Idolatry without Consent: Fueling the Validation Economy

Idolatry begins when someone else's availability is going to influence your internal state. But more importantly, your actions, your values, your follow-through. And that is the biggest issue here, is that what somebody does or doesn't do, even if they're completely unaware of what you wanted or what you're expecting, has the ability to completely destabilize you. And for these individuals, being included wasn't just about feeling good. But it actually stabilizes your nervous system and your sense of identity. This means as you take this out into adulthood, inclusion means that you are somehow legitimized. Validation becomes proof that you are worthy. And being seen becomes synonymous with being safe. Your brain is wired for deception, but here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen? Welcome to another episode of Decoded. Today's episode is a continuation of last week's episode on power and projection. This episode is about a topic that might be a little confronting. After all, we do live in a very social media-driven economy where popularity and accolades and engagement certainly drive our entire economy. And whether you have found your way within that, where you've kind of risen the ranks to become somebody that society has deemed popular, or you are chasing that popularity on social media, we can all certainly fall into this trap. My hope is that in today's episode, you will do the work to start to confront ways that you have done this in your own life so that you can learn how to stop. Because it doesn't go anywhere good. So last week, we discussed how power is a psychological structure that can absolutely start to trigger old childhood wounds. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I highly recommend going back to listen to that one first, because we are just adding on and expanding on to it. In that episode, we talked about how some brain pattern types are not able to experience hierarchy in a way that is neutral. They don't interface with hierarchy as a structure. They essentially interface with any sort of hierarchy and power dynamics through the lens of engaging with a parent or somebody that could make or break their popularity at school, et cetera. So they're interpreting it through their childhood inputs. And these are going to be things like early experiences of being chosen or overlooked, rewarded, ignored, protected, or just left to figure things out alone. We also talked about projection. And how internal instability can often get assigned outward, especially onto people who appear to carry a visibility, authority, confidence, or status. Deception isn't about a conscious desire to lie. So I hope as you listened to last week's episode, you heard me loud and clear on that. The sad, and I think most dangerous part about production, is that people don't realize they're doing it. It is self-disception. It is a blind spot and is a psychological mechanism that is meant to carefully build walls up and protect an unstable identity. So I'm certainly not suggesting that people that experience this know they're doing it and they're doing it intentionally. I do think for what it's worth that there are some people that have had enough feedback and repeated exposure that probably to some extent have at least gotten a little crack in there that they realize they may be partially responsible. And my hope is that watching content like this or listening to content like this helps to make exploring that crack a little bit safer. Exploring that crack potentially means that yes, maybe temporarily you'll have to face some harsh truths about yourself, but that there's healing and rewiring on the other side of that that can not only make your life better, but make all of your relationships better, and then reflect that out to the macro, actually make humanity at large better. Because that's the work that I want to be engaged in. I know that's certainly the work that we do in break method. There's so many people that initially struggle with that process of confrontation because of course it feels exposing you probably want to vomit when you get close to hearing or experiencing the truth. But when you do face it and you accept it into your paradigm, the type of radical healing and transformation that kind of occurs so quickly, like more quickly, then you've been led to believe if you only kind of take the word of mainstream media or what you've seen in movies. That's not really how it goes. When somebody actually understands for the first time their blind spots and their self-disceptive patterns, the transformation it literally can happen in an instant. It's like a whole screen that you've been watching your whole life suddenly starts to come down or crumble and it says, though you are seeing reality corrected for the first time. That's what I want for you. That's why I do this work. It's never too guilt or shame or to point fingers. It's to try to help shine flashlight into those dark places so that people can follow that flashlight and realize that while the process might not be the most fun thing because it is exposing and like I said, it might make you want to puke. Your life can get so much better on the other side of it. So I hope that you will go into today's episode with that sort of heart posture and mindset that no one's trying to blame or shame you. But we are trying to shine the flashlight to kind of call you potentially out of that place that you've been stuck in, that blind spot, that self-disception pattern. Because this kind of stuff doesn't need to happen. It really is entirely preventable, but it can't be prevented if people refuse to face some of those self-disceptive patterns and wounds. Once power becomes emotionally charged and validation becomes your primary way to regularly, both your sense of self-worth and your identity, the system is no longer this abstract thing. It becomes rooted in identity, attachment, security. And when it starts to then attach to people, the consequences are no longer subtle and under the radar. And I'm sure you've seen this play out in workplaces, in online communities, spiritual spaces, certainly business mentorships, which we're going to get into today. And also public takedowns, let's seem to come out of nowhere. This episode is about why that happens and how much of this destruction is completely unnecessary. One power stops being informational and it actually starts to influence your emotional stability. Identity has actually entered the equation as the primary suspect. This shift is where fixation actually begins. I mentioned at the very beginning of the episode that we live in this social media validation-seeking world. And I would like to turn this a validation economy. I'm very clear that social media didn't actually invent the desire to be seen or acknowledge that has existed forever. But it certainly industrialized it. It commodified it. It's now tied it to likes and money and status and things that seem very tangible. So now attention is actually measurable. And it's tied, of course, to dopamine hits, pleasure seeking. And approval is given or not in a very public forum. And when that happens, absence is extremely noticeable. So from a neuroscience standpoint, the delivery system of this matters honestly more than the content itself. Most platforms are running something that in neuroscience we call intermittent reinforcement. This means that there's an unpredictable reward schedule that keeps the brain on alert, constantly scanning, anticipating. And this is the same learning mechanism that keeps people pulling the slot machine, for example, at Casino, long after the experience has ceased being enjoyable. It's because you don't know when the reward is going to come. So your nervous system stays engaged. You're checking. You're waiting. You're seeking. Now put power and hierarchy into that. Right? Just sit with that for a second. We already know that power and hierarchy have the ability to pull on or push on our childhood wounds. But now if you put the layer of power and hierarchy into a social media validation seeking economy, we've just created basically like the atomic bomb of childhood wounds. Think about a leader replying to your comment or a mentor noticing your work. A creator acknowledging you publicly. That moment now has a lot more weight behind it than it would have years ago. And here's the thing that I want to call out. It has nothing to do with that person actually doing anything extraordinary. It has everything to do with subconsciously your brain quietly pairing that action with some assumption that proximity, success, or being seen is somehow linked to it. And unfortunately, this does not stop online. Business culture has certainly mirrored the same structure. I know that you have probably seen me rant for years about how I hate the word mastermind. I still do. I hate the word mastermind. I think it's terrible. And as a mother of four kids, I literally can't ever hear mastermind without thinking of mega-mind. So I mean, if any of you parents are listening, you've probably done the same thing. It just makes you immediately want to do the the doctor evil mastermind. And I get it. In the world that we live in, there is certainly a whole economy that is driven by paying for access to people that will help you get to the next level. That is ultimately what is behind a mastermind. I personally wish that that wasn't the case. I've never invested in one. You know, I've had many people, including my own publicists, feel like busy really to do this. I think I'm just, I'm adverse to the whole thing. And I think this is one thing that's worth knowing about me is that surely even to my own detriment, I'm such a principled person that if I really fundamentally believe in or don't believe in something, even if all of the financial benefit is right there on the wall, even if people that I pay a lot of money to advise me or like, because you really should do this. If I'm fundamentally opposed to something, I'm not going to compromise on that. I think it is fundamentally wrong that people who are not experts and technically should have no business objecting other people can simply pay money to have access to other people that can help them continue to have more access and help people. And I think in reality, will that potentially slow me down and make it harder for me to get to where I, you know, air quotes should be, yeah, probably, but at least when I go to sleep at night, I can rest easy knowing that I'm not compromising on my personal values and principles. So does that mean that I think people who run masterminds are inherently bad people? No, of course