I Had Bad Feelings Doing What I Was Told To Do So I Tried To Bury The Feelings And Lie To Myself

hello A lot happened in the last week week and a half uh you I made that video about made that video about quitting neurosurgery and um honestly I didn't expect that many people to to see it and uh I learned a lot I learned a lot from uh everybody's responses um I think there's a narrative there's a narrative in this uh in the society that we have that uh you have to be successful you have to you have to do you know you have to have a good job you have to you have to do

everything that you're told to do and then then you'll be happy and you'll be safe and you'll have lots of friends uh you'll never feel lonely you know like um not just a job but you like having a home um having kids those are all nice things but there there's a narrative that if you don't have that then you're going to be sad and um lonely you won't have friends you won't you you'll feel worthless there's there's a narrative that I certainly bought into probably other people are bought into I mean at at some point

in their life maybe not right now but I think uh the fact that the story I told resonated with so many people tells me that that that narrative is not actually it's not actually right uh sometimes following that path like I was I was trying to follow sometimes that leads to um being unhappy um and actually being alone uh so there's so many stories that people have shared in the comments um about doing what was not expected or doing what people told told us not to do and that brought them immense happiness and meaning in

life peace friends a community so that that's that was really surprising to me because uh when I left Neurosurgery um you know I have I have my wife I live with my wife and my doggy um and you know I have some friends from work and uh but uh it felt really lonely because I felt like I was doing something that nobody else was doing it's not true there there are a lot of people doing what uh what I did and and um now I know that I think a lot of people know that and

I think that feeling that um oh I'm doing something that you know I nobody told me to do in fact they probably told me to do the opposite and I'm doing it and oh I'm I'm not alone there's a lot of people that feel this way that's really cool so yeah you know the people uh that are watching this video just want you to know that um whatever you're going through you're not alone whatever you choose to do even if it's something that people said you shouldn't do now you're not alone uh that's one of

the main takeaways I learned from last week I'm still kind of getting used to um so many people knowing knowing my story again I didn't expect that many people to watch that video um so yeah I'm still getting used to it um I was eating uh Thai food with my buddy um who reconnected with me after seeing that video I hadn't seen him for several months and uh last time I saw him he was going through really hard time and I hadn't seen him for several months and I I felt bad that I hadn't seen

him uh but it was good to catch up with him but that that made me think that there's a lot of feelings that I have that uh I just kind of push under the rug or kick into a box and throw it in the closet and hope it never comes back um there's feelings there's all kinds of feelings uh and uh I've been I've been examining these um I just wanted to share I wanted to share about examining bad feelings and what to do about them um so that instance I was talking about was oh

there's a spider here hello spider it's a white spider it's interesting don't bite me don't bite me um yeah negative feelings so yeah seeing my friend seeing my friend feeling bad that I kind of left him in a in a bad spot and I didn't keep in touch with him and that's regret and guilt also sadness uh that's looking at the past um usually these negative feelings are something to do with the past or the future in relation to the present um bad feelings that are from the future are fear um worry anxiety I um

well for instance you I made that video and that's probably the most important video it may be the most important video I ever made make I I I don't know I don't know the future but for a while there I I was thinking oh man how I don't think I could ever make another video like that maybe in another 20 years after I lived another 20 years I could make a video like that and so yeah I started to worry and feel a little anxious also you know the the story the message I I was

that I told was um uh they might hurt my former colleagues the people that trained me they put their their life into teaching me how to do surgery teaching me medicine the story I told it may help them but it might hurt them too and um yeah there is that worry a little bit of fear I I didn't know how they would respond um and the whole aspect about shame too so shame um that was kind of the whole video the last video like I was embarrassed of quitting without a plan and walking away from

something I invested so much time in my life in into that's shame um and what what do people think about it uh yeah so there there's all these negative feelings and and people are asking me whoa how do you feel now that that video you know millions of people watched the video um yeah you must be feeling awesome amazing and um yeah I mean it was really cool to see a lot of people share their stories and send their love and um oh and I send that love back to all of you uh I love

you all thank you so much for all the kind comments and and encouragement and sharing your story so I send that love back to you and peace back to you uh but yeah with with those good feelings also came bad feelings there's some comments about how uh oh we got to protect this guy from the capitalist system now how is this guy's voice not silenced yeah I didn't really think about that too much um yeah so that there was a little bit of fear about that I was like oh you know is Big Pharma and

capitalist medicine and I don't know who else are maybe they don't like what I said so yeah it was a little little worrisome I I was thinking oh well people are going to figure out who I am at some point and figure out where I live and where my doggy lives and where my wife lives there are all those all those feelings uh but my mother-in-law she uh she and my wife my wife is awesome as as you know from the prior video but her mother's really cool too uh she was um telling me that

I really need to embrace embrace the emotions really examine them and become friends with them not just the good ones but the bad ones as well and uh I I wanted to try to explain you know what what that process looks like because it's not something that I've ever done in my whole life you know I'm 40 now and whenever a bad feeling comes up I I just I just try to hide it I try to bury it uh yeah but when all this stuff happened last week I felt like these these things that I

had buried were coming back to life like a zombie like you bury you bury somebody and they turn into a zombie and and then their hand reaches out their hand reaches out from the grave and then they climb out and then they're walking around they're dead or they're Undead they're walking around and you thought that they were buried and gone and and what they they come back and so I realized that um yeah you can't run from the bad feelings they will always come back all the the things that you try to hide from they

come back in some some form or another and so yeah the last couple days I've been really trying to think and feel and um process bad feelings those ones that I told you about um you know fear regret sadness guilt anxiety worry uh sadness uh I try to imagine I try to imagine inviting them into my home and making tea for them and addressing each one um we'll say fear I address fear I say hi fear you've been a big part of my life but I've tried to ignore you my whole life I'm really sorry

