Personal Capacity & Emotional Health

M3 BearCast Ep. 91 —

What happens when the world is on fire… and you still have to live inside your own nervous system?

In this episode, Malcolm and the panel dig into the messy intersection of politics, psychology, boundaries, and emotional survival. We start with a hard question: after MAGA, is there even a “back to normal”? And if not, what does accountability, consequence, and “forgiveness” look like for the people who enabled the damage—especially when some folks are trying to “de-cult” and come back into the fold?

From there, we move into a set of “radical beliefs” that hit like uncomfortable mirrors: why complaining can become social glue, why people tolerate venting more than joy, how low self-esteem can be culturally rewarded, and why a person’s relationship to God often reflects their relationship to themselves.

Then we shift into mental health and productivity reality: the difference between discipline and capacity—and why you can’t shame your way out of depletion. We talk nervous system limits, burnout, decision fatigue, environmental structure, and what “care-first” actually looks like day to day.

We also touch on the need for small, intentional joy (yes, even when everything feels burning), and why pleasure can be neuroprotective—fuel, not betrayal.

Finally, we tackle immigration myths head-on, including discussion of a Cato Institute report arguing immigrants strengthen the U.S. economy—plus why facts alone won’t convert committed extremists, but can fortify low-information voters on our side.

And we close with a blunt boundary lesson: over-explaining yourself to someone committed to misunderstanding you is emotional self-harm.

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Transcript

 M3 Bearcast Ep 91: Personal Capacity and Emotional Health

M3 Bearcast Ep 91: Personal Capacity and Emotional Health

Speaker 33: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the M three Bear Cast. My name is Malcolm Traverse. Mayo Media Mind is a grassroots organization dedicated to uplifting and unifying our community through dialogue, insight, creativity, and knowledge. And on this podcast, I go into detail on topics of communication, community, relationships, spirituality, and mental health.

Often brought up in my live streams on Wednesdays, on YouTube, and. I pick videos from Instagram and TikTok to have longer discussions with my panel, but oftentimes it takes a little bit of

time to allow the ideas that we discussed on the live streams to really resonate and so on. The podcast. I go into some of my thinking around these topics, and one thing that has been coming up over and over again is with our current political situation the way that it is, how are we going [00:01:00] to try to go back to standard state of affairs after the MAGA movement has ended?

And one of the terms that seems to keep.

One of the ideas that continues to arise is the idea that we need to give up on going back to normal, that after MAGA leaves, we're going to be in a new paradigm of politics.

And I agree with this idea, but we want to go back to some of the. Feeling that our neighbors are positively participating in the political process.

That even if they oppose our policies, that their goals are ultimately aligned with ours. Currently, I don't see that as the case specifically when dealing with immigration. They may say one thing, but the truth is just something else. It is a lie that immigrants are a drain on our economy. The truth is that they are [00:02:00] racist and that they are trying to make America white again.

When it really comes down to it, and

this sort of.

This sort of white supremacist Christian nationalism is going to be a permanent fixture in our politics. But the mainstream conservatives, are they going to stand up against them in ways that they were not willing to over the past 10 years? And where do we who are witnessing this battle amongst the sane conservatives and the fascists want to be

authoritarians.

How do we engage in politics with them again? And so this video came up about the idea of forgiveness, of, of bringing those who leave MAGA back into the fold. And what responsibility do we have to them as they make that transition. 

Speaker 5: Should you forgive your maga friends and family members who are de culting? I am not a spiritual [00:03:00] advisor who always advocates for forgiveness because I come from Christianity where forgiveness is pushed onto victims in order to let perpetrators off the hook.

So this is a conversation where I think privilege is a huge player. If you have been someone who has been directly affected by some of these policies and you have been so hurt because someone voted for these PO policies that actively hurt you, you do not have to forgive. And even if you do forgive, you do not have to invite people back into your life.

You don't have to debate them. It's not your job to educate them. You don't have to trust their judgment. You don't have to be a part of their life. And also, and the knitting cult lady talked about this too, who is more of an expert on cults than I am. When people are leaving a cult and are trying to deconstruct if they have some soft landing platform, some grace from their friends and family who are able to, who are in a privileged position, where they're able to provide some grace.