not. I just know that for me, I feel personally conflicted about it in a way that I would not make that investment. But I'm also not judging you for making that investment. I think the world in which we live right now and I really, I hope that there is a major shift this year, I do feel that there are certain creators that are maybe willing to kind of step out and be lonely in this. I'm certainly one of them that I'm, this is my plan for 2026. I think this whole world of like crafting these short form reels and like, you know, capturing attention in every two to three seconds, you've got to edit this and this and this. I, you know, I get it. I get that that technically works and I did a lot of that last year and I did see a lot of growth from it. But at the same time, it takes away from authenticity and it takes away, I think, from the potency of messages that could and should be coming through. And I for one want to focus in 2026 on just being radically transparent, authentic, and not trying to package something in a way that people will consume it better. If you don't want to consume something the way that I have just naturally organically brought it through to life, then maybe I'm not a good fit for you. And that's okay. But I think that's where I would love to see people go in 2026 is to be more authentic, more raw, less, less architected for what is going to do well in certain social media channels. And I think in line with that kind of riffing off this idea of masterminds, I would love to see and the algorithm ultimately prove whether this happens or not. If enough people do this, I think what could happen is that we could potentially get past, I think, the stumbling block of having to package your content right or pay for these masterminds to get through. And hopefully the creators and experts that are saying something that is real. And you know, for me, coming through Holy Spirit, this is not meant to be, you know, judgmental or telling you who your creator should be called, etc. But for me, I try to do everything fully led by Holy Spirit. And that often is at odds with, you know, doing what the world tells you to do. So I would love to see educators, creators and experts actually get through to the next level and kind of really blow up and explode that aren't just doing what they're supposed to do and paying the right fees along the way to kind of get past the gatekeepers. And I think that if enough people do this might work. I know that the appearances that I have booked for the next Q1 and Q2 are they're so big and I'm really grateful and excited for it. There's one in particular that I'm going to be on in February, which is a podcast that I've wanted to be on for literally years. And it's a dream come true. I can't announce it yet, but you guys will see it soon. So I do think that there's something to be said for kind of staying in the course and being patient and persistent and knowing that if you're meant to get through, that's going to happen in the right time rather than just kind of like shelling out this money for access. This is a totally tangential story, but I think it's worth it before we dive too much into the meat of this episode. I tend to go into my sauna at night, which I'm sure you've heard on me doing ads here. Shameless plug, healing sauna, best sauna I've ever had. And my code is BG, heal, HGAL, it gives you $200 off in free shipping. But I go into my sauna literally every single night. It's a non-negotiable for me if I'm home and not traveling. And I had this one potentially really big opportunity seemingly fall through. This was maybe like six weeks ago. And I went into the sauna to kind of do my prayer and meditation. And I remember kind of going in having this like mild pity party with God. And as soon as I got into that heart posture, like, you know, like, why isn't this going to work out? Like just kind of like turning into a little kid and just being like, whiny and certainly petty with God. I've very clearly got this like earth shattering, reputing of excuse me. You don't think that I'm protecting you in what I'm doing right now. And I all of a sudden was like, hey, woo, let's shake off the self pity. And I was reminded about a very clear list of things that I was asked to do that I had to do to make sure that I would not squander that opportunity. And I hadn't actively checked off the things on those lists to make sure that when I get put in that chair, I'm able to actually do what needs to be done from that appointment because every time we're thrust forward or we're kind of put in the media spotlight, it's an appointment. The people that you have access to the connections that you'll make, if you're looking at from a spiritual perspective, there it's a spiritual appointment that will either catapult you to the next level or wherever you're going or to your next group of people that you are to whatever your industry is, help heal, et cetera. And if you don't have your ducks in a row and you haven't held yourself to a high standard in specific areas, then you'd potentially squander that opportunity. And I share this because, you know, for some people that are, you know, air quotes doing all the things right, and like paying for this mastermind and like paying this coach to do this thing, maybe your journey kind of like looks more like this. But I do think that there's a world out there for people who are really just doing things exactly the way they're being led to by Holy Spirit. And maybe it looks, you know, like this, but there's more honesty and more potency coming through the message. And certainly this was the case for me where I left that parent meditation being like, oh my god. Yeah, you're right. God, I would have completely squandered this opportunity because I didn't do these things. So I kicked my butt into high gear and guess what? I did all those things and guess what? All those things came back around as soon as I had finished. So as we are going into 2026, I took this detour to remind you that the trajectory of something, especially if you are somebody who follows God, you have a spiritual belief system. You have to remember the importance of being a good steward, crossing your teeth, dotting your eyes, right? I think a lot of people that I know that believe they're walking with Holy Spirit, often are kind of stepping out in this like really big, bold faith, but they're not actually being a good steward of what they have in their resources. So they're kind of almost in a way like stepping out in this like a reckless chaotic messy way. And then their mad that things aren't working out when the reality is God might have called you to a specific appointment time, but there were also likely a checklist of things that you needed to get done for you to be prepared for that appointment. And I do get this really strong sense that for those of you that I might be speaking to right now, in 2026, I think there are a lot of those divine appointments happening, but you have to make sure that you've kind of done the organizational administrative work to be ready for those appointments. So I hope that this detour spoke to some of you because I think a lot of you need to hear that. And it's still relevant to this whole episode concept on how we tend to make things idols in our lives, because that's really what this whole episode is about is how how people accidentally turn things into idols and what the long term consequences of that are if you're not careful. In tandem with that, there are certain people that don't make anything an idol as a result of what happened to them as a child. So to some extent, you are protected from this, but you're not protected from attracting people who might make you an idol or something that you've built an idol and you still need to know how to protect yourself. So one thing that I want to kind of tie up with the bow here before we continue on, because I know I took a big tangent there, is that whether we're talking about a community or a mastermind or you know some sort of social media group or a broadcast channel, etc. there is this idea that if you just get access, everything will change. And even as I said that, I've seen this in religious communities too, like if you can just be close enough to the pastor, if I could just be close enough to this person, then everything's going to unlock. That is almost never true, and I promise you I won't make this episode overly spiritual, but there's only one thing person that should ever be in that position, right? We should never give away that sort of power or focus to one thing or one organization ever. The only thing I ever put in that position is God. In fact, the prayer that I pray all the time is if something is not your will, let it completely be wiped from my memories so that I can't remember it tomorrow. I only want to remember what your will is for my life in every moment, every day, everything that I do. So that would be a great prayer for you, because I think a lot of times we get so maybe overwhelmed with our own ideas and think about how many things you're watching on social media or you're consuming on YouTube or whatever. There's this constant cause and effect happening, right? We're consuming and then we're being inspired. I wonder how much of that inspiration is really something that is personal to you, rather than just noise or filler or ultimately distraction. So that might be a prayer that you want to bring into 2026 with you. I know it's something that has worked really well for me because really from like one of the first entrepreneur lectures that I ever did back in maybe like 2015 or 2016, it was called Stanley Lane and Love It. I really think that on this topic of idolatry, specifically in the social media community-based economy, so often there's a part of us that maybe we can't acknowledge where we just want success or we just want monetary gain or we just, you know, we want life to be easier or better. So we end up consuming things that aren't actually for us. We end up seeking out and potentially making certain people or communities idols that were never actually for us in the first place. And down the road, let's say you get, you know, a month, six months, hey, even five to 10 years down the road where you've kind of given away all of your power and worship in a sense to something that might not even have been for you in the first place, you just got marketed to. We have to be able to look at how that could have played out in our lives and make sure that we're getting very laser focused on what we are specifically to do. Because I think 2026 is going to be a big year of people getting back on the right track. I think often we get into these