E120 - 4 Signs You’re Going To Stay Unhappy (No Matter What) | Dr K

35:19I feel like it's, I don't like the idea of wasting potential. Like, I feel like I've, I don't know if it's like a gift, but I'm very lucky to be in the spot that I'm in today. I'm lucky that I've had the parents that I had and I was born where I was born and I've got to where I am at this point. And, you know, amassed these, the followers, the subscribers, whatever. I feel like it would just be a waste if I would just kick back and just enjoy life and not put the work in. Yeah. So I'm with you. So I think that, you know, just kicking back and being a degenerate. Which I've done. yeah i've had years in my life where nice what was that like um you know when you think it would be like the dream it ends up not being as good as this you thought it would be why not uh because it doesn't really fill you with it doesn't make you happy like you do all the things you know where you're traveling there's a few summers where i spent in ibiza where i was just literally going to parties, doing nothing every day, just literally waking up and doing whatever I wanted to do.

36:35Not challenging myself. The most challenging thing I did was go to the gym, you know, just like going on loads of dates, like just - Living the dream. Living the dream, a purely hedonistic life. That is not the answer. So what is the answer? If that doesn't make you happy, what makes you happy? I think helping others Really? I think helping others, doing something which is going to help others That makes me happy Doing something where I'm challenging myself And learning something new That makes me happy But then also moments of just peace What does that mean? What is peace? Just being alone with my own thoughts Just lying in the sun some days, it's weird.

37:27I'll have some days where I wake up and there's like literally nothing on the schedule. It makes me so happy that I can just do whatever I want. But the weird thing is, if I have too many days like that, I don't like it. Okay. Break that one down. Absolutely. You want me, my turn. Okay. So let's understand a couple of things. First is you're motivated by, I don't mean this in a bad way, right? So there is a part of you that is literally motivated by your sensory perception. And this is normal for all human beings. So if you're in Leeds, surrounded by a bunch of people, and not losers, but like, you know, like Leeds is, I don't know much about the city, but I imagine it's a lot like most cities on the planet, where it's not Dubai or, you know, New York or LA.

38:13Yeah, it's a fancy. Yeah, right. But it's a big enough city. It's a big enough city. There's good people there living solid lives and, you know, helping the world. And I think it's totally fine. And then so you're a little bit motivated by outside things and then sensory perception. So the other thing is it's not just outside other people. So you see people maybe who are a little bit younger than you. And if I'm painting a picture of you that sounds negative, please let me know. And I hope that listeners aren't sort of getting that. and then you'll see people who are younger and maybe have a little bit more money than you do or a lot more money and then you'll sort of that'll push you to do better you'll even look at yourself in the mirror and you'll see this kit and you'll be like oh like this this vein isn't popping out as much as i wanted to be like or the obliques yeah you know six pack isn't good enough where's the i'm sure you got an eight pack just looking at you um so so and literally like seeing yourself in the mirror is a source of motivation now if we think about motivation so motivation is tricky because motivation is a desire to move away from where you are towards something else right so motivation can't exist without dissatisfaction okay okay maybe it can but like let's just assume for a moment and then you have moments of peace and when where is the peace peace is when you are by yourself when you actually don't have a sensory perception of yourself or anything around you said laying on the beach i don't know if you said eyes closed but maybe with eyes closed maybe looking at something like the sky or the ocean or nothing that evokes comparison at all and then you find peace so now this is really tricky because on the one hand, you're motivating yourself, you're progressing as you progress, as you challenge yourself, as you discover that you could do it.

40:04You didn't think that you could do it, but you can do it, right? That feels really good. But on the other hand, there are moments of absolute quiet where there's none of that going on and you're peaceful. And then we get to the next part, which is that if you have too many of those days, then this voice shows up in the back of your head. You're not living up to your potential. Yeah. What are you feeling as I say this? Sounds about right. What are you feeling?

40:34I feel like it's okay to have those thoughts. All right, so I see tears in your eyes. Is that? No, I'm not crying, no. Okay, okay. Yeah. Am I not? I'm getting a lot of emotion from you. Not that it's bad or anything. Mm-hmm. And let me know if, you know. but like like what's it like to have those thoughts and you say it's okay to have those thoughts but what's what's it like to feel like oh my god i'm i'm wasting my i this is this is not you know like enough chilling right yeah it just feels like a waste

41:10yeah i feel like i'd yeah it just feels like a waste i should be i should be doing more you should be doing more so let me ask you something when was the first time you felt that way that i should be doing more yeah poof

41:32probably oh okay so when i used to work in a few jobs that i had before i was a personal trainer i had uh there was one where i was a manager at hollister as an assistant manager so i remember always been on the shop floor thinking surely there must be more to life than this I can do more um a few of the jobs where I was working as a club promoter where I was just dealing with drunk people all the time just thinking like I can't be surrounding myself with these people there has to be more to life than this um so there was there was always something inside of me that made me feel like I can that I can achieve great things if I want to but I have to have to go get it.

42:16It's not going to just come.

42:24So I get the sense you're trying very hard to be someone who wants to live up to their potential.

42:38And I could be wrong here. I get the sense that... Yeah, because it's part of me that's like, well, it doesn't really matter. say it say more yes it's like um because in the end of the day it actually doesn't really matter that much like we're only here for a very short period of time so enjoy it while you can like don't get so so caught up in trying to be the best at this or earn the most money doing this just be present and really enjoy life that's the biggest battle i have There's this battle between living up to my potential, being the best version that I can be, but also really making the most of life and enjoying it and experiencing everything that can be experienced.

43:27And I battle with it like every day. I see that. Right. And I hope other people hear that, too, because if you let yourself be someone who enjoys life every day. Don't answer logically, answer emotionally. Where would you end up? What, like in life or like destination? Yeah. Yeah. Like so. So, you know, you're saying like, OK, it doesn't matter. You know, like life is about experiencing. Right. It's not about living up to your potential. It's about just taking what life offers you. And then there's this other side of you that's like, I got to live up to this potential. And let's be clear, like listening to that side of you has taken you from where you were to where you are, right?

44:11That has served you very well. That has been a huge champion for your life. I think I would probably be doing a lot more traveling. Because there's questions I've been asked like, well, when do you feel like you're happiest? and there's definitely a feeling I have when I'm in a new place exploring it and are almost excited about the unknown because you just don't know what's going to happen you don't know where you're going to go you don't know who you're going to meet you're on this adventure and you're in a completely new place and it's just exciting and fun absolutely new experience and is living up to your potential a part of that

44:57not really not really so now this is the conflict right because here you are sort of saying like okay if you look at the nature of happiness living up to your potential seems to be a part of it but really when you look at laying on the beach or traveling embracing the unknown problem is you need money to do these things so you need the way i like to live life and travel that's not cheap okay so i'm gonna make money to do those things yeah the way that i want to do it usually when i travel and you know i'm experiencing all these new things there's not much time to do work yeah yeah like the unless like i'm like doing a travel vlog where it's being documented and then it gets put out yeah i really enjoy doing yeah um that in itself will not provide me with the amount of money i need to sustain that kind of lifestyle yeah i'm with you so so here's the the thing that I would I I don't are you getting the impression that I think you're doing anything wrong or anything like that okay okay yeah so so I don't think so I think you're actually but this is the thing I always myself I'm always looking for advice and guidance like I never think that I'm doing everything right I always like to learn from other people even when it comes to the gym and training like you look at me and be think you think oh okay well he knows what he's doing but i am still very open to people critiquing what i'm currently doing and trying different things to see if i could be doing it better yeah so i i i appreciate that um so i i think you are doing everything right and i i think asking these questions and navigating this conflict is exactly what you should be doing and what i really love about talking to you is i think that

46:53how can I say this? I think as we walk this journey, you will help the people who are listening not waste time. And here's what I mean by that. I think, as you sort of pointed out, you used to be living the perfect life in Ibiza. Sounds like partying a lot, you know, having a good time. And so there are a lot of people who will look at that life and they'll say like, okay, that's what I want in order to be happy. and so you you try that for a while it really didn't work and now you're doing this life and it sounds like you're quite content right if i had to guess i'd say that you're like an somewhere around an eight to nine out of ten happy with your life like not perfect but yeah and so now here's the really interesting thing i think if we listen to you as you navigate this conflict we will actually understand almost from a scientific perspective what the nature of happiness really is because you kind of say like you kind of grin and then you say but traveling the way that i like to travel requires money and i gotta grind for which is beautiful man like go for it you know um i enjoy grinding too and i enjoy making money like i think it's good to have a certain lifestyle and stuff like that um but i i think that here's the question i've got for you if you traveled with less money do you think you would be less happy probably not uh it it depends where i'd be traveling okay yeah because you you go to very expensive places it starts to get a little bit annoying because you're like okay like these things i want to do the meals i want to have the places i want to stay at out of my price range but then i would probably just go and travel to the places that are cheaper equally as good.