about that I'm sorry that I tried to ignore you I I know you're there I know you're part of me I know you're just as part of me as much as love and peie is but I didn't want to let you be a part of me I tried to fight you so I'm sorry about that please forgive me I thank you that you are part of me just just as much as all the other emotions good and bad are and I love you I love you fear welcome to my home you're welcome to live with

me you're welcome to live with me with all the other emotions uh there's guilt and regret right next to you they're kind of cousins and there's worry I think you know about worry there's also joy and peace and love they've been in my house for a long time but I welcome you too fear and so I just did that with um I did that with all the all the emotions that I could think of I did that with my feelings about collapse know collapse is kind of the gradual or sudden decline of civilization and some

people think that we we're living through that right now collapse could be anything um it could have to do with the the environment you know our climate are um the animals and plants uh going away insects going away it could be just social you know our living conditions our um quality of life um it could just be our access to food clean water it could also be our um resource depletion like running out of easily accessible fossil fuels to power our whole our whole uh way of life even though we have Renewables but our main

source is still fossil fuels running out of that that that's that's part of collapse but that was a really big part of what I used to think about and um I welcomed all of them into my home and I told them you are my friend you are part of me I can't run from you I tried and it just came up in you just came up in weird other places I didn't expect and and said hello I'm here Notice Me notice me well I I notice I notice you fear I notice you regret I notice

you anxiety um sadness I notice all of you and I accept you so I did that but I felt like there was one more that um a big one and I was imagining inviting them into my home and there is one more big one but I didn't know that emotions name um until yesterday I was driving to pick up some food uh for my wife and I and I realize oh I know what that big guy is he was really the biggest one out of all them but I couldn't think of him his name and

it's Pride I I um I've been a very prideful person my whole life even though I may try to look humble I think inside I I was very prideful about a lot of things uh you I was prideful that I went to MIT that I I was a neurosurgeon that I could that I could figure things out uh whether they're science related or just whatever else related um uh it's prideful that I I I could go into the mountains and survive and not not die or get lost there's a lot of things that um that

I was prideful about and that that was sort of a little different but I had to accept that except that as that was part of me and uh you say that Hawaiian prayer to Pride which is uh you know please forgive me that I haven't really acknowledged you as you are I'm sorry that I haven't um I thank you for being part of my life and I love you that Hawaiian prayer is really powerful um and I think by by welcoming all of those emotions as part of me then I can live as a whole

I I'm not half a person or a third of a person if I accept that yes I can be kind and gentle I can also be violent and hurtful whether intentionally or unint intentionally if I accept that then I can accept that I am me I am a human I exist and all these parts of me exist not sure why I was talking about that but um I did want to share that because I've never done that in my whole life over 40 years I've never said to a bad feeling hey you're welcome in this

life uh but I think it it does go back to this idea that if you if you don't do what you're told then life's going to Life's going to be awful you know it's it and also if you do what you're told you're going to be fine but then most people think or most a lot of people including myself were doing what we were told to do and we felt awful miserable so and and kept living that way and saying oh I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do I'm doing everything that people told me

to do and I feel bad but I shouldn't feel bad because I'm doing everything I was supposed to do so I'm just going to hide that bad feeling I'm going to put it in the closet that's what I did oh spider spider a jumping spider this is a different one this is black it's a little tiny one but it jumped away while actually sitting here all right what was I talking about um oh yeah so myself included but in reading the comments I think a lot of people were doing what they're told to do and

then feeling awful and then saying I should feel good but I feel bad but I should feel good doesn't make sense to me so I'm just going to hide the bad feelings and try my best to feel good I yeah I mean I learned that that that's that's a that's a good way to run yourself into the ground um that's like getting dragged behind a truck and just the rocks and asphalt just chewing away at your skin straight down through your muscle down to your bone it's not a good way to live so yeah that's

I think that's what I learned over this last week with people's stories is that if you're true to yourself if you accept oh I have these bad feelings what are they about why do I have these bad feelings oh I have good feelings too why do I have those oh but I accept the good feelings but I don't accept the bad feelings if you if you do that then you can't really be a full whole person you can't really see what's happening and so um yeah I just wanted to encourage everybody that uh it's okay

to have those bad feelings of course it's okay to have good feelings too but it's okay to have the bad feelings you can um accept them into your life and say hey bad feeling whatever whichever one it is or combination say hey bad feeling you're there I see you I see that you're trying to get my attention I acknowledge that you are there and that you're part of me and then by doing that I think it freeze up your mind to and your heart your whole person to really see things for what they really are

and then when you see and you accept that is an an empower it gives you power to live it gives you power to choose um it helps it helps take you away from thinking about future things that may or may not happen and past things that did happen but maybe you you remember a certain way but maybe it didn't happen the way you remember now it takes it takes you away from the future and the past and then it brings you to the present and in the present that's where we actually live we don't live

in the future we don't live in the past when you accept good and bad feelings then you can be present and you can see things for what they are you can love the present you can love yourself you can love the universe you can see that everything is everything we're connected to everything we are everything and from there you can truly live you can live fully yeah I think I think that's what I learned over the last week with the help of all of you uh people that all of you that have shared your stories

and commented and also you know from my loved ones my my wife my mother-in-law my friends the people that I uh lost touch with and then reconnected with over the past week and also the people that I have not not reconnected with but I think about like the people that I hurt in in my life both intentionally and unintentionally um both professionally and personally um you know just thinking about all those things that uh yeah we're all connected life is both very complex and simple at the same time so yeah I wish that I wish

you all uh peace I wish you love I I I wish you presence um to live here now right where you are right here in the present I'm sorry please forgive me thank you and I love you but