Dr. K interviews Sasha Grey on Procrastination, Feeling Overwhelmed & more

mind works you have a unique cognitive fingerprint which is that you juggle a lot of balls i guess that you get pretty excited about stuff um and what sorry 12 12 year old sense of humor sorry okay so um you know i'd say that that okay i just got up welcome thank you glad to be here i'm tired but i'm all right let me um let me just bring up my camera and yours for a second what time you're a couple hours ahead of me right that would depend on where you are i'm in texas oh okay i'm in l.a so you're one hour or two hours ahead of me two hours ahead of you two hours okay in the future in the future like the sunset all right we're almost there so while i do this so there's not awkward silence i was wondering uh i've always wondered with your streams how you how do you interact with chat because you usually deal with pretty heavy subject matter so is it sort of just there or do you i usually ignore chat completely when i'm talking to someone okay interesting which is i'm i'm sad about on some level but also like i try to just give the person my full attention right i find that there's a lot to pay attention to then i interact with chat during slow moments or sometimes you know if something is going on like you know someone is dodging a question i will look at chat and see if they can tell because now chat has learned like they've learned what resistance looks like they've learned what dodging is looked like they like begin to see patterns in the person and so i'm kind of curious like it's actually quite remarkable how much people have learned that's cool um so do you like keep it cl you keep it closed though or do you see no i have i have a second monitor over here okay and that i i usually don't because sometimes like i need to keep track because i won't you know i'll have muted something by accident or whatever so i need to have it somewhat available but usually right you know eyes forward all right turn this down so welcome thank you thank you and what what do you go by what should i call you sasha is good or or if you hang around long enough uncle uncle yes yes can you help me yeah my chat affectionately refers to me as uncle uncle sasha or just uncle it can be uncle sasha teo gray it could just be uncle oh i see there's a few variations and how did you come to become an uncle inside jokes you know twitch loves to meme everything so i don't know i i think it just something i said and did pro but probably over a period of time um somebody commented you're like a cool uncle and it stuck and it it hasn't gone away but i like it awesome cool and and so you said you're a little tired today is that just because it's early in the morning or yeah that sadly yes yes so i'm already on i brought coffee yeah it'll be good um yeah so thank you so much for accommodating you know the central time zone appreciate oh don't worry of course and is there something in particular you want to talk about today or something that um you think we should spend our time on yes so a couple things that i would like to talk about are procrastination okay and parasocial relationships i think those are two uh things that are very relevant to me um and my community though like it's something that we're all interested in and that we have discussed in the past and so what should we start with i will do what should we start with and chat okay and then then one other thing um that i did want to ask just so we can also set it up for the people that like maybe they're not part of my regular community but they're just here lurking hi lurkers um is that you you are a doctor but what you do on twitch um you have to fully disclose that it's not therapy right so i've heard some people say that they're confused by this or that if it's not therapy then what's the point of putting people on stream to provide entertainment so i think i'd i'd just like to hear your thoughts on that yeah so we could sort of set the foundation and also be clear with everybody that's watching that like yeah we're having discussions and we're being as open as i feel comfortable with but um at the same time it's not therapy and we don't want people to take that away and you know possibly misinterpret things as well can i so i can give you an answer but can i ask you a couple of questions just because i'm curious what you think so what do you think i do on stream so i've watched a few of your streams i haven't watched them in a while when i watch your streams i've i've not done therapy so i can't say but it feels like therapy to me okay and i feel like i am learning something and i feel a lot of people can relate to that so there is there can be a blurred line um i think for everybody watching but i'm also emotionally intelligent enough to understand that like there are reasons there are disclosures and people have to be safe and people also that are chatting with you probably have their own boundaries just like i do as well sure so and then what what do you think so i understand you haven't been to therapy before but what do you think therapy is that's a great question i think therapy is a tool to help people better understand what sets them back in life that's like the best way i can view it or to work through problems that are maybe maybe affecting their life personally that slows them down from growing in life okay that's a wonderful answer right so it's like helping people move forward in life in some way yes so let's say i'm teo gray and and is theo gray like you know like if i have a problem like who do i come to like we're like oh go talk to theo gray like theo gray is like is wise right theogrey will help you like and and people come to your chat and they're struggling with something and like theo gray like steps in and it's like hey you know this is what you should do like and you can really help someone in that situation right does that make you a therapist definitely not definitely not so then what you know but like helping someone move forward in life i i think that that's a really good answer for what therapy is but i would say that you know we do that a lot of people who aren't therapists to do that what do you think about that i agree and i actually joke to some of my close friends that sometimes i feel like a therapist because not so much with chat necessarily but in real life i can't tell you how many times people come up to me and they just expel their problems and this has been something that has happened to me since i was like 11 years old ish i don't know what it is what kind of aura or thing i have around me but people love to tell me their problems like people i've never met yep and that's so do you want it sorry go ahead do you want to talk about that today uh i know it's not procrastination or potentially parasocial relationships but i'm down to talk about it yeah okay yeah all right so let's just table that for a second but we should definitely talk about it because that's very interesting uh so but so then then what you know if people come to you right people come out of the woodwork you were standing there eating a sandwich you know in in a park and someone comes to you and they're like diogray like everything is wrong with and so so you feel like their therapist you're supporting them emotionally so then like what what what is the difference between you and a therapist qualified i don't have the experience or or the tools to really help somebody i don't think in the same way that a therapist could and okay so let's talk about that what what way could a therapist help them that you are not trained in the tools and education i think because i i have spoken to people that work in mental health um that are qualified so i know a little bit or i know enough to understand that a trained professional has the tools to sort of like dig deep and i i hate this word because it's overused right now but unpack like the reasons and motivations behind somebody's um problems i guess you could say so let's say that for a moment that i am doing therapy on twitch so there's like an ethical concern with that right because like you know i'm talking with people publicly and so if i'm a doctor and we say that there's an ethical issue there then that means that i'm not allowed to stream on twitch right does that make sense so then like if someone wants to offer life advice or wants to help people on twitch what we're essentially saying is that the more qualified you are the less we are going to allow you to do that that sucks right that's interesting yeah yeah so it's like like i can if i didn't have an md degree like i could show up here and be like a spiritual cult leader and and that would be totally fine like that's like ethically completely acceptable but the more qualified i become the less i am able to help people right i and i do i actually wanted to talk to you about that as well because i've seen so many people on social media it doesn't matter what platform speak like they are in when you said a group like a cult leader that just makes me laugh because sometimes you do get that feeling from people sometimes they speak as if they are qualified but you know maybe they took some therapy they read a few self-help books and then they realized wow like this has helped me and that's great that's super positive but then they they present themselves as somebody who's qualified but they're really just sharing really not always but quite often superficial armchair analysis of situations and of life right and what do you think about that um it makes me laugh usually because i i tend to see through those kind of things um other times it's impressive because you know we we do live in a society where we applaud people who are self-made so sometimes it's actually pretty impressive uh but what i often find is that these type of people end up regurgitating a lot of similar um small tidbits of self-help advice and so one of those things that i've been hearing a lot in the past year is about procrastination and i am a master procrastinator good um and so something that is your ayurvedic dosha by the way do you know what ayurveda does no i don't okay we'll explain a little bit okay um so so what i've heard a lot of these people say is well you you pro okay let's do it we're gonna talk about procrastination you procrastinate because and it always leads into you procrastinate because you are afraid of success okay okay before we jump into procrastination can we do that can i share my ethical thing about therapy and streaming yes yeah yeah yeah it's totally move from one into the other but let me just kind of close that up for a second yeah so like i think it's interesting right because what you're essentially saying is that the less qualified you are the more you are allowed to speak the fewer ethical concerns you have totally fine we're going to get into that in a second so here's here's what i'd say when you say that clinicians i mean you know licensed professionals are trained so what really trained in that the average you know internet guru is not is clinical illness so if you look at like literally the you know american psychiatric association's definition of therapy it's like you know an intervention that is designed to help someone with a clinical illness to treat depression schizophrenia bipolar disorder addictions things like that so i think i know that what i do looks and feels like therapy to some people um probably overlaps at some but i don't think that that's i i think the real thing that you know and that's because you guys just haven't seen me do therapy like if you saw me do therapy you'd understand the difference and people who have come into my office before understand the difference there's a longitudinal relationship there are usually diagnoses involved there are treatments involved i don't treat anything i don't diagnose anything and some people may feel like that's a technicality like i'm skirting that but really it's not i mean i think that part of what i've discovered and this this also goes to a broader conversation about mental health is that somewhere along the way like if you think about there are a lot of things we do for our physical health that are not medicine and like that's totally fine but like what do we do for our mental health that isn't therapy right right so like there's actually all kinds of emotional nutrition like emotional support like theo gray case in point you know like you fulfill something for these people that a therapist fills for some patients but i don't think that that makes you a therapist i think what we've actually done is broadened the umbrella of therapy to include all things mental health and just like physical health like there's nutritionists there's personal trainers there's massage therapists there's physical therapists there are medical doctors there are surgeons and so if we think about the physical body there's so there's a chef right like there's so many things that we do to support our physical health and as a society i think like therapists have sort of monopolized the mental health space and i think now that we're you know meditation is on the rise and stuff like that so a lot of people get benefit through that you know like a lot of people get benefit from theo gray like you know there's a lot of different things out there that can support mental health and so you know i feel pretty good about what i do because it's really not diagnosing or treating illness like sometimes i'll get close to that line but i'll purposely not step over it because i think that does change the relationship um you know and and i think that part of the problem is that like i think more people should be doing what i'm doing not less like it's it's you know i don't yeah i think that like you can support your mental health in ways that are not therapy um i agree um and and i'd also like to add to that like i i also don't think it's possible to have a real mental health therapy session on camera with for me personally you know when i know i'm i'm aware that our there are people watching i would i could never open up to you on camera the same way i could open up to you as if we had a private relationship as patient and therapist right so like i and i i think some people it's hard for them to understand that but like any time you put a camera on somebody they will change how does the camera change wait hold on i was going to ask you a question about how a camera changes you but it occurred to me that that is outside of the two topics that we had discussed are you yeah okay if i ask you that sure yeah how does the camera change you you see it for me personally when a camera goes on more i'm more a little more i'll say a little more energetic because in professional settings people said be more energetic but i definitely um it's like being on a stage you feel that you're putting on i don't want to say a show because that's a little bit too extreme but you are presenting yourself you know that people are watching you know that people are listening and so i'm not gonna sit here uh you know like hunched over lean back unless it's a 12-hour stream um i'm gonna present myself a certain way whereas if in real life i'm like 20 times more chilled than this and i am very monotone uh so there is a there is a big difference and you see it too though like you see it with babies on social media you just you'll see parents recording their kids and the minute that the toddler realizes that there's a camera on them they light up right they change and philosophically speaking we all wear masks right so i i want to present the version of myself that i want you guys to see and i and i think most people do that whether or not they're aware of it okay so let me ask you something sasha so you try to present a version of yourself makes perfect sense right like that's what we do as streamers and at the same time i'm noticing that people are drawn to you since the age of 11. right so i'm kind of curious how do you understand what they're what are they seeing that's that i ask myself all the time and i don't really have an answer for that um maybe more so now like as an adult as somebody who's in the public eye i i understand like what are they seeing they're seeing somebody with experience uh that has come from that is best known as coming from an industry that a lot of people consider extreme or taboo but that i've also been able to grow and have success outside of that so i feel like there is a level of trust that people feel when they ask me questions so they trust my advice based on my experience so i'm gonna push back against that for a second okay so people come to you and you're saying okay the reason they come to me is because i you know i've i've transitioned industries i'm experienced i'm whatever blah blah blah whatever you just said right it's very very well crafted very intelligent but why did they come to you when you were 11. that i can't figure out right so let's speak and be careful because like if they were coming to you then like you can come up with all the answers that you want now right but like what makes you think it wasn't the same thing that it was when you were 11. i get well when i really think back on it like i'm um there's a big age gap between my siblings and i um i'm the younger and i'm the youngest but i felt like i was held to my own i was held to similar standards so even though i was much younger i had the their wisdom to sort of look up to and i was always probably i don't wanna i don't wanna stay serious but maybe a little bit more um what's the word i'm looking for a little bit more mature than some of my peers maybe but at the same time not because i was a total goof and loved to be loud and and and stupid and funny you know like any kid are you special i don't