48:39So the happiness would be the same. I think if we talk to you, we're going to discover what the nature of happiness is. This is super cool because what you're saying is that there are two mechanisms that are different. One is unknown. Whereas if you go to a place, so this is unknown, uncertainty. We're just going to kind of live in the moment. We're not trying to live up to anything. There's no target. We're exploring. We're sort of in the present. I'm here and I'm just looking at all of what's in front of me and I'm just kind of responding to it. Does that kind of make sense? Whereas the other way you like to travel does have a target.

49:13I want to go to this restaurant and I want to do this and I want to do this and I have, there's potential, there's potential for joy. You understand? So like one of them has this dimension of like future, of potential, of living up to something. And the other one doesn't. Do you kind of get what I'm saying? do you mind um explaining to me and maybe the people who are listening what you understand about what i'm saying well one thing i wanted to add before that is when it comes to doing the fancy things yeah that do actually cost money from my experience i've noticed that it's the company that actually makes the most difference who you're with okay so i've for example you could be on a luxury yacht or a luxury villa if you're with the wrong people or not like you're the people you're most comfortable with the actual experience overall isn't that good because you're thinking hmm yeah this is okay but you're always envisioning what it would be like if you were with the people that you really want to be with and then like i had a little trip recently where i was with like my closest friends and we you know we did some nice things but it wasn't like super fancy or anything like that but because of the company i was keeping it was just like i was laughing all day every day absolutely man and then i've realized that that's that's more important like it's not necessarily doing the most expensive things or the fanciest things it's the quality of the company that you keep and you can be anywhere really and you'd have a good time yeah so so there's that conflict again you kind of see what i mean and and i hope i'm not making you out to be some luxury-oriented person or anything like that.

50:57But I think this is what's really great about talking to you because I think you're painting us a picture of what's really important. You're teaching us about really the nature of happiness and contentment. And you're also teaching us about a fundamental struggle that a lot of men have, which is grinding, living up to my potential. And the problem is that we don't know sort of a middle way, right so i think actually maybe maybe i mean you demonstrate this pretty well where you do have days on the beach where you've got an empty schedule i think i know when i do take it too far okay i'm quite good at pulling away good what are the what are the signs that you take to take it too far in the grinding or the it's just like it's just constant work and you you just mentally i never really physically push myself but mentally pushing yourself where you're you're You're constantly trying to make content, do this, do that.

51:53And then you haven't really given yourself any time to just chill, just relax. What drives you into those states? Of being stressed. Yeah, right? So you recognize when it happens, which is beautiful. A lot of great internal awareness. But how do you get there in the first place? I think there's too much going on in my head. Okay. like there's this it's like never ending there's a whole list of things that needs to be done you're managing people there's like for me it's like the content creation thing there's so many different pieces of content to make it's just when if you keep doing that non-stop i just grow i end up hating it and i'm like i don't want to do this i need to take at least the time out yeah so what i'm curious about is what is when you were so so once you recognize that it's too much right once it becomes non-stop then then you you're good at unplugging which is i think by the way how you ended up the way you are which is someone who does you don't sound arrogant to me at all i i think if anything if you actually represent the way that you feel about yourself, you get misjudged for it, right?

53:14So if you look at it. Yeah. If people see me for the first time and go through my Instagram, they'll probably have a very different. Right. And we were sort of talking about if you look at yourself in the mirror and you can say, oh, I'm beautiful. And then if someone is not as physically in shape as you are and they say they're beautiful, that's okay for them to say it. It's not okay for you to say it. So if anything, I think a lot of your self-love gets artificially restrained. And that happens a lot with men too. So men, we're sort of entering this weird situation where if you're a dude who's crushing it and you are vocal about self-love, people think you're an arrogant prick.

53:51Right? But it's like we're the one group of people who's not allowed. No wonder there's a mental health crisis. No wonder there's a lack of connection because you can't even be your authentic self because then other people will judge you for it. It's really weird. It's like everyone's like, be your authentic self. Love yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, hey, you're a sexy beast, right? You can't be doing too well. You can't do too good. Absolutely, right? So it's kind of scary. Yeah. Just a quick one, guys. We have an offer running on the Thirst app right now. And for those who don't know, this is an app which I built to give you everything that you could possibly need in order to get yourself in shape.

54:28This is everything which I've learned over the past 18 years of training, speaking to all of the experts and coaching thousands of clients. Since the launch of the app, we've helped over 100 ,000 people to get one step closer to achieving their goals. So those people no longer were wasting time in the gym trying to figure out what exercises they should be doing, how many reps, how many sets, when they should rest, what meal plan they should be following that's going to be best suited for them. no more of that for less than the price of one pt session you can get access to over hundreds of programs to help you build strength power and size along with meal plans to help you build muscle lose fat and optimize your health and well-being whilst also allowing you to have some degree of flexibility in your life so now's the time to get in shape make it easier for yourself with a system that actually works with minimal input and the absolute maximum output let's get into the video What I'm curious about is what is the force that creates the situation that you find yourself in?

55:28Right. So once you find yourself in a problematic situation, you're able to pull back. But there is something that is stacking up your responsibilities. Does that make sense? Yeah. So what is that driving force? Because if you really want to and everyone who's listening to this right, that's the thing. So you've done a really good job. You've learned damage control. there's still room to grow in terms of prevention right so so that you don't wind up in that place in the in that space in the first place you have a sense of that yeah it's it's going back to the the whole drive and the the ambition thing you do there's this part of me that wants to take on more like okay yeah i can take on more but at the end of the day that actually doesn't really provide you with much benefit unless you have the best systems in place where it can be done but it doesn't require too much of your time or mental energy okay go ahead but it's just as a sort of someone who is driven and wants to do things it's very easy to be like okay yeah i'll do that i'll do this as well i'll do this yeah so do you have a sense of that part of you that so let me ask you this what was what was your upbringing like can you tell me a little bit about how you grew up I went to a good, it was a good school.

56:43Probably like the worst thing that happened is I lost my mom to cancer when I was 11. Okay. So that might explain a lot, I don't know.

56:53Grew up in a household that was very loving. My family was very loving, but didn't really express emotion too much. I looked up to my dad, had a good relationship with him, but I never saw him complain or get emotional. So I think the way I've always approached life is just, get on with it just do it don't complain but the problem with that is i don't think i was ever fully taught to like how to express how i feel or deal with emotions without having like a motherly figure in my life so when i asked you about you know that that nagging voice in the back of your head do you remember how you felt hearing that because you said like i think the words you used were like that's hard do you remember what it when i was mentioning that what you felt like no which part being hard um so i was sort of saying you're you're laying on the beach and you had said you know laying on the beach is fine for like a day or two but then this creeping voice i was i was actually saying that i was hypothesizing what your experience of that was yeah right and then it starts to creep up and then and then as i was saying it do you remember how you felt or you didn't feel much didn't feel much okay yeah so i i think there's something that's kind of interesting um i think you should go back and and watch this and watch your face and look at your eyes okay okay i know is that making you uncomfortable no no okay well they're full of tears huh were they full of tears no they weren't full of tears right so i could be wrong yeah i'm jet lagged yeah it's been a while yeah right and and even when i ask you to go back and watch it how does that make you feel you know i don't like watching myself back i like to just put the content out and right so mike we can switch to your questions whenever you're ready what are you afraid you're gonna see

59:17I don't know Whereas these videos are like, they were like 10, 15 minutes. Okay. So, so is this just an issue? Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. Remember, I'm a psychiatrist. Sometimes we think, oh, there is some problem deep within you. Maybe it's just something simple. Like you just, you just don't enjoy it. No. Do you watch yourself back ever? Like when you're on a podcast? I don't know if you really need to. Almost never. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know some people that will, they like to rewatch themselves because they want to be better at answering questions. or maybe the body language yeah so so you know it's interesting uh i find the sound of my voice to be annoying um i it's interesting that the time that i i watched a piece of my content today in preparation for this podcast but usually when i watch my own content it's because i remember i understood something a while ago that i've forgotten okay so i'll listen to my own lecture to remember.