little amnesia states or maybe we're on track, things are working out. And then all of a sudden it's like we go into the slumber and we don't realize how far we've slid off track. And I think 2026 is a big year for us to get back. So hopefully today's episode is a way for you to awake from potentially that slumber and see where you may have done this to yourself. And if you haven't done this via what happened to you as a child, you might have actually attracted this to you. And honestly, the destruction there is frankly worse. I know that's what I've experienced roughly every single time I have leveled up in my career. So no matter which side you're on on this pay attention because if 2026 is going to be a level of leveling up for you, getting more on purpose, getting more into your true purpose and destiny this year, you're going to want to take these field notes with you to make sure that you don't get pulled off track, but you also don't let people near you that are going to try to create a wake of destruction in your path as a leader. So let's take a look at how this idolatry thing starts to happen. And if we think about a little kid who has some sort of unresolved childhood questions about like, am I going to be chosen? Am I going to be seen? If I do this and I finally going to be enough, what ends up happening is that danger starts to come into the picture if somebody's looking for any of those things externally to validate their personal identity. Any system that is built on validation scarcity is almost exclusively likely to produce fixation. So fixation is when you lock in on something and you can't let it go. You start to obsess about it potentially. If you're inclined toward remuneration, then you not only obsess about it, but you remunade on it. And eventually for any of you that tend to hit this sort of fixation obsessive note in your life, whether that manifests through career or ideas or interpersonal relationships, eventually there's always a collapse. This never sustains forever. Something eventually causes a rupture. So if visibility, attention or access, somehow for you makes you feel worthy or it's something that you seek to reinforce your identity, please listen up because you are the prime targets for people who start to turn things into idols. Let's take a quick pause to welcome a brand new sponsor to the show Manu Kura Honey. This is Manuka Honey from New Zealand. They approached me a few weeks ago and I got to try some of their products and I am absolutely in love. But the best part is aside from honey, obviously tasting good. We all love the taste of honey. The health benefits are out of this world. I honestly didn't really know that much about the benefits of honey until I started digging into it and all the literature that they provided to me. And there are different quality ratings of honey. One of the ratings that you can use is called an NGO rating. And as you can imagine, the higher up you go, the better the quality of honey and the honey that I was sent was over 800 MGO. When we're talking about Manuka Honey, we're talking about anti-inflammatory benefits, immune system benefits, GI tract benefits, and just from my past life in traditional Chinese medicine, it also can be used topically for different sorts of rashes and skin conditions. Aside from obviously tasting out of this world, this product is great to add into your daily regimen. I've been having my kids take it every single morning and literally every morning now hardly wakes up and says, mom, oh, where's my honey spoon? So we're having a special offer for you guys today using the code BGHeal. This honey is incredible. I hope that you give it a try and thank you so much Manu Kura. We can't wait to keep promoting your products. What idolatry means in the modern sense is that somehow there is some sort of nervous system regulation that is taking place based on proximity to something. One person or one community can become disproportionately significant. And receiving their attention is going to stabilize and excite. Right, if you get that hit, if you get that like, that comment, if you get a good job, somehow you start to feel like you're enough that you're legitimate, that you're moving in the right direction. But if there's any distance or even what somebody else might perceive as neutrality or you're just kind of like ships passing in the night, suddenly, if you're not getting the hit that you're seeking, it's going to start to lead to destabilization. And cognitively, there are three processes converging here that are important to understand. The first process is called salience assignment. One individual is going to be carrying an outsized sense of importance compared to everybody else. And this does not mean that this person is actually objectively more important. What this means is that whoever the person is that is turning somebody into an idol has given one person or one organization a sense of inflated importance in their lives personally. It doesn't mean that they're actually more important. They've just assigned that meaning to somebody else. The second piece is called relief coupling. Their engagement is going to lower someone's internal tension. Their absence unfortunately raises it. So when there is that proximity or when there is that pressure validation, they actually start to feel sense of relief, right? Their nervous system actually rests and relaxes. And the third is meaning inflation. Even neutral signs that could get interpreted by somebody else might actually start to be received as uncertain or again triggering the nervous system. But here's the thing that most people are going to miss. What's often happening on the outside is that absolutely nothing dramatic is happening at all. The person at the center of this dynamic that might have actually triggered somebody else, it might actually be entirely neutral. They might be busy, focused elsewhere, emotionally contained. In fact, this is one of the things that I now every single time I hire a new employee, I have this conversation with them. And I just had this conversation with our new social media director for booty. Shout out to Jen. She's awesome. But I just from the things that have happened in the past, I've now I've front-loaded this conversation which by the way at the end of this episode, when I give you tips on how to prevent this, this is going to give you the same advice. I broke down exactly what I have seen happen over time. And I reminded her, which can be very important for people like what we're talking about in these dynamics. For me, if I'm in my natural state, right, I'm not like trying to do things differently. I'm not like trying to oppose my patterns and be an awesome epic, you know, very focused person, right? Like if I'm just if I'm exhausted and I'm like back into my old ways, I'm very unlikely to acknowledge or validate or any of those things. I, to me, if you're doing your job properly, I will let you do that completely autonomously and you won't hear from me unless something is wrong. And obviously, I've had to do some work on this and remind myself that like some people need validation and some people need, you know, you're doing such a good job. I have to prompt myself to do that because for me, if someone's doing a good job, like I just leave them alone to do what they're doing because that's what I would want. If I were doing a good job, it'd be like, great, then leave me alone then. So that is how I am naturally as a leader if I'm not trying to oppose my pattern. So I was trying to remind people like, Hey, if you don't hear from me, it's because I think you're doing a great job, right? So that the more space I give you to keep doing what you're doing, that is the sign that you should take as a positive that I trust you. I think you're doing a great job and you should keep doing more of what you're doing. If suddenly I'm messaging you and critiquing and asking for things, it's because something has gone wrong because I naturally don't, I hate my grow managing and I'm usually so focused on other things that I don't want to have to do this. So if something has gone wrong and I have to do this, that's typically what I'll start to hear for me. As I've said, I'm a human being and I have been trying to work on this because I do realize that some people need, you know, they need things. They need to hear that they're doing a great job. So I try to remind myself to do this. Example would be even in my intimate relationship. I'm not somebody if I'm like traveling, I'm not the kind of person that feels the need to text people all the time like, Oh, I miss you. I do. I feel that in my heart. I love my husband so much and when I'm gone, I do miss him, but I'm not typically the kind of person naturally who wants to like text back and forth all the time. But I know that this actually benefits my relationship greatly and it's not something that I don't enjoy. It's just not something my brain naturally thinks of. So as I've, you know, spent more time traveling, this is something that I prioritize. Like, Oh, make sure to text honey bunny and see how he's doing. And a lot of times would be like, Oh, this means so much to me. So I can, this is an example of pattern opposition where just because something isn't natural to somebody doesn't mean that they couldn't, they can't do it and they shouldn't do it because there are plenty of things that we couldn't should do that end up greatly benefiting other people. So this is an example of something for me where it's not my natural settings, but I have learned that some people need this. So I, I have to learn how to embody it. So in this conversation with this new employee, one of the things I kind of shared what kind of like my natural way of doing things is, but I also tried to figure out like, who are you and what do you need and how can I, what are the signals and cues that I can give you that you're doing a good job? And how would you like me to approach you if you, if I need to give you feedback? So this is something that you can establish from the very beginning. And then hindsight, I wish that I had done this with many people from the past, but I did not. I think one of the things that can happen is I know in my life, I'm often when things are happening or people are being hired, I'm so busy doing other things that I don't actually take the time personally to anchor in that relationship or to set it up or to even really wrangle in a lot of ways be a part of the process. So if there's any of this sort of idolatry, what ends up happening is that somebody can kind of become this like character that is represented of, or like a representative of this idolatry, but they might