Therapist Reacts to Girl Defined's Dating Anxiety Advice

Are you a virgin? If not, please explain. Okay, hi everybody. Thanks for coming back if you've been here before. Or hi, welcome if you're new. My name is Miki, I'm a therapist and we talk about therapisty things on this channel. Today we're talking about Girl Defined again. We have talked about Girl Defined before, we talk about religious fundamentalism fairly regularly on the channel. Um, we are revisiting the topic today because there is a video on their channel called how to avoid anxiety in a romantic relationship. It just seems like a really nice intersection of bad dating advice and bad mental health advice. So we are talking about that today. Just as an aside, I'm not really sure why the views on this video are so low. It's listed as unlisted on their channel, like it's not public, but it's on a playlist so it is kind of public. I'm going to link it in the description so hopefully it doesn't disappear. They have posted about it on their social media so I'm assuming that they intended for this to be public, but it's on their channel so we're talking about it. Really quick before we get into it, I want to give the caveat that I always give when we talk about religious fundamentalism. This video in particular, but the content that we make about religious fundamentalism generally is not intended to be a critique or a judgment about regular normal Christian people or regular religious people at all. We talk about Girl Defined and religious fundamentalism because it's fundamentalism and it's so far on the cusp or off on the far end of the spectrum in terms of what can be considered religion that we are starting to tiptoe into cult territory and they peddle a lot of very harmful and hateful and actively hurtful beliefs to very vulnerable populations and they openly admit this that they target their content to very vulnerable people, specifically adolescent and young teen women who are in a very volatile and emotional time in their lives and they use very predatory tactics to try and suck people into their religious beliefs and then shame them and gaslight them into believing that they are inherently wrong and shameful and bad and all kinds of terrible and toxic things that are the antithesis of what we know from the research about having a healthy self-esteem, sense of self, healthy mental health, how to be resilient and avoid risk factors associated with mental illness. So like all around generally very bad. That's why we're talking about this. I don't take any beef with Kristen and Bethy personally but I do take a lot of beef with their content. It's like a joke. I swear to God we're not doing this on purpose. My cat really is just like upset. Okay. All of that said, let's get into it. Let's watch the video. Not yet but I'm gonna be. Okay. Let's watch this video. What's up sisterhood. It is just Kristen here and we're going to be unpacking a question that one of you asked in a recent live that we did over on Instagram and it's a question I think a lot of you in relationships wrestle with or want an answer to and it's this idea of battling anxiety in a romantic relationship, feeling anxious, wrestling with that and wondering, is this okay? Should I be feeling anxious? How do I battle this? How do I handle this? Um, what does that look like? So in this video, I'm just going to walk us through some really simple tools, some simple steps and biblically based that will help you figure out like, is your anxiety rooted in a fear that's an actual legitimate fear and concern that you need to address? Or is it rooted in a lack of trusting God for the relationship process? Is it good? Is it bad? Let's discover that before we. We haven't even made it a full minute into the video and we are already doing the thing where we blame people's mental illness on a lack of faith or a lack of trust in God. Yikes, Kristen, why? Why with this? Like, okay, so let's unpack this. Before we talk about that, I am super excited to introduce you guys to the sponsor of this week's video, which is Bright Cellars. I am super excited to be partnering with them because my husband and I have actually spent our own hard earned money dollars on Bright Cellars before this partnership and we really enjoyed it. My husband and I have actually kind of bonded over wine. It's a thing that we have developed our palate together as we've gotten older and we found Bright Cellars to be useful both as like wine newbies where we didn't know what we were doing and now as we're like slightly older people who like maybe know slightly more about wine. The reason that we love Bright Cellars so much is because they have a super easy quiz. It's only seven questions that helps you to identify your palate and figure out what wines would be a good match for you. So you take your quiz. It's very fun. My husband and I took it together and they match you to wine specifically for you and they also match you with private label wines you can't just buy at any old store. So you're getting special wine that is specifically matched for you based on the things that you like and dislike. So my husband and I took the quiz together and we got our box today. We opened it and I was very excited to see that there are some wines in there that we've tried before and we know that we love them. But there's also some new ones that we've never tried. The