sorry i feel sick uh i'm laughing because that feels like something so sweet that my mom would ask me okay am i special i think everyone's special i don't you know while i say these things about like about my current self as an adult i don't want that to come off as pompous um because at the end of the day i'm still a human right and i still have flaws and and i still have my own issues and problems like every human being does so it's not to come off and say that like i you know this is me and i am great for these things but do i think about like life am i special yeah yes i'm special everybody's special but you have to you have to recognize that to motivate yourself to be positive but i don't i'm i'm a very humble person yeah so there's something interesting that just happened right like there's an answer to the question which is if we really dig through the [ __ ] the answer is yes but there's the mask on top which is like i'm not allowed to say yes because then i'd come across as pompous right yes agreed and and this is where like sasha i think that like what people and this is the challenge i mean i i'm you know i know you're successful in everything but i i think that like you're actually not showing the best part of yourself because there's something that people have been like drawn to since you were a child which you purposely push to the back when you present yourself a particular way what do you think about that i think that's something i've never thought about so it's it's actually fascinating like what could i be pushing back right because you so yeah and i think i don't have an answer to that yeah yeah it's maybe we'll get there but maybe we won't yeah but i think it's just interesting because i think what i'm hearing is that almost i mean so this is where you know if you wanted to run a cult you'd do a very good job because there there are people i i've noticed this right so like like there are people who you know like that other humans are drawn to i'm sorry i'm laughing so hard because uh there's an inside joke in my in my community we say uh we're not a cult yeah and it's just it's funny it's funny i'm not surprised that people have joked about you being a cult leader because i think you have the makings of a cult leader i see that i see the um title now you make it you make it seem as if that's information that i need i already had that information like i'm aware we've figured this out already people have been drawn to you since the age of 11. this is what happens right so sometimes people like you wind up in positions of public prominence right so like that sometimes happens like some people call this charisma but i think the the real question is when people come to you are you able to help them i hope so i hope so for sure you hope for sure i hope so for sure and i say that because again it's so hard i think there's a difference between stream life and irl so when somebody brings up a topic in chat um you know i don't of course i can't answer everything or respond to everything nobody can but um when i see something that i feel like i should respond to or that i can respond to or i can relate to i do try to give my best advice but i also know that it's hard to keep the attention of people um and i hope that the things that they are getting why do you think people like okay so when people come to you and you try to do your best to help them let's forget about stream for a second let's talk about yeah non-mask let's talk about tio gray right which is interesting because you actually have a persona right like a persona of like the friendly person that people come to um the person who's understanding and supportive and and you know and and so when you're that person like do you think you help people like forget about stream and chat and stuff irl for sure yeah so i know i mean i know i have like yeah helped people get out of bad situations and how do you understand how you're able to do that why is it that you're able to do that whereas potentially other people may not be able to i'm very patient okay and i'm a good listener those are like the two immediate things that come to mind can i think about that for a second yeah and i and i guess to add to that uh i've lost my train of thought sorry i think if it comes back to me i'll bring it up again i get the sense that you know sure you're a patient you're a listener but that you kind of know what they need to hear in that moment yeah but i i'm like you said cut through the [ __ ] i also i try not to sugarcoat things for people yep right which is what they need to hear yeah so i i think that there's a certain so it's interesting because what i'm hearing you kind of say is that you're like transparent and authentic with them and that people respond very well to because i i think you probably do a good job of being compassionate but also not sugar coating things what would you say yeah i'm definitely empathetic i can definitely i feel other people's pain intensely intensely it's insane so much so that sometimes like i feel i have to work on shutting that off okay yeah you have the makings of a of a cult leader for sure like these are the attributes so like this is actually well described in in some of these old yogic texts right so you exhibit many of the things because like you know like these like these you know religious figures like they start when they're young like they'll like you know leave home at the age of 10 and we'll like climb the himalayas and things like that and like some people express this kind of um uh you know they have like a certain temperament where like people seem to be drawn to them and for whatever reason they have some degree of like insight and you're kind of able to say the right things um you're compassionate i don't know how you know where this is going to go but i definitely see that so one thing that some of these old texts would say is that you've done a lot of spiritual work in a past life have no idea what your religious beliefs are you know we can go down that road if you want to but um you know that's how they would describe what this turned because like some of that carries over to this life and so when you're you know born you kind of describe being a little bit more mature and you you attribute it to all kinds of things like you had older siblings and stuff like that but i'd say it's like temperamental i'd say it's personality too that generally speaking you seem to be pretty chill and pretty monotone you're actually like not that um yeah so like those are all like characteristics that are consistent with spirituality and a past or a lot of spiritual practice in a past life and yeah so i i mean i think that you just gotta i would encourage you to think a little bit about you know there are advantages to putting the mask on and and being higher energy and there are advantages to offering people what they expect but i suspect that the most that you have to offer actually gets pushed to the back when you put on the mask and do you think do you think that's again it's hard to distinct sometimes hard to distinguish like do you think that applies to both irl and on stream no i think it's more on stream because i think irl you don't wear the mask and so whatever it is it's kind of like a moth to a flame right it's kind of weird it's like you're exuding some kind of signal that makes like randos come to you and ask for help and and i know this because i've been exuding the signal for many years too and so like people would you know my wife calls it collecting strays that i collect strays like humans will come to me and they'll be like can you help me with this thing and and it's been happening for a long time and it took me a while to realize what that was is that you know i can be a cult leader too that's why you just have to be careful because you have to know what you're dealing with so you don't actually become a cult um yeah i think um i think part of a large part of that is tos and so there's so many abstract rules of what we can and can't talk about that it makes it difficult sometimes to go in depth with things um other days i just want a game sure i just want to cook you know and i and i don't want to do that or be that um but there are other things that that i am within this realm of helping people that i am passionate about but i feel like are difficult to discuss on stream because of those rules like i always i feel like we're always having to watch what we say and i feel like it's only gotten worse over the past year um so that's yeah that's can you tell me more that makes it hard what's gotten worse over the past year i feel like the enforcement of these enforcement of rules has become in somebody i just thought of the court of my eyes somebody said arbitrary yes i meant arbitrary not abstract thank you um there feels like there's a lot of arbitrary rules uh that we're not even aware of or that the rules are arbitrarily enforced and every day you see on twitter a streamer saying like i got banned and i don't know why and i still don't know you know and it's temporary but still i don't know why and so i do feel like i i have to be really careful when it comes to the subject that subject matter that we speak about um we as content creators are at the mercy of of these platforms right um while it's great we are able to be here and and do what we do and make a living doing it on the other hand um these are major corporations that you know at the end of the day they dictate their own rules and it doesn't matter if it's twitch or any other social media platform it's just the way it is and a lot of voices are also suppressed like i am shadow band everywhere so to have what does that mean shadow band means that on the internet your name is blocked uh from being from like smart search and auto search so you know when you type something in on the internet and you write like cute k and then it autofills kittens and it drops down you click on it so that's one thing that's a form of shadow banning but it also means that they block all of your social media profiles from being seen by other people like they they literally cut your reach off even to the people that already follow you so it makes it very difficult to have organic growth and have people find you um so knowing that and then also knowing what i have on twitch it makes it very difficult to be able to like have more open and um sometimes adult let's say adult conversations right like conversations that are meant for grown-ups without and i say that and i know people are going to laugh but like seriously it's not only 13 year olds on twitch right so there's a lot of there's a lot of a lot of frustrating things that happen you're quite analytical yeah sometimes too much i i'm getting the sense that you calculate a lot like i'm hearing you kind of you know really be aware of what the different variables of the equation are it's impressive um thanks also seems like a little bit of an uphill battle does it feel that way sometimes every day every day every day yeah my uh my catchphrase is a lot of continua which loosely translates to the struggle continues what's it like to struggle every day i try not to um while that means a lot to me i try it's a fight right like there are days where i feel like yeah today i'm gonna take over the world and i'm gonna yes brain uh you know like this is it i i have confidence and i'm motivated and then there's other days where you feel exhausted and you and you want to go move to a foreign country and like invest all your time in helping other people and live on a farm right or like live in the wilderness helping build homes for people that's how you start a cult get yourself a patch patch land in the wilderness start growing your own food become self-sustaining dude okay sorry no we'll talk about that later i don't want to get off topic what man go for you can't leave me hanging okay so uh a few years ago i became um and this is gonna sound so culty but i i um i improved my quality of life and health with uh herbs and essential oils long story short i was having like non-stop allergy attacks and they felt like flus right so they would just completely knock me out and after trying all western medicines um i started like just researching alternative methods of feeling on my own and in that process i was looking for some oils some essential oil and i found a random website of a of a alleged let me speak carefully here of an alleged cult at the time when i ordered i didn't think it was that i just thought it was you know a place where you can buy some oils when the oils arrived then i said hmm this is weird let me look it up so um yeah it's like the purple something it has it hasn't even a cult sounding name wait but what what about the arrival like did it come with cultists where like what about the i'm so confused i'm envisioning an amazon package with some bottles of essential oils inside oh no no no no it arrived in i just threw it away so i don't have one but it arrived in um an empty recycled battery package right and then they filled the clearly like they filled the oils from a larger source and put them in so very homemade looking and then they taped around the battery package to reseal it and it was just the way it was packaged and put together i was like this is weird i didn't even use it because i don't want to use something that's not sealed right when you say a battery package are we talking like a carton of duracell yes yes there's like energizer paper bottom oh yes yeah yeah and now like recently i was thinking about it i was like man that would make a great documentary and somebody's doing it like at the time nobody was talking about this place and then somebody else discovered it as well and wow they're trying to do a documentary yeah interesting so your allergies got better with with herbs and stuff oh yeah yeah like night and day quality of life completely changed i find myself being curious about what worked for you but i don't know if that's skirting tos if you say something no be because it's personal okay so even like i say that to my chat because i've talked about this with them before like this is what worked for me i'm not a doctor i'm not an herbalist i cannot tell you what to do for you you can say that but i can't because i'm a doctor okay so there you go chat i said it uh but i yeah i mean i'm you know you don't have to tell me now but i'm always looking for solutions for allergies for like other patients and a lot of what i recommend to patients actually comes from patients so someone will tell me like oh like this actually worked for me and then i'll do some research and i'll kind of see like okay it's interesting you know is there some data to support it is there some evidence behind it and if if i get a strong personal recommendation from a person and then find some evidence that supports it then sometimes i'll make a recommendation to a future patient so i'm really curious because i think allergies are tend to be hard to kick yeah and i'm not actually allergic to uh like any food necessarily um it's just like and they call environmental allergies and rhinitis like it's it could be a cigarette somebody smoking a cigarette and i start sneezing for 20 minutes anyway did you want to talk about like procrastination and parasocial relationships are we just going you know off the range and into cult land i'm fine with either yeah let me let me ask you about so i just want to get your opinion on on procrastination okay because as i was saying earlier for people that might have missed it excuse me i've seen a lot of people on social media that are really influencers they're not qualified professionals in any way talk about procrastination and a common theme that i keep hearing is that you procrastinate because you're afraid of success what do you think about that i i think that can apply to some people but it absolutely does not apply to me why do you think you procrastinate and that is something that i i probably have not asked myself enough of i i really truly i don't know it's just something and it's something in my brain that happens and i've i set timers for myself i set alarms for myself and then i'll still find ways to procrastinate okay um can you tell me can you just give me an example of something you're procrastinating on yes like uh i need to and it can be really small things but i need to create a list of codes for instance um for my stream and this is something that one of my mods who also helps me with my youtube has been reminding me to do for means i see okay so okay the one answer i do have is that i i think i'm overwhelmed a lot so sometimes i don't know where to start other times i i genuinely forget i feel like i do so many different things and i don't have a nine-to-five desk job i end up um probably sort of burning myself out and not really taking a lot of down time so i'm sort of always all over the place like okay i gotta do this i gotta do this and i don't keep lists as organized as i probably should so i think that those things contribute to me feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to start with things okay why are you overwhelmed well hold on let me just think about this before i ask you more questions i'm trying to decide whether i should just give you answers or ask you questions both what makes you feel overwhelmed oh where would we could be here all day that's why i was thinking about the question so so [Music] here here's what i'd like to do sasha but you let me know if you're okay with this okay one is um i think that there's stuff that you're struggling with um maybe not struggling is not the right word there's there are things that you deal with that sound challenging to me but that conversation is going to be more personal in nature um it i we may be closer