 With all of the talk recently of places like Vice and Buzzfeed getting so offended about Dave Chappelle's new stand-up special, I wanted to take a moment to shine a spotlight on someone who isn't nearly as fragile and see what we can learn from him. And that is Taylor Nicole Dean. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. If you're new to my channel, what I try to do is take different topics going on in the YouTube community, try to see what lessons we can learn from them to improve our own mental and emotional well-being. And two things that I'm extremely passionate about are mental health and addiction recovery. So if you're into any of that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And real quick, just a reminder for those of you who are here, my schedule has changed vastly and I'm surprised that I've been still doing daily uploads. But anyways, if you're not yet, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul because I have a bunch of stuff that I'm working on and I don't know how my schedule is going to be still. So follow me on social media is the best way to make sure that you don't miss anything. So yeah, real quick disclaimer for those of you who don't know me before I jump into this topic, I am not a licensed therapist or a psychologist. My experience is I am seven years clean and sober, much like Taylor Nicole Dean. My drug of choice was opioids. All right, aside from that, I worked in a drug and alcohol treatment center for a little over three years. We specialize in dual diagnosis treatment, which means we treated addiction as well as mental health issues. All right, on top of that, I am a certified life coach and I am currently pursuing my CADC, which is a certified alcohol and drug counselor license. All right, real quick backstory. Okay, so I've made some videos about Taylor Nicole Dean in the past. I made quite a few videos like praising her and discussing what we can learn from her. So the first time she went to treatment, like that was awesome. She ended up relapsing and going back to treatment. And it's huge to be able to go back to treatment after you just got out. And when she got out of treatment, she even broke up with her abusive ex-boyfriend. But the second I got a little bit critical about Taylor Nicole Dean, people lost their minds and I was absolutely blown away. And if you want some more backstory on that whole situation, make sure you pick up a copy of my book, Canceled Inside YouTube, Cancel Culture. It's out now and the ebook version is free for the next two days until the end of August. That's down in the description, down in the pinned comment below. But yeah, much like any of us when we're in early recovery, Taylor Nicole Dean has made some mistakes. Like something that I try to teach people is I made literally every mistake you can imagine my first year. Hell, my first two years of recovery. But we're taught one thing, no matter what happens, just don't pick up no matter what. Do not pick up a drink or a drug. And when it comes to that, Taylor Nicole Dean is doing phenomenal. Like she's still clean and sober. Not only did she complete her treatment program, but she's currently going to an outpatient program, which a lot of people don't do. A lot of people just go through residential treatment and then like, I'm done. But IOP is amazing because it helps you start to deal with the new struggles that you're going to face when you're living a life of sobriety. So it's awesome that she's doing outpatient. So many of you know, I've been reading this book by Jonathan Haight, which is called The Coddling of the American Mind and it's absolutely phenomenal. I'm almost done with the book and I'm going to check out his other book called The Happiness Hypothesis. But anyways, I was introduced to this author from the YouTuber Dr. Mike, and Dr. Mike actually recently interviewed him, and here's a quick clip about something called anti-fragility. And I think you do a really good job summing up how in trying to protect us to make sure that we face less discrimination, less hardship, because of that, we've actually heard ourselves. That's right. So it's so easy to convey. I know you really focus on like explaining scientific and psychological principles. One principle, everything becomes clear. That principle is called anti-fragility. We all know what it is to be fragile. So this glass is fragile. If you knock it over, it might break. Therefore, we don't let kids play with glass. We give them plastic because plastic, if you bang it, if you drop it, it doesn't break. So plastic is resilient, we say, but what is the word for things that get stronger when you drop them? Well, we don't have one in English. And so Nassim Taleb, the guy who wrote the book The Black Swan, was meditating on this and he was looking at systems that actually need to be dropped. They need to be challenged. They need to face stress. And there's no word in English, so he made up the word anti-fragile. So yeah, this is something that he talks about throughout the book. We are not these fragile little creatures, all right? Not us addicts in recovery and just not us as human beings. But something else that Jonathan talks about throughout this book is cognitive behavioral therapy. Those of you who don't know what cognitive behavioral therapy is, it is like the number one evidence-based treatment. It is scientifically proven to help rewire your brain. And a major part of cognitive behavioral therapy is to catch cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are the lies that our brain tells us. The lies that, oh, this is the worst thing to ever happen to me. This is called catastrophizing or, oh my god, the world is going to end because of this. Or things like black and white thinking or validating emotions that might be dysregulated. These are thinking errors. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps you get out of those thinking traps to improve your mental health. And what the author talks about in the book is with the coddling that goes on, is that it's doing the exact opposite of cognitive behavioral therapy because we're encouraging the cognitive distortions of others. And one of my favorite parts of the book is Jonathan, he does this kind of thought experiment where he asks you to imagine if you saw a therapist or a psychologist and they actually played into your thinking errors. And when you do that, when you do that little experiment, it opens up your mind because it's just so absolutely silly. All right, so let's get back to talking about Taylor and Nicole Dean. So like, yeah, when I made my video being a little bit critical of her, people were losing it. And they're like, she's brand new in recovery. She just got out of rehab. Don't make videos about her. What if she relapses? Oh my god, I can't believe you said something critical of Taylor and Nicole Dean. And I'm like, really, really? So now let's just, let's do Jonathan hates thought experiment