not even be really involved. Like often in a lot of cases, like I've been very far removed from things. And honestly, that's probably what I will encourage you to correct at the end here. But I think the big picture here is that what often happens with a person like this based on those three psychological mechanisms that I just described, anything neutral or even just somebody else being busy, if it's not getting the dangling cared or getting the cheese, so to speak using that term salience assignment, anything other than that will start to become triggering. So even somebody being busy, even somebody in their mind like using my example, if I think you're doing a great job, like I'm just going to leave you to do your thing. For the wrong brain pattern type, me leaving them alone, while in my head, I'm like, you're doing such a great job. If I'm letting you do your thing, you're crushing it. And their mind, they might have made up a whole other narrative that I no longer trust them. And I'm secretly plotting to get rid of them. Meanwhile, in my little world, I'm like, so and so is crashing it. So this just goes to show you can potentially your own insecurities can project this whole thing in your head that's not really based on anything objective that both parties could sit down and have a real conversation about because one person could be living in a totally different world. So what ends up happening here is that there's some sort of expectation. The person who wants to kind of get that dangling carrot or get that cheese and they want the validation or the proximity or the engagement as a way to feel like they're enough or doing enough or in good standing, they form an expectation. But what ends up happening is that that expectation is not actually paired with any sort of consent that person's not like so just so that we're clear anytime you don't congratulate me or anytime you don't like my post or tell me that I did a really good job on this email or like check in with me every couple of days. I'm going to just decide that you hate me. Is that cool? I'm going to decide that you're like judging me hating me and you're trying to get rid of me. Right? That's that's totally fair, right? There's no consent ever happening like that. There's no agreement. There's no promise. There's also no responsibility accepted. Yet that person's nervous system is acting as though that agreement is very much in place. And I am willing to acknowledge that there is a part of this that we've talked about that is happening at the level of self-deception. So that some of this could be subconscious rather than totally conscious. But I do think that most of you listening today you're at least aware that you tend to chase that validation. You chase that feedback. Maybe now you're starting to think about it and maybe like some of these scaffolds are coming crashing down right now. And thanks for continuing to watch because I promise we're going somewhere. If those things are starting to crumble, at least you should be able to admit to yourself that you do seek approval or feedback or validation from others. And if you do, as I've mentioned, you're just a prime candidate for this. And what ends up often happening is that if you don't get the thing that you're craving, somebody or something has to become the bad guy. Idolatry begins when someone else's availability is going to influence your internal state. But more importantly, your actions, your values, your follow-through. And that is the biggest issue here is that what somebody does or doesn't do, even if they're completely unaware of what you wanted or what you're expecting, has the ability to completely destabilize you. And sadly, as we talked about on the previous episode, it has the ability to make you start to justify not actually doing what you were you know, supposed to do or doing things the way that you could or should do them. I know last episode we dug way more deeply into brain patterns. So I'm not going to go too much more into it today. But I do want to remind you that I would encourage you to watch these two episodes back to back. So definitely go watch the other episode first. In break method, we talk about the brain pattern spectrum. There are the abandonment oriented brain patterns on the left side and the rejection oriented brain patterns on the right side. On the end of the spectrum, where individuals learned that safety and worth were actually mediated by inclusion or validation, those are the rejection brain pattern types. And for those people, attention mattered, belonging, mattered, approval, mattered, proximity to caregivers, peers or even authority figures started to signal safety. We talked extensively last episode about the distinction between co-regulation and self-regulation. So these individuals that we're talking about now are much more inclined toward co-regulation. And for these individuals, being included, it wasn't just about feeling good. It actually stabilizes your nervous system and your sense of identity. So this means as you take this out into adulthood, inclusion means that you are somehow legitimized. Validation becomes proof that you are worthy and being seen becomes synonymous with being safe and tag along to safety, financially successful, all of those things. So financial success and career and all of those things can ultimately get tied up underneath safety. This orientation is much more inclined toward anxious attachment. On the left side of the brain pattern spectrum, those people as children found that relying on others was completely unpredictable. Primary caregivers were likely inconsistent, unavailable, maybe just emotionally immature and stable, and they weren't safe to depend on. And as a result, these individuals actually developed self-reliance, self-efficacy. They couldn't look to the outside, because the outside wasn't there. They weren't giving the feedback or the validation that was needed, so they learned how to do it for themselves. They learned how to regularly internally. They learned how to think ahead. We talked about this last episode. What metacognition is they learned metacognition and they learn to self-manage. And they often present as more emotionally contained, decisive and independent. And I want to make this really clear, it's not because they're actually in any way shape or form superior. In fact, when it comes to intimate relationships, these types struggle, prevailing, because they don't actually really know how to be vulnerable. That's just something that I, in my adult life, have had to work extensively on. And praise God, I've been with my husband for seven years, and I'm proud to say that I finally know what that feels like. But it was not without a fight, you guys. So for people that are on this left hand side, there are ways that I'm sure for those of you that might struggle with anxious attachment, every feeling hurt and taking things personally often, you might look at some of these things and be like, oh, well, that would be so much better. I have one client in particular. It's like, that will just say to me, like, why can't I just be you? And in all the ways that this particular client struggles in relationships, yeah, if she could be more like me, would her relationships be more successful? Yeah, for sure. But just simply wanting to be somebody else, that's not actually going to change anything, because then she'd be also bringing all my struggles with her that she also doesn't have. So there's never, there's never that anybody is actually superior. The only thing that's happening here is that because that person as a child couldn't get any sort of validation or a love in a way that felt safe or reliable, they just had to learn to self-generate, which ends up translating really well into career and purpose because you end up as a byproduct having stronger metacognition and you're just more emotionally resilient. So what we talked about on last episode was that often in adulthood, these two sides of the spectrum, they find each other. There's some sort of gravity that draws them together so that they can experience this sort of toxic washing machine cycle of doom. Inclusion-oriented systems are drawn towards self-contained systems. Self-containment to this person reads as authority and even power. And authority can also then read as safety. And as soon as this happens, any sort of hierarchy, where this type of person is toward the top, hierarchy is no longer something that's like social and abstract. It becomes a deeply rooted psychological mechanism. So if you feel safer, more confident or more yourself when you're around certain people, and then you might struggle to figure out who you are and what you want to do when you're by yourself, your nervous system is probably inclusion-oriented. And if you move through the world with less concern for external validation, and you're often more self-reliant, and you just don't really care about authority or power structures until you just seem really neutral, you're probably on the left-hand side. Neither one of these patterns is more moral or superior. The biggest issue that I want you to understand is that these two collide with each other and they get locked in this fixation loop that is guaranteed to cause mass casualties if you're not careful. So let's talk about idolatry without consent. We unfolded how somebody can make somebody an idol and that there's no consent given. Right off in that person has no idea that it's even happening. They're just in their own world. It often begins with hope. And the hope on the person that is actually turning somebody or something into an idol, the hope is that somehow proximity or access to this person is going to change my life. Right? Somehow this is going to change everything. And that hope is that somehow I'll finally feel a sense of self-worth. I'll finally be successful. Finally, you know, look ex-wisey. Think about any like mastermind or group where it's like, if you just enter my group, there's one business influencer in particular that comes to mind. I'm not going to trash her on my podcast. She's a wonderful person. But they're like all of her posts very much give this vibe. Like if you're just in my community, like suddenly you're going to be rich, you know, you're going to unlock your nervous system wealth. Blue, blue blah, blah. I don't even, I can't even say it was true face. Is that true? Maybe, you know, maybe she has some secret magic thing that I don't know about. And maybe every single person that joins her or whatever community magically unlocks their nervous system for wealth. And maybe that's true. That'd be great if it was true. But the reality is like it's probably not