to getting you to open up a little bit i just but you've said that you don't potentially want to do that so i we don't have to go there uh i will for sure um give you like a 15 to 30 minute spiel on procrastination that i'm like 80 confident will help you a lot okay um and we can just do that at the end because i think i've already i mean i have a good sense of what you're you know what's going on here um yeah and and you know it can also be helpful for your like viewers and stuff because we'll explain you know like how procrastination for example is an umbrella term so it's like an emergent phenomenon that's based on all kinds of different different processes and so you'll get like a particular instagram person who will say like oh it's caused by this no it's not caused by that that's like death is caused by cancer like yeah that's true but it's also caused by all kinds of other things exactly right exactly so how do you diagnose so like there are you know three discrete kinds of procrastination that i tend to like diagnose and work with i mean it's not really like a medical diagnosis but like i've sort of seen three routes to procrastination that tends to help like 70 of people and then there are additional buckets which result in procrastination like feeling overwhelmed which just is just you just don't have and we can kind of talk about that principle i mean there's a i think a discussion on procrastination can be like a 12-hour lecture yeah where you go through neuroscience and different circuits of the brain and like you know it all applies um but i mean i'm kind of finding a lot of uh curiosity about like you know it being an uphill battle every day you feeling overwhelmed but i just want to make sure that you're comfortable talking about that and if you're not that's totally cool we can just steer clear what do you think yeah we can dig into it a little bit um and then if i'm not comfortable you'll probably realize that immediately yep so i may just like now i'm going to signal to you whether we're going to talk about it or like i'll ask you for permission okay you know i'll probably check in with you and if i see that maybe things are becoming uncomfortable then i will signal to you again and then one thing that we need to be really careful about okay because there is the presenter that may not want to disappoint people so we have to be careful that that person is not the one answering the questions yes and feel free to say that's not an answer okay so is that um is that perfect okay so that works okay so let's be careful because you're allowed to disappoint us yes okay and and another thing that one of my mods just reminded me of as well is that um squirrel i get distracted a lot a lot that'll be part of the 30-minute explanation okay okay yeah so tell me what i mean so it sounds like you're overwhelmed by a lot of stuff yeah i mean i do like i said i do so many different things that it is really hard for me sometimes to figure out how how to prioritize things okay what makes you do a lot of different things well it goes back to not having a nine-to-five job so constantly either trying to create new content make sure i show up to stream because that is an obligation too you know as much as i do enjoy it at the end of the day um uh people like to say that they stream just for fun and it is a job too you know um so knowing that like i have certain expectations that i have to meet but then there's also things creatively that i would like to do and i would like to fulfill um for myself um and i've always been independent like i've always been self-sustained uh i don't have like a team of a thousand people or 20 people doing everything for me right and i just report to them and show up like i am hands-on and now thankfully because of my stream i do actually have a small team of people that like help me with um like social media and youtube stuff but still like i feel like i'm always if it's not one thing it's another and that's work life that's not even personal life okay so so i want to understand when you so i'm hearing that you have a lot of stuff on your plate yes so how does something wind up on your plate to begin with i put it there okay so let's understand that okay so this is not a problem of prioritization it's like here i am like at the buffet i've got a plate full of food like i don't know what to eat first yeah so this is why people have trouble with procrastination because they look at the current situation and they ask themselves how do i fix this that's not where the money is the question is how did you wind up here in the first place that's what you need to fix right right right don't try to dig yourself out of this hole because like it's jumping in that's the problem it's like you know okay so so you know like let's just think about something like what's something you know what how do things end up on your plate i think part of it is survival so like some of it is just pure economics i know that i i don't have i don't have a thousand things to fall back on right okay meaning i don't have a i don't have this and i i keep saying nine to five job because it's easy for me to sort of paint this like picture and delineation where i'm i don't have a salary to fall back on right so for me it's i always have to follow and chase new i don't want to say trends because that's so not me but yes like trends and technology trends and streaming and trends and content because they change so vastly so like always catching up with those things because they are essential to what i do to make a living is overwhelming especially when you don't have like i said i don't have a team of a thousand people doing things these things for me and especially when what happens if you don't stay on top of trends i'm going to interrupt you from time to time if that bothers you please let me know it's fine yeah that's fine uh what happens when you don't say on trends well i'm trying i guess this is like speaking to me personally you've i mean it's it's sounds really simple but like if you don't stay on top of trends then how is your content being seen by people and that's like again this is like a very this is uh this is a career thing this is the reason that i'm going to interrupt you is because i think your mind is operating at a level that is way higher up than where we need to be function where we need to look at so like on a given day when you wake up in the morning and your mind says i need to keep up with what's going on like you have some thought like that i am assuming like what goes through your head like can we get like very microscopic with like what's what's happening in your head can try um the it's it's about how can i how can i bring relevant value to what i'm doing today and right so if it's on stream for instance because that's my main focus right now how do i make my streams better and okay i or i do a lot of cooking on stream too so like what can i do uh that people will will be interested in um and then that's like okay well i know that there's these specific groups of people tend to come in in numbers so i know that i have to focus on very specific things not always the exact thing that i want to do and it's the same with games right like you're always having to keep up with there's a new game release and it becomes sometimes like you want to finish this other thing and that sounds so so trivial but it's not because things are relevant today and then by next friday they're no longer relevant okay so um but then there's also sorry sorry to cut you off but then there's also like just the over like everything else happening in the world right can you tell me about that i with social media and with the amount of information that we have whether it's covid or whether it's and this is going to make me cry but like damn the injustices in our country that have been happening um the fact that it's like 20 21 and we're still here and sometimes feeling so helpless that stuff becomes overwhelming and i'm not even the primary person affected by those things and then i feel guilty because i say ah you shouldn't be crying you need to be out there doing something to help people and use your privileges to help people and that becomes overwhelming okay so and so so sometimes yeah it's like you want to just the thing that you depend on for a career is the same thing that sometimes you want to just completely ignore because it's it's hard sometimes to keep those balances it's hard a lot of times can you help me understand um i understand you got emotional there for a second um i'm gonna go ahead and say i didn't see that one coming so [Laughter] i was just confused by your your statement about and then there's all the other i was like what other stuff you know i was with you sorry about that i'm not gonna ask you more questions about that right now if that's okay with you that's great with me thank you okay i hate crying in front of people why because it's weak son um just because you put a funny voice on it doesn't make it i know that is part of it and that's just like i i don't like to uh be vulnerable in front of people i just don't is does crying make you vulnerable i think so okay that's what's important what you think is important [Music] sasha i'm getting some degree of like desperation driving what ends up on your plate like i'm getting the sense that it's sort of like survival of the fittest and you sort of don't have a backup plan is that how it feels sometimes for sure yeah and so do you think that's that motivates you to put things on your plate absolutely okay so this once again i'm going to give you the option to opt into or opt out of um and you know whatever happens today sasha i think if you're okay with it i may just summarize some thoughts and dm you in the event that you want to see a therapist i think there are a lot of things that you could talk about in a private setting like themes that maybe you could explore with someone um yeah is it okay if i do that sure okay um so yeah i mean can we because i i think that a lot of you know so if we let me just share my thinking so you feel overwhelmed by a lot of stuff and i think a lot of that depends on like how much stuff you're juggling now there's actually like a cognitive and even genetic reason why you your mind functions the way that it does this is coming up for air by the way so i'm gonna work very intellectually for a second okay we're gonna take the heat off of you and we're gonna just talk about procrastination okay so um and then so like basically like there's there's a way that your mind works you have a unique cognitive fingerprint which is that you juggle a lot of balls i guess that you get pretty excited about stuff um and what sorry 12 12 year old sense of humor sorry okay so um you know i'd say that that okay i just caught up nice so i was about to say you have a lot of balls in the air but you know because i use this and out like they're baked in at this point so you know you're you're juggling a lot of uh like you've got a lot of different projects going on right and so so there are people whose cognitive fingerprint is like you get excited about things very easily and it's like oh like let's do this like this sounds really cool like let me do this like this sounds really cool like let me do this and then um so that's fine but i think that there's actually more to it than that like that's your cognitive fingerprint your mind is always gonna excel actually because i guess that you get bored easily and you need like some degree of variety um but the the thing that i i really think that we can work on is like this idea that every day is an uphill battle because i suspect that some of that sentiment comes from actually like a lack of security about what's gonna happen for you and and some of that lack of security may actually in an unhealthy way because like there's like this panic of like if i don't do this thing then what could happen and so that driving force is gonna get you to like take as much as you can but then your plate gets overwhelmed absolutely so oddly enough i think if you want to get out of this you have to address the feeling of like i have to do this or you know it'll all come crumbling down or yes i agree i don't disagree with that at all uh but i will say actually since i started streaming my mods are going to laugh at me 100 but since i started streaming i feel like i've been a lot better because although it's not a 9 to 5 job it it it's provided some structure a very loose structure because i can still you know show up at any given time so it's not like i have to be at a specific place at the same time every day but i do feel like it has given me some structure but now it's it's learning how to balance um showing up and then also giving myself a break which is actually something i wanted to ask you about as well and somebody it's a question that um somebody from our community had but i felt like i could really relate to is like when do you know to take a break what because i i'm taking a break and what keeps you from taking a break and like and when is it okay to go back some that's definitely something that i struggle with when is it okay to go back to work yeah like when is it okay to take a break and when is it okay to go back and especially again i keep going back to like this this world that is just so different from a traditional job like what that can be difficult this job you you make your own rules and that can sometimes work against you and it can make it very difficult to live like to have you make your own rules so sometimes we need outside perspective to help us to help guide us right this is something that i love about collaborating is that when i collaborate with people on things it gives me another perspective and then it can inspire me to think differently about things what rules do you make up for yourself sasha i don't know if i'm i'm like i'm really prepared to answer that because i feel like i'm gonna jump around that like i was about to say something and then it just sounded ridiculous but my rules are that i have no rules so sasha i i i'm confused is your reluctance to answer because you're not happy with how the presentation would go no i just don't i actually don't think i have an answer for that at the moment like i would have came to your head that was it that i have no rules like yeah i think that that's what like when you said it's so hard to create roles when you're it's hard to set rules for yourself when you're doing it on your own yep it is it's like for instance today we had a meeting 10 30 is our our co-stream no problem i'm there like that's not a problem but if last night i said to myself i'm gonna end my stream at a reasonable hour and i'm gonna wake up and go hiking in the morning you better believe that that snooze button is being hit ten times and then i'm gonna go hiking at night yep so so who is the sasha who is the sasha that that says to herself that i'm going to end my stream at a reasonable hour and wake up at the morning can you tell me about her the one that has to be responsible to other people than just herself i don't think no i think that's a different one i know it sounds weird so i think you're good at being responsible to other people yes i think you're bad at being responsible towards yourself yes that's what i mean sorry if i yeah i may have misunderstood so but but tell me about the one that tries to get you to do stuff for yourself like why does she say those things it's that's a question that i'm asking myself i really don't know with that i truly do what what what's in your head why would you say to yourself that you want to end stream at a reasonable hour i'm that was like partly a joke but because i can't just blame it on the stream but um i'm saying that because i did say that last night like bef when i ended my stream i said okay like i could keep going in theory and keep playing this game but i know that i need to go to sleep so i can be on time and be arrested right um whereas like on fridays and saturdays when i stream i don't have to do that and as long as like my mods are cool and they're down to hang i can keep going for another hour or two and then i know that like okay tomorrow i can sleep in a little bit and then i'll just start my stream excuse me a little bit later the next day and okay so all right hmm can you tell me what i'm gonna switch gears on you for a second okay can you tell me what feels like an uphill battle what feels like an uphill battle i go back to like content creation in general what i do uh or at least like what i'm doing now that can feel like an uphill battle because again it goes back to what we were talking about earlier how do you how do you run a business because that's what it is but also stay true to yourself knowing that there are a million algorithms working against you so that feels like an uphill battle a lot like me and my a couple of the my mods and people that work with me on my youtube stuff like we are constantly analyzing these things and talking about okay we'll have an idea but we can't do that idea because that means that it can't be monetized and like i said you can hear a million people say they they stream for fun but at the end of the day it is still a business so i think that constantly juggling like what what brings you a spiritual fulfillment if you will that makes you happy that also what sucks is like i know that there as we were talking about earlier there are people that there's that have a sense of trust with me so like there are things that we would like to talk about that then we can't talk about so those things definitely become frustrating do you feel like um that that you're further restricted by being shadow banned like does that does that like set you yeah help yeah yeah absolutely can you