and let's imagine Taylor Nicole Dean working with a counselor at her treatment center and let's pretend the conversation goes like this. I'm worried about leaving treatment and going back to the real world. As you should be, Taylor, if anyone talks about your recovery, you might relapse. We need to make sure you're safe at all times or it might kill you. Let's figure out a way to ensure that nobody ever says anything that upsets you so we can keep you safe. But you told me to get a sponsor and what if my sponsor says something that I don't like? Well, Taylor, you're going to need to find a new sponsor because we can't have someone telling you something that you might not like. Pretty silly, right? So yeah, when I was working at the treatment center and I still volunteer at a treatment center once a week, I hear about the real struggles that people are going through in early recovery. Things like losing their children, their family, you know, not wanting to talk to them or have anything to do with them, right? And I also hear just like really trivial complaints, you know, like, oh my God, we had chicken three nights in a row for dinner lines like, yeah, okay, get out of here. But something that I remind them constantly like my first two years of recovery were the most difficult years of my life. Because for those of us who get clean and sober, like the one thing that we turn to or two things drugs and alcohol, like we can't do that anymore. So we're having to learn how to deal with life without it. And in my early recovery, I was broke. I had no money. I was riding the bus. Family, friends wouldn't talk to me. I wasn't allowed to see my son and everything. So I remind people in early recovery, like, this is good. All right. Facing adversity in early recovery is good. I tell them all the time, I'm like, I hope, I hope you struggle in early recovery because it strengthens you. I have met so many people who got everything back. Like they just got sober and they didn't hit the same rock bottom that some of us do. They got everything back. Like their family took them back. I've seen families buy people cars, apartments, get them jobs and everything. And I've seen a lot of those people who didn't go through the struggle relapse right away, right? So something I try to teach people is I never want them to believe that just because you got sober, the world's going to be unicorns and rainbows. Everything's going to be perfect. Like that's just not the way life works. Life has this way of just slapping you right in the face out of nowhere, right? But you gain strength and resilience by walking through it because every single situation that you go through, this is something I learned a long time ago, every single bad situation or struggle that you've ever been through, it is strengthening you. So when you face new challenges, you look back, you pull out of the old memory break and you're like, oh, I've been through much worse than this before. So yeah, I understand that Taylor is in early recovery and that is the most vulnerable time of recovery, but the girl is doing phenomenal, all right? Like and here's the thing, like I want you guys to also think about this. Some of you know my story. Some of you don't. But throughout this year, it's been brutal. I have literally had dozens upon dozens of hate videos made about me on YouTube. I have had hundreds of thousands of strangers just saying the worst things to me that you can imagine, the name calling, the insults, the harassment, the death threats, okay? All of these things. And guess what? I'm still sober and I still got this big goofy smile on my face, right? So I want you to think about that, like if I can get through this, what can you get through? If Taylor Nicole Dean can get through what she's been through, what can you get through? I just wish that people when they want to go like defend others and start coddling them and protecting them and everything, like try to remember people like Taylor Nicole Dean, people like myself, other addicts in recovery, other people like maybe you watching this video, you've been through some real struggles in your life and you've survived, right? A lot of people don't realize this and they want to protect you. They just want to protect you. And while it comes with, from good intentions, it's actually doing us more harm than good. But I just wish people would realize that we are survivors. Chances are if you're watching this, you are a survivor. Did you watch Taylor Nicole Dean's story? That woman is a survivor, okay? She doesn't need people protecting her. She is doing phenomenal. And the last thing I will say is this, as somebody who is an addict in recovery and some of you might be able to relate to this, even if you just like struggle with like mental health issues or other forms of adversity, like frankly, like I find it insulting. Like I personally find it insulting when people try to baby me and coddle me and protect me. Like I live in Las Vegas, right? And you know, I don't recommend going to like concerts or parties or anything like that in early recovery. Like that's a bad idea. Another mistake that I made in early recovery, but I didn't get high or drunk. But anyways, like I go out and like sometimes like people who aren't familiar with my recovery or, you know, it happened a lot when I was like two, three years sober. Like people would try to protect me like, oh my God, oh my God, Chris, Chris, there's alcohol here. Oh, oh, oh, you can't do this, right? And I'm like, that's insulting. Like I'm a grown-ass man. Like I understand that you're concerned about me, but yo, like let me, let me go on my own journey. You know what I mean? Like I hope those of you out there, because many of you are not in addiction recovery, but most of you know someone who is either addicted or in recovery. And I really hope you learn from this video. Like quit coddling them so much. All right? Like I could do more videos, but it's the same thing with like parenting, man. Like sometimes our kids got to screw up so they learn. We can't protect them every step of the way. But anyways, I'm talking way too long. But anyways, like I said, I'm super proud of Taylor Nicole Dean. She's doing awesome. Her video, just sharing her story is like over a million views. I think it's almost like two million views. I'm gonna link it down below in case you haven't seen it. And don't forget my brand new book, canceled, inside YouTube, canceled culture is out now. There's an audio book, there's an e-book, and the e-book is free until the end of the month. So you got a couple days, depending on when you see this video. All right, 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, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And a huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel in other ways like buying my books and merch and all that other kind of good stuff. All right, thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.