true if we look at the numbers. But certainly that's the way it's presented. Like if I just this, then I'm going to have all these other things. Right? If I just join this like abundance manifestation group somehow, I'm going to like unlock my most wealthy year yet. Maybe that's true. But it's probably a bit of snake oil and it's praying on people who want somebody or something to be the thing. Right? So it usually starts with hope. Like maybe this is the thing that's going to change everything. And at first, when this type of person is trying to gain proximity to the person that they're putting in this sort of idle position, you're probably going to put in a lot of effort. You're showing up, you're engaging. Maybe you're investing emotionally intellectually. And of course, in some of these cases, you're investing financially. And I'm sure none of this feels manipulative. It feels really real and honest, right? And you're like, all that hope is like, I just want this to be the thing. Maybe this is going to be the thing. So it's just kind of that like hanging maybe. But what ends up happening eventually is that any sort of attention that you get from that person, right? You're getting that dopamine hit and it keeps you going. But then at any absence, all of a sudden your nervous system is reacting. So the mistake here is that your brain, as you're sort of like investing in your trying all this effort that you're making, it's somehow without consent and without a clear agreement or expectation, there's now some obligation for this other person that may not have any idea what's going on or that you've made this person or this thing an idle in their mind. They're now obligated to do something specific. But guess what? If they have no idea and they weren't part of this agreement, how are they ever going to know what you've decided they should do in your head? And if you say this out loud to yourself, you'd probably be like, okay, well, if I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous, right? And I get that a lot of times that's the way self-disruption works. You're not actually saying it out loud. It's like happening in kind of the dark corners of your mind where you would rather not necessarily look. It might sound in your head like, I've been so consistent. I've supported them. I even aligned myself with their values. But quietly what's happening underneath is that an assumption is forming that that should count for something. My consistency means that I should get XYZ from you. My support of you means that I should have access to XYZ. The person being idolized never agreed to actually regulate yourself worth or your nervous system. And suddenly, when any boundary starts to appear, whether that's actual feedback, negative or even neutral, what ends up happening is that person's nervous system experiences threat. And that threat demands defense. Thoughts like after everything I've put in are going to start to pop up. And the destabilization is going to actually come from expectation that is dashed, but it's going to feel like betrayal. Even if on the other person's side, they have no idea. This is even happening because they weren't part of it. They weren't part of the agreement. It was unspoken. And it was to some extent, part of a fantasy in someone's head. This is where identity coherence is threatened. And we know that this ultimately is a bigger issue over identity. The brain is going to prioritize stability over accuracy or honesty or even objective reality. And this is what we are calling the identity defense device. Perception starts to simplify responsibility. Externalizes, unfortunately, victim narratives start to actually restore internal order. We talked last episode about the psychological mechanism of splitting where your brain has to essentially split things into black and white. Like they're either good or bad, but you can't have a little bit of everything. A person's humanity can't exist anymore. They can't be, they can't have drug supposing qualities. Someone either has to be the idol or the abuser, but there's nothing in between. And this is what happens when admiration actually very quickly flips to accusation. The system collapses because the reality is this was completely unstable from the very beginning. And I think this is important because a lot of people watching from outside, they're like, oh my god, like how did this happen? Like how do you go from this to that? How do you go from this to that? It was literally built on Jell-O. From the beginning, from the outset, one person's entire scaffolding was built on Jell-O and often the other person or the community has no idea. They're just doing what they do. And potentially there's multiple people who have built the same sort of architecture literally on Jell-O and what often ends up happening. This is certainly be the case for me. Then all those people that have done that on a foundation of Jell-O all get together and they're like, yeah, then they all validate each other's stories. When the reality is if you actually reverse engineer it and you walk it back to this point, there's a very different point of origin than that. It's not usually about the rupture itself or the rupture itself having something more sinister or truth-filled because usually it ends up happening when there are suddenly boundaries and feedback put in place or in certain cases being, let go or contract not renewed, etc. When disappointment actually hardens into moral certainty, what ends up happening is that the person that was the idol becomes abusive, narcissistic, manipulative. But what's actually happening is that pain is reflecting some sort of loss identity or even regret or remorse. Example, we put back in what we had just talked about like after all I've done, after all these years I've put in, if somehow in your mind you didn't get the cheese or the dangling carrot that you somehow thought you were entitled to or owed by the thing or the person that you idolized, suddenly this is going to have to happen because you have no other way to reconcile it to move forward. These are five signs that you have gotten pulled into idolatry. I want you to heed these because especially as I mentioned with the social media economy that we live in, more people than just those that have this childhood pattern that I've talked about have gotten pulled into this because really the majority of mainstream marketing is intended to do exactly this, which is why I'm grateful that we don't market any of our things this way because I think it's just fundamentally wrong. Number one, your emotional state is tracking one person's attention. So if you're honest with yourself you think about this one person or this one organization or their community or whatever it is and you fixate on it, you spend too much time thinking about it, it takes up the majority of your time, your day, you compare yourself to this person or this thing and any sort of neutrality or even that absence where nothing is happening suddenly starts to feel charged. That's number two. And then number three, you catch yourself comparing and contrasting. I know that I've seen this even just in like the master trainers on our booty platform. I've seen people start to get obsessive about how many likes or how many comments their workouts have and they'll start to get in their head and my glasthen you can't measure your sense of self worth or how good your workout was based on how many good or bad comments. I've, you know, there have been so many comments that I've on my workouts like back in the day that were awful and then you'll hear from thousands of people like those are my favorite workouts and I'm like, well, certainly not, you know, Shelley in Iowa who thinks that I look like an ugly boy. So I think that is one of the signs, right, is that you're kind of you're looking for a comparison and measurement and that somehow that becomes who you are. Which by the way, if you are like that and you ever do get yourself into a role where you are very front facing, be prepared to hear hateful awful things. And you cannot make that about who you actually are. You're going to have to laugh that off and let it roll off your shoulders because unfortunately it just happens. The bigger you get the more that stuff happens, I've literally had people start like full blown wars with me on a workout where I don't know this person. This happened maybe maybe like two or three months ago. Somebody started writing comments on this one workout that I was on and was acting as if I know her and like started a fight with her on the workout even though I don't know who she is and I certainly didn't do that. But it was like comments deep of just like full blown seething hatred. You can't take that kind of stuff seriously and sadly it does happen. So if you are the type of person that you do get stuck in that comparison trap, heed this warning. And if fantasizing about like what could be or what the future look like provides relief more so than what's happening in the present moment, you're probably putting something up on a pedestal and you're probably idolizing something or giving it power to be your acts like financial access and freedom that it might never be. I've had to tell people this in booty multiple times and I make sure to emphasize this by the way in our master training weekend. Like this is not a lucrative career. Like being a booty master trainer for example and it's B U T I F and if you're listening you're like what is that? It's a yoga dance format that I created way back in the day. This isn't a lucrative career not going to become multi-millionaire becoming a booty master trainer, right? So you have to do it because you love it and because it feeds you on some level of like creativity and passion but it's not going to be your career path to financial success over the long term, right? And I think often what ends up happening is that people come up with this idea of what that's going to look like even though that was never agreed to. We never discuss that. In fact, now I just front facing. I'm like this isn't going to happen. You want to do it because you love it and it's fun but it's never going to be x, y and z. So if you are the person that if you're honest with yourself, you go into that fantasy of like well maybe one day and somehow living in that fantasy of one day keeps you chasing that dangling carrot. If that other person didn't explicitly agree to those things, they can't one day become the bad guy for you not getting those things. And if any sort of feedback feels destabilizing and if you're honest with yourself, you look back in the way that you handled some of it was maybe not on the up and