 One of my favorite quotes is from a man by the name of Otto von Bismarck. And he says, only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. Sometimes what I like to do is kind of like that quote I said in the beginning is I try to check out what's going on in the YouTube community and see what lessons we can learn from them. Because if you're like me and constantly trying to improve your mental and emotional wellbeing, this is crucial. So make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And in case you missed it, right now we are in a very crazy time and a lot of people are dealing with anxiety. I actually did an interview with a world famous psychologist, Dr. Judson Brewer. And we talked about coping with anxiety during this crazy time. So that'll be linked up in the info card. Make sure you go check it out. All right, so unless you were living under a rock last year, it was one of the craziest things to ever happen in the YouTube community. And it was all the drama revolving around Tati Westbrook, James Charles and Jeffree Star. And to make it very clear, I could absolutely care less. All right, but I'm always trying to look at other situations because something I noticed about myself a very, very long time ago when I first got sober was I was constantly judging other people, right? And I was like, wait a second, Chris, like you need to look at your own life. You know what I mean? Because that is something that, you know, I did constantly, I was constantly looking at others while neglecting what was going on in my personal life. So that's one of the reasons why I like to look at what I'm seeing and see, huh, how does this relate to me? Because after this huge fallout with Jeffree Star and James Charles and everything like that, it's been close to a year that happened last April, last May. And so we're coming up on it, right? And yeah, I want to talk about power dynamics staying in or going back to not so great relationships because James Charles was trending number one with a video he did with Charlie D'Amelio. I think I'm saying that right. And Jeffree Star ended up retweeting Charlie and saying, you look so gorgeous, James killed it per usual. So again, in case you didn't watch like James Charles full like 45 minute video called Like No More Lies, Jeffree accused James of very, very, very serious accusations, like the type of accusations that could put somebody in prison. And Jeffree said that he had receipts and he was going to put them out there. But then Jeffree Star came back with a video saying he's done with it. He's done with all the drama and everything like that. So almost a year later, we see this and yeah, when I saw this, I wanted to talk about being in relationships where there is this kind of power dynamic, okay? Like have you ever been in a romantic relationship where the other person was treating you terribly, emotionally, verbally, worst case, physically, right? And you stayed in that relationship because they were supporting you financially. Like personally, I cannot tell you how many people I've met, like especially when I was working at the Drug and Alcohol Rehab where they stayed in these awful, toxic, abusive relationships because the other person was financially supporting them. The other person paid all the bills, they paid their car payment or gave them money to go shopping and everything like that. And they stayed in this relationship because they didn't know what to do if they left. Like where would this money come from, right? This person maybe put their job, their career, their education on the back burner because this person was supporting them financially. Now, in relation to the Jeffree Star, James Charles thing, obviously James Charles is a young millionaire and he's supporting himself but last year that whole situation did hit James Charles financially, okay? Like there's no doubt about that but have you ever been at one of those jobs or every single day, every single day you go into that terrible job and you hate being there and a lot of it has to do with your boss or your supervisor. They're constantly condescending, they're talking down to you. You know, they yell at you or they berate you or they have you work a ton of hours and you don't get any appreciation, right? But there's this fear of leaving that job because it, again, is paying your bills and there's this kind of financial power dynamic. Like something my beautiful girlfriend, Tristan and I watch all the time. Like and we pay attention to is there's so many different shows, documentaries and everything where you see people doing, being told, being encouraged to do terrible things at their job because they're afraid of losing that job. And something that I try to do for my own wellbeing is I try to check in with my values on a regular basis, right? On a regular basis, I try to check in with my values and say what is the most important thing in my life, right, what are the top three most important things in my life, right? I have people like my beautiful girlfriend, Tristan, my son, my friends and family, my personal wellbeing, the health and wellness of people in my lives and things like that because something I learned a long time ago is that money didn't make me happy, right? Like as many of you know, I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I've been clean seven and a half years. In my act of addiction, I made more money than I had ever made in my life but I was so miserable still. Like why was I still