It does help with the deconstruction process. It does help the cause. It does help them [00:04:00] not to just be so shamed that they just go back, into the cult. And so for people who can be building bridges, that is great work. But not everybody has to, you are not morally obligated to forgive someone. If you do forgive someone, you are not morally obligated to let them back into your life.

But if you are in a place where you can, building bridges is absolutely meaningful work that you can do in the world. And that is one of the positive things that you can do with privilege. That's one of the positive things that you can do with whiteness, where I have some currency in my whiteness to be able to do some bridge building work because I'm not as affected.

Because even me, no nonsense spirituality, the ultimate skeptic was once an active Mormon. And I once believed that gayness was something like anger, something that was natural, but that you should overcome. I once believed that. So while I take full accountability for the things that I did when I was Mormon and don't require anyone to forgive me, I also am [00:05:00] grateful for the few people who helped me to deconstruct, who showed me where I was wrong, who gave me some grace, who helped me to talk things out so that I could see how and where I was wrong and the people that was emotional labor that people did.

So my stance is you are not morally obligated to forgive. You are not morally obligated to let someone back into their life, even if they swear that MAGA is behind them. You don't have to do that. You don't have to do that to be a good person. That is not required of your morality. But what we can talk about is that this is a place where privilege can very much help a movement.

We talk about privilege as if it's always bad, but there are some times where it is the privileged job to do something. And so I think this is one of those times. 

Speaker: So I think we've had this, the conversation on my podcast before I remember I was speaking with someone who did work with people in prison and they were a therapist for [00:06:00] people on death row actually.

And this person before they died wanted to. Just have a conversation with their mother. And the conversation was actually just asking for their forgiveness because he, as their son killed their grandmother or her mother. And, I think it was just one of those things where the conversation around forgiveness in a religious setting really does push people toward, thinking that forgiveness is not just good for you.

But the thing that is asked of you, and I don't know how to say if that's accurate or not, because there is some validity to a lot of scriptures saying that is expected of you. But the way that it is ultimately enacted is often served to to privilege the perpetrators of violence.

Particularly, sexual assault. Something that's happened [00:07:00] in many, many denominations where the the perpetrator will ask for forgiveness from their congregation or from their leadership, and they will be given that, forgiveness as if that doesn't warrant punishment like forgiveness is not the absence of punishment.

In fact, in a lot of cases, punishment is necessary. That's something I was just thinking about with MAGA is, the forgiveness that comes from, coming in from the cold requires a, a certain amount of punishment as well. Meaning that when you come back into the conversation of normal politics, you may want to take a backseat to some more liberal ideas and let the people who didn't get involved in that cult try to build some, structures to prevent that from happening again.

Because, like one of the things I was gonna, is probably on this wheel is we're gonna have to reconstruct our institutions at the same time that [00:08:00] we reconstruct our economy. 

Because we, we haven't even begun to see the sort of destruction that's going to happen to our economy.

So we're gonna have to do some really tough decisions with a with a debt, a national debt that's so great that we're gonna be paying more on interest than we are gonna be paying on services. And so it's just gonna be incredibly difficult to do and there need to be some adults in the room, not the, the ones who thought that the orange guy was okay.

So I'm just, that's what I'm getting at. 'cause I'm still thinking about that. The idea that forgiveness doesn't mean. Something that is absolves you of consequences for your actions. You're just saying that I don't have to be mad, anymore. I can maybe possibly listen to where you're coming from a little bit if I decide to forgive you, like I don't think I will.

But if that was something that happened in my life maybe [00:09:00] there's some understanding that could be had, but it doesn't require me to to mess around with that foolishness. So I, I'm wondering, beyond just maga, however you look at it what is your relationship to forgiveness? We've had this conversation before, but I'm curious as to where you are now. 

Speaker 2: I told y'all, I got into an argument with a family member online and it's not that they were a close family member, but I'm just like, you got, you got kids that are being affected by this man. You got women in your life that's being affected by this and you're just so cavalier about it.