other thing that Bright Cellars does that I think is super fun is they give you these cute little wine education cards that have tasting notes on the back and they also give you like friendly tips about how to store your wine and what temperature to serve your wine and all that type of stuff which is what I mean when I say that Bright Cellars is helpful for you like learning more about wine and developing your palate. This one that we're trying today is called Paper Tiger. I have never heard of this before but my husband and I tried it earlier and we were very excited that it was the nice in between for both of our palates. So if you want to try Bright Cellars they are actually giving all of my followers a 50 percent off discount which means that you get your first six bottle box for fifty five dollars which if you know anything about the cost of wine it's kind of wild. So go click the link in my description or I will also have a link in the comments and you can get your first six bottle box for 50 percent off. Please go show Bright Cellars some love because they're supporting my channel and my content helps me to make content like this especially reaction style content. So it would mean a lot if you guys would go and support Bright Cellars and show them some love since they showed me some love. Okay back to the video. First and foremost I want to talk about the prevalence of anxiety in relationships like this is a fairly common experience. Lots of people experience anxiety or fear or uncertainty especially in new relationships where we're kind of sorting out like is this my person is this a good person. Like what are the the you know relationship norms here like what are you doing. You know that's it's uncomfy for a lot of people that's totally fair. But like anxiety generally is not reflective even if you are a religious person. Anxiety is not necessarily reflective of a lack of faith or a lack of trust in God or in other people. This is something that is very important for us to talk about because it tends to be a common the like fancy therapy where it is negative core belief about yourself. But a lot of people will say mean things to themselves about like well why am I anxious about this relationship. That must mean that I don't trust this person or that must mean that I don't have faith in them or that I don't think they're a good person or that I think the worst in people. That's not necessarily true. Sometimes anxiety can very much be reflective of like legitimate red flags in a relationship and that person being toxic or you know problematic or not OK for you. But sometimes people are just anxious. Sometimes people have mental illness and we are anxious about all different types of things. This is especially common for people with OCD. Not that that's necessarily an anxiety disorder per se but there's a lot of anxiety within OCD and a lot of those obsessions and compulsions tend to be not founded in reality. But that doesn't make the anxiety first of all less real or second of all like reflective of you sucking or being a bad person or actually believing the fears that you have. A lot of times especially with intrusive thoughts associated with anxiety these thoughts just like appear. It's very important I guess the point that I'm getting at here is that it's very important for us to talk about and normalize that thoughts don't necessarily mean anything. I am mine. Very common for people with anxiety to have intrusive thoughts or to have fears that don't have some kind of deeper underlying meaning that are like revealing of some deep dark secret part of your soul. Sometimes they're just fears and that's OK. It's very much a workable issue something that you can work with a therapist about but it's also something that you can work on as an individual and experience like a greater level of peace around. But it just pushes my ******* buttons because this is a very predatory tactic that people in religious cults use to try and suck you deeper into their religious beliefs because they tell you well if you're experiencing anxiety you don't trust God enough and you know how you can fix that. Subscribe to my Patreon and do this you know 300 question questionnaire and read my books and buy our stuff and go to church and more more more more like be more in the Kool-Aid do more of the religious things. It's very very dangerous because what you're doing is preying on people with mental illness and it's just it's not a good look. Not a good look. Even though I just want to say that if you don't make it to the end of this video I want you to know about because this boo boo we're not letting her talk about her books and her Patreon. Skipping. We're skipping forward. What. Cats crying dogs barking. All we're missing is the neighbor leaf blowing and we have the trip back down. It makes a great gift for anybody so highly recommend it. Also if you recently went through a breakup or maybe you're single and you're really struggling to trust God with your singleness and you are going to love our latest book. We ******* books do they have. We've spent a solid like three minutes doing book promotion in this video. Shop. OK. We'll see if I can actually talk in this video. I don't know. But I remember I was in a relationship that was ridden with anxiety and it was not my relationship with Zach but a relationship before that where I thought