turning the drugs and alcohol to numb this pain that I constantly had, right? And when I finally came out of that delusion, I was living in, I was like, huh, having all that stuff never truly made me happy. So I think that's something that we all need to check in with, right? When we're sitting in a terrible relationship with a significant other, right? And we think about how they're supporting us financially. Like how much weight are we putting on the financial aspect of our life, right? We all need food and clothes and a roof over our head and everything like that. But when we stay in this mindset of feeling obligated to a person because of the financial end of it, our view gets very skewed, right? We don't think about all the other options. We don't think about other loved ones, people who love and care about us who would be more than happy to support us if it meant we were getting out of a terrible situation, whether it's a relationship or a job, right? So when I look at this situation with James Charles and Jeffree Star, I'm like, it would be a terrible idea for James Charles to get a little bit of support, a little bit of support from Jeffree Star and walk back into that relationship. I'll tell you this, one of the decisions I made in my life years ago, probably like 10 years ago, like years before I actually even got sober, was I was in a situation where I was, it was either pick this woman or this woman, right? There was one woman where I care and loved her a lot more than the other one, but I ended up going down this route because this other woman was supporting me financially. At that time I was unemployed and she was paying for my bills, she was buying me food, she was buying me booze. Think she even bought me some drugs, right? So my entire decision was based off of what she could give me. But that relationship was extremely, extremely toxic. So something I worked on for a very, very, very, very long time was being 100% self-sufficient, right? Knowing that I didn't need anybody to be okay, right? And part of that was on an emotional level. I stayed single for a year and a half so I didn't have to be reliant on somebody else to make me feel good, to make me feel less depressed or less lonely, right? And when I did that, I was able to raise my bar of who I was willing to date, but more importantly, the friends I had in my life, right? Like I used to have a friend who bought me everything. He took me out to dinner and, you know, we were roommates for a little while and he would cover my rent, but the dude sucked to live with, he sucked, right? So when I look at this situation with James Charles and Jeffrey Stardt, it reminds me of like going back to an ex or going back to a job that you absolutely hate if that were to happen, right? And some of it, some of this situation right here is not something that you or I could really relate to, but there's this kind of emotional hostage situation. If you remember, we discussed that a little bit after, you know, Trisha Paytas set all those tweets about her mental health directed at Anthony Padilla. Well, in this situation, it's similar, but it's another form of emotional manipulation, even if it's not as blatant, because Jeffrey Stardt does have a history of destroying careers, right? So it's better to be on his good side than on his bad side, right? So for someone like you or me, we need to look at that. Like sometimes, for example, at work, we just gotta play the game. We just gotta play the game, baby, right? Where we just, we do it from a distance and maybe we're cordial to someone because they could affect our livelihood, but there comes a point where we ask ourselves like, am I okay with this? Can I deal with this? Can I tolerate this? Do I wanna come into this situation every single day? For me personally, I've had jobs where that's a yes, I've had jobs where that's a no, but the one thing that breaks my heart more than anything is watching people stay at jobs because it pays them or pays them well, and they refuse to leave it. Like I know currently, currently is a terrible example because the economy is tanking right now, but typically when things are going well, like something I taught my clients, something I tell my friends is there are an endless amount of jobs out there. You do not have to stay stuck here. Now, our brain tells you that that's not true and that we couldn't get another job, but if you are a good hard worker, you will survive. Last thing I'll say, my beautiful girlfriend, Tristan and I, we have a friend right now who recently lost a job, right? And she hustled. She hustled. We're talking like 50 applications a day. Boom! Got a new job and things are starting to look up. She got a new job after this whole outbreak pandemic. So don't let your brain lie to you and say that you have to stay in a situation because that makes us tunnel vision, makes us believe that we have to stay in that situation. Okay? So in a situation like this, be very mindful if there's a power dynamic going on and that person holds some kind of financial state over you and look at the pros and cons and realize what you're valuing in your life. All right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up if you're new. Make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon, as well as everybody who supports the channel by buying my mental health books at therewiredsoul.com and who buys the Rewired Soul merch. I appreciate you. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.