1:00:17So there was a YouTube video I did about two years ago about how discipline is actually an emotion. And that was two years ago. And I remember when I like made the video, I was reading this like neuroscience paper and I was like, holy crap, this is amazing. There's a recent advance in neuroscience that shows us that discipline is actually an emotion. And that's why discipline actually comes and goes. You know, it's kind of weird. I thought it was the motivation that comes and goes, but the discipline stays and it's something that you train to be there always. So this is where, I mean, the terms become important.

1:00:53So willpower is one capacity. Motivation can come and go. But even if we ask someone, so we sort of define discipline as consistent behavior over time, right? But if we ask someone, are you the same level of discipline on a daily basis? They will say no. They will say my discipline itself fluctuates. Yeah. So I was reading this neuroscience, a couple of neuroscience papers, and I connected a couple of dots about different parts of the brain and things like that. And I was like, oh, discipline itself is an emotion. The thing is, two years later, I had forgotten those neuroscience details. So I went back and I watched the video and I really enjoyed it.

1:01:30Like sometimes I enjoy watching my content because actually like sometimes I'm pretty good. When I've made a good video, I'll watch that again. It makes you laugh. It doesn't feel like me, but I just enjoy watching this guy from two years ago. And I learn a lot from some of my old videos. So I'll watch videos sometimes, but generally speaking, I don't enjoy watching them. Sometimes I find myself annoying to watch. And so maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill and it's just sort of like you don't like watching. I mean, you just don't have the time and it feels kind of boring and it's not really a good use of your time.

1:02:03So it could be that. But the way that you said it felt emotional to me. okay i i know that's hard to deal with right so so i i don't know how you respond to that like you like what do you say in response to that like i i don't know i don't didn't i didn't feel emotion which is fair enough so this is what i mean like a lot of us and you mentioned you know your dad didn't show a lot of emotion and and i don't know if this makes sense do you notice when you're moving away from emotion i think so i think it the hardest thing for me is trying to express an emotion i don't know how to express it okay people like what like how are you feeling i'm like i'm feeling okay feel good yeah so then they're like oh how are you really feeling and this is like i can't put it into words yeah like an inability to meet of me being able to articulate like yeah yeah so is that something that you some people just don't have they're just not good at it's something that most men don't have is that a problem yes so let's let's track back for a second okay so remember we're gonna go it's not gonna work the same moment's gone but you know when you go back to sitting on the beach and that voice creeps up right so and this is it's gonna be wild so i think when you spend too much time on the on the beach you feel guilty yes right but like that word is not accessible to you but the moment i say it you're like yeah it's guilt and it sounds it sounds so obvious and i imagine that even when i say that and you say yes then you feel a little bit stupid because you're like oh i should have been able to figure that out and the emotion that's that's there is shame oh i should be able to do this so the word should anytime i should do this i should do this i should have been better i should have started earlier that's shame that's guilt depends maybe some amount right you kind of get me yeah and and And the reason that you don't know these words, you have access to the information.

1:04:23Does that sort of make sense? Because if I said that's guilt, you're like, yes, right away. That's not, it's not something that you had to analyze. It's not something you had a logic out. It felt right. Make you with me. Yeah. But the reason that it's hard for us, the difference between me and you, by the way, is, is what, what do you think is different between me and you? Why am I able to do this? And you aren't. The what the, the whole analyzing and knowing what the emotion is. because you studied it absolutely very good right that's the big difference but even when i asked you that question did something come up for you no okay i'm gonna just ask one last thing okay so here's what i think could have happened and you let me know if this is correct and i don't know right so one is that you felt like there was a fundamental difference you felt like i'm maybe more capable than you in a fundamental way.

1:05:18And then your mind said, no, that's not right. The difference is that he's been formally trained and I haven't. Did that happen? Yeah. Interesting, right? There was an emotion, some feeling of inferiority. And then your mind was like, no, hold on a second. That's not correct. But you see what I mean? Like, but that emotion is still there. It doesn't mean that it's right. And the answer that you gave is the right one. I mean, I was like emotionally fucking dense, bro. until and I had to go to school for years and years and years. The other thing that happened to me, the other thing that's different about me is I had children.

1:05:52So I don't know if you have kids. No. Okay. So when you have kids, you're as a man, your estrogen level rises. And when your estrogen level rises, you become more aware of your emotions. So the volume on your emotions turns up. And that's evolutionary because when you have a child that can't communicate, you have to be able to empathically detect what they're feeling right so the kid is just crying but like you as a parent you have to figure out is the kid scared is the kid cold is the kid sleepy is the kid hungry like they have no way of communicating that so you really have to jack up your your emotional levels so before i had kids i used to be able to like watch movies and like be like this totally fine now it's like when i watch a disney movie like i start crying And it was really scary for me.

1:06:39I was like, what? Pussy, bro. Like, what happened? It was really confusing. And I felt these lumps in my throat and, like, trying to choke it down. And I would, like, leave the room. And even now, like, every time I watch Frozen, I get, like, choked up about just the powerful emotion of it. So those are a couple differences. But you see how there was that emotional thing that happened in you. And that's totally normal. so i think what goes on with men is we're not taught the language of emotions no one sits us down and says hey this way that you're feeling right now this tension in your chest this lump in your throat this is this emotion and and you have to be taught these things and if you're and this is what's challenging right so i think in your case you're you may be more alexithymic means colorblind to your emotions.

1:07:28Okay. So there's a phrase called normal, normative male alexithymia. Normative means it's normal, happens to most men. Male is men, right? So normative male is like happens to most men and alexithymia is they don't know what they feel. Now, the interesting thing is since you lost your mom and I know psychiatrists are like, oh, that's why. But I think that oftentimes we learn more emotional language from our mothers. so if you were 11 years old when you lost your mom and you didn't have that kind of influence and and even now i detect a touch of emotion in you do you feel it yeah and then you feel like you're pushing it down yeah so do you know what i'm so good at reading that practice it's like facial expressions or like beyond that um i think facial expressions is a big part of it But then I also did a lot of meditation around something called the third eye.

1:08:22So third eye meditation. So I think emotional detect micro expressions gets you pretty far. I think that the weird like esoteric meditation helps me do that fucking mind reading shit that I do sometimes. It's so weird. It's so weird. It's pretty good. It's crazy. It's scary. Yeah, yeah, it is. It feels right. And that's where like I'm glad you said scary. right because the other thing that i'm detecting from you is you're trying really hard to stay open to me but there's also a lot of fear and that's why i keep on asking you for permission is it okay we can go to this anytime you want i keep on saying that because i i can see that you're scared yeah but if you say let's switch it's because like i very rarely would have conversations like yeah it's fucking weird bro it's like it's just very foreign yeah very very very weird.

1:09:14It forces me to think a lot. Yeah. Right. We're having you look at things that you've turned away from. And let's be honest, the reason that you've turned away from it is because when you look at it and you let the dog out of the cage, it rises up within you, starts to take control of here. You start to have really bad thoughts and then you start to fail living up to your potential. And then you're going to be just like everybody else and leads and you don't want that you don't want to be that guy you want to be the guy who lives up to this potential you want to be the guy who has friends and and finds love and i'm not i don't think you're just like a party in abiza guy right so i think i was not anymore yeah right and so so that that's that's part of that conflict by the way you're still running away from the loser version of yourself and you're never going to go there again like you're terrified of that and every time you stay on the beach too long you're afraid that you will become the loser that you're you vowed you're never going to be.

1:10:13You're going to make the most of life. You're going to live up to your potential. You're going to travel the world and you're going to form good friendships. You're not going to be a shallow dude who has an empty life in Ibiza. You may be on a yacht, but it's going to be with the right people. Yeah. Right? Yeah. You're good. When you look at yourself, do you feel like you have a very good understanding of yourself when you look in the mirror? Yeah. I don't look in the mirror though. okay right so so subtle okay but but i don't look in the when i look in the mirror i see an idiot i see a guy who probably could be doing a little bit better but i love that guy that i see yeah he's like a good guy yeah and he he does good sometimes but yeah i mean i i think a lot of it is is but but a lot of what i i went through midlife crisis which is arguably still am going through a midlife crisis, started about two years ago and I had a lot of trouble.