It's like you just don't give a fuck. And it's look, I ain't never gotta see you at the family reunion. And I will be just fine with that. But it, it is complicated because you want to be angry. You want them to pay, you want them to suffer. Like you said, they, there, there, there's a consequence that needs to be paid.

But at the same time, if they can actually see the air their ways, it's but I can't hold onto that. I gotta, I [00:10:00] got to somehow be gracious and be like, okay, you learned your lesson. Don't do that again. Now let now help us fix this shit and let's make sure that it doesn't happen again. So it's, it's really complicated 'cause there's a part of me that wants them to.

Basically be like a leper just on a island somewhere and we never have to deal with them again. But also understanding we, we do still need them for things so 

Speaker: Because they are in any sort of democracy, they're still gonna have the ability to vote, right? Yeah. So Exactly. And the funny thing is, if the Super Bowl has taught us anything, is that they're not in the majority, right?

Like they're a small minority of the country, and yet they have this undue influence on our politics. That's partly due to the structure of, the electoral college, but also those people who vote, right? Yeah. Black people vote properly, but not in large enough [00:11:00] numbers.

And and the white older people vote at twice the rate that black people vote. Like something ridiculous like that. It's yeah, it's a structural thing. It, yeah, I think the, the differences between black and white people voting is also structural should be noted. Part of the reason black people don't vote is because of systemic racism and how that affects us psychologically.

And, on, on mass. I wouldn't say that to any individual, but like on mass it definitely has the, the effect of suppressing the black vote. That was clearly Mitch McConnell's strategy. From day one with Obama. It was just, that was the goal, right? Let's be clear. It was the goal, it was effective, it is real.

That being said I think you also can only do so much within your circle of influence, right? So the bag of people are not within my circle of influence anyway. 

So I started to realize I really have to really stick with the people who [00:12:00] may not think that, Trump was so bad, or that the Democrats aren't that much better.

And say the lesser of two evils is less evil. Come on, let's, yeah, let's go with the less evil, please.

Let's 

Speaker 6: please, 

Speaker: let's not go with the more evil.

Speaker 34: So the next video I played was asking the question of someone, what are some of your most radical beliefs?

And the respondent had some really good ones that I want to iterate on and think a little bit about. The first one was. Most people would rather have something to complain about rather than do.

Most people would rather have something to complain about rather than do the work that it takes to be happy. And there has to be an understanding that no matter how negative the valence of a feeling that it has a purpose that. We get something out of it. So if you have something to complain about, that can be the glue that ties you to other people.

And so if you were to fix all your problems and have nothing to complain about, it may be more difficult for you [00:13:00] to connect with your friends. I was thinking about how sometimes when someone starts making more money than someone else. It's not the fact that they make more money that drives their relationships apart, it's that they don't have the same problems anymore.

If you are not struggling on a day-to-day basis, there isn't much comradery to be found from oh yeah, like I didn't have to choose between which bills to pay this month. That can be a way of solidifying friendships in some ways. Yeah, complaining can actually be a glue that ties people together.

So something to be aware of. And it's yeah. Here's another one. Most people would rather ha, most people would rather hear someone vent about their life than to repeatedly express their joy at their situation. So one of the reasons why it can be difficult. To express our joy to other people is because

sometimes people feel the need to one up [00:14:00] someone else. If someone express, if someone expresses something good that happened to them. It can expose vulnerabilities in our own desires. If someone gets something in their life that you've wanted in your life for a long time, envy is an easy response to that.

And the funny thing is it doesn't necessarily have to cause a rift in relationships If you envy something that someone else has. You can recognize that it's something that is a loss in your own life, and it can give you fuel to motivate you to get the thing that your friend has rather than to just hate on them.

But either way, just recognizing that expressing your positive outcomes to people may not be the fun times that you thought it was.

Here's another one. One most pipe. Most people like to live in a culture where people have low self-esteem so that their compliments can bring joy rather than to live in a culture where people know their worth, [00:15:00] feel beautiful and have self-worth.

I think this is pretty self-explanatory. Oftentimes someone else's low self-esteem makes us feel better about ourselves. That could be from a lack of true self-worth within ourselves, it can be difficult to be in a state of self-actualization. And so it is a lot easier if other people are also miserable.

