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9 Questions to Ask When You're Crowd Sourcing His Texts · Toxic Girls Zone

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome back or welcome if you're new here. And if
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: you are, I'm glad you found this one because this
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: one is for you specifically. No aside today, we're jumping
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: straight in. And here's your one sentence warning. I say
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: this with so much love. Okay. So the group chat
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: has a new full-time job. It didn't apply. It didn't interview.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It didn't negotiate benefits, but somehow it is now working
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: around the clock as a full service text interpretation agency
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: for every message this man sends you. Right? Right. We're
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: talking active hours, multiple departments, someone assigned a punctuation, someone
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  Speaker 1: assigned a tone, someone doing a full read on his
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: response time. And the wildest part is that you screenshotted
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: his text before you even finished reading it yourself. Your
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: own first reaction didn't even get a seat at the table.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You closed the door on it so fast it's still
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: standing in the hallway. I'm not making fun of you.
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  Speaker 1: I promise I'm not. Because the group chat loves you genuinely,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and they want the best possible read on the situation.
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  Speaker 1: They've submitted a full brief with footnotes and a majority vote,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and honestly their dedication is kind of impressive. Yeah, it
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: really is. But something is happening underneath all of that.
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  Speaker 1: And that's what we're talking about today. Nine questions. Nine
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  Speaker 1: signs that what you're doing with the group chat has
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: crossed from fun to something your nervous system is running.
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  Speaker 1: Make sense? So here's how this started. He texted, hey,
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  Speaker 1: been a bit. How are you? And within 90 seconds,
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  Speaker 1: you sent it to four people. 90 seconds. You hadn't
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  Speaker 1: even typed back yet, right? Now I want you to
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  Speaker 1: sit with that for a second. Because here's the thing
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  Speaker 1: I actually want to say with love. It makes complete
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: sense that you want a second opinion when you like
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  Speaker 1: someone and the stakes feel high. That impulse is not
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a character flaw. It's not embarrassing. It's human. When you
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: care about how something lands, you want your smartest, most
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: loving people in the room with you. I get that.
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  Speaker 1: I've done that. I've done that eight times. It's embarrassing.
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  Speaker 1: But here's the flip. You're not running a focus group
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  Speaker 1: on him. You're running one on your own nervous system.
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  Speaker 1: The crowdsourcer, and that's who we're talking about today, doesn't
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: need more data about what his text means. She needs
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to feel safe enough to trust herself. Picture this. Your
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: phone is face up on your desk, his name at
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  Speaker 1: the top, and you're watching the three typing bubbles from
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  Speaker 1: your best friend before you've typed a single word back
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to him. Your best friend sends. He's definitely into you,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: but play it cool. And you type back to him
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: something you don't actually mean. Something calibrated. Something designed. Something
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that is not you. It worked, technically. But you weren't there.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Sound familiar? Yeah. Because that's what this pattern does. It's
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: not research. It's your nervous system asking if you're safe.
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, your group chat now knows more
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  Speaker 1: about this man than his own mother. She's out here
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: thinking her son is a mystery and four women in
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a thread have a full psychological profile. Okay, so... Nine questions,
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  Speaker 1: all cold questions, one per item. Some of them are
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: going to feel like obvious yes answers when you first
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: hear them. And then you're going to sit with them
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: for about four seconds and realize they're actually not. A
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: couple are going to be uncomfortable and I want you
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to let them be uncomfortable. That's where the information is.
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  Speaker 1: Think of this like a quiz you cannot study for
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: because the answers are already inside you and they have
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  Speaker 1: been this whole time. Do me a favor. After each question,
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  Speaker 1: before your brain starts arguing, just notice what your body
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  Speaker 1: does first. Just notice. That's all I'm asking. Okay, question one.
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  Speaker 1: How long did you stare at his text before you
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  Speaker 1: sent it to anyone? Here's a scene that's probably a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: little familiar. He texts at 7pm. You read it at 7pm.
