, okay, maybe I think it's fibro, maybe I think it's something else. But whatever I think it is, the doctors aren't being helpful. So I go to my doctor and I say, I gotta get some sleep, doc. And my pain is keeping you, keeping me from sleeping. The doctor can potentially try to address that symptom. And when I start feeling less pain, that's a stress reduction. When I start sleeping better, that's a stress reduction. When my stressors start to go down, my inflammation will start to go down, which will potentially have positive ripple effects and then I can start addressing the next symptom. I mean, you may want to do two or three symptoms so you're not going back to the doctor every 30 days or something. But a lot of times, unfortunately, doctors are not very empathetic. And if you go into a doctor's office and you say, I have this diagnosis, or I think I have this diagnosis and they're like, I'm the expert, I know what I'm talking about. You have no clue. You just went to YouTube University, so I'm not going to pay attention to you. And it's very unfortunate that their egos get in the way like that. Which is why I say you can approach it from the perspective of the symptom. Might help you get a little bit of relief. You can also, I've done it before with my animals as well as my children when they've had a health problem. I've gone on pubmed and just Google pubmed and you can pull up articles that pertain to the diagnosis that you have and the treatments that are there for it. And the beautiful thing with AI, and you know, some people love it, some people hate it, but I think it's got a place in this world. The beautiful thing with AI is you can take some of those articles that back in my day we, we had to read and all the way through and there was all kinds of stats and it was written, I swear they tried to use as much jargon as possible to make themselves sound intelligent, but oh, it was God awful and, but now you can drop that PDF into perplexity or grok or chat GPT and say, break this down. For me, as if I were a 10th grader. 10th grader seems to work really well for a lot of those articles. Getting it, getting the jargon out. And then you can ask it questions. You can generally, I think all of them will allow you to upload up to 10 articles at a time. I could be wrong, don't know. But they will synthesize information from those articles as well. Saying what based on these articles, what are the best practices for treating this issue? And then go in to talk to your doctor. This is the condition I have. These are the symptom as evidenced by these symptoms. Always use condition as evidenced by these symptoms. Makes it easy for them to put in their electronic record. And this is what the research says. And here's the bibliography. And you can get, you can get ChatGPT or any of them to do the bibliography for you too. So that's super easy. Here's the bibliography if you want to go read the articles yourself. I would bet that only about 1 out of 50, if that doctors would actually go read it, but it gives them backing to support certain, support certain treatments. And I did that most recently and most notably with my cat. He has a, an autoimmune issue called pemphigus follicialis or something. But pemphigus is what we call it. So when he gets stressed, he gets his nail beds swell up and ooze. It's really nasty and really painful. And right now there's only two treatments available for. It took me forever to get the diagnosis. Finally I had to go bring them the research and say this is what he has and here's all the research. Here are all the symptoms. And they're like, oh, yeah, I guess you're right. But then once we had the diagnosis, they were very uneasy about keeping him on, on steroids for the rest of his life. Yes, it's hard on the kidneys, I get it. But having toe, toe pads that you can't walk on because they're too painful, you know, that's kind of a quality of life issue. So we. I did some research about how long can animals stay on, on steroids with pemphigus. And a lot of the research says they may have to be on it for the rest of their life. Okay, well, my vet was still fighting with me about it and I found one other medication that was being used in humans to, to treat pemphigus because I guess we can both get it. It's an autoimmune disease. It's not a virus or anything. And so we tried that, and first dose, it made him violent, violently ill. I mean, just. You think a cat wretch is bad when they've got a hairball? Oh, my gosh. So I DC it, and I said, no, we're going back to this. And again, research supports. They may need to be on it for the rest of their life. So was I frustrated that I had to do the doctor's job for them? Yeah. But my mojo is worth the effort, and it was very empowering to be able to go, look, I'm right. Read this and work with me here or prove to me that this is incorrect in this particular case. Did the same thing way back when when we got my son diagnosed with adhd. But a lot. So many times you really have to spoon feed the doctors the information that they need because they went to medical school 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and, yeah, they've gotten their continuing medical education, but that's like, you know, a few hours a year, and a lot of times it's really superficial stuff, so they're probably not up on the most recent stuff. Pots. That was the other thing my daughter had to educate the doctors about. Pots. And thankfully, we finally got to a doctor that was familiar with it and because she had been involved with the Vanderbilt clinical trials to address pots. But it took forever to find a physician that was willing to consider the fact that my teenage daughter was not just having panic attacks. Yeah, it was something much more than that. So, yeah, I've had that with both children and two. At least two of my animals so far that I can think of right off the top of my head. And it's exasperating. And, yeah, I mean, let's talk about gaslighting. You know, something's wrong, and the doctor's saying, no, nothing's wrong. Or, you know, that there's a treatment, and the doctor's going, well, you don't have that condition, or that treatment doesn't actually work. Well, heck, Doc, let's give it a try. But they are intent on being the one that they think is right, in my opinion. Stomped. Yes. Gustavo, I am glad that I have you as a listener, and good luck on your ICNRC exam. I do have a. What they call a terminal podcast. It's only got a few episodes in it, but it's called the Addiction Counselor Exam Review, and that actually was developed off the ICNRC exam review book. So look up that. Look up that podcast. I'm the doormat that smiles and agrees, but harbors tons of Resentment. That resentment is going to suck your energy dry. And being a doormat, as you put it, indicates that you probably have difficulty setting and maintaining boundaries for some reason. My guess is in the past it wasn't safe to set and maintain boundaries. And until you start feeling safe, until you start feeling empowered to stand up for yourself, to take care of yourself as well as your inner child, it's going to be hard not to be that doormat. Lt says oops. Says something. Hang on. It jumped on me. I'm working to keep building my rich and meaningful life, changing my finances and managing, keeping