explain that to me please well that's like again that's something that i the me to the you know talking to the public is that i want to be really clear about is it's not um it's not an egotistical bruise whatsoever it's it's simply the fact that i cannot continue i can but not in the way that everybody else can i can't continue to create things and have them be seen in the same way that the average person can so i'm hearing that you're held to a different standard absolutely and and i brought that on myself for sure but the internet is also what brought me here so there's this real duplicity right like they're in there seems to be so much fake allyship of every every minority group and i consider myself part of the lgbtq community i was a sex worker so there seems to be all of this outside visible support for groups during certain times of the year but then if you actually try to have these conversations those same people that put up that little flag on their website are suppressing your voice how does that feel makes me angry what are you angry about it makes me angry that people claim to stand for something and then the very things they claim to stand for they suppress okay i'm noticing emotions again um so sasha i think that i uh so i'm gonna if it's okay with you i'm gonna state an actual preference that i want to continue talking about this because this feels incredibly important to me um and at the same time since there are emotions we're gonna pause and we're gonna see if you're okay with it because like i think what you're saying is like really really important we're talking about double standards we're talking about hypocrisy we're talking about um you know like do we really want to be accepting of people because that means i know it sounds crazy being accepting of people means that we need to accept people yeah funny right and you know accepting people is something that sounds good but the truth is my experience as a psychiatrist accepting people is very hard it's not pretty yeah it requires it's not like a good thing like accepting people is like hard it's painful it requires it's not like a you know black and white sort of like oh like let's be accepting like it sucks to accept no no and i mean like from from an outside view what's so crazy what's weird is like i can take criticism from strangers i can take criticism from anonymous people on the internet but that side of it is so frustrating because i like my whole motivation for getting in the industry when i was in it was to empower people part of it was catharsis part of it was self-discovery but to also empower people and to feel like i have to constantly guard and watch everything i say and do because then i can't keep sharing that message is is stressful but then also like at the end of the day going back to the fact that it is a business right so like how how are you supposed to do the thing not everybody gets to do the things they love for work so i do try to ground myself in that and remind myself like okay i'm i'm lucky for what i do have right and the things that i can do um like how do you continue that message how do i continue that message yeah dude this is like okay i'm about to get frustrated with you is that okay okay i mean what can you say can you say no no because here's the thing sasha like okay like there's the business right but what i really hear is that like there's there's like a real you which is being muzzled by a business you and i'm not saying that that's unwise because i'm hearing that very clearly like you can't let yourself out right because like you're gonna be punished in a way that other people won't you're kind of like you've already got two strikes against you and so you can't afford to take that third strike and i i completely get that um at the same time there's a part of me that's like a little bit i don't think that that's who you were meant to be right so i i think like look when i think about what is your contribution to this world i think your contribution to this world feels very strongly to me to be like those conversations actually that you're not allowed to have now i'm not saying that you should go and have them but i think that there's like something to be said for the fact that like you're considering these conversations i think you you know you clearly are a thoughtful person and like if we really think about like what do people need i suspect what people need i mean hell we started this whole this conversation with like me having conversations that people thought were unacceptable right so that may be but i mean i've seen immense value to having conversations that people haven't had before or people think that is a little bit like out of line and i'm not saying you should go by that i mean just out of line like like so talking with people about their personal feelings in a very authentic way on the internet with thousands of people watching is a big no-no you know i spoke with my colleagues and i was like what do you guys think about this some of them said it was a bad idea some of them said it was important you know they gave me a lot of good advice and like helped me like understand a lot of the ethics of like how can we protect people like for example sometimes we'll have conversations with people before they come on stream where they're allowed to say i don't want to talk about this i don't want to talk about this i don't want to talk about this so that you know they're not put in a position and we kind of steer away like there are a lot of things that we do to make this a safer experience yeah and at the same time i think the conversation is important to have now what i'm hearing is that you're paranoid about being canceled which i think probably makes sense is that fair to say uh not canceled in the not my version of cancelled i mean not in how i interpret cancel like it's just a simple fact that for instance um i'll just tell you like straight up like the other day i was talking to a couple of my online friends that helped me with my youtube stuff about wanting to start a new um i don't know what yet right like either something in a written form like a blog or a video series or um somebody mentioned like a podcast right that has to do with like sexual health and wellness and having conversations um with like guests or just giving my own feedback and telling my own stories um but then the first thing is like well how are people going to hear about it how are people going to listen to it because anything that has to do with that even if it's in a with sexual subject matter automatically is on every social media platform completely suppressed to the bottom so how do how do i continue something new if i c if i can't even approach it uh and have people be aware of its existence how does it feel to be in that situation again frustrating makes me angry for sure because then you see here we go here's something that i think everybody uh everybody can relate to because then you see other people that um they magically come out of nowhere because they have a foundation that started elsewhere and then they can start talking about these things and they can take that risk because they already have this other foundation to fall back on why don't you that's exactly okay so now there's a theme right so like what makes it so what makes i do feel like i have a foundation it's not that i don't it's just that it's one that is not um these days i like i have to compare it to like when i first i've been in the public eye since i was 18 right so the internet and technology has changed so much it used to be a lot easier to discover different people or discover people like you or discover people that shared your same interests and talk about those things so that a lot of those tools have sort of been stripped by the way the internet and social media works now i'm sorry can you say that i'm just noticing that i i think maybe there's something i should be understanding or knowing sorry like but it goes back to just um like shadow banning right like there's just certain subjects that can't be discussed on the internet okay or if you do they're not um they're not monetizable so like i can't sit here and say i have this great idea in this passion project and and then stop streaming you know a few days a week and put time into that how does it feel because then it's like it's like a pe it then becomes a passion project essentially so so can we talk about these other people who are able to like break into the scene and sort of am i hearing you kind of say that they're able to have the conversations and kind of it's easier for them to make the content because they don't have the handicap that you have for lack of a better term yeah but that was a little that was a little probably superficial but like yes i have seen people um that are are regular let's say like regular influencers that aren't so much from the streaming side of things um that then go off and decide that they're going to have an authority on a subject like this i have seen that it's not all the time but i think that's everybody right like we all go on our phones because we're all bombarded by social media and we say oh why can't i have that like we're all guilty of that but that specific area yes it's frustrating to see that sometimes people can do that yeah you're doing something very sneaky here which is that when you have an authentic feeling you actually devalue it very quickly by generalizing it okay so like let's just follow along like you said that like so you have a particular background you have a particular experience that arguably makes you an authority you also have something that you're kind of passionate about and um sorry just i have to be careful about what colloquialisms i use yes i'm sorry i think i understand a little bit about um i i think oh wow i just had a revelation i can't no wonder you it's so [ __ ] exhausting um because what i was going to say is is i was going to use the phrase put your money where your mouth is um but and then it occurred to me that like well you just did yeah and and then like i noticed myself filtering and then i was just thinking about like oh like i'm filtering this much now like what must it be like for you to filter because you've got a filter way more than i do i imagine yeah with that kind of stuff though like i laugh at you know like we we're very open to make jokes about that kind of stuff because you can right like they're innuendos like innuendos you can get away with so much more it's like cartoons yeah and at the same but anyway kind of going back to like like i think i'm hearing you sort of say a couple of things sasha and i'm hearing you kind of just skirt the edge and then pull away so i don't know if that's sort of like a boundary issue but i'm going to just share it like because i i think that what i'm hearing is that you're passionate about something there are some issues that are important to you i think you sort of have you've kind of grown into this role of content creator and you think that like you can kind of combine your platform with like issues that are important to you and that one of those topics could be something like sexual health um and that you know when you when we kind of own that a little bit like you also say oh but it's social media and everyone sees things that people like you know like oh i wish i could be doing this and so you got to be a little bit careful there i wouldn't devalue yourself because if what i'm also hearing is is you know are there a bunch of uneducated people who are pretending to be experts in domains that you feel like you're qualified to give like good guidance on yes yes something you said there was like bringing something up and i lost my train of thought again i got distracted but i'm trying to bring it back i bet you if i went another remote remember it um let me try to say it again yeah maybe that will help so so you were talking about you know how there are people like who will so you have certain things that you're passionate about you have some some things that you're interested in you're a content creator maybe that you can combine those two you think about maybe like starting a podcast or something and you're not able to or it's challenging for you to do so because of some of the shadow banning etc and then other rand yeah go for it so it's um i don't like to wallow in my own self-pity so yeah like i probably do downplay it yep because i don't want to be that person that becomes fixated on things because i've seen people like that and i've met people like that and they're impossible to be around so now i'm very careful because i never want to become that person and i think social media is overwhelming for all of us sasha when did you stop wallowing in your self-pity i was 15 13 14 15 something like that can you tell me about that uh for sure a lot of it this is one of the places where you may want to say no no no it's totally fine um it's just how i was raised and i like that though i like that because it i don't feel like i was um i wasn't given like these concessions that because you're a girl you should be treated differently it was like okay pick yourself up you're done crying take a deep breath life happens move on suck it up and move [ __ ] it up and i and i think that's you know i like that personally it doesn't work on everybody for sure you know but um i think life has enough life throws enough curveballs at you that like there are going to be times where you can't control it so as much as you can it's a good thing to be able to say okay let's move on why do you have to be so strong that's a great question damn you're good i knew i liked you but i was damn the real like really truly i come from a neighborhood where you have to be strong like there are there are no options i know that like that i can give you a very black and white concrete answer on i'd love to hear about that if you feel okay talking about it but um i mean i don't want to talk about it too in depth but um yeah i come from a super disenfranchised neighborhood i think i'll leave it at the fact that like everyone i grew up with it sounds like a movie but like not everyone but a lot of the people i grew up with are either in prison or dead or spun out so that's why i'm strong not why i feel like i have to be strong that's why i know i'm strong and that i can like confidently say without backtracking on it how do you deal with other people being sympathetic towards you if i were to say something like you know i feel sad that you had to grow up in those circumstances how would you i don't like it i don't like it unless i know that they come from a similar situation what do you dislike about it my immediate answer my head was that i don't like pity i don't need your [ __ ] pity i don't i don't want your [ __ ] pity i don't i really don't because i uh like i've made it this far i don't need pity i really don't i have a very small but important number of people in my life that i will lean on i respect you a lot thanks how do you feel about respect from other people that doesn't bother me so much you see this is why they call me like the the uncle thing is starting to come out here too i think i like a lot of feelings i have when i look at them i say like i feel like a lot of very valuable things i learned for the way that i was taught um is usually something that happens with boys what does that mean like i would it goes back to the pity thing like never i don't know i just i feel like some of the really important conversations that i had with my the figures in my life um so i'm crying because i'm thinking about my dad who passed away um you know like i mean it was told to me like you don't have to be treated differently because you're a girl but also like some of these some of these things that were instilled in me i mean i know i know that like other these things weren't being told to other kids or to other girls specifically how do you feel about being treated differently i'm so fortunate i felt lucky how did you feel back then lucky because it was um my womb you know it was my my rock i felt protected by it i felt special and i'm saying that funny because you in a funny way because you asked that earlier but i'm just kind of thinking a little bit about you know a 13 year old or 14 year old girl and who's treated a little bit more like a boy and sees that she's not treated like a girl and i can understand how that's made you into the strong and capable person that you are today and i can also imagine that you know at the age of 14 that can be annoying and that there can be a wanting to be like everyone else yeah for sure i'm also kind of noticing a theme of like you know there's you and then there's everyone else like it doesn't sound because when we were talking about you know content creators and what they can get away with and what you can get away with and being shadow banned and i mean there's a very real reality sounds stupid to say but there's a there's a you know there's a very real situation in that you are different right your circumstances you're different the standards against which you're measured is different and i can see that you've sort of like risen to the challenge and you've you've faced it head-on and you know and at the same time like i'm wondering like what happened to that 14 year old who just wanted to be a little bit more normal i don't really see it that way how do you see it i i say those things but i like both of i don't know this is interesting because now han i'm going to backtrack because some of my closest friends always told me i was weird maybe there is something there that like you know i noticed recently probably because i have been very disciplined um throughout the pandemic of like not doing anything and not being social except like two little bubbles um so i noticed when i'm just at the grocery store checking out somewhere like i am awkward sometimes yeah but that's maybe a whole different conversation but i don't know i i feel like i was i feel like that's minimal because i still feel like i was pretty okay do you sometimes wish your life was different no help me understand that a little bit because for as difficult as as difficult as thriving can be in a business context i wouldn't want it any other way because i did know from a young age that i didn't want a nine-to-five job so as difficult as it can be i i find that i do tend to thrive in chaos and i do tend to thrive with um you know working in defense can it become exhausting yeah what does that mean worth it in your defense that there's something always pushing against you right so can it can definitely become exhausting sure and that's probably why i can tend to feel overwhelmed for sure but i wouldn't i wouldn't change it can i think for a second yeah can i can i go to the bathroom yeah sure yeah i'm gonna get some water too i'll be right back do we be respectful or do we be helpful i think we're going to have to go with the respectful blue i got cold all right um so i i think uh sasha i was debating about you know whether to take this further i'm leaning against it um so i i know you've been willing at every step of the way to sort of like i've asked a couple times for permission you seem to be like going for it and and i appreciate that but i have a feeling that if i keep on asking you questions you're gonna end up in a place that may be helpful to you but i'm not sure you'll be entirely happy with it okay um i i i want to like so the direction of that those questions have to do with like so here's what i see okay you are a force of nature right not a cult leader um maybe one day and and i i what i'm hearing in in your story is a lot of triumph um but also a healthy amount of adversity and even today i'm hearing like a lot of challenges that you face and you kind of like are your best self when you were you know when when your chips are down like you know you're good at playing on defense you're a survivor you're not just a survivor you like thrive in adverse circumstances like um you know just think about what you said that like most of the people that you grew up with are in prison or are dead like and and here you are you become you know a force to be reckoned with and so i i see a lot of strength and there's a lot there to respect and i think the challenge is that you've become strong it's part of who you are it's part of your identity but i think something was lost somewhere along the way like in that you know like in you becoming a titan you had to kind of like grow up for lack of a better term yeah yeah and and so there's a part of me that does feel some degree of like empathic sadness which i know like really rubs you the wrong way um and there's a part of me that says that like ultimately i i think that what i see as a way forward for you is like being able to accept people's compassion a little bit more you know and i know you hate it and and this can kind of tie to things like so i'm not going to give you more compassion because i think it would be really hard for you to handle um but you know you can look at your story as a story of triumph but i think it's also like a little bit dishonest to just look at it as a story of triumph that there's a lot of hurt a lot of unfortunate stuff a lot of things that you know i would hope that one day you're able to regret some of your decisions you know i know it sounds kind of weird but like i don't think that anyone there's things i regret oh okay don't get me wrong okay don't get me wrong probably not the not like the most obvious ones that people would assume but there are things i definitely regret just not uh let's say like not from um like to be clear as day not from my choice in getting into the adult industry like i want to be clear as days about that because people assume all sorts of stuff so not about that but about a lot of other things yeah i wasn't necessarily referring to anything in particular i didn't think you were either but i for for the for the lurkers to know so sometimes i think that people who you know live lives of strength that a part of that strength requires you to like have no regrets yeah like like and and i i think that ultimately like being a truly like authentic person like we're all human we all screw up we all make mistakes um and i think regret is actually like the avoidance of regret i think actually leads to some amount of toxicity um well you can't grow i don't think yeah it's like you know we learn hopefully learn from our mistakes i i also think that you know if things are unfair for you are we allowed to feel for you there or no yeah yeah of course like i wouldn't what would i what would i say to that you know i'm sorry you're in the situation you're in oh thank you how does that feel for you because i have a certain level of trust with you already um that's that doesn't bother me as much as it would coming from i mean i know we don't know each other in real life but like we have briefly talked in different situations before today so like it doesn't bother me as much as that coming from a total stranger or a friend of a friend i'm gonna try to qualify that statement a little bit more you let me know how it feels okay so sasha i think it sounds really tough to be like so you've made some choices and and i think you i'm happy to hear that you kind of don't regret them let that you've lived this life that has had some challenges and you become the person that you are and the person that you are is analytical capable entrepreneurial dedicated um that you're trying to make the world a better place and i think it really sucks that you're being held to somewhat of an unfair standard that people who talk real big about supporting people and accepting people actually like secretly punish you for particular things and it sounds like really really hard and unfair to be you know in the position you're in and i'm also a little bit afraid of um i'm a little bit afraid that despite the fact that you've come this far that some of the things that you deal with may actually be like insurmountable at some point that you may not be able to walk this tight rope because it seems to me like you're balancing very carefully and so there's a part of me that's afraid that since the tightrope that you're walking is so damn thin and so damn high that like you know i have faith in you and at the same time i'm also terrified for you i mean i guess i could say that i'm i'm like fortunate that i don't feel alone in this that's important you always have to talk about what you have to be grateful for for sure can you talk about the other stuff what what other what do you mean by that what are you feeling right now i just think about like walking a tightrope is an interesting way to put it for sure um but like i'm i i say i'm glad i'm not alone in that because i couldn't do it on my on my own while i might like do the business side of things and i and i feel like i put all these things on my plate i do have the support i need and i know that i'm not alone in experiencing these things as well i know that there are other people i might not know them but i know they exist so i have to keep that perspective to stay strong yeah i don't think you need to stay strong sorry i'm laughing because somebody said she i glanced over somebody said she's not alone she's the coolest yeah not a cult not a cult not yet one day uh once you have a compound right compound you have to call it that welcome to the compound castle gray school um yeah no um and i and i think the this would actually be an interesting or a good moment rather to bring up um parasocial relationships if you have time for that sure let's bring it up because it's something that um like we've touched on on stream before and i think it's something that we're all as a society still learning about and how to deal with it and it's you get her a guitar too it's um like we talk i talk about all these the uphill battles right the defense and thriving but then there is also this great community that i have and that a lot of people have on on their streams as well um so it's interesting to me because i feel like even though there's a few core people and i'm not talking so much about the chat necessarily but like my mods and the people that helped me behind the scenes like we have truly built something special that until today throughout like all of social media all my experience on it has not existed so that's interesting to me um and i'd kind of like to get your perspectives on on that but also just like this relationship that i have with my community and what you think would be the best way like if we see problems how to deal with them because i feel like actually like my mods and i we do sort of walk this tight rope with how to treat people because we do have to be sensitive and sometimes people overstep boundaries where it's very clear you know what to do and you know what needs to be done in other times this it's more difficult to deal with can you give me an example um [Music] people in the past have overstepped boundaries that we've laid out as a community [Music] um in ways that can become really scary and frightening because it tells me that maybe i'm doing something wrong that i'm not delivering a clear enough message that like while i do look forward to seeing people and a lot of people that are in almost every single one of my stream a majority of those people respect the boundaries and sometimes it's almost like an unspoken like sometimes those boundaries feel like an unspoken um they feel unspoken you know like we we know what to expect the majority of people know what to expect and every so often there are people that that don't know but then of course like we have the mods that they do make it clear like to not do certain things right whether it's on twitch or on on discord after the fact but um i get i don't know if it's so much of a purse like for me specifically but as a whole like where do you see this going as a society like how do we so how do we send a positive message but also like know when to cut it off so sasha can you define for me what a parasocial relationship is yes um in the case of i'll give myself as an example here i'm here i represent something to the people that watch my streams but the relationship is not reciprocated in a way that our irl relationship would be right like i am not friends with these people in real life i am friendly with them but i don't actually know them um and so what what i'm hearing is that it has some of the attributes of a real-life relationship but by virtue of it being an online relationship there's something like you know it doesn't translate a hundred percent so yeah exactly you know you can start to appreciate other people interact with them they have their own personalities some of them are trolls some of them are funny some of them are compassionate and so you can communicate with them you can interact with them you can form some kind of relationship with them but it's not it doesn't come with everything that a real social relationship comes with yeah i i shouldn't even say real social because i think it's just a different kind of an in-person social relationship and that there are some most people tend to sort of understand that there are some unspoken boundaries but that some people really don't understand those boundaries so this is where we've talked with several streamers about parasocial relationships and i have some thoughts but i think what's really missing from this conversation is what we really need to do is get i don't know if this is you know tos friendly but like i think the the if we really want to understand parasocial relationships we have to understand the other side of the story too so this is where like you know i think that like understanding what is in the mind of someone who does not respect a boundary is very important like that's the missing part of the equation for me right so like like and this is where i think we've had you know some we've had some people on stream that have certainly posted on our subreddit and stuff about like you know feeling lonely and and giving lots of money to particular content creators in the hopes that um you know it'll it'll they're looking to fill some kind of void or connection and and so so we we have some experience with this but i think that's just an important part of the equation um but let me ask you i mean what do you think is gonna happen like what do you what do you think i don't know i mean like i said i i tried removing try i do my best to be clear about these things on stream we create commands uh that like guests can use and that moderators can use but that's only in my i can only control what or you know try to control or observe and and cultivate the community that i have not other people's um so i think i think twitch is cool because we have all these tools at our disposal so um it makes it a lot cleaner and makes the rules um you know the rules are there they're up front we're not hiding things from people um but you go on other forms of social media and a lot of people don't do that and or it's impossible because those tools don't exist on other forms of social media um yeah it's it's i i guess a question too i have is just like am i doing enough to make those things clear i i don't know i don't know what you're should it should we just look let me yeah let me take a stab at this okay so can i just share like some thoughts about how i understand parasocial relationships and what we need to do about it so like the first thing is that i think that from a neuroscience perspective there's a reason why these things are happening so as human beings we tend to like associate things with other things i know it sounds like such a simple sentence but you know so for example um you know a classic thing that we'll kind of get into is like being friend zoned or [ __ ] zoned right where like there'll be and it's usually like a dude who gets friend-zoned i'd say like most of the cases i hear about tend to be with men and i think there's actually like a a neuroscientific and like developmental reason for that i don't i don't think it's it's not the y chromosome it's more that you know men tend to be socialized to expect emotional intimacy and only is a very small number of cases so emotional intimacy is okay with mom usually not even okay with sisters not okay with brothers oftentimes not okay with dad maybe like emotional intimacy is okay with grandma and then like romantic partners so those are the people with whom i'm allowed to feel social like we're like coded that way we're programmed yeah and so oftentimes what happens is is if you look at you know i may i'm not trying to offend anyone it's just general anecdotal observations and a little bit of data to back this up but frankly not very much i think the way that um you know girls are raised or were raised was different right so there's more emotional intimacy within friendships there and so then you get into this situation where like i you know working with the people that i have what i've noticed is that emotional intimacy between a man and a woman in their early 20s means different things yeah so for the woman it's like completely acceptable to have a friend that you emotionally confide in and for a dude it can be really confusing because they're they're kind of like it's they're under the impression whether it's correct or incorrect or programmed or genetic i have no idea but somewhere along the way they have this programming in their mind that if i'm emotionally intimate with someone that also comes with feelings of romance and sex and so there's kind of like a communication breakdown here a breakdown of expectations and i think something similar happens in parasocial relationships so what happens is our brains are wired to associate certain things with other things like for example a hundred years ago if i had an inside joke with someone what other things would i have with them the short answer is a lot right because an inside joke is only possible when there are other like check marks of a relationship that have developed like i have to see them for a while i have to be to a certain degree like vulnerable like we have to have like some kind of common cause or like you know like inside jokes come with a certain if you think about when do you unlock the inside joke in a relationship you unlock it like after you're at a high level of friendship yeah you know and and it reminds me this like funny quote from the office where where michael scott i don't know if you've watched the office and he kind of talks about the inside jokes and he's like i've always wanted to be a part of one you know and and it's kind of like this this idea that like an inside joke comes with other stuff yeah we sort of programmed that way and so enter twitch chat where like now we have inside jokes but it doesn't seem to be coming with the other stuff yes and so i think people start to get like kind of i don't know if confused is the right word but there's like kind of like a programming does not compute error because usually when i have an inside joke with them it also means that like i'm allowed to text them at any hour of the day right right like there are certain associations that come and so i think what happens with social media is that like we're finding ways to like short-circuit some of our programming or like hijack actually hijack is a maybe a better word hijack some of our programming and certainly video games do do this neuroscientifically where like if we think about the drive for achievement so we have this thing called um the intent to mastery which is a very very simple hard wired core of your brain kind of thing which is like if i have a six month or four month old and i hand them a ball they will try to hold it and if they drop it what do they do any idea huh cry right sure the answer i was looking for well that's a fair one the answer that i was looking for is they pick it up right so like like if a kid stumbles like they're gonna like everyone learns how to walk right like no one no one like gives up on learning how to walk if you think about it it's like really really hard you fall over and over and over again so like we have this hard-wired part of our mind that's like i want to get better at this i need to get better at this and i have to become a master and then if you look at video games what video games have done is like let's give people like achievements that they can grind for a decade and it kind of taps into that neuroscience circuit of like wanting to master something which if we didn't have this part of our brain like we wouldn't learn how to walk yeah right and and so in the parasocial way i think we have a similar hijacking going on where like now you have some degrees of intimacy like now sasha like there are people watching at home that despite you know all of our best efforts and i probably i mean honestly sometimes you caught me off guard i really can't blame myself but sometimes i had a feeling i knew what was gonna happen if i asked you a question and so they've seen a vulnerable part of you and so what's that gonna trigger in their mind right like normally like when do i get to see someone bear their vulnerable self it comes at a certain tier of relationship and so now like in some brands out there we've unlocked that reward but the underlying foundation of the relationship is not there and that's what gets confusing for people because at this point they feel like they know you sasha yeah they know you so well and they're not exactly wrong right because they do know some things about you and there's a lot of authenticity and i think part of what makes you like a successful content creator a successful personality is sure you've got a mask but i think you know how to let enough of the authenticity bleed through right i don't think you have to pretend to have fun like i think you genuinely enjoy doing some right things that you do and there's like there's like a calculated authenticity there and so when people see that calculated authenticity it's still an authentic there's an authenticity there's an intimacy to it and then that triggers like certain neurological or like sociological like programming and then some people are able to navigate that activation of that programming pretty well and they know how to respect a boundary and some people get a little bit more confused yeah and i think that's why parasocial relationships happen and and it's interesting because you you know there is a certain like connection to your community even that you feel right like oh 100 right so so like if we think about you know why is that happening it's because the same thing is happening in your mind that when you're vulnerable and everyone sends hearts you know in the chat and then it's like there's a certain part of you that feels like accepted appreciated loved you know and then like it's sort of like like and then there are some streamers who let the confusion get the better of them and there are some streamers who maintain boundaries right yeah and then like there are some streamers and then we had um i think we had someone on like over a year ago who was like a mod in someone's community and then the person got really big and then they felt like they were owed more and like felt like they got abandoned and left behind and all they sacrificed a lot to like you know bring this person like help this person succeed and then they felt like they were discarded afterward and things like that um so i think there are some streamers that you know will muddy that boundary a little bit like i'm still confused about what happens when like do you ever like what happens when you see people from your chat at twitchcon you know i've actually never been to twitchcon either have i so i don't know but i've been to other you know i've i dj well pandemic i haven't dj in a long time but i dj but there's a different boundary there too because most of the time i'm on a stage you know i'm separa i'm physically separated but then sometimes it's like the club asks you to do um like autographs afterwards you know or take some pictures um so even then that feels boundary to me right because it's sort of like you're there as a dj but like i i don't i don't know like what would happen you know if you run into someone on the street and uh i'm like it depends how people approach me really okay i have a i'm pretty sensitive to things so like if if they feel safe to me and they're respectful i'm pretty open but like if i'm talking to somebody and eating a pasta or eating a taco and this has happened and you put a camera in my face like that's you know that that's not okay yeah of course but if you like if you're respectful in your approach it's it changes my attitude for sure um so so just going back to the parasocial relationship i think it like it comes down to like the fact that this relationship checks some of the boxes from a normal relationship and i even hesitate to to because you asked me the question what's going to happen i hesitate to use the word normal because i think what we're gonna what we're gonna discover is like you know back in the day there was like marriage and then there was like people getting engaged and then you have a girlfriend and so like like you know in india the concept of a girlfriend was is not it wasn't existent yeah like i remember telling my mom so i hid my girlfriend from my mom for years and then like telling her like oh yeah she's my girlfriend and she was like she's your friend and i'm like no she's my girlfriend and she's like does that mean that you're getting married and i was like no and then she was like wait i'm confused what's the point of having a girlfriend if you're not gonna get married yeah and it was just like it's like a new construction that is not like did not exist before right and she was just like so confused because she's like there are friendships and there are marriages and there's nothing in between yeah and so now what's happening is there's like a real life relationship and there's a parasocial relationship and i think both of those are going to become like new versions of stuff right now there are open relationships and friends with benefits and there are so many different things that like like if you think about friends with benefits that's an example of like it used to be that sexual activity came with certain stuff and now people have evolved to say that okay we can have sexual activity without the other stuff you can have friendship and sexual activity and so i my sense is that the parasocial relationship is has already become a thing and it will continue to become a thing and and even as social media gets more sophisticated it will become more of a thing because i think what social media platforms are discovering is that the the stronger the parasocial relationship probably the higher the user engagement well it's yeah it's interesting these things like you said these things have always existed it's the same with like i mean going to see somebody at a concert right yeah i mean there's this thing still does exist but with social media and specifically with a live interaction it totally changes the game yeah so i think i think the the sorry to cut cut you off there but i just wanted to like completely echo your point because i think that if you think about the brain right like if i you know if i'm a huge fan of like pearl jam and and like i can listen to this dude's music and i can feel really connected to them like there is there's only so much stuff in my brain that gets checked yeah and then like if i see him at a concert then like more stuff gets checked and just like you said with live interaction like what someone can do sasha is they can talk to you and you will respond to them yeah right and when someone when someone comes and talks to you on a regular basis and you respond to them and you guys joke together and then like you come on our stream and you share some stuff and now they know you more and they feel like they really know you like they're like it's they're not wrong right like they're they're checking these boxes of a relationship consistency inside jokes laughing together having a good time together being there remember when dot dot dot remember that time and then like if you think about what's a real relationship like those are all of the check boxes so i think it's going to get in a sense quote unquote worse but i think that parasocial because people are going to figure out how to have like more interaction right like we're going to figure out how to you know we're going to have like more inside jokes and we're going to have like like emotes and we're going to have more stuff that can be like this is because like i think a big part of the parasocial relationship is it's ours sasha it's not yours it's it's not mine it's ours i like that too yep like i do get something out of that it does make me happy and like i find myself telling my irl friends and family things that happen on stream all the time like it does become a sure very important part of my life so now we begin to see that there is actually some degree of reciprocity right that it's not just one way that like they're making you laugh and you're making them laugh yeah that when they're having a bad day diogray shows up and when you're having a bad day maybe the more observant members of your chat notice and they send you some support and there's like absolutely a reciprocity yeah now as to what to do about it i think also because sorry to cut you off but i don't want to forget like i i see people or not just on twitch but um on other platforms as well like call people their besties or call them um or or like say i love you yeah you mean the creators or the yeah yeah yeah the creators saying that to their community i mean they're like again there are a few people that i've actually become internet friends with that i do love like i have love for them even though i've never met them but then there's the actual chat side of things that that in my opinion becomes so dangerous what's dangerous about it i think it sets it it's it's raw it feels wrong on so many levels what feels wrong about it i'm probably speaking i mean it makes me think of just my own experiences like i've dealt with real stalkers irl and cyber stalkers so i know what being online what the territory is you know what comes with being online and that is one of the very negative side effects of it or hopefully not for everybody but it can be a very negative side effect and i feel like that kind of sometimes there feels like this overabundance of um fake positivity and i see it a lot and also in people that like we're gonna manifest this and while that's all great you also have to remember like that life throws things at us and we have to be prepared to deal with those things when we when we don't get what we manifested right and i feel like setting up a community by telling them that you love them and then that and that they are your best friends i think it's unfair to those people but it's well i i think the real challenge there is that for some streamers they really do feel that way right so i think that a lot of streamers are lonely and that some of the best connections that they do feel are like with their chat yeah and i think that there's a lot of because you know i'm not trying to i recognize i'm sort of disagreeing i agree that it's unhealthy but but i think that like we have to understand that real-life relationships are complicated and part of what's happening and and part of what's nice about like you know these relationships that you have with people online is it's like it it can be so much more simple yeah much cleaner so much more fun [Laughter] yeah none of the baggage you're right it's like i'm gonna we're just gonna hang out and chat we're gonna be vibing and then there's something in your brain that's like why would i want to hang out with real people who are just so filled with drama when i can just be vibing with twitch chat and that's just like i feel it i absolutely feel it right yeah so yeah i think our brain gets confused yeah or that the signals mean different things now right and and it's hard because like if you really think about it i mean a lot of like you know a lot of online support can be so um i mean i i see this a lot i i suspect that a lot of that streaming actually cultivates almost a particular kind of like mental illness called borderline personality disorder where like like this is uh this is a kind of illness where i mean it's not it's an illness we call it that but it's something where like your sense of worth is determined by the way that you're treated that's basically the way that i kind of think about it and so i think that when our brains are exposed to a lot of judgment that's how people sort of get borderline personality disorder they sort of like get traumatized or abandoned early in life and then i think like essentially what the internet does is like cultivates that same kind of growth because we get exposed to so much judgment and the interesting thing is that if you have that vulnerability a lot of times people with bpd feel really good about themselves when people treat them well and so now you suddenly have this source of like you can you know call to the internet and the internet will answer your call and shower you with love and support and and we'll say like no you are wonderful like we do love you you're fantastic and if you have that kind of emotional need and you become like you know you can kind of tap into it and i don't really blame the people because it's like it's their brain right they're like they're looking to feel a certain way and the internet can help them feel that way so i think it's going to get in a sense worse but i also think that there are certain things that we're gonna have to do like we're gonna have to evolve as humans to deal with this um and this is where you know personally i'd like to spend more time with people who are on the other side of the social relationship yeah right like talk to people and be like you know how does it feel and then like hopefully through that as many people listen they'll be like oh crap that sounds like me like i do that too and then we'll sort of start to understand and like hopefully help those people because i i don't in a sense like i blame them kind of if they violate boundaries and don't respect things like i think that's you know you should be held accountable for your actions but also as someone who has you know worked in prisons and stuff like that i i've i've come to appreciate that you know the psychological drives that cause us to do bad things probably can be helped in some way so like i'm all for like punishing a crime but at the same time like rehabilitating the criminal absolutely absolutely um so you're calling twitch you're calling chat criminals i'm i'm sorry to ruin a good moment but i just i couldn't let that joke go somebody else was gonna do it if i didn't do it i think i think there are a lot of things but i don't think criminal is one of them no no no i'm joking i'm joking i'm just joking you have to have some humor in there but yeah it's fast it's really fascinating yeah i mean i i was about to ask you you know if there's someone in your community yeah but i don't think we should do that but you know i think like like in general we should think about having people who are on the other side of a parasocial relationship like you know we've done that a little bit on stream i think it's something we could do more but i think we have to understand like what's going on in these people's heads like probably explain to them i mean explain makes it sound like you know we have all the answers but i think kind of try to figure out like we because we have to do something and so the la i guess so there's a systems perspective right where you can sort of equip tools and things like that um but there's also i think like a very human component to it that we have to explore that's just the lens that i look at yeah i mean i think it'd be cool in the future um to see if anybody from my community would be open to talking about that as well i think that obvious not i think we all have been able to observe that the pandemic has only made things worse because it's forced us inside and for some of us that are already maybe more introverted myself included i mean i'm i'm i'm i'm somewhere in the middle like i have no problem being alone you know um but for this period of time it's a different story so we've all been feeling that isolation even if we do have family you know even if we do have a support system but it's it's really fascinating and i feel like now though um personally between myself and my mods we've we've sort of been able to now identify like red flags um it took a while it took a while like longer than you would probably think but i i also i know part of that is that we've been we've tried to be very gentle with people to understand that maybe somebody is suffering from mental health issues or things like this so we want to tread lightly and be careful but now we've sort of been able to identify certain behaviors where we understand that it's easier to cut it off right when you see it happening uh i mean i i think it could be very educational if you would share with us what those red flags might be