up. This might be for you. If more than one of these is resonating, you probably have a tendency to make things idols in your life and I want to help you restore agency before you eventually start to slip into what I can only call the IDD cycle. I know it's more specific toward personality disorders but eventually you're going to devalue and discard. It's just the way it's going to go. If suddenly you realize that you're not ever going to get the dangling cheese that you somehow thought you're going to get, you're going to have to find a way to discard it without it being that somehow personally you are in the wrong. So if you're listening to this episode and it's feeling a little bit uncomfortable, these are some Eli questions that I put together that you can start to ask yourselves and I'm putting these in a PDF form in the show notes. So go ahead over to the show notes and you can download those. These are some questions that you can ask yourself just for a little self inquiry so that you can see if this is maybe something you need to prioritize in 2026 because I guarantee you the people or the organizations that you're putting in that sort of idle position, they do not want to be there. If they knew that you were doing this, they'd be like, please don't do this. Please no, don't do it because many of the people that are put into these roles, they just want to be a human. They just want to do their thing. They have no contractor ties to you and they don't want to be put in this position because they probably know through experience that it's a matter of time before it leads to some sort of huge blowout that they certainly don't want. So these are some good questions for you to ask yourself. So just remember they are in the show notes. Question number one, these are questions that you're supposed to ask of yourself that help you kind of see the blind spot. Question number one, even if it's uncomfortable to admit it, am I preoccupied with a specific person or what access to them would symbolize in my life? Number two, do I seek validation or feedback from this person or group and feel deflated or hurt if I don't received what I hoped for? Number three, do I want something from this person that was never explicitly discussed, agreed to or promised, and have I filled in the gaps in my head? Right going into that little fantasy piece. Number four, do I have a pattern of highs and lows with people where admiration flips into disappointment and could this actually just be part of a bigger behavioral cycle? Number five, is it possible I'm seeking something unrealistic? Identity, stability, belonging, from another person that's actually just setting us both up for chaos? And number six, can I challenge myself to stop placing myself worth or emotional stability in the hands of someone who never asked for that responsibility and may not even know they're involved in the contract in the first place? This episode is brought to you by Healing Asana, my absolute favorite sauna on the market for a variety of reasons. Number one, my busy mom, I own a bunch of companies and despite my best efforts, I often don't know when I'm going to be able to sneak in 20 minutes of self-care and if you ever owned another sort of infrared sauna, you know that you likely have to plan in advance because you're going to have to eat it up for about an hour if you like it hot. I don't ever have that sort of opportunity. I have to see is the moment and that is the number one reason that I am a huge fan of Healing Asana. It only takes 15-20 minutes. I typically am there about 17 to 18 minutes. You literally turn it on, you sit in it, you zip it up, you can take it with you anywhere you go and it immediately hits full heat. When I first started doing the Healing Asana, I couldn't sweat. My entire detox pathway system was completely compromised. Within a few weeks, profuse sweating. Healing Asana is the thing that I do every single day. It is a non-negotiable for me when I'm traveling and I don't get to fly with it. I miss it and it's the first thing I do when I get home. If you want to try Healing Asana for yourself, you can use code BGHeal for 200 off plus free shipping. You will not regret this. It'll be the best sauna experience you've ever had. When you're asking yourself these questions, the most important thing to do is to kind of witness internally how your brain body, your cell mo wants to answer because typically the way these questions are phrased and this is how Eli questions work, you're able to start to see a blind spot, frankly because of the way the question is asked. If you've been asked in a different way, it might have put up your defense. I don't do that. But the way they're written, it often allows you to maybe see that little crack and open it a little bit and we'll be like, maybe. Just remember that if you are able to get through those questions and you can see that, okay, maybe I do do this, it's okay. You don't have to feel ashamed. This is a childhood pattern that many people experience. But now that you've heard me say it, you do have to do something about it. You do have to stop yourself from doing it because it does literally always lead to destruction. So let's say that you're listening to this and you've found yourself on the receiving end. You kind of are a leader who has had this happen to them. And I think I've said this on podcast before. I'm always lovingly surprised when I'll go talk to another podcast that we're trying to do soon when they're like, oh, I've been watching your, you know, I've been following you and watching your podcast since, you know, woke psych days. If you're watching that, you're probably like, wait, what's that? So the secret thing I did in 2020. So I know that there are a lot of you that watch my podcast. So this one's for you. Five ways that you can buffer damage before it actually happens. So one of the things that you absolutely must do is what I described before, where you make sure you have, if there's going to be a person in your organization, I realize that this is complicated when there's many levels to it. Like we have a lot of employees and there's a lot of different companies. I have tried to remove myself from that process in the past and I can tell you that didn't work. So I mean, let my life be on the chopping block, be the example of that didn't work. If somebody has idolized you because you were a public figure and they want that proximity to your want to be in your organization to some extent because of who they think you are, if you're not part of that initial process of hiring and you don't have a chance to do this, you haven't actually solved this problem at all. You've actually allowed them to keep doing this in their own head and you still get to be this kind of figurative idol slash bad guy if something goes wrong and you might not have even had an interaction with them. So I would encourage you, no matter how big your organization is, I think it be hooves you if this has happened to you in the past to actually sit down and have the conversation that I shared with you that I had with my new social media manager for one of the companies, which is to be very clear about kind of who you are and how you do things and like be clear about your humanity. And this is something that ironically I've done time and time again, even in break method, I always teach from the perspective of like, I'm a human, I'm not like up here telling you what to do because I've like somehow got it all magically figured out. No, like I have relationship problems. I just think on the general average, if I were to compare my relationship to kind of a randomly sampled relationship, we fix things faster and avoid a lot of problems because we both know break method, right? So that doesn't mean that conflicts don't still come up. They do. I get run down, travel, starts to break things down, those things are all real. So I think being really front facing with new people like, hey, remember, you might know of me in this context. I'm a human. There can be days that I'm in a bad mood. There are going to be days that I'm run down and tired or I'm sick. And unfortunately, because I run the company, I don't have a choice to like not come into work. So just know that sometimes it's going to happen and just know that I'm the type of person that if I were upset at you, I would, you know, if there was something specific, I would come to you to tell you directly. So having those sort of front facing conversations is essential. I will do that literally forever more. I don't care how many employees I have. I will never not do that ever again because me trying to separate myself from this process because everyone's like, oh, you shouldn't up to do that. You should buffer yourself. Let me tell you did not protect me at all. So have those conversations. And I do this with very large companies where people are, you know, huge front facing media personalities. It behooves you to take the time to have that conversation even if it's a employee that you feel that you'll probably never interact with. They need to know that early. Number two, very explicit roles with very explicit expectations example with the booty master trainers me saying explicitly like, hey, if in your head, you've decided that, you know, getting to the top of booty will look like x, y, and z, and we're making all this money. Let me be the first to tell you it won't. Right. So be very explicit about expectations from the beginning. I think this just brings up a whole separate point that maybe I'll do a whole other episode on. I think the way things have gone especially on social media where like the top performing social media accounts are basically like people teaching you how to make money that have only made money by teaching you how to make money but have an actually run business as themselves. It's like kind of its own pyramid scheme, but whatever that's fine. That seems to be a lot of what's out there. So people are kind of chasing this idea like everybody can be wealthy and everyone's kind of chasing wealth and then they end up I think often creating the sense of entitlement in people where everyone like, I'm worth so much more like, you know, so and so influencer told me that I should ask for more. I'm worth more. But what honestly ends up happening and I can tell you this because I work on the back end of a lot of big corporations more often than not. The companies that are really crushing it like really crushing it. They're the companies that you would know of that would have brand recognition. Quite often the thing that I hear all the time is that the company doesn't they they're not paying out the like top of the pay scales. In