housing, working to reduce isolation. That's awesome. But that is a lot of stuff all at once. It's exhausting, isn't it? Give yourself credit that what you're doing right now is a full time job and then some. So it takes a lot of energy. And if you're working on top of that, then it's essentially like working two jobs. Make sure. Well, if it were me, I would keep a mindfulness log and acknowledge the steps that I'm taking each day. What did I do today that supported my desire to change my finances, to help me keep my housing and to reduce isolation? What did I do today? And maybe it, it'll be what we call the null. Well, I didn't do anything to actually connect with people, which, okay, so didn't work to actively reduce isolation. But I didn't tell anybody off, so I didn't alienate people. That's a good thing. And, and I say that in all seriousness, that we need to recognize not only the things that we proactively do, but the things that we don't do, that maybe we used to do that contributed to our issues? Do I think that in the age of social media, every being, buddy, being constantly watched, creates performative ex. A performative existence? Definitely. And this pressure to perform is part of the root of the mental health crisis. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, not only is it performative, but it is. We've created sort of a bifurcated culture where you're either with me or against me. And that also creates a lot of anxiety about rejection, about getting canceled, about, you know, people getting angry with you. NATO, it is not weird that you feel like you need to apologize after enforcing a boundary. Again, it sounds like you were raised in an environment in which it wasn't safe to set boundaries. You were told it was not okay, and it was either, you know, maybe you were rejected, maybe the other person manipulated you by having a complete meltdown or temper tantrum. I Don't know what happened. But you were taught that it's not okay to protect yourself. And that became one of your core schema, one of your core beliefs, that it is not okay to set boundaries. It's not okay to take care of me. I encourage you to think of yourself, your body, like a phone, like a mobile device. And if you don't take care of yourself, then you're not going to be any good to anybody. If you don't have that spyware on there, then, you know, bad viruses can get on, on your phone. That's not helpful. If you don't have good boundaries in real life, then people can get into your head and start telling you, you know, what you should think and what you should feel. If you don't have good boundaries physically, you know, maybe every time somebody asks you to do something, you say yes because you're afraid if you say no, they're going to be angry. Okay, every once in a while, that may be okay, but doing it consistently is like expecting your phone's battery to last forever without being recharged. Once that battery drains, you're no good to anybody. Once you're completely burned out, you're no good to yourself. You're no good. You can't help anybody else. So it's essential that you have time to rest and recuperate. Now, there is. There are different ways to set boundaries. A lot of times, creating a win win can be really helpful. For example, somebody asked me today, can you have a meeting with me this afternoon or tomorrow morning? And I'm like, no, no, I really can't. However, Thursday or Friday, I can't. I've told people in the past, I generally can't turn on a dime unless it's an absolute emergency. So I need 72 hours of lead time before, you know, expecting me to be able to set an appointment. That's reasonable. That's a boundary. But I'm letting them know ahead of time. It's not that I don't want to do it ever for you. It's that in this context, at this time, I just can't. If you want me to help you move, I'm happy to help you unpack or, you know, clean your old place. Next weekend. This weekend's busy for me. And. And I've already made other commitments. Yeah, they may get angry or, you know, poochie for a second, but that's their responsibility. They're getting mad. Remember, remember we talked earlier about how a lot of us, if somebody sets a boundary, they are Taking away some of our power. So we're not all powerful. They're telling us no. And nobody likes to hear no. It's just way it is getting out of our, you know, inner child mind that doesn't like to hear no and recognizing, you know what, that's reasonable. You know, that's reasonable that this person told me, no, I can't do it right now. Linan has a series of five different ways of saying no and becoming progressively more adamant more. With the. The fifth way being no, absolutely not. Under no circumstances would I ever. And then, you know, it eases up through the rest of the stages. But I encourage you to look that up. That is Marsha Linehan and saying no. If you Google. I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience with a therapist. Unfortunately, I think it seems, I hope it seems that there are more bad therapists out there when you're on YouTube, because this is where people come after they've rejected the sort of mainstream therapy. I don't know. But it is discouraging and disheartening to hear so many people having bad experiences with therapists and physicians. Well, that's wonderful that you're trying to build more social contacts online and in real life. Lt I encourage you to have the two videos on the channel. One is on morning mindfulness and the other one's on evening mindfulness. But morning mindfulness encourages you to look at your vision board and plan what you're going to do to use your energy that day to move toward your rich and meaningful life. And that includes things like, I'm going to let go of this resentment, or if somebody cuts me off in traffic, I'm just going to let it go. And then the evening mindfulness encourages you to reflect on the day. Notice what you did well, notice the progress you made, and notice anything that you can learn from henceforth. I feel tons of compassion for fellow women, stranger or not. I lead with trust. But with men, I feel like men fight or flight and ready to attack because I fear. And what I'm hearing is a lot of trauma, a lot of trauma memories that are continuing to leave a huge part of you feeling unsafe and powerless. And unfortunately, those triggers, that experience has been generalized to, from what I'm seeing, all men. And that makes it difficult to feel safe around men. I encourage you to, whenever you start feeling unsafe around a man, evaluate the facts in this context at this time. Am I safe objectively right now? I would also encourage you, whatever those experiences are, EMDR could be really helpful at in helping you process and integrate those memories so you can feel more in charge of your of your reactions. Generally, the lives go within 48 hours. Go to members only. A bibliography is just a list of the references that you that you used or that you drew from in order to write your paper or write your article. It provides the doctor or the person the ability to go look up those articles or books themselves if they want to verify what what you're. Alrighty everybody, it is about time for me to sign off. I have a meeting with my other job, so I will see everybody next Monday, same time, same station.