So yeah real talk. Most people are willing to support or allow systems of oppression that do not directly affect them. There isn't much more to say about that, but I noticed that a lot of black gay men are surprised to find out that white gay men can be racist simply because. They are facing some form of discrimination, does not mean that they are necessarily an ally in almost every area of life.

That is sometimes a hard pill to swallow, but I think a lot of us have [00:16:00] figured that out. This is one I find interesting. Most people's relationship to God is primarily a reflection of the relationship they have with themselves. This is why the two people in the same denomination with the same theology can have completely different ideas about their relationship to God and heretically. I feel that whether you believe in the literal translations of ancient texts or dogma or theology, or if you're someone like myself who.

Sees religion as a social technology to create cohesiveness, to create origin stories to help us navigate a chaotic world to me is pretty obvious that our relationship to God is a relationship with ourselves, a relationship with our larger selves, so to speak. 'Cause I always felt like the barrier between ourselves and the world is very thin and a [00:17:00] lot of people will an anthropomorphize this greater version of ourselves, this portion of ourselves that flows through us. I feel like there is like an energetic connection to the rest of the world on a physical level. I wouldn't even say it's supernatural. I think it is just plain all natural.

Like we're embedded within our environment. We're. If you were to take a look back, you would see us as just little just another organism on a larger ecosystem. Our bodies are themselves ecosystems that are part of a larger ecosystem. And yeah, our relationship to God, if we have one, is really just a relationship to ourselves.

A higher self that we. Think identifies our relationship to things that are lesser than us and how we would relate to beings beneath us. And when you think of someone's theology and what they believe God wants us to do or instructs us to do, it really is just [00:18:00] a reflection of their personal.

Hangups and gripes. Like I honestly feel that say homophobia within Christianity is just discussed, given a justification, right? You could say it feels wrong, and this right here says it's wrong. Even though it doesn't say that slavery is wrong or it also says that eating pork is wrong.

It also says that. Lending money is wrong. We ignore a lot of the things that it says are wrong, but this thing here, yeah, that's bad, so I'm going to move on to the next thing. 

Speaker 2: Nate James says, I am required to forgive you. I am not required to fuck with you.

I dunno if you're required to forgive 

Speaker: somebody. Yeah. I wouldn't. If you feel that way, that's how you feel. But yeah, forgiveness is not a requirement. You can live with baggage, bro. I know you're not supposed to have 10 bags, one or two [00:19:00] bags ain't that bad. Yeah, 

Speaker 3: I'm right. And I'm, 

Speaker 2: because remember, forgiveness is, forgiveness is for you.

It's not for them. It's actually for you. 

Speaker 3: I, I was. The thing going on. I'm gonna tell you, I've been directly affected by this bullshit. My money has been affected, my health insurance has been affected. My mood, my happiness. No, I'm not gonna forgive a motherfucking soul. Don't come over here with that bullshit.

'cause you going to do it again. Soon as the Democrat fix it, you gonna do it again? Fuck all y'all don't come over here for No, 

Speaker: that's the truth. That is the truth. If I've ever heard it, it's no, because they are gonna do it again. 

Speaker 3: They gonna do it 

Speaker: again and we're gonna have to, and we're gonna have to actually stop them next time.

Speaker 3: And then what we gonna do is get Trump in a better suit. He gonna be skinny and pretty and he gonna speak well. We be like, I wasn't so bad. Maybe this time. That's exactly what's gonna happen.

Speaker 35: Do you know someone in your life who has a lot of enthusiasm and belief in themselves, and you can't tell [00:20:00] them that they can't do anything because they have the motivation, but they don't really have the capacity to do something? I think this video sums up maybe some of the reasons why people are like that.

There's a confusion between the capacity to do a certain amount of activities. The energy, the mental health, the time versus the discipline it takes to do something, right? For instance, I am not well equipped to wake up in the morning, and this is something that my body has to go through that a lot of people may not have the same issues with.