fact, you know, kind of there's this sense like, hey, like if you want to work here, like you're lucky to work here and like this is what we pay and like if you don't, if this isn't going to work for you, then like go find something else. Often people, I say this, as people have this idea that somehow people pay more than they do or people make more than they do. And I think often you don't really get to wrap your head fully around this until you're a business owner yourself or you run a business that has complex revenue streams and you understand like profit and loss statements and like operating expenses all that. Until you really can wrap your head around that, I think often people in their mind like they assume what something's going to be and then those things get dashed and then even from the beginning, like let's say they really want this job and they think the pay scale is going to be X. And then they get there and they really realize that the pay scale is Y, but they really want the job so they take it, but they'd somewhat take it already with underlying resentment. I did talk about this on last week's episode. The responsibility is on the person actually who said yes, but is actually harboring resentment and bitterness because the other person didn't actually, they're not contradicting themselves. They were clear and had clear boundaries. So this is an example of this type of person that like they make a company or a brand or a person an idol, they might create all these things in their head and have this internal bitterness that isn't actually matching the objective record. So make sure you really drill this one down and like kind of pre-evaluate what some of those things that person could come up with so you can just kind of dash them from the beginning because that's going to protect you in the long run. Make sure that you're very clear on what feedback style you have and let's say for example, you aren't going to be the one giving them feedback. I would make it really clear whether you're at all involved in that feedback or not because this is a true story. I've had people blame me for feedback that wasn't even given from me and I'm like, whoa, wait, I'm the bad guy when I'm not even the one that like caught this or found this like somehow everything comes from the top down. You guys, that's totally false. So maybe even be clear about what feedback you're involved in or not involved in and make that very clear. Also, early neutral boundaries and this is a hard one and it's especially hard for me because I have a love for people. Anytime friendship becomes something that's on the table, people that are inclined toward this sort of idolatry, they're looking for who you are talking to more, who you are befriending and it becomes some sort of deficit or that they're not being chosen when you might again on the other side of this might have no idea this is taking place. You're just like living your life, talking to people and if that person is like, well, they talk to this person more than this person or they take this person to launch more than this person. Suddenly, you're having all these tally marks of being this bad guy that plays favorites when you have literally no idea it's even happening. So as much as you can, and I know that it's hard and like I said, this one's hard for me too, try to have early, very clear but neutral boundaries and try your hardest to keep business business. And I know that that is way easier, something done, but it certainly makes this easier. And then also, this is a very important one. At the earliest signs that this person is regulating their self-worth based on your attention or your feedback, check them. The second you notice it, make a clear boundary. Hey, I understand the childhood pattern here, but this doesn't work in my organization. So if this happens again, this isn't going to work out anymore. This is something that honestly, I wish with virtually every time this has ever happened to me, I saw it coming so early on and I want, I so badly want to believe people are capable of changing. And often I've like, this has happened to me. I've let somebody back in and then they eventually do the same thing all over again and people in my life are like busy, stopping such a forgiving person. So keep that in mind. The second it happens, I would encourage you to give a one, one more and done sort of boundary and not give them too much room to continue to act this out. And of course, you want to do that in a way that is again, direct and neutral, but just say, Hey, I understand where this comes from. This has happened to me in the past, but we just have a zero tolerance policy for this. And to be honest with you, now with corporations that I work with with predictive mind and brain pattern mapping, we just scan for this because some organizations, especially that have a brand spokesperson or kind of more of that like visionary founder role, they tend to attract this sort of behavior in troves. And it can actually be prevented by simply not bringing people like this onto the team. So if you run a company and you don't want this to happen to you, we can also use predictive in a mind to actually weed these people out. But let's say that you search notice this, you have to correct it immediately. It's so important. You know what this type of work I'm always looking at how the macro mimics the micro and vice versa. So I want us to all step back and look at this pattern at scale because it becomes really clear that what we've been talking about today isn't rare and it's not personal and actually is structural and it's happening literally all over our culture at the moment. We are living in a culture through social media and technology that trains people to outsource their sense of worth and belonging. And attention is scarce, right? There's a lot of people out there all trying to do things. So the more that explodes, the harder it is to get. And we already know that social media works off of that sort of intermittent validation. So visibility and proximity and power, these end up being currencies and unfortunately the people that end up kind of naturally gaining sort of this power and visibility tend to be these types of people. And it's not an exclusive role, but they tend to be these types of people who don't want to be in contracts like this. They are not these type of people at all. So they will fail you every time. If they had any idea what you were trying to put them into as a role, they'd be like, no, no, no, I'm not your guy. Please no, no, no, don't do this. So if we're looking at the way things have gone, if you on either side of this don't start to check yourself and your behavior and stop making things idols or stop letting your idol fail you when they had no idea that they were an idol in the first place and never asked to be there. If we don't stop this, it will literally just continue to snowball. And I'm telling you right now, every human being on earth is fallible. That is the way it goes out. And we need to remember that people should be able to be human. No one should be idolized. You know, I know that you guys know that I'm a Christian. So, you know, there was someone who is worthy. I believe it was Jesus. But I even think that people make that an idol in their life. No idols, you guys. Everything in this life is fallible. And if we kind of take away the room for people to have good and bad days and we put people into these roles that they never asked to be in, we will just continually start to cause these cycles of drama and gossip and chaos. And you better believe this happens in political environments that's happens in government. And at some point, we have to stop because collapse is inevitable. And an idol will fall, communities will fracture, public narratives can flip overnight. And I want to be really clear, this doesn't actually have to mean that anything in objective reality ever took place. I go back to the Jell-O analogy. It has everything to do with some people have a foundation that is as rock solid as Jell-O. And often other people or organizations have no idea that they're even a part of this game. Until obviously everything is spiraling out of control. We have created a system that actually destabilizes our culture and destabilizes individuals because we're just playing out this toxic cycle. So I think we have to look at how we're even stepping into these systems, how we're engaging with them. When individuals reclaim responsibility for their own worth, fixation actually starts to lose its need or its fuel. And if you start to learn to carry your worth internally, proximity stops being dangerous. There are plenty of people in my life that I know have strong self-efficacy and they're independent and they don't need me to validate them. And they're often the people that I end up naturally feeling more inclined to building friendships with because they feel safer to me than a person that wants to be picked or chosen all the time. So this is kind of the biggest irony of more that anxious attachment validation seeking type is that to a person that they're likely trying to attract or get that attention from, that energy or presentation will actually be literally repulsive. It will repel that person from you because you will read as unsafe. And I want you to really remind yourself about the importance of consent. I know in the world that we live in today, consent is talked about often in relationship sort of like sexual intimacy sort of containers. But consent is important all the time. If you are in your mind deciding what somebody shouldn't do and how they should treat you, but you've never explicitly talked about it and come to an agreement on it, then there's no consent given you cannot hold that person to that. And I want to close with one just little story that happened to me. And and this is I think it's a perfect representation of this. It's actually me trying to express my boundaries and personal limitations and then a person that kind of falls into this category. I'm still wanting to see it as a negative and I'll let you kind of take it as you will. So when I had river, river actually just turned for recently. So that can't believe it was four years ago. But I had river. Let's just say I got a lot of baby presence and a lot of times I'll get people sending me stuff that I don't like I don't know who they are. I don't know who it was that sent it. Some people will like send gifting things and you never know like sometimes the card doesn't come. It's you don't know who it came from. But I'll just say that I got a lot of stuff sent to me when river was born and I was really grateful for all of it. But to also give