1:11:10But usually what I... Why? Why do you feel like you're having a midlife crisis? Yeah, it's a great question. Because I feel like you're doing pretty good. Yeah, so I think the first thing to say there is that we assume that... So it's interesting. The word for crisis in Mandarin includes two characters. and one is danger and the other is opportunity. So crisis, the first thing to understand is that crisis is like normal for development. So I think we have this assumption that if you go through a crisis, you're doing something wrong or you screwed up. But I am Dr. K. And if I'm going through crisis, that means it's normal, it's healthy, it's good.

1:11:56Nothing is wrong with me, right? So maybe something, I'm sure there were things wrong with me. There are all kinds of things wrong with me. But I went through a crisis, I think, because it was kind of developmentally appropriate. So I think men go through probably about three major crises in their life. The first is like a quarter-life crisis, which happens maybe around 20s. And the quarter-life crisis happens because we make a lot of commitments when we're like teenagers to a life that we don't actually know if we're going to like. So maybe you were like, oh, yeah, I want to party in Ibiza because that's the life.

1:12:28And then you went, you're in Ibiza in your 20s? 30s this was when i spent a significant amount of time there was 30 31 okay so so that's so you probably no i i think that's probably early stages there's another one coming don't worry how old are you now you know 35 okay yeah there's another come give it give like five eight years um so so yeah so like you know i think it it happens around 25 or so and it's just because we think that we want this kind of life. And then we sort of commit to this kind of life. And then we sort of wake up one day and we're like, I'm doing everything that I wanted, but I'm not happy.

1:13:08And so then you have to step away from that. You have to grow. You have to change. You have to discover who you are, right? Because you thought all this stuff outside of you would make you happy. And you were chasing all of this stuff outside of you, but you wake up one day and you're not happy. And so what you have to do is look within. And when you look within, you're like, I want to be better. I want to be progressing. I want to be more I'm going to work on here and by the way everything that we see this kit is I think really tied to your internal work right and you've done a lot of internal work and so now you're living this other life where you're helping people you're making content you're you're living up to your potential you're making money you're going on vacations right hopefully still dating or maybe in a long-term relationship yeah yeah yeah right I mean, that's a whole other conversation.

1:13:57Yeah. Right. So good. Very good. So a lot of genuine emotion there. Right. And then we laugh about it. That's not the other thing that we do as men. So when you say that's a whole other, I know, bro, like, you know, but like deep down, we're like, oh, yeah, maybe there's some concern and pain. That's the way that you signal to me that, that, hey, this is not something that I've figured out and I'm a little bit worried about it. Right. And now when I say that back to you, you feel it? so by the way that feeling that you have that's the feeling of being seen so you know what's scary about me is I see you yeah I know usually I'm very good at like I like to feel as though I'm quite good at keeping a poker face yeah yeah you are you're very good at people because if I was like a lot of times if I'm on dates or even with partners past partners they would never they would like you never show any emotion I can't read you yeah and I was like well get used to it but i think that helped me a little bit because it added to that element of well but like they there was an element of mystery because they never knew what i was thinking yeah so how do you think that works out okay we're talking about relationships now so so how do you think that how does that affect your relationships

1:15:15um good and bad good i think there's this whole debate as to how much you should to open up to your partner and express how you're feeling. Because I think as a woman, they like to, not all women, but a lot of women like to see that a man is in control of his emotions, has everything under control, and is someone to be respected and to look up to and isn't going to just turn into this big ball of tears. Yeah. Which is something which, there's a few times when I've opened up in the past, because I thought it was the thing to do, And I got that shoved right back in my face. Tell me. Do you feel comfortable sharing?

1:15:55Okay. No. We're going to leave it at no. Right. Okay. So can I talk about that for a second? So this is really fascinating. There's a great publication a couple of years ago in a scientific journal or an academic journal called Feminist Quarterly. Okay. Feminist publication about a kind of emotional labor that men do. so in in the discussion of men and women in today's world there's a lot of uh discussion about how women do a lot of emotional labor that they don't get compensated for right so what's emotional label what i mean so it's like doing work that is emotional in nature so a lot of women who date men who are alexithymic and we weren't taught these skills so my wife does this for me by the way where like sometimes i get like really angry and pissy and i I become like a little bitch.

1:16:46And then she just sort of handles that. She's very emotionally supportive. And sometimes I need that too. So like, you know, a lot of times, so if you look at men, first of all, 70 % of divorces are initiated by women. There is something called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. So Takotsubo is the dude who discovered it. Cardio means heart and myopathy means damage of the muscle cells. so in the period after a divorce or a serious breakup after a long-term marriage there is inflammation of the heart muscle that increases the risk of a heart attack by about 70 for men doesn't happen for women so the way that that men and women treat relationships is actually quite different so for men what when a man gets divorced and and this isn't just me like manosphere red pill.

1:17:39I mean, there's a ton of, I mean, you can look at pathology textbook and find Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. So you're saying a male heartbreak is... Is lethal, more lethal. Yeah. And the reason for that is if you ask, if you look at qualitative research, what you find is that when a man gets divorced, when a woman gets divorced, she loses a relationship. When a man gets divorced, they lose their life. So if you ask, if you like ask men, you know, after a divorce, what did you lose? They lose their house. They lose their kids. They lose this thing that they have strived to build for, you know, they've invested and, and women are, don't see it that way.

1:18:17They just, I mean, this is just based on qualitative research. I'm sure some of them do. As a psychiatrist, I see a lot of variation. I see a lot of women who fit a more masculine picture. I see a lot of men who fit a more feminine picture happens all the time. But if you look at kind of how averages shake out, men will sort of lose their whole life. And so if you look at that, one of the key things that you discover is that men usually have very few people that are emotionally supportive towards them and their wives are at the top of the list. So if you look at a male-female relationship, like a husband and wife, the woman is doing a lot of emotional work to support the man that she's in a relationship with.

1:19:01Whereas the reason that women, one of the reasons that they don't develop Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is because they have other emotional connections. So men, it's like, you know, first you cry to your mom and then sometimes you cry to your wife. Sometimes you never cry to anybody. But your wife is like the one person that you can hopefully be yourself with. And so if you lose that one person, even your bros, right? When you made that joke about like, yeah, man, like the relationship is a whole other car. And then I laughed with you. I thought it was funny. And then I did something that most men don't do.

1:19:29I was like, bruh. right and then that makes us uncomfortable so then we like move away from that because we don't know how to form emotional bonds so that's what i mean by emotional labor there's there's literally a kind of cognitive work there's a kind of emotional work that women do in a relationship with a man the really interesting thing about this feminist quarterly paper is that they were talking about a second kind of emotional labor that is relatively new it's called emotional compression So the one thing that we're good at is taking emotions and squeezing them down. Yes. Okay. So here's the really interesting thing.

1:20:06Women are not good at that. So when a man demonstrates too much emotion, women have difficulty taking it, holding it, squeezing it, containing it. Like, does that kind of make sense? Yeah, yeah. Like, we're good at, like, holding emotion. So what's really interesting is that if you look at like crisis situations, oftentimes what will happen, I mean, this happened to me recently where a family member of mine who's an incredibly capable doctor, incredibly capable person is a woman. There was a crisis in our household during a holiday and she came to me and she was like, this is happening. Can you do something?

1:20:47And so there's just we're good at this as men. Like, you know, if the shit is going down, you turn to men and you're like, hey, go fix that. And it doesn't matter like what is going on. People can be angry. They can be sad. They're like, oh, this person is going to commit suicide. Like, like you fix it. You fix it. Right. We're the fixers. So there's a certain kind of labor called emotional compression. And the interesting thing about men is when we express emotions at a level that someone else cannot hold, it drives them away. And then what happens is men end up with this idea that I can't express my emotions because women will see this and they'll see someone who's weak and pathetic and it's too much for them to handle because it is.