I was going to marry the guy. We were on a path that seemed really good for a while. I share all about that story also in relationship that I thought I was going to end in marriage and did it. Anyways there was so much anxiety and in a lot of ways I think that my anxiety in that relationship was rooted in some fears of things I was seeing and experiencing in the relationship that surely were red flags but I was trying to suppress them and ignore them. So of course there was a lot of anxiety in my heart about the relationship. It just astounds me how they run face first into the point all the time and still miss it. This is a very common thing that happened thing that happens. Kristen if Kristen or Bethy ever watch this video. Hi. This is human. This is very normal and this is why I take issue with your content. When we do the thing where we try to suppress our emotions and we try to shove them down and stop feeling them those emotions don't go anywhere. They're still existing in your body in your mind in your consciousness and you're just suppressing them. You know the issue with this is that those emotions are going to come out eventually and they continue to plague you just on like the sort of underlying like the below the surface level until you eventually are forced to deal with them. Oftentimes this manifests in anxiety in like it's not like subtle but like low levels of depression. The fancy therapy word is like disorder conduct but like issues mental illness. There's issues that happen. You will notice changes in your mood issues with your ability to function issues in your day to day life. If we're actively doing this thing where we're never giving ourselves space to feel this is the thing that a girl defined pedals as like the way to deal with your emotions. It just don't just don't give it to God. Read our shitty devotional and like don't feel your feelings just like gaslight girl boss gatekeep get the **** out of there. Don't feel it and it'll be fine. But then we're talking about in this video how she was suppressing her feelings of fear in the relationship and that caused her to feel anxious. Hello like 9-1-1 is there anyone home. What is happening. I should have addressed what I was actually seeing in the relationship. That would have been huge. And I did eventually which is why it ended anyways. But for you if you're in a relationship and maybe you feel that that anxiety in your heart those worries those things that are keeping you up at night and you just don't know maybe that's a sign it's unhealthy or maybe I'm fearful unnecessarily. You know maybe this is just part of the process. Like how do you know. I obviously don't know the ins and outs and details of your exact relationship story. And so please take this as general advice. Our biggest counsel to you every time is find a godly woman in your community a mentor who can walk with you personally and your story and your struggles and your concerns your fears your ups and downs your questions. Whatever she's going to go on and on about that. This whole story about how she is sharing this advice because she has had a relationship that was riddled with anxiety. Feels like sour grapes to me. It seems like they're again like this. This reminds me of the Allie V Stuckey video that we did. If you haven't watched that I will link that in the card up here. It reminds me of that video where this person had a negative experience in their personal life. She was probably gaslighted by the people and the godly mentors that she leaned on and used that as a way to justify her religious beliefs instead of like you know initiating a deconstruction process like some people do when they go through something traumatic at the hands of religion. It just pushed her deeper into the beliefs and she is now projecting that onto other people. And so this negative life experience that she had she's using as proof and as like like backing for the things that she believes and is like insisting now that you do these things because of her life. This is very toxic and very inappropriate. Not to say that there's anything wrong with talking about how our anecdotal experience informs our lives. I think there's space for that on the Internet especially everyone is allowed to talk about their own lives and their own experiences and especially with mental illness. There's a lot of space and use in you know unpacking how that looks and how that impacts people's lives. But the thing that frustrates me is this insistence that because this happened to one person this is the way that it must be for all people. This is why I lean so heavily on research on my channel because I really want to make this channel and this content primarily informed by evidence based practice and by things that we can justify and back up in the research. And like I said there's nothing wrong with including anecdotal experience when it suits the occasion. But to form an entire business an entire Internet presence an entire cultural belief around like this one experience and then insisting that all other women must do this thing because it happened to Kristen one time is like. Yikes and give you biblical wisdom for your situation. OK but I hope these general application points that I'm going to share with you about anxiety in a dating relationship are really helpful and I think they're going to be. So the thing that we can count