some childhood context. My mom is like an obsessive gift giver and card writer and she's the kind of person that will send it and then every so did you get it yet? Did you get it yet? Did you get it yet? And she really just once we evaluated how thoughtful the present was. We're really it's less about the act of giving because I really wanted to give it. It's more about the accolade or like how pretty it was or how perfect it was. Right. So I grew up with that sort of energy and sort of, you know, non-consensual gift giving relationship with my mom. So I've always just kind of had this personal version to like if I give something it's because I really want to give it and I don't care at all about the thank you or anything like that. I don't give anything that I didn't really willingly want to give and I have no expectation of anything in return. And because of that I get to be lovingly surprised all the time and I don't take things personally because I just, you know, if I'm going to give something I want to give it. In this particular situation, I dare not write a thank you card to this person. And for what it's worth, I don't write thank you cards. I just don't, I've never been a thank you card person. It doesn't mean that I'm not grateful. Of course I'm grateful. I'm just not the kind of person that's going to like take the time to write a bunch of thank you cards. So in this particular situation, there were a bunch of presents that happened at the same time and by the way of you've ever had a baby like you're not necessarily operating as your best self when you just had a baby. And I, you know, just went on with my life and actually River loved the presents that they gave this person and, you know, were that this person gave him and still to this day has it in his room. But one day I get this call that's like, hey, just so you know, I thought it was really rude that you didn't say thank you for the present. And I was like, oh, which, which present was it again? It was like this thing. And I was like, oh, thank you so much. You know, River uses that all the time. It was so sweet and kind. Yeah, well, but that's not the same thing is actually reaching out and saying thank you. And I'm like, okay, well, here's what I'll say about that. I really am so grateful for the present. River loves it. And I'm just honestly, I'm not that kind of person. So I really appreciate it. But just in the future, if that's how gift giving is going to be, I'd really like my preference. I really appreciate the gesture, but I'd just prefer not to get the gift. Then, of course, that opens up this other kind of worms. And like, you don't, you don't do you ever like reach out and check on me. And I was like, listen, this is maybe like the most honest conversation I had ever had with a friend because I've had to navigate this so many times. And I firmly believe that the the honest, the honesty piece of this is the most important. And she took this as a cop out. And it is what it is. And I will love this person anyways from afar. So this brought up this other thing where after I'd said, you know, to me, like I'd rather just not get the gift. So I appreciate the gesture, but blah, blah, blah, you know, and like, you don't ever reach out and check on me. I tried to emphasize in that moment, I have spent so much of my life trying to like over give to different people and juggle so many balls in the air. And I'm at a place in my life as an adult and my level of like self awareness. I know what I can and can't give. And I'm not the kind of friend that can do the, you know, check in. I'm not going to like check in all the time. I'm not going to like text back and forth all the time. But example would be the friends that I am really close with. I love them. They're like, Hey, if it's an emergency, like use this emoji because I'm not going to bail on you when you need me. But I'm also not the friend that's going to be like, Hey, just wanted to check in. Like, how are things going? Want to chat? There's way too much going on in my life. I don't actually have the time literally. So in this moment, I had to say to this person, like, Hey, I love you. And I think you're wonderful. And I wish that I had more time to nurture our friendship. But with four kids and a husband and businesses and just having had a baby, I don't, I wish I did, but I don't have the actual time to pour into a friendship right now. So as a friend, I'm probably always going to be failing you. And if you don't want to be my friend because of that, I completely understand and respect that. But I don't have the time to put into a friendship right now. So if that's okay with you, then we can just kind of, you know, see or talk to each other when it happens naturally. And I can kind of love you from afar. But I don't have the time and energy to put into that right now. I just feel like that's a cop out. That might be true. But the reality is that was an honest conversation. And that was probably the smartest thing I could have done in that moment because if I hadn't have said those things, then I would have always been failing that person rather than for me just to say to that person like, Hey, this is, we're not a good fit. We're not compatible because I literally don't have this to give to this relationship right now. And I can wish this person well and love them from afar and also know that I wasn't able to be the friend to them that they needed at that time. And that's okay. But that example is representative of what we have to be pushing toward here. And will it hurt feelings in the moment? Yeah, it will, but I think you should have those conversations sooner than later. I think you should do this self-exploration to figure out who you are and what bandwidth you have or don't have so that you can be clear on that. Shout out to Adrian, a love. We've been through the ringer for years and years and years. And she's the friend where I was like, Hey, if it's an emergency, you gotta tell me. Because I will always make a way if a person really, really needs me. But we've had to learn through our friendship over the years that mean you're not hearing from me. It doesn't mean that I'm not thinking about you. It just means that I'm busy with so many other things. But typically, if that person's like, Hey, I need you, I'm there. I am loyal to a fault. But I'm not the type of person to be like constantly checking in. So keep in mind that for some of you that are looking for that check in, other people may not have any idea. And you should have those honest conversations. You should learn who people are and not take that as a cop out, right? You should, it's literally just like a clearly articulated boundary. And if people can be honest, then we don't set people up with expectations that are unreasonable. And we prevent total calamity like what ends up often happening. Because eventually everything that we've broken down today, it will require a villain every time. Idoletry eventually requires a villain. There's no way out of that. And when individuals make that shift and stop making people or companies or brands idols, eventually culture will start to shift. And I want to see the culture as a whole shift. I want to see people and humanity stabilize. Because systems cannot continue to carry this weight. And it will happen that over time, we're just going to go idle villain, idle villain, victim will pressure. It just will always happen. And no system or person was meant to carry someone else's self worth or validate them. That is not how human beings work best. That is not how we thrive. So instead of being the type of person that tears pedestals down, I would encourage you to just learn how to stop building them in the first place. And at some point, we have to start identifying the way that we contribute to this and engage with these corrupt systems. Because I'm telling you right now, they are built to fail every single one of us. So as you go into 2026, I would encourage you to take a look at what your Instagram feed looks like. What does your content consumption look like? Who are you giving power and authority to? That is just a complete setup for them to fail you when they might not have any idea. Focus on yourself. Focus on your relationship with God. Focus on what God or whatever you want to call that is calling you to do. How do you stay in your lane? And learn how to love it. Because when you give your power and your attention away to something else, it's just always a setup to fail. So I hope that this episode exposed some of that for you so that you can take the steps to stop making things idols because I'm telling you on both sides of this, it leads to destruction. And I've seen what happens to the community in between. And it's so unnecessary and it's so painful and people don't understand it because they don't understand these dynamics happening behind the curtain. But my hope is that from listening to this episode, you now do and you can do your part to stop it. I hope you guys have an amazing new year leading into 2026. I think this will end up being the first episode of the new year. And I'm super excited for that. I think it's going to be a great one. I've got all the episodes planned for season two. So we're going to be continuing on these sort of foundational building blocks. We're going to be going into gas lighting next. Gas lighting is a very important concept. People have to understand how to properly describe it, identify it, etc. and understand different types of gas lighting. I want to make sure that you are equipped with being able to understand how these mechanisms function in systems so that you can protect yourselves from them, but also perhaps stop labeling them in a way that is not accurate or using them as a scapegoat or an excuse one. It might not actually be happening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please share it with somebody who might need this sort of exposure. If nothing else because everyone's lives get better when we start to kind of tear down these corrupt systems and realize who we are and what we're capable of without making that dependent on somebody else because they might not have any idea. All right, y'all, love you. Happy 2026 and I'll see you in the new year. Your brain isn't broken. It's running an old code. Break Method is a system that maps your neurological patterns, decodes your emotional distortions, and rewires your behavior fast. No talk therapy spiral, no getting stuck in your feelings, just logic-based rewiring in 20 weeks or less. Head to breakmethod.com and see what your brain is really up to. Your brain is wired for deception, but here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen?