WEBVTT 00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:31.500 Thank you. To be completely honest, this series 00:00:31.500 --> 00:00:36.039 has been surprisingly heavy emotionally for me. 00:00:36.659 --> 00:00:38.759 Surprising because I thought that I had worked 00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:42.340 all this stuff out in therapy already, at least 00:00:42.340 --> 00:00:45.219 to a large degree. But it's a reminder that our 00:00:45.219 --> 00:00:49.060 experiences shape us in ways that will reverberate 00:00:49.060 --> 00:00:52.799 through our lives. My therapist has been getting 00:00:52.799 --> 00:00:55.359 a regular dose of the days after some of these. 00:00:56.079 --> 00:00:58.479 episodes are being recorded when I realized there 00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:02.920 was so much more pain or anger to process but 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:05.519 I hope that at least my stories can be of use 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:09.640 to you and as I said from the outset and I'm 00:01:09.640 --> 00:01:13.239 very you know clear and I'm set on this right 00:01:13.239 --> 00:01:16.239 one of the primary purposes of these episodes 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:19.579 was to try to give by way of my own examples 00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:23.200 what it looks like to gain a deeper understanding 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:27.280 of yourself, to discover yourself, what you're 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:30.120 really about, why you are the way that you are, 00:01:30.219 --> 00:01:33.060 why you pursue what you do in life. And it's 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:35.780 meant to help my students specifically in getting 00:01:35.780 --> 00:01:38.400 a sense of the kind of introspection they'll 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:43.219 have to do to write personal statements for college 00:01:43.219 --> 00:01:45.719 applications. Not that you're going to do something 00:01:45.719 --> 00:01:47.859 exactly like this, but that you need to have 00:01:47.859 --> 00:01:50.959 that sort of insight into yourself to get a good 00:01:50.959 --> 00:01:56.120 personal statement out, but also to apply virtue 00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:58.359 ethics, if you want it to be applicable in some 00:01:58.359 --> 00:02:02.120 ways, to their own lives, right? And I stand 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:06.560 firm on that, right? I have no desire to trauma 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:10.960 dump on any of you. My own shit is my own, and 00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:14.039 it's my responsibility, and it is for me to work 00:02:14.039 --> 00:02:18.129 through, not for anyone else to carry. Nor do 00:02:18.129 --> 00:02:21.870 I desire to connect with you, whoever it is that's 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:25.689 listening, in some deep way. Maybe you can relate 00:02:25.689 --> 00:02:28.689 to some of the stories and that's fine, but I 00:02:28.689 --> 00:02:30.710 don't want that to be the jumping off point to 00:02:30.710 --> 00:02:32.590 some relationship with you, right? I'm not trying 00:02:32.590 --> 00:02:35.530 to build anything deeper with you. Sorry, sorry 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:38.530 if that hurt your feelings, right? It might sound 00:02:38.530 --> 00:02:43.229 harsh, but I just don't care about... you anonymous 00:02:43.229 --> 00:02:46.689 person out there in that way, right? And I really 00:02:46.689 --> 00:02:49.069 shouldn't. I think a danger for many teachers, 00:02:49.289 --> 00:02:52.430 myself, I've fallen into this trap before, is 00:02:52.430 --> 00:02:55.110 that, you know, they sometimes tend to cross 00:02:55.110 --> 00:02:58.009 boundaries with students. They really shouldn't. 00:02:58.669 --> 00:03:01.530 They tend to get more personally involved with 00:03:01.530 --> 00:03:04.389 students when, you know, it's not their place 00:03:04.389 --> 00:03:07.789 to do so. So I'll continue to be there for you 00:03:07.789 --> 00:03:11.169 and whoever you are and for my students as a 00:03:11.169 --> 00:03:14.360 resource. But we're not friends and I'm not your 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:16.780 parent and I'm definitely not your savior. So 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:21.199 don't bother looking for that in me. Rather, 00:03:21.639 --> 00:03:24.939 I'd hope that these stories invite you to reflect 00:03:24.939 --> 00:03:28.300 on your own life and to be able to tell your 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:31.520 own stories. Like I said, this was meant to kind 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:33.740 of just serve as an example so that you can do 00:03:33.740 --> 00:03:37.099 the work yourself of figuring out how you want 00:03:37.099 --> 00:03:41.360 to. share your story about where you're from, 00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:43.300 where you're at, and where you'd like to go, 00:03:43.439 --> 00:03:46.039 whether it's for personal statements, whether 00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:49.580 it's to reflect on your life and to cultivate 00:03:49.580 --> 00:03:51.919 some of these virtues, as Aristotle might say 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:54.659 it. It's like when I used to listen to Eminem, 00:03:54.680 --> 00:03:57.939 I connected to his songs about hating his mom. 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:00.400 In my case, it was my dad at the time. I was 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:02.539 really hating my dad. And how much it sucked 00:04:02.539 --> 00:04:05.460 being poor, definitely connected on that. But 00:04:05.460 --> 00:04:09.900 I was never a stan, right? I never was like obsessed 00:04:09.900 --> 00:04:13.080 with Eminem the person. What Eminem did for me 00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:17.019 was allow me to be angry. Just like I had the 00:04:17.019 --> 00:04:19.759 permission to be honest about my feelings, right? 