but at the same time i feel like that could be a mistake in some way it i can tell you something because it's going to be very sort of vague anyways which is um there's just certain it's very instinctual but there's certain like ways of writing or patterns that you start to pick up on and you'll see things and say well that kind of reminds me of this other problem we had and we let that problem extend so let's not even give it a chance to grow let's just cut it off so that's very vague i know it's not like a clear example of of what we've dealt with but um there's just certain behaviors and patterns that we tend to pick up on now yeah so i'm all saying i'll say it like if i see something like we have a you know a way to communicate between us it's like uh let's just like let's just flag this or or another mod we'll say like we're flagging this internally and if anything else happens then we're just gonna ban yeah so i'm i'm hearing that you know subconsciously your brain has done some pattern recognition yeah right so you guys have seen enough of it where to where you know sort of like what it looks like what it smells like kind of like you know you can sniff it out now um yeah so i think that there's a lot of room for research like i think it would be really cool to actually do a study where we asked streamers like we could probably like you know put assemble like common red flags we could also do a study on um actually i i think we should i think it'd be very cool to do a study on people who are on you know the the chatting end of the parasocial relationship and like you know do a qualitative research study where you take 30 people you ask them what is this experience like for you like how do you feel where does it come from you know things like that um you can also like we discovered all kinds of interesting things uh we're hopefully publishing a paper on incel soon um starting to do a paper hopefully on i think we've got a we've got a project in the works on pornography addiction and i think especially in the pornography addiction very some very surprising results in terms of like things that you would not expect like really simple things like being exposed to pornography at a very young age from the consumer perspective yeah yeah so so like you know you'll have like eight-year-olds who are shown pornography and that's even before they've started to like experience like you know that they haven't they're nowhere near puberty and yeah but it does something in the brain and also that pornography addiction doesn't seem to have really much to do with being you know sexually attracted to anything it really seems to be more of a shortcut to like a dopamine release in the brain and like emotional suppression so there's a lot of assumptions that pornography and perversion in some way are like related but it appears that for pornography it's it's not the same um so i can confirm huh can confirm i don't quite know what you mean by that but okay yeah i'm i'm also sort of a perv but like in a healthy way okay yeah well so my point is that you know i think perversion is a whole separate thing it's just that people yeah expected these things to be associated exactly and they don't they aren't necessarily um and with parasocial relationships i imagine if we spent the time like looking we could start to figure out you know what's going on here but yeah that's sorry you got me spilling for a second no it's really cool i mean i wanted to ask you these things and i know a lot of people um a lot of people wanted to hear about this i think it was very insightful and hopefully helpful for some people as well now i know i offered you a 15 to 30 minute spiel on why you procrastinate and how to fix it do you still want that if you're down yes um i would have to go to the bathroom really quickly though go for it cool okay all right let's do it let me figure it out okay i was just in teaching mode and so you know once i get started it's hard to stop me and i'm sure that that was a funny joke but my mind was not able to once i get into teaching mode there's so little i understand about innuendo so ready to get started yeah okay so the first thing uh sasha is i i want to explain to you a little bit about traditional indian medicine or ayurveda so before i went to medical school you sound familiar are you familiar with that or now okay that's what you asked me earlier yeah okay okay yes i don't know a lot about it but okay um it was the way you pronounce it i i obviously butcher it and so yeah sometimes people people will pronounce it ayurveda yes so um what i'm gonna try to do real quick is okay yeah i'm just getting prepped okay so the first thing is that not everyone's mind is the same i know it sounds obvious but like you know how like some people have what we call fast metabolisms and they can eat whatever they want to and not put on a whole bunch of weight and then other people are big boned right and they're people who can eat salads all day and they'll still be like you know above average in terms of weight and the other interesting thing is that like obviously there are these classes of people that may have something of a oh one second i was on the wrong way up um so there are these different classes of people right so like and it may run in families but there are people from like africa that have fast metabolisms and people completely unrelated from like croatia that have fast metabolisms so this is a variance within the population of the human species yeah turns out that fast metabolism people and big bone people actually share particular genes so they're actually like these different classes of people so a couple thousand years ago in ancient india there were a group of doctors ayurvedic doctors who sort of noticed that human beings have like these shared qualities and and so what they decided is like in order to understand them because they couldn't you know do a genetic analysis back then they started using elements to explain like these attributes of people so what they said is that there are some people who are like the wind and these people are vata so they are they tend to be prone to things like dry skin they tend to be prone to things like allergies they tend to have fast metabolisms they also tend to have eyes that are bigger than their stomach which means that they feel very very hungry but then actually don't need to eat a whole lot of food they also notice cognitive correlations that these people have so that they get interested in things very easily but get bored and things very easily that these people tend to be quick studies but also forget if they don't get like you know repeated like they learn easy to forget okay right and so then so they came up and they said like oh this person is like the wind okay and then they also like notice that there are other people so some people are more argumentative they're more driven they're medium-bodied they tend to have certain physical problems with like indigestion the back teeth their back teeth tend to be quite yellow all kinds of interesting correlations that they made and then the third type is like the earth type so these people tend to be big boned they tend to be like slow to learn but slow to forget they tend to be quite resilient and can tolerate punishing situations for long periods of time but are also slow to like get out of bad situations so they'll like stay in unhealthy relationships for prolonged periods of time whereas the vata folks the wind folks will be like yeah i'm into this person and yeah i'm not into that person anymore and so what they noticed were that these these sort of elemental forces and if you look at any human being you can kind of rank their their wind their fire and their earth and so some people may have a dominant fire some people may have like a dominant wind and fire some people may have you know any combination and that disease essentially manifests from your levels getting too high or too low so like people who have a high amount of vata if their vata increases a little bit more they will have things like allergies they'll have things like adhd they'll have things like anxiety they'll have insomnia but not the kind where it's hard to fall asleep the kind where it's hard to stay asleep or they have interrupted sleep that vatas have dreams of flying for example there are all kinds of weird correlations do you have dreams of flying oh yeah okay oh yeah so you are you are sasha my friend a textbook vata and a lot of what you describe as procrastination is a manifestation of your vata mind you talked so many times about not being a nine to fiver vatas hate the nine to five they can't do the nine to five it's just not how their mind is you can work from midnight till midnight one day a week but you would rather do that than nine to five five days a week like that's so that's just the vata mindset right so it's like it's like you so you have to think about yourself like the wind and the wind blows really hard in one direction and then stops and blows this way and then that way right so the first thing to understand is that you have avata mind so your temperament is going to be a little bit more procrastination oriented because vatas also thrive with crises and deadlines they they do their best work their mind is sort of like eh i can't get excited about that oh [ __ ] it's happening tomorrow let's go right like yes so so the vata mind is going to be prone to what we call quote-unquote procrastination but i don't think that's really the right way to think about it i think the reason we call it procrastination is because our society is structured for bitters and kaphas for the most part so like if we think about like you know the nine to five like where does that come from it's because bit those which tend to be good managers by the way vatas are like very difficult as managers because they're all over the place so fitness are really good the fire types are really good at imposing organization and structure so like the people who like being like the manager tend to be like a little bit more bitter or kapha oriented and so they created a system that worked for them and then we pushed all the vatas into the system so school is another good example of like it's eight to three and like that's the way it should be whereas there's actually overwhelming evidence that starting school at eight o'clock is actually bad for learning and bad for kids yeah there's no need to study for that many hours a day so anyway coming back to you so i think the first thing to understand is that if you want to quote unquote procrastinate less you should balance your vata the more your wind element raises the more procrastination prone you will become and by procrastination prone i mean that there will be times of your life where your mind is prone to wander and like it can't sit still right so like you can eat certain things that will help your mind like be calmer and more grounded like your procrastination is going to be inversely proportional to the degree that you're grounded okay that's the first thing so like you can sort of you know yeah so that's vata okay so a couple of solutions there one is you can lower your vata you can be more grounded but the other thing to recognize is that your mind is going to optimally function when you're juggling a few different things that's just how it works okay so now let's get to um a little bit more on you so the first thing to understand about procrastination is that it's the vata mindset okay we're gonna leave the ayurveda stuff over here for now um and so we can talk about balancing your your vata and stuff like that but then when we think about procrastination you had started sasha i believe with it's some kind of fear of success right that's what i've heard a lot of people say and that's something that personally i cannot identify with so uh and this is i've read the alchemist okay um what do you why do you think you procrastinate uh when he asked me that earlier it took me a minute but then i i went back to um it came to me which is i feel like i am i get overwhelmed and so it's hard for me to be decisive um and figure out what is the most important task at hand okay so so here are a couple of things so like we talked about before i think a big solution to your procrastination if you're overwhelmed and having trouble prioritizing you've already lost the battle because the problem is how stuff gets on your plate right right right so this is where um you know we're not gonna i'm just gonna offer a couple of hypotheses these could be right these could be wrong but i think that there's a certain desperation that you have because i i'm gonna sort of like analyze you a little bit here okay so this is something you should definitely talk to with talk through with a therapist if you feel like this resonates with you but what i'm getting the sense of is because of something about your background and because you're walking a tightrope i feel like that emotional feeling of walking a tightrope doesn't allow you to pass on opportunities right because you feel like i have to grow i have to adapt i have to stay up with the trends um we don't really need to go into that my point is that in terms of like not fearing it's a fear of success like you and this will become clear in a second i don't think yours is a fear of success what i get from you is more of like a desperation of like being on the tightrope and like you don't have a choice does that sort of make sense it does the thing that i'll oh slightly disagree with there is that like um not being able to say no because i've actually been very aware of that over the past i would say like four or five years and it's something i've really worked on and learning to say no okay so but that being said what you're saying is all the other things i am still putting on my plate right so i'm still putting this and one last thing before i forget but you i just want to say it and then we can go back to time management and then we can circle back to that though yeah so so this is where i'd say that you know if you've learned how to say no and you still wind up with too many things on your plate how does that happen right because i think that it's not about saying i don't know it still feels to me like there's an emotional driver which is determining how much stuff ends up on your plate in the first place right so like i i maybe it's not emotional but i would explore that so like let's just put emotional driver we don't need to go there right now okay so now i'm going to talk more generally so i tend to think about procrastination like a couple different kinds of procrastination okay so the first is what i would call idealistic procrastination so what this means is that some people don't act because they're not ready so like for example if i want to apply for a job and i procrastinate on applying for a job the reason that i'm procrastinating because i want to wait until my resume is good like i need to revise my resume like i can send a crappy resume today or i can send the perfect resume tomorrow so i'm not going to apply for a job until everything is ideal yes right so like this is where like you have this you have this idea in your mind of how this task should be executed yes right idea or even fantasy of execution yes i can relate to that and that's something that i've also been working on is is letting go of certain things and understanding that like nothing can always be perfect yeah so like like it's the chase for perfection that keeps people paralyzed in the moment mm-hmm right like i know it sounds kind of weird but like sometimes you know sometimes i'll it almost feels to be like you take a 100 chance at an f as opposed to a 20 chance at an a and it's like people people are like yeah i'd rather like i want to do it perfectly or not at all and that's where you know because you have this idea of like what you want it to look like what it'll accomplish like i'm going to do such a like it's going to be so great when i do it but i haven't set that circumstance up so i'm just not going to do it or haven't been good with time management to allow yourself to be prepared we'll get to time management later okay so idealistic procrastination is something that i i kind of think of is like it this is a little bit psychological it's cognitive right and it's actually like attachment based and what i mean by that is we're attached to a particular outcome so like we're attached to it being a certain way like like my favorite example is one that i i have in my head all the time i will start going to the gym once i'm a little bit in shape because oh god yeah right yeah and so if you kind of think about it it's the attachment to like not wanting to look out of shape when you go to the gym that keeps you from going to the gym so oddly enough the solution here is a little bit more like grief like you got to just let that go and like learn to take an l yeah right you gotta just be like you know what it's gonna suck yep um or al i guess so so that's where where i i would say like so this is different because it's not really emotional it's like i want this thing to happen perfectly and you have to let go of like you have to grieve that perfect outcome to be able to move forward yeah okay so another good example is i have i'm working with someone who's going to enroll in college once they get their like sleep schedule fixed right and so their sleep schedule never gets fixed so that they never go to college it's a form of idealistic procrastination so second is avoidance procrastination so this is closer to what the instagram folks or whatever social media folks are saying so this tends to be based in emotions so this is sort of like like the avoidance procrastination is actually a protective mechanism and what