So I recognize that I have to. Set a time to go to bed the night before. If I wanna wake up on time the next morning, someone else might see that as being lazy or in unable to wake up in the morning. It's because they have different bodies, they have different nervous systems. Their ability to wake [00:21:00] up in the morning maybe different than yours.

And so comparing your capacity to someone else's is a really lost cause. You have to. Work within your own nervous system, your own capacity. And there are ways to increase your capacity, like getting more rest, figuring out how to get to bed on time. Really making an effort to say, get movement that will help you relax at night.

Maybe stretching and meditation, things like that, which will help you get more rest, eating better, having fewer spikes in blood sugar, which can affect your energy. These sorts of things. Can definitely increase capacity, but just powering through something is not always the most advisable way to get things done.

And I think this psychiatrist has a pretty good video explaining why. 

Speaker 12: So I'm working on my discipline. I just need to stop getting so tired and focus harder, get more done even when I'm drained. That doesn't sound like a discipline issue. That sounds like a capacity issue. Wait. Okay. What[00:22:00]

discipline is about structure and your ability to stay consistent with the choice. Capacity is about whether your nervous system and energy can actually handle what you're asking of yourself. So what? Everyone's tired, I just need to push through. Or maybe your system is telling you, I don't have the fuel to push through right now.

Discipline is a muscle capacity is whether you've eaten, slept, grieved, rested, or recovered enough to lift the weight. But I should be able to do this. I've done more with less before. So what you could have been running on adrenaline, shame, survival mode, a number of things, that's not sustainable.

Capacity means checking in. Do I have the energy, focus and support to do this today without abandoning myself? I've seen people do more than me with less than I have, and people have different bodies, support systems and nervous systems. You need to stop telling yourself that you're lazy, you're likely overloaded.

You don't need another productivity hack. You need nervous system restoration, grief processing, sleep, joy, maybe even space. So when I keep rewriting my to-do list, but can't start anything, that's capacity. It could be. And when the task is still within [00:23:00] your ability, but you still avoid it, procrastinate or resist it because it brings up discomfort like it's hard or awkward or boring.

That's a sign of a discipline challenge, not a capacity issue. Okay, but how do I fix this? In real life capacity gets addressed with care more. Rest, less pressure. Nervous system support. Rebuilding from burnout, discipline gets addressed with support, clear goals, accountability, reduced decision fatigue. So I've been trying to fix capacity with a planner and shame.

Yeah. And both are expired tools. You can't schedule your way out of depletion. Okay. But gimme something tangible. What does this look like in the day to day? So for capacity, eat lunch without multitasking. Cancel one thing that drains you but isn't urgent. Sit for 10 minutes and quiet before your day starts.

Say, I need more time and mean it. Okay. And what about for discipline? For discipline? Set a timer for five minutes and [00:24:00] start. Choose three tasks, not 12. Use visual cues and routines to reduce decisions

and hold yourself accountable with compassion, not shame.

One preserves your energy, the other guides your effort, right? So basically, I've been blaming my effort, but it's been my energy I've been ignoring. You can't build consistency on a cracked foundation, CareFirst structure. Second, and if you want another video on discipline versus capacity, tell me a book that you think every single person should read.

Speaker: So I, there are a few tips in there I thought that were really good, but that I would add onto it. I like the idea of. Positioning your environment to be your to-do list in a sense. So if I have something to do in the morning, like I start with what I have to do first in this spot right here, and then there's something here I gotta do, and there's something right there.

I don't have to have a list. I just literally look from left to right in my room and that's the to-do list. It's that. 

Speaker 4: There you go. 

Speaker: The other thing she talked [00:25:00] about was like reducing decision fatigue, right? So if you don't, if you're like me, I would say this is different for everybody. If there's something about your life that you don't really care about what you choose, go ahead and make the decision in advance.

For me, what I wear, I basically have, a drawer of shirts and drawer of pants, drawer of underwear, and I'm really just 1, 1 1, boom. Whatever comes out. If I'm not willing to wear it, I don't put it in the drawer, right? 

I might have some other things for special occasions somewhere else, but I'm reducing the number of decisions I have to make thinking about for breakfast.