on from scripture is that anxiety is never a solution. Right. And we know anxiety isn't just a solution because we see in Philippians 4 6 Does anyone think that anxiety is the solution. I've never met an anxious person myself included that is like. Thankful or insistent that their anxiety is a good thing. Most people especially people with a clinically significant level of anxiety or a diagnosis don't find it to be something that's enjoyable or that we're holding on to for dear life. That's weird. Then it says do not be anxious about anything. And this verse includes your romantic relationship. So oh my God I'm so much less anxious now. I feel so much better. Thank you Kristen. That was great. God is saying do not be anxious about anything but in everything including your romantic relationship by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God. Also like is this supposed to be some kind of transformative life changing moment. I'm not even a religious person anymore and I'm well aware of this Bible verse like most people have heard this I feel. This is like a very common like this is the Instagram bio Bible verse. The white Christian girls use like. Is this supposed to be doing something. The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. So this verse is so encouraging in Philippians 4 because it's telling you in your relationship do not choose anxiety whether it's a good or bad relationship. Don't choose the anxiety but take those things that you're thinking you're processing you're worried about. Take those things to the Lord in prayer with Thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God. OK. First of all very much take issue with this insinuation that people are choosing to be anxious. That's not how it works. As the expert in the room I feel comfortable refuting that premise. People with clinically significant anxiety or like general worry really at all are not choosing to be anxious because they want to be. That's not how mental illness works. It's also very frustrating to me this again this message that you can choose to not be anxious by just praying about it. Don't get me wrong. Don't you ******* come for me. I actually talked about this in a video last week with Jen. If this goes up when I think it's going to either last week or the week before with Jen from Fundie Fridays. Therapists are not people who are vehemently anti religion. I as a therapist have actively prescribed not prescribed but like encouraged my clients to participate in prayer and devotionals and religious activities and Bible study and like religious stuff because it's helpful for their mental illness and it's a useful part of their treatment plan as supplementary material as like supplementary actions in the same way that we would encourage a client to embrace joyful movement or embrace like a hobby or a fun activity in the same way that we would encourage clients to pursue social engagement these types of things like their supplementary activities that are meant to help prop up the clinically significant work that we're doing in therapy. The issue that I take is insisting that prayer alone is enough to treat a person's mental illness. That's not how it works. We know from the research that that's not true. Unfortunately I wish that it were. I mean that would be really nice to probably save people a lot of money but unfortunately that's not how it works. It's not quite that simple and it's very disingenuous and again very predatory for Kristen to peddle this message that if you are anxious just pray about it and that will fix it. And if it doesn't that's your fault. That's because you're not religious enough. You don't trust God enough and you're choosing to be anxious. Fuck that ----. Fuck that ---- so ******* hard because it's predatory. It's shameful and it's super ******* scary for people especially like young impressionable women who are watching this content as like young kids who are like all fucked up and like filled with shame and fear and weirdness to see this like adult woman who seems to like have it all together to say if you just pray about it you'll feel better. Why don't you feel better. Maybe it's yeah maybe it's your fault. No no it's not. I'm telling you right now sometimes you will feel better with prayer. That's great. But if you don't it's not because you suck. It's not your fault. That's just simply not how your mental illness works. Okay so God is saying there is an out for you to take your anxious and fearful thoughts to me in prayer and then we'll go from there. Okay so that's the first thing is that don't just don't just become anxious but take that to the Lord the things that you're anxious about. Okay and this is like so much the thing where we're just saying things now like we're just we're diarrhea in to get time on this video like what what Kristen the place so so biblically based that is our framework for this conversation and I think we need to rewind a little bit because in a dating relationship what so often happens and this was true for me and my relationship with that guy before Zach was I started out the relationship with the wrong goal. Okay what I mean by that and this is something that a lot of us can fall into is my goal was I think I'm going to marry this guy and so we need to figure things out so we can get married right. Where do you think people would get that idea from. Kristen