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  Speaker 1: The screenshot goes to the group chat at 7pm. That gap,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: or the fact that there basically was no gap, that
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: is the question. The crowdsourcer skips her own first reaction
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  Speaker 1: so fast she genuinely cannot tell you what it was.
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  Speaker 1: But your nervous system had a response before your brain
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  Speaker 1: could name it. Warmth. A little dread. Flatness. A small
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  Speaker 1: skip in your chest. That first second before your thumb moved,
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  Speaker 1: before the screenshot happened, that is the only data that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: is actually yours. Everything that comes after is borrowed certainty.
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  Speaker 1: And borrowed certainty cannot settle a nervous system that needs
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  Speaker 1: its own. Right? Picture yourself alone with your phone. Screen lit.
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  Speaker 1: His name at the top. And for exactly one second
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  Speaker 1: you feel something. And then your thumb moves. That second
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  Speaker 1: is what we're after. Because you have outsourced your gut
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  Speaker 1: to a committee. And the committee is also anxious. Which
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  Speaker 1: means you've got the anxious leading the anxious. And nobody's
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  Speaker 1: actually getting more settled. Nobody. Okay. Question two. Could you
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  Speaker 1: tell someone what you actually felt before you showed them
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  Speaker 1: the text? Not what it meant. Not whether it was
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  Speaker 1: a good sign or a bad sign. What you felt.
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  Speaker 1: The crowdsourcer is fluent in interpretation and completely mute about sensation.
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  Speaker 1: And I say this as someone who used to do
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  Speaker 1: this so automatically that by the time my best friend
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  Speaker 1: called me back, I could not remember my own reaction
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  Speaker 1: at all. Only hers. I was basically a ventriloquist dummy
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: for my best friend's love life opinions. She'd say he
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: sounds interested and I'd go okay and that would just
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  Speaker 1: be my feeling for the rest of the day. Borrowed.
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  Speaker 1: Fully adopted. Not mine. So ask yourself right now, When
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: you got a text from someone you were nervous about,
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  Speaker 1: did you feel a pull toward him? A drop in
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  Speaker 1: your stomach? Or just a blank that you handed someone
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  Speaker 1: else to fill? Your body already voted. The question is
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: just whether you counted that vote, right? Question three. Are
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: you analyzing what he said or what you're afraid it means?
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  Speaker 1: He said, sounds good. Talk soon. And the group chat
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  Speaker 1: spent 40 minutes on the word soon. Soon by whose calendar?
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  Speaker 1: Soon as in he's pulling away. Soon as in he's
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  Speaker 1: just busy. He said two words and you built a courtroom.
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  Speaker 1: I don't say that to be harsh. I say it
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  Speaker 1: because I've been in that courtroom. I've been the judge.
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  Speaker 1: The crowdsourcer isn't actually confused about his text. She's scared
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  Speaker 1: of a specific outcome and she's looking for evidence against it.
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  Speaker 1: Sued isn't a verdict. It's a word a person used
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: because they were walking somewhere and typed fast. Right? Picture
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the group chat thread. Five messages deep. Someone says the
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  Speaker 1: period at the end is giving formal. Someone else says no.
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  Speaker 1: The period means he respects you. And then you screenshot
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the thread and send it to a sixth person. The
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  Speaker 1: period at the end of his text now has its
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  Speaker 1: own defense attorney, and she's working overtime. It's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of infrastructure for two words. Question four. What does your
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  Speaker 1: chest do in the time between sending the screenshot and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: waiting for your friend to respond? Be honest. Is it tightness?
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  Speaker 1: A held breath? The urge to check your phone every
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  Speaker 1: 40 seconds like it owes you something? That feeling, that
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  Speaker 1: specific feeling, is the one worth studying. And here's what
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  Speaker 1: I want you to really hear. It is not about him.
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  Speaker 1: That tightness is your nervous system in a state it recognizes.
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  Speaker 1: Waiting for a verdict. Hoping to be told that you're okay.