1:21:31The interesting thing there, does that make sense? Yeah. I guess the R is knowing how much do you share. Yeah, beautiful. A hundred percent correct. It's not just how much do you share. It is the capacity to be able to share a percentage instead of on or off. Yeah. And since we don't work with our emotions a lot, oftentimes what happens with dudes is like we've got two modes. We've got ha ha ha and we've got the other one. You know, and there are very few times that we do this. But if you think about like, you know, a friend of yours who's like going through a breakup or going through a divorce and they're like bawling.

1:22:11Right. Like then we're OK with that. Like we have two modes, like absolute stuff or like joking about it and not really talking about it. so there's a there's two kinds of skills in a relationship that you have to learn both sides need to learn one is you need to learn how to show some emotion so you are not in control of your emotions by the way because control means you can turn it on and you can turn it off right you can just do one thing to the emotional dial so that's where doing a little bit and we've been doing a lot you like you know i don't know if you can kind of feel it but your emotions are coming out a little bit more, you know, and they're starting to come out and that's, that's good.

1:22:48Right. So I'm, I've sort of assessed what's okay and what's not okay. Right. And so we're not going to go too far and that's enough. I'm teaching more now. You notice questions have stopped. More enjoyable now. Yeah. Right. Right. So I think that, that was the threshold of what was, what felt right. And don't worry, I'm not going to ask you more. And is it okay that I point that out? That probably makes you feel a little bit under a microscope, even when I say that, but you kind of get what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So, so, you know, I think as men, we have to learn, first of all, what we're feeling.

1:23:20We have to learn the language of our emotions. And you're a quick study. Most men are quick studies because we actually are we feel them all the time. Right. Every time you feel like you're not living up to your potential, that's guilt. So you're very familiar with it. Right. And and so all I have to do is give it language. And that just has to do with the way that your brain works. Now that you know that word, like literally your linguistic cortex and your emotional centers of the brain are now connected, you'll be able to use it more easily. Another really cool thing is the moment that we put words to something, we gain some degree of mastery over it.

1:23:53Right. The reason that you can't articulate your emotion, the number one reason you can't articulate something is because you're not aware of it. Does that kind of make sense? Yeah. Right. So and that's where you do. You've done. Not aware of. The emotion. Yeah. Right. So what you do is you push it down and it's not just you. I'm saying it to you. Like I do this. I do this too. Remember, we got off on this track because why the fuck did you have a midlife crisis? Yeah. I haven't forgotten. Right. So I'm a work in progress too.

1:24:25So emotions, first thing is we got to articulate them. We have to be aware of what we're feeling. We have to give them language. Then we'll get some degree of mastery over it. Then we can start to let it out some. Right. So even if you're talking to your female partner and sort of you're saying, hey, I'm feeling guilty, if you even do that, that is something that they can handle. Because if you say I'm feeling guilty versus you express guilt in a very emotional way, that's what gets them to run. You get what I mean? So we need to be able to give some degree of emotional signaling. And we got on this track because you were sort of mentioning that your face is very neutral.

1:25:05and that's where i said we weren't going to do this so i'm not going to go into detail about this but i'll give you just a little bit because i think it's relevant to other people right so somewhere along the way you really don't like to be seen and when i see you it's terrifying and you're not the only one that's why you're neutral you're neutral to be safe it's not that men are i mean you said that you know men men have why do i don't want to be seen what's that about now we're going there yeah okay so so i'm gonna do it you want to well let's do it the easy way and you can ask more questions if you want so here's the reason that people don't like to be seen okay when i look at you uh you want to do this the easy way or the hard way what does the hard way involve the hard way involves feelings and me asking you questions and the easy ways and intellectual explanation that everyone else will understand.

1:25:57They're going to understand it both ways. Yeah. We do easy way on camera. Okay, good. Good, good, good. So, dude, I want to give you huge props. Yeah. Seriously. Because you understand how much courage it takes to choose the easy way. You get that? Because you're a man. Men pick the hard way. Like, let's go hardcore, bro. And you're like, no, I want the easy way. Like, that takes balls. Mad respect, okay? so here's what happens so when i look at you i see someone who's put together like look at this kit brah like look at this like look at this view yeah right look at those teeth this is a guy who's got his shit together and here's the problem and i know that you're content in a lot of ways but the problem is something tricky happened which is that there was kind of a loser version of you and then you became a successful version of you, but that loser is like in the background.

1:26:52And the reason we can't be vulnerable is because we're afraid that if you're dating a woman and you stop working out, is she going to love you? If you don't make as much money, is she going to love you? If you don't have a place like this, is she going to love you? So we're afraid because we don't know if we're going to be accepted. So we don't want to show that. instead we want to show the thing that people will accept we want to show the thing that will not get us rejected we don't want unconditional love we all want unconditional love but we've been taught and this is the really scary thing where it's like everyone blames men for this no you're this way and i'm this way because this is what the world showed us the world showed us that if you're a man you only have value if you do these things right there isn't unconditional love and this i'm not your psychiatrist but when you lose your mother at the age of 11 a lot of unconditional love that feeling of unconditional love goes with it right and then if your dad's not i know your dad loves you a lot and i can see that right that's why you don't that's why when you look at yourself you hopefully don't have body dysmorphia and all these kinds of problems so the love is there but but the there's still an element there that that you know is missing and that's okay maybe it's your mom maybe it's not it happens to a lot of people um does that answer your question right so so we we don't want them to see because we know you know there's a loser hanging out back there right when you spend one too many day on the beach that's what that living up to your potential that that voice that beats you up you know what i mean yeah that voice that beats you up is protecting you from never becoming the loser again we love that voice we need that guy who's like fuck you get get your ass into gear son we need him we're terrified that that person will ever be quiet because if that person is going to be quiet then we're going to give into our degenerate tendencies and we're going to become a loser and then no one will ever love us again you see what i mean that's why you that's why you're neutral but it's it's good to have that voice but then yeah you don't want that voice to completely take over yeah so when the voice completely takes over, that's when we get into depression.

1:29:06That's when we get into suicidality. Does that make the voice of beating you up? Is that what we're talking about? Yeah. Well, I don't know if I would say suicidality, but like just - No, not for you. But I'm saying like when I have patients who are suicidal, that voice is always talking to them. Okay. Right? Yeah. What about the patients that you have that are like very successful entrepreneurs making loads of money, but they're just - They're like you. Okay. Right. So but here's the problem is as long as that voice is active, you will have a barrier because you won't be able to be yourself. Right.

1:29:37So then eventually what I try to get people to is to accept. I know this is kind of weird. I don't know how we're doing on time, but this is a great place to end. You can ask questions, but that you are perfect. Actually, this is good enough that you're a work in progress and you don't need to be perfect right now. you're going to work on it to be able to forgive yourself and say, you know what? Sometimes I like to be a lazy fucker. It doesn't mean that my life is going to fall apart, right? That you can be lazy on today. You deserve a break. You're not, you know what? Today, I ain't going to live up to my potential.

1:30:09I can live up to my potential tomorrow. And as long as you build in enough of these habits, and by the way, you are never going to go back to that person. That's the other really scary thing until you start playing with not living up to your potential unless you let yourself do that right then what you're going to discover if you try to ever become a degenerate again if you ever try to go to Ibiza you don't need that voice to get you to stop because you do love the work you do love like it excites you right so there's all of these other positive feelings you actually don't need that voice anymore that's what's so sad about it you can actually love yourself you You can accept that you are perfect just the way that you are because there are all these positive things that move you forward.

1:30:49You don't have to beat yourself up to keep moving forward. And that's your conflict because you know that. But you haven't integrated this other part because you shoved it way down. And then you came up up here. But these two, they're both part of you. It's all part of you, you know, and it's all great. It's perfect. And it's flawed. And perfection is in the eye of the beholder. what would you recommend i do then to do to deal or at least have a better understanding of the emotions um processing them and articulating them just understanding them so because i'm sure this is a lot of guys probably need that yeah so so i'm going to answer in two ways one is the real answer which is impossible and the second one is the answer that we're going to give you so the first thing is I want you to notice that when I say this is a gap that you have, you're like, I want to fix it.

1:31:43You see that? How about trying to accept, hey, you don't need to do anything. This is part of your journey. Right. You see the reflexiveness of I need to be better. How do I fix it? How do I solve that? How do I solve? I want to stop being here and I want to start being there. I want to live up to my emotional potential. So even if I give you an answer, do you kind of see how we're like playing into it already. Yeah, but I feel like it would help me with relationships. Absolutely. So now we're going to, that's the real answer. So if you can ever just sit with it and notice it, that's going to be huge.