00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:22.339 To feel everything that I actually felt. To acknowledge 00:04:22.339 --> 00:04:27.259 it and in acknowledging it, dealing with it, 00:04:27.300 --> 00:04:31.100 right? Dealing with the pain, the anger, the 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:34.759 sadness that I was experiencing. And I just want 00:04:34.759 --> 00:04:37.500 to give you the license to feel how you really 00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:40.939 feel about your life experiences. And in doing 00:04:40.939 --> 00:04:44.459 so, I'm hoping that you find authenticity and 00:04:44.459 --> 00:04:49.480 maybe some healing for yourself. I can't tell 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:54.300 you how to tell or write your own story. What 00:04:54.300 --> 00:04:59.500 I can tell you is this. It's your story. No one 00:04:59.500 --> 00:05:04.129 else's. It doesn't matter if your story is captivating 00:05:04.129 --> 00:05:07.129 or interesting or special in the eyes of others, 00:05:07.290 --> 00:05:12.370 because it's not really for them. It's meant 00:05:12.370 --> 00:05:16.569 for you. And I really want you to kind of hold 00:05:16.569 --> 00:05:19.810 on to that, that the story you write for yourself, 00:05:19.870 --> 00:05:24.589 it's for you, right? Yes, other people might 00:05:24.589 --> 00:05:26.509 end up reading it, right? Let's say in a personal 00:05:26.509 --> 00:05:28.089 statement, they might end up reading some things 00:05:28.089 --> 00:05:31.649 about your life, but... The discovering the truth 00:05:31.649 --> 00:05:34.470 about who you are and what you're about, right? 00:05:34.569 --> 00:05:39.649 Like that's ultimately for you to better understand 00:05:39.649 --> 00:05:44.750 yourself. And from that understanding, just start 00:05:44.750 --> 00:05:48.509 being honest with yourself. And I'm not going 00:05:48.509 --> 00:05:51.709 to lie. It's I said this with myself. I know 00:05:51.709 --> 00:05:54.889 that it's a painful process because the truth 00:05:54.889 --> 00:05:58.990 is that people, all people, I think. to a large 00:05:58.990 --> 00:06:03.149 degree, have a kind of bias where they want to 00:06:03.149 --> 00:06:05.069 protect themselves. And it makes a lot of sense. 00:06:05.069 --> 00:06:08.269 It's yourself. But in protecting yourself, we've 00:06:08.269 --> 00:06:11.870 created all these layers and shells and images 00:06:11.870 --> 00:06:16.230 or labels that we put upon ourselves to define 00:06:16.230 --> 00:06:18.850 who we are, right? These are some of the false 00:06:18.850 --> 00:06:21.490 narratives that we write about our lives that... 00:06:21.980 --> 00:06:24.240 you know, sometimes haunt us, it's not accurate, 00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:26.920 right, but we perceive ourselves in a certain 00:06:26.920 --> 00:06:29.680 way, we want to hold on to that perception, right, 00:06:29.779 --> 00:06:32.439 I remember when I was taking psychology and learning 00:06:32.439 --> 00:06:34.560 about this, right, that people don't actually 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:39.019 want the person that they like to view them in 00:06:39.019 --> 00:06:42.540 a pristine way, right, they want others to view 00:06:42.540 --> 00:06:45.220 themselves, like, they want other people to view, 00:06:45.300 --> 00:06:50.040 view themselves as a view, view you, I should 00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:54.339 say, as a as how you view yourself, right? Like 00:06:54.339 --> 00:06:58.000 you want your self image to match what other 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:01.660 people see in you, right? So if you have all 00:07:01.660 --> 00:07:04.420 these lies that you have about, you know, yourself, 00:07:04.620 --> 00:07:07.139 like these images, these labels that you're holding 00:07:07.139 --> 00:07:11.019 onto, like you're going to want to kind of protect 00:07:11.019 --> 00:07:13.959 it, reinforce it, have other people affirm how 00:07:13.959 --> 00:07:17.959 you view yourself. And so when that world shatters, 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:22.040 it's extremely painful. It's extremely painful 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:25.480 because once you shatter those images, those 00:07:25.480 --> 00:07:29.339 facades, then you're left exposed. And that's 00:07:29.339 --> 00:07:32.800 honestly like the scariest place to be, is to 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:38.180 be exposed. All I can say by way of advice, if 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:41.279 I am allowed to give any sort of advice, is just 00:07:41.279 --> 00:07:44.139 to relay what my therapists, multiple therapists, 00:07:44.339 --> 00:07:49.060 have repeated to me over the years, which is 00:07:49.060 --> 00:07:53.000 to have grace on yourself. I made a lot of dumb 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:56.060 mistakes. And I'm not talking about like years 00:07:56.060 --> 00:07:59.139 ago. I'm talking about recent past, like two 00:07:59.139 --> 00:08:03.139 hours ago, right? We like to tell ourselves that 00:08:03.139 --> 00:08:04.800 there's something we could have done differently. 00:08:05.100 --> 00:08:07.680 But the reality is probably that you wouldn't 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:10.879 have done anything differently because you were 00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:14.819 who you were at that moment and that time. And 00:08:14.819 --> 00:08:17.300 you did exactly what you at that time would have 00:08:17.300 --> 00:08:21.129 done. The best you can do now is to take those 00:08:21.129 --> 00:08:23.290 experiences and figure out what you want to do 00:08:23.290 --> 00:08:28.410 with it going forward. So I hope that this process 00:08:28.410 --> 00:08:32.789 of maybe discovering or rediscovering yourself 00:08:32.789 --> 00:08:37.789 and finding authenticity and being honest with 00:08:37.789 --> 00:08:41.129 yourself so that you can have really accurate 00:08:41.129 --> 00:08:49.120 information going forward. that in that process, 00:08:49.179 --> 00:08:51.740 in that painful process, I would hope that you 00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:58.000 don't look on yourself with judgment. And as 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:00.500 you take this journey, which I hope all of you 00:09:00.500 --> 00:09:05.080 do, I hope that you find insight, healing, and 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:09.159 more than anything, lasting inner peace.