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  Speaker 1: The crowdsourcer has practiced this loop so many times that
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: waiting for the group chat actually feels more familiar than
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: sitting with uncertainty herself. And this is where the nervous
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: system piece comes in. Because your body defaults to the
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  Speaker 1: pattern it knows best. Even when that pattern keeps you anxious.
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  Speaker 1: Because familiar reads as safe. That's the whole thing right there.
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  Speaker 1: Familiar and safe feel identical to a nervous system that
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  Speaker 1: learned early that approval from outside meant you were okay. Right?
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  Speaker 1: So the waiting feels almost comfortable in a tense, awful
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  Speaker 1: way because it's the loop, you know. Your nervous system
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  Speaker 1: is basically a golden retriever waiting for a treat that
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: might not come. And it has been doing this for
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  Speaker 1: years and it just needs a little retraining. Coming up,
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  Speaker 1: five more questions. And one of them is the one
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  Speaker 1: about the moment when you already know the answer and
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  Speaker 1: you send the screenshot anyway. That one's going to land. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: question five. How many people are in the thread before
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  Speaker 1: you've even replied to him? And I'm going to go
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  Speaker 1: first because it's only fair. At 24, during the years
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  Speaker 1: I spent chasing men who were genuinely hard to read,
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  Speaker 1: which looking back was not a coincidence, I once had
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  Speaker 1: a text from someone I liked sitting unanswered for three
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  Speaker 1: hours while I convened what I can only describe as
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: an emergency summit. My best friend. My then-roommate. A co-worker
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I barely knew. We're talking someone I'd had maybe two
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: real conversations with in the break room. That co-worker gave
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: me the advice I ended up using verbatim. I do
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  Speaker 1: not remember her name. I consulted someone I'd spoken to twice,
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  Speaker 1: and she basically became my relationship therapist for an afternoon.
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  Speaker 1: And then she went back to being a stranger. And
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  Speaker 1: I went back to texting a man who was not
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  Speaker 1: going to call me. I was a chaos system wrapped
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  Speaker 1: in a cardigan. Right? Every extra opinion you add is
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  Speaker 1: one more layer between you and your own read. The
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  Speaker 1: crowdsourcer doesn't need more people in the room. She needs
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  Speaker 1: more trust in herself. And adding a third voice, a
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  Speaker 1: fifth voice, a new stranger from the break room is
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the opposite of building that. Sound familiar? Because here's the thing.
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  Speaker 1: You're not gathering better data. You're just delaying the moment
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  Speaker 1: when you have to feel something without a buffer. Each
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  Speaker 1: new person in the thread gives you another 30 seconds
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  Speaker 1: of not having to sit with the uncertainty yourself. And
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  Speaker 1: those 30 seconds add up. You reply to him two
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  Speaker 1: hours later with something you don't fully mean. Something assembled
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  Speaker 1: by committee. Something that sounds like you but wasn't built
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  Speaker 1: from you. And then the whole thing just gets more
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  Speaker 1: confusing because now you don't even know what you actually think.
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  Speaker 1: You've outsourced the thinking so many times the factory floor
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  Speaker 1: is empty. Your notes app is just a to-do list.
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  Speaker 1: Your feelings are in a group chat somewhere being voted on. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's the move we're gently retiring today. Question six. And
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  Speaker 1: this one's going to sting a little. I'm sorry. I
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  Speaker 1: warned you. Have you ever shown the group chat a
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  Speaker 1: text where you already knew what you wanted to do?
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  Speaker 1: Like you already had a feeling, you already had an
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  Speaker 1: instinct and you sent the screenshot anyway. My sister called
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  Speaker 1: me out on this in the most, my sister way possible.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: She's younger than me, just got engaged. And she says
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  Speaker 1: exactly what she thinks with zero hesitation, which is either
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  Speaker 1: a gift or a lot, depending on the day. She
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  Speaker 1: called me and she said, you already know what you think.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: You just want permission. And she was right. And it
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: was so annoying, right? Because she wasn't wrong, she was
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: completely correct, and I still wanted to argue about it
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  Speaker 1: for 20 minutes. The crowdsourcer sometimes isn't looking for a
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  Speaker 1: read at all. She's looking for a cosign. And here's
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  Speaker 1: the tell. If the group chat disagrees, she quietly goes
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: to a fourth person. Not to get more information. To
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: get the answer she already wanted confirmed. I have absolutely
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: texted a fourth person because the first three gave me
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the wrong answer. It's embarrassing, I'll say it. That's not analysis,
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  Speaker 1: that's the nervous system trying to make its preferred answer
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  Speaker 1: feel safe by wrapping it in enough external approval. that
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  Speaker 1: it stops being scary. Notice if you keep asking until
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: someone says what you already wanted to hear. Because if
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you are, the question was never about his text. The
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: question was, can I trust my own instinct here? And
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the answer your nervous system keeps landing on is no.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Let me ask one more person. Make sense? Question seven.
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  Speaker 1: What does your inner voice say about the text in
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that quiet moment before the group chat replies? Because the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: crowdsourcer has a voice. She absolutely does. She just drowns
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  Speaker 1: it out with notifications. You know that split second after
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  Speaker 1: you read the text but before you've opened the app
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  Speaker 1: to screenshot it? There's something there. It might say this
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: feels off. It might say I actually really like this.
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  Speaker 1: It might say I don't know how I feel and
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that's okay too. All of those matter more than whatever
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  Speaker 1: verdict comes back from the thread. I've got this image
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in my head of you, phone faced out on the bed,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: his text still glowing in your mind. And there's a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: small clear voice that goes, I think I already know
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: how I feel. And then your phone light up with
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: a reply from your best friend and the voice just
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: goes quiet Just like that your inner voice has been
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: trying to get a word in for approximately 10 years Right,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: and it's patient. I'll give it that but at some
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: point we got to start letting it finish a sentence
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Therapy taught me something that took a while to actually
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: land and it was this Not trusting your own read
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: isn't a personality trait, it's something you learned. It came
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: from somewhere earlier, maybe a home where your feelings were
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: frequently re-explained to you, or dismissed, or where the whole
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: emotional temperature of the room was set by someone else's
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: mood and you got really good at reading everyone else's
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  Speaker 1: signals and forgot to register your own. Your inner voice
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: didn't disappear, it got trained to wait. And the group
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  Speaker 1: chat became the substitute. Not because your friends aren't smart,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: but because they feel safer than you do to yourself. Okay?
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Question eight. If the group chat unanimously told you the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: opposite of what you believed, would you actually change your behavior?
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Like if you felt a pull toward him and five
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: people said he's giving cold, would you stop feeling the pull?
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Or would you just feel confused and slightly resentful of
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the group chat for a day? You know those reality
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: shows where two people have 48 hours to decide if
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: they're getting engaged? Picture this. The woman's at the altar.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: She reads the note he wrote her. The whole viewing
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: audience can see she's moved, like genuinely moved. And she
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: turns to the camera and goes, I need to talk
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: to my girls before I decide. And the man is
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: just standing there, flowers starting to wilt, doing the slow
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: blink of a person who has been standing in one
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: spot for a very long time. That's the crowdsourcer in
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: peak form, right? And I say that with love because
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I have been that woman, not on an altar, but emotionally, yes, absolutely.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: The crowdsourcer in love and the crowdsourcer about a Tuesday
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: text at 7pm are the same person. She's not stalling
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: because she lacks information. She's stalling because a decision made
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: alone feels like a risk her nervous system doesn't want
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to take solo. And that makes total sense when you
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: trace it back. Solo decisions in a context that felt
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: unsafe meant you were out there unprotected. The group chat
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: became the protection. But babe, his text is not a threat.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Your nervous system just hasn't gotten that memo yet. Can
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: we see this? Question nine. And this is the one
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: that sort of brings all the others together. How long
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: has this been going on? Not this conversation, this pattern.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: I want you to count, actually count, the relationships or
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: almost where you ran his text through the group chat. Three? Five?
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Every single one since you moved somewhere new at 22
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: and decided you were in a city now, and you
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: could figure it out, but you'd just keep your best
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: friend on speed dial for text emergencies. Right? Picture yourself
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: counting on your fingers, getting past three, pausing, realizing you've
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: been doing some version of this since your first serious almost,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: since you were trying to figure out what meant what,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and you needed a translator. Ten years later, and the
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: group chat is still on retainer, and each individual screenshot
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: felt reasonable in the moment. He's confusing. You wanted a
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: second opinion. That's what friends are for. True, yes, completely true.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: And also, at some point, the question stops being about
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: his text and starts being about why you haven't yet
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: built enough trust in your own read to sit with
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: uncertainty for five minutes without reaching for your phone. That number,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: however many it is, isn't a judgment. I'm not saying
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that to make you feel bad. It's a starting point.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: It's information. It's yours. Next, we're getting to the one
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: wound underneath all nine of these questions. And then I'm
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: going to tell you what to actually do instead of
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: just deleting the group chat in a panic. Because that
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: is not what I'm suggesting, I promise. Okay, here's the thing.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And I mean this with everything I have. The thread
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: isn't about his texts. It's about whether you're allowed to
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: trust yourself. Right? All nine questions, every single one of them,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: they circle the same place. The crowdsourcer didn't wake up
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: one day and decide she was bad at reading people.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: She learned somewhere early that her own read wasn't reliable.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: That feelings needed to be verified. That certainty required a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: second signature. Maybe that was a home where one parent's
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: mood set the temperature for everyone and you got so
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: good at reading the room by reading other people first
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that you forgot to read yourself. Make sense? Maybe it
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: was a relationship that rewired you. The one at 26
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: that broke something open. Where you trusted your gut, you
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: did everything right, and it still went wrong, and so slowly, quietly,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: you stopped trusting your gut at all. The nervous system
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: made a note. Your signals weren't enough. Outsourcing felt like
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the safer option. And here's the thing. It isn't safer.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It's familiar, right? Those are two completely different things, and
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: your body cannot always tell them apart. Familiar reads as
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: safe even when the familiar thing is keeping you anxious,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: keeping you in a loop, keeping you dependent on five
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: other people's certainty before you can take a single step
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: towards someone you actually like. The nervous system doesn't know
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: that the group chat is not the same as a
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: safe home or a reliable relationship. It just knows that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: getting confirmation from outside has worked before. Sort of, kind of,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: enough to keep doing it. It's not research. It's your
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: nervous system asking if you're safe. And knowing that, really
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: sitting with that, that's not a small thing. That's the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: whole thing. The wound has a group chat too, by
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the way, and it is also absolutely overanalyzing. If the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: pattern of needing constant external validation is affecting your daily life,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: talking to a therapist is one of the most useful
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: things you can do. I'm not saying that as a disclaimer.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I'm saying it because three years of therapy is part
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: of why I can even name this for you right now. Yeah,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: it changed the whole shape of how I move through
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: this stuff. Here's the hard truth. I'm going to say
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: it in one line and then sit in it with you.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Your friends cannot give you the thing you're actually looking for. right?
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Your group chat is full of good people who love you.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I genuinely believe that. And they cannot give you the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: feeling that you're safe enough to trust yourself with another person.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: That feeling has to come from you. The crowdsourcer isn't
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: bad at reading texts. She's scared of being wrong in
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a place where being wrong has hurt before. And that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: fear is completely real and completely valid. And the screenshot
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: is not answering it. It's temporarily relieving it until the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: next text arrives and the whole loop starts over. Your
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: friends are not the problem and neither is he. The
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: thing that needs updating is the belief that your own
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: read is the least trustworthy one in the room. Because
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: it isn't. It's actually the only one that has full
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: access to everything your body already knows. So here's the dare.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Read his next text. Sit with it for two full
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: minutes before you show anyone. Two whole minutes alone with
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: your own feelings, completely free, no subscription required. I know
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: that sounds like nothing, and I also know it's going
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: to feel like a lot. You're going to want to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: grab your phone. You're going to feel the pull toward
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the screenshot almost immediately. That's the pattern doing its thing.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Let it do its thing and stay with yourself anyway.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: You don't have to have it figured out by the
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: end of those two minutes. You just have to notice
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: what's in you before you hand it to someone else.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The other side of this isn't that you stop talking
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: to your friends about people you like, okay? I want
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: to be really clear about that because I am not
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: suggesting you become an island. The other side is that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: you have something to bring to the conversation. Not a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: raw screenshot and a spiraling question, but an actual thing.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Something like, I felt something good when you sent this
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and I just wanted to say it out loud. That's sharing.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: That's completely different from outsourcing. When you start trusting your
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: own first reaction, even when it's uncertain, even when it's
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: just a small warmth or a small flatness, the group
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: chat becomes a place to celebrate or to process, not
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a place to generate the feeling in the first place.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Picture you texting your best friend, not a screenshot, not a,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: what do you think? Just, I think I actually like him.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to say it. And your best friend replies, finally,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: you figured that out yourself and you feel something subtle.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Your best friend is so relieved she doesn't have to
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: be your nervous system anymore. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Three moves. And I mean three actual moves, not vibes. First,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: before you screenshot, open your notes app and write one
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: sentence about what you felt when you read his text.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Not what it means. Not what you think he meant
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: by the period at the end. What you felt. One sentence.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: That's it. That is the whole first move. Second, if
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you do bring it to the group chat, and you can,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: bring your read first. Say, I think this means he's interested,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: but I'm second guessing myself. Instead of, what do you
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: think this means? You're practicing trusting your own read out
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: loud before you hand it over. That's not the same
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: as not asking. It's just asking differently. Right? Third, when
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the group chat gives its verdict, check your body. If
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you feel relief, good. That's real. But if you feel
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a quiet resistance, that little something that goes, huh, but,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: that resistance is data. Your inner voice says, I already
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: knew every single time. Start listening to it five seconds earlier.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Your notes app is about to become the most emotionally
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: intelligent contact in your phone, by the way. I'm very
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: serious about this. The woman who doesn't need the group
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: chat to weigh in before she knows how she feels,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I want you to picture her for a second. She's
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: not cooler than you. She's not more detached or unbothered
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: or whatever word we use to make security sound like coldness.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: She's just a woman who has practiced trusting her own
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: nervous system enough to sit with uncertainty without immediately exiting it.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: She still shares. She still calls her best friend. She
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: still processes out loud. She just arrives with a self
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: already formed. You know? She shows up to the conversation
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: already holding her own read. And she's asking for company,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: not a verdict. She also still screenshots the truly unhinged
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: ones because some texts simply require witnesses. And that's just
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: being a good friend, honestly. You can love your group
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: chat and still be the first vote on your own
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: love life, right? Both things are true at the same time.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: The screenshot is going to happen. I'm not going to
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: pretend it isn't. I'm going to continue doing it myself
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: when something is genuinely confusing. But before it does, one second,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: your body, your first read, yours. That's the practice. That's
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. It's not research. It's your nervous system
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: asking if you're safe. And when you've done all that
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: work and you've written your one sentence and you've checked
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: your body and you've shown up to the conversation with
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: your own read already formed and you still need a
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: second opinion, fine, completely fine. but maybe just the one
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: friend this time. When you read his next text right now,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: before you show anyone, what does your body feel before
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: your brain gives it a meaning? That's the question I
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: want you to sit with. Send this episode to the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: friend who is currently running a full group chat analysis
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: on a two-word text, because she needs this too, and
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: she knows who she is. Follow along so you don't
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: miss what's coming next. Take care of yourself. I'll talk
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: to you soon. This show is made by Obomedia.