1:32:19But I know that's kind of hard and unsatisfying. So that's why I said that's the impossible. Then there's the practical, which I think is very, very, very simply. I would say just put words to what you're feeling, right? Be able to notice when you're feeling something. So notice that you have a, any time okay if you for what if you wake up or and you just you feel sad for example you would say okay understand why you're feeling this and what that might mean because sometimes you may just have had a really shitty night's sleep yeah sure so like so i'll i sometimes try to make the difference between like is this an emotion which i'm actually feeling or have i just eaten something bad or not slept very well.

1:33:05Very good. Very good. Yeah. So I'll give you a, I'll give you a sequence. Okay. So the first thing is, is for you to find emotion that is important for you. What you need to start with is your adaptive response. So, you know, there are certain things that you tell yourself to move in the right direction. Do you know what I mean? Right. That's where you start. So first start to with the stuff that makes you successful. So when you're on the beach and you're like, enough is enough. So in the reason, and hopefully I demonstrated over the course of this conversation, that is a response to the emotion.

1:33:37You only say that stuff to yourself to push the emotion down. Does that kind of make sense? So interestingly enough, the best way to do it is to start with the things that push you forward and then ask yourself when I'm pushing myself forward, who like, you know, you're pushing yourself. You kind of see what I mean? But then the question becomes, where are you pushing yourself away from. So anytime you start to tell yourself that positive thinking, there is a negative emotional element to it. Because otherwise, if you're excited, you don't have to tell yourself anything. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's kind of like that convincing that you do.

1:34:09So then the question is, what am I feeling? And this is where I think another really interesting thing is that there's a huge bias in psychology and psychiatry against men. And the reason is because the words that we use to describe emotions are actually not what men feel. Men don't feel anxiety. They feel pressure. Yeah. Right. So so men don't feel like depressed. They feel like they need to be better. But you see the need to be better. We say I need to be better. Not I can be better. That's like positive. But I need to be better. That means that you feel some degree of shame. There's something wrong with me that needs to be fixed.

1:34:51So I think men feel emotions in sort of a different way. I think pressure is really, really, really common, oftentimes tied to anxiety. A lot of times depression manifests as anger, right? So the sort of like locker room mentality of like, because if you let yourself be sad, you're going to be, you know, you're just going to sit around all day like I can't do that. So what do you do? You're like, fuck that. Let's go, son. Yeah, let's go, son. So that anger that sort of takes that negative emotion and moves it out. So I'd look for that. Look for a couple of these things. Look for the things that you tell yourself.

1:35:24And what I would say is that most men have like this, I don't know, I was going to say wolf. They have this sad creature, this diseased creature in the back of their mind that we sort of try to run away from. And that's when we really develop these adaptive mechanisms. So anytime you're adapting, look back and just ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? What feels inadequate? So what's wrong with me? And just acknowledge it. Mm-hmm. Then I think the other thing to do is when you do feel an emotion, ask yourself two questions. What is this emotion telling me and what is it motivating me to do?

1:36:02We don't need to run away from our emotions. We just need to know that emotions are a source of information. So when I'm feeling guilty, that's my brain telling me, hey, something I'm doing is not right. That's actually really healthy. That's why we've evolved to feel guilt. This is like, okay, this is what I'm doing is not right. and then ask yourself, what do I feel like doing in response? I feel like going to the gym. And that's where I'd say, you gotta be a little bit careful because don't jump to what the emotion is telling you to do. Just ask yourself, okay, why am I feeling guilty? I feel like I should be doing better.

1:36:32Okay, let me just like sit with that for a little bit. And I'd say that's a great way to do it. So start with the adaptive mechanism. So the things that you tell yourself to push the emotion down, notice that and then ask yourself, what am I really feeling? But I think that requires a pretty great deal of self-awareness. Absolutely. Which not everybody has. Some people are, I like to think I'm quite good at it. Where if I feel something, I question why I'm feeling it. And I'm always curious as to why I do the things I do. Yeah. Like what is it that's making me? That's why you are where you are.

1:37:06But then how does somebody who doesn't have that self-awareness get it? So it's a great question. So that's where you need to spend more time with yourself. Yeah. So if we look at self-awareness, the door to self-awareness is boredom. Yes. So if we look at the way that most of us live our lives, we're not with ourselves because we're outside of ourselves. I'm looking at this and I'm looking at this and I'm figuring out what kind of changes I need to make to this YouTube video and I'm working on my marketing plan, right? We're so externally focused. Now, the interesting thing is all you need to do to increase your self-awareness is just to be with yourself.

1:37:47It'll happen automatically. The problem is that the first phase of self-awareness feels like boredom. So there's a lot of stuff that starts to come up. That's okay. And then as you, if you sort of reach the end of boredom, and this is an exercise that I give people in my community, stare at a wall for an hour once a week. Just stare at the wall. And you'll be amazed at what kind of stuff comes up for you. All kinds of stuff will start to come up. It'll start to feel like boredom. And then you will get in touch with yourself because then your attention, once your mind's first, it's going to wander and it's going to try to occupy you.

1:38:22But once it's done, the only place you can turn is inward. Yeah. And once you turn inward, then the self-awareness. I think that's why I enjoy those moments of peace. Just because I'm like, it's when it's all coming out. Yeah. And I can think and reflect and it's beautiful. Right. And the beautiful thing is that's real peace. So if you, even if you think about, it's so interesting. So anytime we have a desire, I smell a hamburger cooking and I'm like, I want that thing. So my attention goes outside of me. And then once I eat the desire, then the attention that is outside of me goes away. I'm no longer focused externally.

1:38:58So if you think about wanting to eat a hamburger, I'm thinking about the hamburger, thinking about the hamburger. Once I eat the hamburger, then I'm just chilling. So the more internally your awareness goes, the more peaceful you will be. and that's why there are yogis meditating in caves in the himalayas they're just focused internally and there's a ton of peace down there problem is that there's usually a mess between us and the peace yeah how do we control a desire that we have because we can have good desires and bad desires desires that will maybe cause us to do things which aren't the best for us or maybe for example in a in a partner or a woman you see all these red flags you know yourself that that's not a good idea mike but then the desire is there and you it won't go away how do you control like i feel like i've become better at it but then sometimes i wonder like i know doing this thing is not going to be good for me so why the hell do i still desire it because the part of you that knows what's good for you is different from the part of your brain that desires okay okay so like if i if i you know if i smell a hamburger cooking i'm gonna want to eat a hamburger even though i know it's not good for me so this is what's important to understand it gets a bit complicated and we talk a lot about if you guys yeah this it's a bit of a complicated topic but i have a meditation guide that sort of goes into some of this stuff but here's the key thing to understand.

1:40:29Desires come from your sensory organs. Okay. So if we think about advertising, advertising creates desire, right? And so they bombard our sensory organs. So all desires actually come from the senses. Once you start controlling your senses, then your desires will naturally go away. So controlling your senses can be, um, you know, something as simple as something like a candle gazing. So if you take a candle and you just, you know, the candle flame is the top and you stare at the candle without blinking for about 30 to 60 seconds and then close your eyes, that will actually train the parts of your brain that control desire.

1:41:10So control your senses and your desires will be controlled. Okay. And then you may ask, then how do you control your senses? So like, you know, I'm trying to think about what's a simple way. Because I think there's a whole lecture on that. There's a practice called Pratyahara. And Pratyahara is literally the stage before meditation where you are focusing your senses on one thing. Even when the senses want to go somewhere else. So you can just train it. Or what does meditation look like for you now? Do you do it? Oh, yeah. How often? For how long? I do different kinds of practices at different frequencies.

1:41:54So I do probably a formal meditative practice for about 20 to 30 minutes, three to six times a week. And then I do several very short meditations throughout the day. So, I mean, I meditate maybe once or twice every hour while I'm awake. in in very i i do a certain kind of mantra mantra meditation that i do very very often throughout the day that i've been doing every day for 20 years and then i'll do a formal you can just literally do it anywhere yeah yeah so so with people around you oh yeah would you have this like glazed look over your face have i had a glaze no no no no i'm saying when you are meditating the people around you like oh he's just meditating again um yeah so so i i actually haven't done it over this podcast, but usually I'll do it.

1:42:49Oh, really? Sometimes you'll notice that I'll go quiet. I don't know if you guys noticed, but sometimes I'll pause for a second. So sometimes that'll be sort of like a meditative practice. I call it kind of tapping in. So I try to tap into a certain experience, which I can... Oh, that's cool. Here's what I would say. So if you want... Okay, close your eyes. Okay, do you... What do you feel? Tell me. Right now? Yeah.

1:43:16I feel seen. Okay. So I meant more practically. Like, tell me what your sensations are. Keep your eyes closed. That's me getting all emotional. Really? It's like, damn, that happened fast, right? Okay, so you want me to... What do you feel? What are your sensations? My sound is like more intense now. Okay. What about your body? I feel the table more. Okay. So I want you to focus on, you know, start with your arm, go up to your shoulder, sort of focus, feel your physical form. I want you to feel your whole body. Do you want me to touch myself? What do you mean? No, no, I mean, just don't touch yourself.

1:43:59I mean. Please? Okay, that's for off camera. Yeah. But what I mean is, can you notice the presence of your shoulders? Yes. Right? So can you feel your neck, your spine, your head? So we have this sense called proprioception, which is different from light touch. So light touch is when we touch something with our fingers, but you can feel where your body is in space. Do you feel that? I have improved proprioception when I take my shoes off and do a squat. Okay, yeah. So now what I want you to do, is there any part of you that is actually part of your body or inside a part of your body where there is an absence of sensation.

1:44:53So I want you to kind of focus on, start on the outside of your body. So feel the outsides of your arms, your shoulders, the top of your head, the bottom of your feet, where your legs are touching the chair, the pressure on your buttocks. and now I want you to go sort of centrally. And what I want you to look for is like almost like an emptiness, like right in the middle. Okay. Do you feel anything like that or not so much? It's hard to say because I don't know if I'm trying to look and feel something because you told me to. Yep, yep, yep. I'm guiding you a little bit, right? So do you feel, I want you to kind of focus on like where your sternum is, your solar plexus.

1:45:37Yeah, probably like, yeah. You feel like there's kind of like this weird emptiness there, right? So I spend a lot of time throughout the day focusing on that. Sometimes even right now as I'm talking to you, my attention is there. I'm sitting in that place. So this is a meditation that I do a lot. And now open your eyes. And I'll tell you, you can do that anytime. But here's how I sort of discovered this. So I was at my dad's funeral. And I was sad and I was crying. I hadn't started crying until I saw the casket. And then I touched my dad's face and he was cold, like cold, cold. How old are you?

1:46:21I was 27. Okay. So my dad had passed away and then I was just like stunned by like how dead he was. And then I started to cry, but I noticed something really interesting that the sadness was everywhere except for that place. and that place was empty in a very comforting way. There was one place that I had in the middle that was not touched by the sadness. And then I was really surprised because a lot of my family was grieving, but I didn't feel super sad. I mean, I feel sad, but it didn't really bother me so much. And then I was wondering if I was like, am I dissociating or what's going on? And then I sort of realized that we have this emptiness that is really peaceful.

1:47:07There's this part in here that just feels kind of scary, but there's nothing bad in here ever. Sometimes when we feel, even if we feel like anxious or whatever, you'll notice that it's at the surface of your chest. It's not actually deep within, but that takes practice. And there's this sort of emptiness within me that I sit with a lot, and I love it. And the more that you go into that emptiness, it's called shunya. Shunya is the Sanskrit word for void. And so a lot of times people will tell you to focus on the breath and stuff like that, but I go for the void. And the more that you go for the void, the more that your ego dissolves, right?

1:47:43So if you think about like, oh, I want to be this and I need to live up to my potential, all that crap is up here. The more that you sit with this, and I discovered something really interesting, which I'd encourage y 'all to try. So anytime you're feeling emotional just throughout the day, pay attention to this. I noticed that no matter what is going on in my life, there is one part of me that is always the same. And that somehow is just incredibly reassuring. that everything around me can be falling apart. And I've had some really challenging times during my life and stuff like that. I've talked about, my wife and I have discussed divorce like four or five times.

1:48:15I have a really great marriage and I love her a lot. I know she's behind me, but there are challenging times. But even in all of those challenging times, like this is here, this emptiness is here. And at the beginning it can feel scary, but then I realized that the world can happen around me, but this will always be peaceful. I can always go there and nothing can touch this. So that meditation, I do a lot. Okay. I try to just hang out. It's something that more people should do, but then there's different forms of it. Yeah. So if people want to learn meditation, I would say Aum chanting is a great place to start.

1:48:51So Aum chanting is the best way to, you know, you know, it's how you kind of feel that emptiness, but it's not great. Yeah. So, Aum chanting is the best way to bring your awareness into your body and pull your awareness from the outside senses. Yeah. I think what I would like to do is, before I go to bed, just empty my brain. Yeah. Like, get rid of all the crap, all the thoughts, all the things that we're like, oh, I was supposed to do this today. There's a massive tendency for me, and I'm sure a lot of other people, just to overthink. and it's also a time where you almost kind of get like quite creative as well you're thinking about oh i could do this could do that so i'm always jealous about that because he he literally just flies down and he just falls asleep yeah how the hell do you do that like yeah is is is there a way um that you can meditate before bed or is there a practice you can do that will help with just yes so two things about that the first is if you have a lot of thoughts before you go to bed one of the best things that you can do is have so how long do we have plenty of time okay yeah so let's start by understanding what happens when you try to go to bed and all these thoughts come so the first thing is that sensory input shuts down internal thoughts.

1:50:18Does that kind of make sense? So if I'm talking to you right now, right? So you're telling me, hey, when I go to bed, all these thoughts come up. Are those thoughts coming up right now? No, because you're paying attention to me. So when you stop paying attention to the outside world, whatever thoughts that you should have been having all day long will start to come up. So one of the best things that you can do, like I would say, take a walk before bed if you can, like 30 minutes, an hour, and just let whatever thoughts come. The brain is designed to process in this way where it'll store things and then it'll like bring them out to clean them whenever you're whenever it has idle time so the reason this happens to so many people is because we're no longer idle we're not mentally idle yeah whereas if you look at the way that we evolved right when we're like hunter gatherers like think about a lion that's hunting how occupied is its mind not at all this is chilling most of the time right so so when we're hunter gatherers and we're out like you know in the jungle we're like looking around for things and so we're paying attention to sensory stimuli but our mind has a lot of time to like just think idly so we need to spend some time with i the more time you spend idling we don't spend too much like we don't sit around do nothing all day but if you give yourself like half an hour 40 minutes um and i think actually podcasts as much as i love podcasts and making youtube videos we're listening to all this stuff all the time so we don't have idle time so i i used to listen to podcasts like all the time when i'd be doing dishes or like doing laundry or whatever i always want to be productive always want to be learning things right but but we're actually doing ourselves a disservice because our mind needs idle time and that's when you mentioned a lot of great ideas come up but now the problem is it's bedtime so you don't want to act on the those ideas let those ideas come up an hour before bed so spend some amount of idle time second thing that you can do is there's a great practice called yoga nidra which is yogic sleep which shouldn't be done while you're uh right when you go to bed it should be done about an hour before you go to sleep it has like a sequence of like relaxation and stuff we've got resources around yoga nidra you can also like just search for it on on youtube and stuff but there's a yogic sleep practice that takes about 20 minutes really really really good to prepare you for sleep okay yeah i'll try doing that um you never told me the midlife price yeah so um what do you want to know your time well how How did you, why would someone like you who knows everything that he knows and surely understands himself very well?

1:52:42Yeah. How does one get a midlife crisis? Yeah. So as I was saying, I think it's developmentally appropriate. So I think that most men go through a midlife crisis of some sort. Not sure about women. It's not something I've studied quite as much. But I think the problem is that they'll go through a crisis, but only a small percentage of men have a messy crisis where it's like now I'm getting my I'm getting hair plugs and I'm starting to like, you know, I get I got a convertible that I can't afford. And and I'm starting to hit on women half my age. And, you know, for a small quantity of men, it's like messy.

1:53:19But I think most people will go through it. And I think usually what happens is it happens when you become somewhat successful and somewhat content and you sort of wake up and you've kind of accomplished a lot of what you wanted. The thing is, nobody's really prepared you for that. No one has. Yeah. Like what do you do when you actually get the things you want? So, you know, I started Healthy Gamer, which is like all about this. It's about helping people understand themselves, especially in a world where like the digital world is completely different. The amount of stressors on us is at an all-time high.

1:53:54And our potential is also at an all-time high. But if our potential is at an all-time high, like, I don't know if this makes sense. If I have a blueprint for a mansion, it takes a lot more work to build. You know, so living up to your potential is the hardest it's ever been because our potentials are so high with AI and things like that, right? So I'd reached this point where I kind of started this healthy gamer thing. And I had two jobs at the time and I just started streaming on Twitch and it just blew up. And so I built up a private practice and was faculty at Harvard Medical School and like shut all that stuff down and just focused on this.

1:54:29And then a couple of years into it, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. We get all these opportunities, right? This was happening. This was happening. We got invitations over there and we're doing program development and streaming and all this kind of stuff. And I woke up one day and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Like I'm doing all this stuff because everything's like a good idea. It's a great opportunity, right? You know what I mean? It's a great opportunity. Great opportunity. So you got to do it. Got to do it. Don't want to lose the opportunity. Don't want to lose the opportunity.

1:54:52And much like yourself, because shockingly, I'm I ain't no guru. I'm not divine. We're the same, bro. You know, and shockingly, I woke up one day and I was like, this is not actually the life that I want to live like. And I was also very internally conflicted about stuff like money. So, you know, I set out to help people. So we priced things really, really low. And I'm proud of that because we have these guides to mental health, which I think are awesome resources about depression and anxiety and ADHD. And they're priced at like 30 to 50 bucks. And people in 121 countries use them, which is awesome.

1:55:28That's why we did it that way. Because if you're in Oman or Ethiopia, like you can, you can afford the guide. The downside is, I don't know if you know much about internet marketing, or if you've got courses and stuff like that, like most people don't sell things for 30 bucks, right? They'll sell things for like$200 or$500 it's$100. So a couple of years into it, I'm looking at myself and I'm, I'm realizing, you know, we've kind of left millions of dollars on the table. And I was conflicted about that. On the one hand, I'm proud because this is exactly what I wanted, but also like, I'm an influencer and I should be rich by now.

1:55:56Like what is going on? And I've made way more money in my psychiatric practice. And so then I was just really conflicted. And I was like, I don't know, like, cause half the time I want to make more money and half the time I'm like, this is good. And I'm making the world a better place. I'm exactly the same. surprising right yeah yeah it's like you don't need the money but then it's a weird feeling to know that there's a lot of money on the table which can easily be taken and it not really damage your brand or reputation yeah yeah right so so there's a lot of conflict there also had some problems in my marriage um you know my wife and i we'd had two kids and And for a while, it was all about the kids.

1:56:39And as they started to become a little bit more independent and they didn't need us 24-7, it's sort of like we had both kind of lost ourselves. I think she lost herself more than I did because she had also – she's CEO of Healthy Gamer. And that's weird because she's sitting right behind me. But so I think she also gave up her career. Like I remember when I was finishing medical school, I did really well in med school. And so, you know, we had this conversation and I was like, like she moved from New York to Boston. She loved being in New York and she moved to Boston because that's where I was in med school.

1:57:13And so when I finished med school, I was like, we can go wherever you want. We can go to Columbia. We can go to UCLA. We can go to Stanford. We can go to Harvard. She's like, where do you want to go? And I was like, I want to go to Harvard. And she's like, OK, like we're going to put that first. So she had given up so much of her life. And then when Healthy Gamer started, I was CEO. I sucked at being CEO. She's an awesome CEO. So for the last five years, she's been like building this company. So she'd really given up a lot to support me. And so then we sort of ended up in this place where we'd both made sacrifices and I just wasn't sure what I wanted from life.

1:57:43And then I think the other big thing is that I used to go back to India and I used to do a lot of serious spiritual practice. The Sanskrit word is sadhana. So this is like not meditating for anxiety, but like this is like meditating for the pursuit of enlightenment. This is like the end goal, like hardcore meditation. And I was kind of coasting for that for like 10, 12, 15 years. I went to med school and then I was trying to become a good psychiatrist and then focusing on clinical improvement. So I'd sort of stopped, not stopped meditating. I'd stopped progressing along my meditative path. so i went through that because i just you know i'd been doing all this other stuff and i woke up one day and i was like wait is this actually the way that i want to be living my life and i was deeply deeply unhappy um and that happens and so then i reassessed and now we're good you still enjoy doing what you're doing now yeah yeah yeah couldn't wait to yeah so yeah so So I hate huge parts of it.

1:58:41But this is the other cool thing. Whoever said that I'm supposed to like everything that I do, why do I deserve to do things that I like when the rest of the world doesn't? So I love, I'm very lucky. I love doing things like this. But it's like 9 p.m. Dubai time. I showed up an hour early because I'm an idiot. I'm jet lagged. There are parts of this experience that absolutely suck. But sitting with you is fucking awesome. you know and so there are parts of this that i i don't like and there are parts of this that i absolutely love yeah and there's a lot more that i want to do i want to go back to india and spend you know a lot of time there the way that i used to when i was in my 20s um and so that's kind of where i am now why did you walk away from being a monk is i met her okay so yeah i think that that's kind of something you want to go back to a little bit yeah i was so so so i mean literally it was like so monks are celibate yeah and and i met her and you know and i wasn't gonna work yeah yeah right so so so and the really funny thing is like the reason we got together is because in my mind i was like okay i'm going to be celibate yeah so i could talk to her and really that's a big decision to make yeah and and and it allowed me to like not worry about impressing her so you know i tried to date a lot of women and stuff and like just fucking was a catastrophe because i was in my head i was trying to be cool you know i'm i was trying to be you you know and i was just failing visibly and then and i'm like okay so i'm gonna be celibate right so not not incel of all cell Like we're just going to give up on it.

2:00:28I will devote myself to spiritual pursuits. I'm going to rise above lust. And I'm going to be better than all these fucking ripped guys of getting laid. I'm going to be better than them. Right? So that's what I had in my mind. But it allowed me to actually connect with her in a way that was not like lustful. You know, and then I had feelings and we had feelings and then we ended up getting together. and so the other big thing that I realized is that being a monk is not about what you wear or where you like you know where you are it's all internal like literally it is an internal practice so I can do that anywhere right so I realized that as part of my karma my karma to be part of this world I have a dharma or duty there's a lot of stuff that I need to do before I get to do that okay so when I'm done with this then I'll start to do that kind of stuff but I'm not going to abandoned my family or anything.

2:01:21They're too much fun. Yeah. Yeah. You feel like all people should kind of go back to doing that thing that they've always wanted to do at some point in their life. Yeah. I mean, hopefully you never left. Yeah. But I don't know that everyone... So I think going back to is kind of an interesting phrase because I think leaving that path was right for me. That was the right decision. Right. So I think that I'll get there when I get there. And that's a big part of what resolved the midlife crisis. I made a commitment to start doing it now. Right. And that it was right to spend. I mean, I worked really hard in med school, worked really hard in residency, tried to become a really good doctor.

2:02:00That's absolutely the right call. Yeah. And things happen in their time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you're good at what you do, for sure. This has been a funny podcast because I had absolutely no idea that it would go this way. I had a list of these questions, but to be honest, I think people have probably enjoyed you literally exposing me. Yeah, yeah. Everyone except for you, right? So they get to watch it. It's fun for them. But I think maybe it's a good thing because I think there's a lot of people, they look up and think like, oh, this guy, I'm just having it all sorted out and it's perfect. But I'm pretty, I've got my flaws for sure.

2:02:43Yeah. And I don't mind... being vulnerable like so it's been good i mean maybe at some point we can do a part two and some of these questions but i should hope so i'm obviously i think we've done two hours i know you're jet lagged tired so um we'll wrap this one up sure but i really appreciate it yeah i think there's probably quite a lot of conversations we need to have off camera okay sure but not now yeah um so yeah thank you for your time where can people find you yeah so just check out our youtube channel healthy gamer gg it's so funny it's about gaming but it's not really um so or you can just search for dr k on on youtube yeah awesome yeah thanks man

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