I eat basically the same breakfast every morning, I I don't have to think about certain things, and that really does help with capacity because I, for myself. I'm not that old, but I'm starting to feel it. I'm starting to feel reduced capacity, getting there, and I'm like, [00:26:00] okay.

So I, I do have to like, give myself a little grace and give yeah, use some real strategies for getting things done and being, whatever motivation that works for you. One of the things she was saying is you can reduce capacity with shame and anxiety, but honestly, that doesn't mean that you should aim to reduce those out of existence.

There is a, a positive result of negative emotions, and that is to, to keep you within the boundaries. That is a part of your personal boundaries for yourself, right? The negative feelings means that you're violating your personal boundaries for yourself. And it's hey, get, get that shit together.

Do right by yourself.

Speaker 15: Welcome from the bed. Today is day six of my daily desire challenge and me and my nervous system have been practicing getting a lot more rest. I'm very happy for us. I had a very mundane [00:27:00] I, I'm saying mundane. It's actually not even a mundane desire when I think about it, but my desire today was simple.

I wanted to cheese Danish. I'll tell you why I think it's not mundane, because in a time like what we're living in right now, it's very easy to dismiss minute experiences of joy and pleasure or just joy and pleasure, period. Like it's easy to feel like if I'm experiencing anything good, I'm not respecting or honoring the moment.

I need to feel like everything is on fire at all times, and that really is not a helpful way to navigate this reality. Pleasure is neuroprotective and if you have to engineer moments of happiness and joy and pleasure, if you have to choose those things intentionally. Do what you gotta do because you really should be protecting your interiority.

We're [00:28:00] riding a paradigm shift and things are weird and they're gonna get weirder. So I actually feel proud that I prioritized getting my cheese danish today. It, I, the store didn't have the cheese danish I wanted, so I, I ended up getting an apple fritter, which was just as satisfying. What is a small delight that you can give yourself today?

Speaker: I think that's a great question to ask in general,

and I think for myself, I have also done that weird thing where I feel guilty for being happy when the world is on fire and things like that. And and the way she put it was that joy is restorative, right? That we were just talking about capacity and, and discipline.

And so these moments of joy can be fuel for change and for productivity

Speaker 16: So I love a good quote. One of my favorites is control the way that a person thinks. And you can always predict their [00:29:00] actions. And what it made me think about was your actions will never outperform your thoughts. That's why so many people get stuck.

Burnout is a perfect example. We blame capitalism. So the solution becomes a rest, rest. But if the way you think about work doesn't change, you'll just burn out again. Or worse, you'll never stretch yourself into becoming who you are meant to be or think about identity. We double down on labels to explain who we are.

But if you're thinking doesn't shift, the label becomes a ceiling. It limits who you could be. This is why culture and advertising spend so much energy shaping narratives because your inner dialogue, your beliefs, your assumptions and your habits of thought become the script that you unconsciously act out.

And this is why so many, most people can't build something sustainable. They think they're changing their actions by switching jobs, leaving relationships, chasing new goals, but they're really, what you're really doing is putting the same actions in a different outfit. The [00:30:00] thinking never change. So the results never change.

And capacity is how you break that loop because when you expand your capacity, you don't just do more, you think in a new way, and that's what allows you to actually become more.

Speaker 24: Okay. So you know how Trump supporters', big justification for mass deportation is that immigrants are hurting our economy, taking all of our resources. The Cato Institute just dropped a white paper yesterday that completely debunks all of that and actually proves that the opposite is the case.

And I wanna talk about what's in this report because the Cato Institute is not a left-leaning organization. They are a libertarian, right-leaning, very conservative group who just issued a white paper basically saying that without immigrants, our economy is fucked. So this is a 95 page white paper, which analyzes 30 years of government data from 1994 to 2023.

The big top line is that over those 30 years. Immigrants generated a [00:31:00] $14.5 trillion fiscal surplus that's right in the United States, trillion with a T every single year. From 1994 to 2023, immigrants paid more in taxes than they received in benefits. Every single year. Immigrants made up 14%. Of tax revenue, but only 7% of government spending.

