Thank you Rachael for all you do & the knowledge you share. For me it just seems more therapeutic, relaxing, & soothing hearing the topic of separated/divorced men's pain coming from a beautiful woman such as yourself.

Very nice. Rachel, you should do an overlay to that chart and place some of the self-talk statements on the chart like you described (including what you describe in this video). Adding a bit more complexity, it is important to understand that most people have multiple parts of their personality often with different voices and reactions on the temperment continuum. For example, if someone makes a dig at you, your friendly social personality might be presenting, but behind the scenes another part of your personality might be rising in the fight or flight regions. Further, because women are often conditioned to hide or even be afraid of strong emotions, they may have an inner voice that is trapped and going through this chart spectrum internally and the guy has no clue because he is reacting to the part of the personality that she is presenting (which appears in the calm range) when there is this lava boiling underneath. I think women might understand how difficult it is for other women to express things and are more inclined to be the fire department and rush in and deluge their fellow women with validation instead of first determining if their fellow female friend has created negative self-talk or manufactured a scapegoat of their spouse instead of owning their unhappiness. The real sophistication about this is that the different voices within us can simultaneously be sending mixed signals to our body and we could have all kinds of chemicals, neurotransmitters, levels of tension, etc. going off and our body and mind might be completely confused and that different direction dissonance might generate a "freeze" state. Now, take a couple that experiences trauma together, say a couple that had two late term still-births where both get shattered into a million pieces and our defense mechanisms scatter them into a labrynth of hiding places. You have parts of you that you don't know exist that are hidden but are grabbing the steering wheel of our emotions and self-talk, and both spouses are drowning to understand themselves in this flood of dissonant emotions in the whirlwind of life that is like a moving conveyor belt of daily and seasonal activities, where all major processes of healing have to be put on the back burner. Social media often projects this idealistic peacefulness, prosperity and it often leads to toxic positivity which asks many to keep pushing down their negative feelings and divorce seems to be a natural reaction to cutting these toxins out of your life because you can just scapegoat all of your issues and use divorce like a bowel movement. Sometimes though, if a spouse is hyper sensitive, they get lost with all of the mixed up parts of our personalities that are presenting in and out and mixing it with their own, they get swept up into a septic shock of too much going on at once and they need to be alone just to be able to listen to their own voices and process their own parts of their personality and figure themselves out. Sometimes it isn't fair because a spouse may in fact be giving a ton of space for their spouse to have their own identity but their spouse may perceive it to be suffocating even if it is their own voices in their own mind that are causing their emotions to go haywire. I know Rachel is not religious, but that is when Christ told us to take the yoke on with him and he will carry us like when a weary cow is yoked with a stronger one, the stronger one can help the older, weary one. Many men today are praying to St. Joseph, the father of Christ as being a source of peace and strength as an example of men; a defender of marriage, a strong father who put his faith in God and did not listen to the earthly rabble. Joseph understood that he had a calling and his wife had a calling and God had a purpose for them and to be at peace when the world around him was creating dissonance. Whether you are religious or not, the Christ can just be a mindset of peace and love that can permeate and harmonize the dissonance of toxic self-talk. Maybe toxic positivity is based on the individual wanting to compartmentalize their pain and not wanting to see others process their own anger or pain because they do not want to activate or recognize their own pain and suffering and do the work because it may be so overwhelming (particularly if there was severe trauma). Validating toxic positivity can be unhealthy and women who validate each other without rational evaluation may just feed a pathology of stuffing down emotions and scapegoating a spouse with male bashing. Well, if they don't process their emotions, they will eventually need to take a mental shit because toxins and negativity is part of reality. I think women get stuck in a state of victimhood because they they don't want to take ownership of facing and processing their own issues. The old men who just said "Yes Dear" and bore the male bashing, wouldn't cut it today because men now have to not only figure themselves out, but help women understand their own emotions because otherwise the women will blame them. Men need to be stronger today and they need God's help.

The only channel I make time to watch immediately when posted. Bless you Rach