it's protecting you from is like a particular emotion so for example let's say i want to ask someone out but i'm afraid of rejection so i don't ask them out and i tell myself i really want to ask him out i really want to ask him out i really want to ask him out so in a sense you could call that procrastination because i never get up off my ass and ask someone out but what i'm really trying to do is like avoid the emotional possibility of rejection yeah so sometimes when i talk to people who want to you know find a job like they feel stupid going in and like asking for um they feel stupid like going in and like asking for a job application they don't need to feel stupid but they just do so a lot of times like how do you tell if you have avoidance procrastination if people use umbrella terms like if they call themselves bad lazy stupid or incompetent and that's the reason they're procrastinating that is likely to be an avoidance procrastination the things that avoided procrastinators tell themselves is usually diagnosing them within themselves with an unfixable problem like i'm lazy that's why i procrastinate and like laziness is like it's an attribute of who you are there's nothing to do about it there's there's no you know it's kind of just like so like oh i you drew the short straw you're lazy in life sucks to be you you know it sort of doesn't you can't do anything about it um does that make sense yes so the other thing that that these people tend to do is rational a lot of rational justifications so they'll give themselves lots of reasons why they're not doing something but at the end of the day it's usually emotional oh you know like and it may even look like idealistic procrastination it's sort of like yeah i'll ask this person out once i get in shape and sure that's like there's an idealistic component to it but it's really what's really driving that is like the fear of like being rejected and what they're trying to do is like control circumstances so that they can avoid emotions this is another sign right yeah and this is where like like asking someone out i'm gonna wait till i'm sure they're in love with me before i even ask them out because i'm afraid of the rejection yeah and maybe there's fear of success in your case there may be an emotional driver which could be like avoidance procrastination i don't really think that's the case with you i'll we'll get back to you in a second um and then the third oh this may be you sasha operational procrastination okay this is more frontal but what i mean is frontal lobe sorry so i was just gonna ask do you mean frontal lobe okay yeah okay so this is where like so vatas tend to be prone to this type because frontal lobe problems also manifest as like anxiety and adhd so like this is kind of like an adhd procrastination tends to be falls under this category but what i would say is um so this is the kind where like so i have a three-year-old and i have a five-year-old and if i tell the five-year-old to clean clean up their room they're able to do that but if i tell the three-year-old to clean your room she's not really able to do that does that make sense yeah what's the difference between the three-year-old and five-year-old why can the five-year-old clean their room but the three-year-old can't that's i would say the age is the first thing i think of like a five-year-old is a little bit more independent they can safe you know they can focus for longer periods of time compared to a toddler who's just only been walking for a while and is still pretty dependent on parents yeah so if we look at like what the age means right what's the difference between a three-year-old's brain and a five-year-old's brain you've sussed it out instinctively perfectly right so that the five-year-old can kind of stay focused but if you really think about it what stay focused means is actually breaking down the task into its component parts so this is where like people feel overwhelmed if they're operational procrastinators and what that means is like the five-year-old understands that cleaning the room is putting away the toys putting away the books and putting away my stuffed animals i can tell the three-year-old put away your stuffed animals and she can understand that but she's not able to take the abstract of cleaning the room and breaking it down into its component pieces and so when she looks at the dirty room her mind is overwhelmed with like how do i break down this task and execute on it does that make sense yes absolutely so like when we think about something like um and this is also like a problem in gamers too so gamers are prone to this because video games operationalize stuff for us right okay here's the quest go collect eight of these things then go here then go here then go here then go here so we're not really taught how to like abstract out things from start to finish even our sandbox games basically like teach us how to play in the sandbox right it's not truly free form so when you take gamers and you tell them to go find a job there are actually a thousand small tasks but the our minds actually are not like natural at breaking up those tasks so finding a job feels overwhelming because we don't know how to break it down into its component parts so does that sound like that describes you yeah definitely and i yeah go ahead and i feel like i i do better when um i waver a lot so like i'll have really disciplined stints where i have lists and i have checklists and sub checklists and i got like the stuff that is for me uh in my personal life just like random stuff that has to be done and then the stuff that i want to do professionally creatively and then i'll fall off yeah so that's it okay that's where i mean i'd say that that sounds very about that of me so here's what i'd suggest for you okay the first is that like you know maybe there's some weird emotional [ __ ] in there who knows if it's not what floats your boat no big deal sorry i i'm i'm done with the ipad part uh i'm yeah i'm just a senior sorry yeah it's okay um so here's what i'd say sasha for you if you procrastinate like the first thing to understand is that you're gonna be the most successful when you have external prompts so you're gonna respond well to crises and deadlines the next thing to understand is that procrastination is not a problem procrastination is actually a solution so if our brain so this is like literally what happens our brain has this circuit that tries to figure out how to be efficient and so what your brain tells you when you're in like let's say you're in school and it's like i could start studying today and i can get an a and i can study one hour a day for 30 days but our brain is actually like you know what we can get a b if you just cram the night before and so if you actually think about an energy investment doing things perfectly is not efficient it's actually very inefficient because why would i want to study 30 hours for an a when i can squeak by with a b with six like why would i do that so in your case i'd say be careful about why things get on your plate is number one see if there's some kind of desperation there's some kind of like because we see this a lot with streamers where like you feel like you you know you can't afford to pass sounds like you've learned how to say no second thing to think about in terms of your procrastination is what i would do is pick like three or four things and rotate between them so what you'll find is that the way for you to work 80 hours a week is to have four different projects that work 20 hours that you need 20 hours a week if you devote yourself to one project for 40 hours a week you will do a worse job than four projects at 20 hours a week even though technically you're working half as much in one scenario it's just gonna not bring out the like the interest right like when you get excited about something well i also like my mind immediately goes to when you know you should stop working on something because your brain and body are tired but you push through because you just want to finish and get it over with and then you make mistakes that then add hours to having to finish that that's where that is so so i think your problem with sasha you don't need to motivate yourself to work so people who have a problem with procrastination think that i need to motivate myself when i don't feel like working right it's actually the exact opposite you need to demotivate yourself at the right times and then your procrastination will get way better you need to restrain your motive it's two sides of the same coin you need to restrain your motivation when you get excited when it's time to stop you need to restrain yourself and stop so procrastination in your in your case i don't think is like it's not about a lack of motivation it's actually about a lack of restraint and i think that as you have fewer things like because like you said okay i want to finish it now i made a bunch of mistakes so the next day your to-do list has been inflated with stuff that should have never like it would have been easier to just stop and finish it today yeah right and and so like i would i really reign in your vata and then also try to cultivate kind of a system around it which is like you know get other people to like be beholden to other people and you'll do a good job yeah because left to your own devices it's going to be a mess let other people like you know my team is really good about like forcing me into meetings they just throw something on my calendar because they've learned unfortunately that if they like ask me to do something it's never gonna happen if they're just like hey i need you to show up at this time and it feels weird because i outrank them in some way but they have to give me orders and we figured out that that's what works best yeah um i don't know if that was helpful for not but that's my spiel yeah it is helpful it's interesting and i was just helpful for people watching too um i wanted to figure out a way to pose this but like i don't know it's coming out more as a statement so i don't want to say it like sense but i kind of go i'm go my mind keeps going back to that question that was posed earlier which was like let me just bring it up because i don't i don't want to paraphrase it one second okay so the the actual question was how long should breaks actually be and how long should you work before taking them so i mean i that's kind of that's a little bit broad because that can mean like in a work day or that could mean always you know um so yeah so that depends on your ayurvedic dosha so this is the problem with questions that people ask like like western science is about on average what works for the most number of people so when the fda comes up with a 2 000 calorie a day recommendation that's not going to work as well for the fast metabolism people versus the big bone people so when should you take breaks so what i'll literally do when i do like corporate consulting is we'll do ayurvedic analyses of everyone's doshas and then what we'll do is i'll tell them like if you're avata you should take frequent short breaks you should plan on working four two hour blocks in the day start early start at six a.m try to finish like as early as possible so like vata's also come online fast and run out of stamina fast so how often should you take breaks you should take them frequently because you're prone to burnout like if you push yourself you're going to pay for it the next day so you need like pre-emptive breaks if you're a bitter leaving tasks undone is going to be very infuriating so you've got to like push through like work like pithas are decent nine to fivers and and if you're kapha if you're like the earth element like you probably need you can go a longer time without a break but then you probably need a long break when it's time for a break so as avata when i go on a 10-day vacation i've i've i'm done relaxing on day five and i'm like i'm gonna do some work now yeah so like the vata is like but a boy like i need three day weekends every week because on day four i'm like oh my god i've worked so long on tuesday morning it's like oh when is the weekend you know yeah and then by like by sunday morning if i like don't work on friday by sunday morning i'm like let me get back to work let's go you know so yeah frequent breaks that are shorter for vatas you know medium length breaks at decent intervals nine to five evenings off and then for kapha's like you can work seven days ten days go for it and then take like four days off you know it sort of depends that's what i'd say yeah and then a question that i have that kind of ties into all this is um i kind of started to mention it but i feel like i'm really um like i go through these moments like i said where when i'm really disciplined with like let's say it's a list for example and these are the things that need to be accomplished these are the things that i just want to accomplish um when i'm really proactive at staying on top of that and i can actually see like things being crossed out done done done it makes me feel good so it motivates me to continue and then something will happen like a disrupter in life will happen it is so hard for me to pick back up where i left off so that disruptor is a separate conversation so this goes to okay so let's just analyze that in two ways the first is you gotta be careful about the motivation of checking something off because when you check something off what do you feel like doing it depends but usually like it i want to keep going so what's your problem you need to learn how to restrain yourself because like you're like yeah let's keep going let's go let's go yeah and then you may run out of steam before you realize it so i'd say really be careful when you check when you're done with your work for the day sasha you have to learn how to restrain yourself and be done with the work for the day don't keep on adding on work that's why your plate is so terrible yes it's restrained your problem is like you're so motivated that you take on new projects and then you're overwhelmed and then i'm like or like then the next day i'm exhausted and then it's hard for me to get the day started so this is where you got to be careful because you say something throws me off but the question is what is the stat yeah hey we have a meeting oh [ __ ] sorry we have a meeting i thought it was a four ah okay i'll just finish this up and then then um i gotta apparently i have a meeting case in point see i didn't restrain myself we were supposed to we were supposed to stop an hour ago so i got excited and and so i have a crisis and deadline that comes and like restrains me perfect this is great yeah exactly so i'll i'll just illustrate this like so i'd be careful about your motivation and what you tack on because then you say when something throws you off what you know how is your reserve energy when that disrupter comes because if you were overly motivated yesterday it's going to be easier to get thrown off and then what happens is we look at the disrupter but we don't like we look at the wave that knocked us off but we don't look at the health of our boat yeah so what you really need to focus on is like you know having a steady boat restraining yourself and then you'll be more resilient against disruptions that being said you know disruptions are absolutely thing and sometimes you can have a great boat and you can still have you know a tsunami and you'll you know it's over but anyway does that make sense yes definitely okay yeah so restrain yourself do less not more and that goes yeah this i'll have to continue with chat too but like that i think goes back into time management my lack of it my lack of it i have to go now because i've done a bad job at time management and so the way that i stay successful is by having crises okay she's yeah sorry sasha we gotta you gotta feel it okay all right thank you oh man okay okay bye yeah bye boy that ended abruptly let's rate someone we're gonna is iping tai chi we gotta go gotta go chat gotta go let's go do some tai chi calm down i gotta run chat love you guys

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 486,492

Rating: 4.9439449 out of 5

Keywords: mental health, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, twitch, psychiatrist

Id: DMw8G3RPWrQ

Length: 175min 48sec (10548 seconds)

Published: Sun May 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/coscorrodrift]

Interesting episode, I've been following Sasha on Twitch because she reminds me of a girl I like lmao but her hours aren't that good for me so I don't watch her often, but I like the VODs/clips I watch from her.

This ep was pretty interesting, Dr K seemed to read Sasha pretty well and Sasha seemed to react well to stuff that could be misread (like the 'regrets' talk). I obviously would've liked if Dr K asked all those things he said he wasn't going to ask but I respect his call not to ask them.

The part about procrastination was interesting, cool speech at the end but I think i'd heard it before , the part about the doshas and the kinds of procrastination and such, so i enjoyed more all the tangents. The back and forths of Dr K simply asking stuff like "are you OK with people telling you you had a rough upbringing" and stuff like that, or "you're allowed to have regrets" " you don't have to be strong", they're short statements, they're simple, but IMO they're very powerful. IDK if they're considered "uncommon advice" or stuff "against the grain" but to me they certainly feel that way.

[u/redback-spider]

It's ironical that she talks about shadow banning of herself but then talks about a secret internal flagging of people :D

[u/Kakashi281281]

They're censoring and shadow banning pornstars now... All because people got offended by orange man tweets...Thanks.