They're literally basically subsidizing the rest of us. The study found that without immigrants, our national debt would be 205% of GDP right now, which is about twice what it already is. The authors literally say, immigrants quote, may have already prevented a fiscal crisis. And for those of you who really have it in for undocumented people, you should know that they specifically reduced our deficit by $6.3 trillion over the last 30 years.

'cause even when people work without legal status, employers still withhold taxes. They're literally still paying into systems that they can't even access. It goes on. The study shows that immigrants are more than 12 percentage points more likely to be [00:32:00] employed than people born here. They work at higher rates, which means higher incomes, which means more tax revenue, and they cost less in old age benefits because many of them don't qualify for social security.

Not to mention they are on average. Healthier than US citizens. They also cost less in education because fewer immigrant families have school aged children compared to the general population. And honestly, it goes on and on. You really should read or at least scan this report in every single way.

Immigrants, both undocumented and documented, are contributing to our economy, growing our economy. And the corollary to that is that as Trump deports massive numbers of them, our economy will suffer and so will you anyway. When the administration talks about all of this mass deportation as being necessary because immigrants are hurting our economy or sucking taxpayers dry, just know that so many other things, they say it's a lie.

And 30 years of data show it. And one of the most [00:33:00] conservative think tanks in the country just issued a white paper about it. We're not supporting immigrants. They're supporting us. 

Speaker: So I think one of the reasons I wanted to bring this up is that obviously you, you can't throw this white paper at a Trump supporter and they just go, oh, I've seen the light.

But what I think is useful about it is for those people on our side who might be leaning either way or who are low information voters and let them know that that it's all bullshit, in fact, the, the truth is actually the inverse. That part was surprising to me that as people are being deported, we're losing their.

Tax income and because the deportations from ICE are expensive building these facilities, all of the money that's going to, just physically creating these operations in different cities, shit's fucking expensive. 

Speaker 4: Yeah. 

Speaker: Like really expensive. I forget what the numbers were.

It doesn't really matter, but it's more, [00:34:00] I think it was almost twice the amount of money that the immigrants they deported brought in, in tax money. So it's something like, it has that complicated double effect. So just remind you don't buy into the bullshit. Immigrants are not draining resources from this country.

They actually add to this country. We knew this the whole time. It's just that 

Speaker 2: knowing that 

Speaker: Yeah. They want to 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: Benefit from racism. That was just the basic idea, 

Brown people scary. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

If I was your therapist, I would tell you that explaining your boundaries to somebody who's committed to misunderstanding you is emotional self harm. How y'all doing? My name is Professor oti. I'm a therapist. I'm a mental health and wellness coach, and I teach my clients how to be selfish. I say that I teach my clients how to be selfish, but what I really help them do is to stop aray themselves.

Stop abandoning themselves so that they can finally learn how to put themselves first and improve their quality of life. Now, consistently over explaining yourself to somebody who is committed to misunderstanding you as a form of emotional self-harm, because you are consistently looking for ways to make that person [00:35:00] understand.

When they already know they, they already understand, they get it. They are just committed to not getting in so that they can continue to extract the labor from you that you put out when you are attempting to explain it. I'm gonna make this a little bit less abstract. If somebody harms you. And you go to them and you say, Hey, you harmed me, or, Hey, you overdid this, or, Hey, you overstepped this boundary.

They will never say, I know. They will never say I'm, I'm aware of that. I get that. What they will consistently do is they'll consistently step back and become up to, so that they can continue to benefit from the labor, the emotional labor that you put out in order to get them to understand, see, there's something within that emotional exchange that they are benefiting from, whether it be attention, whether it be you consistently attempting to prove through gifts, through trinket, through attention, through engagement, that you are worthy of this type of attention, or you are worthy of their engagement, or you are worthy of their presence.

They're gonna consistently extract this labor from you because they know that they [00:36:00] can. They are gonna consistently misunderstand you because they know that you are gonna put forth the emotional effort or the emotional labor of proving yourself, this person benefits from this emotional labor because they don't have to do it.

It is very simple. Once again, consistently attempting to explain yourself to somebody who is committed to misunderstanding you is a form of emotional self-harm. And my suggestion is to just stop explaining yourself.

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