where would people absorb this idea. That marriage and relationships and hetero bullshit is the norm and the thing the goal that all women should strive for. Oh it's you it's you and the culture that you actively prop up. Again this is the thing where they participate in this culture of shaming women of reinforcing these very harmful stereotypes very harmful stigmas about women about femininity about marriage and sex and relationships and all this stuff right. They like fixated this face that she's making is terrifying like their content. They endlessly talk about marriage and sex and relationships and boys marriage sex and relationships and boys. These people are pushing 40 at this point and we're still ******* talking about seasons of singleness. But you're you're telling me that you you're now coming out against you're taking a stand against going into relationships with the goal of marriage. What like why are you saying it doesn't make any sense. It just it's and don't get me wrong. I think we're going to talk about this later. I think there's definitely some pivoting that's happening. I think Girl Defined is aware of how often they're getting dragged on the Internet and so they're trying to kind of like like pivot a little bit. Not convinced that it's coming from the right place. We'll talk about that. But like whatever from a harm reduction point of view I don't hate the idea that they're giving people an out to not pursue relationships with the sole purpose of marriage. But it is frustrating to me that we're not acknowledging that you have actively participated in perpetuating this stigma in this culture in the first place. And I know some of you are relating to that thinking yeah like that's kind of how I feel right now. But the truth is you don't know the end results of a relationship when you start that relationship with that guy right. You don't know how it's going to end. And I think we often view a relationship that ends in marriage as good and beautiful and a breakup as bad and horrible. But the truth is every relationship is a journey should be a journey to glorify God and discover whether or not you and this person should get married. That's the point of the journey. You're on it. You're seeking to glorify God in every aspect of the romantic relationship and you're on a journey to discover if you should commit to spending the rest of your life with this person. Right. Okay. So here's the thing. Do I disagree with her about the purpose of relationships being to glorify God. Yes obviously. I don't care about that. I'm not religious and I subscribe to Christian beliefs and so I don't. Whatever. We disagree about that. However again this is what I was saying where I think there is very clearly an attempt to pivot the messaging here with like this you know not every relationship has to end in marriage and that's okay. And you know it's still a successful experience because you're you're basically just figuring out whether that's the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with. Like again from a harm reduction point of view I don't hate this. I don't think this is the worst. I appreciate that there's the pivoting happening. I wish that they would ******* take accountability for the ways that they have harmed people and the way that they have perpetuated this stigma and this culture that is far and away hurting people because you know the reality is that people absorbed that message and then walked away and then potentially will never see this. And so like that bothers me. But like it is what it is I guess. It's not the worst. So there can be two successes. One the answer is yes and it's green lights and it's a godly relationship and the wise people in your life and you prayed about it and blah blah blah. You get married success or throughout the journey God reveals to one of you or both of you through red flags through just maybe nothing problematic just you discover you're really different or maybe there's a lot of temptation and pitfall and it's just not a healthy relationship. You break up. Okay. Both outcomes are successful and the goal was accomplished. You discovered whether or not you should marry that person. Okay. And so that's the thing is when you start your relationship I think a lot of anxiety comes when you kind of predetermine that you're probably going to marry this guy that he's probably the one. And now you just need to make sure to get to the altar. Right. So you have to rewind and ask yourself am I extremely open minded about this relationship or am I surrendered. Do I have open hands before the Lord saying God I know this is a journey. I'm taking it one step at a time. Whether this ends in marriage or a breakup I'm seeking your will. Please make this clear throughout this process. And this is the other thing that I wanted to talk about here. This I think like this message that she's giving again from a harm reduction point of view I don't think this is the worst. I do agree with this perspective that regardless of what the outcome is at the end of a relationship ultimately if you've learned something about yourself or you've had valuable experiences in you know conflict resolution or communication or boundary setting or whatever like that's successful and that's useful right. Like that's valuable lived experience and it's worth having. This is why most people advocate that you shouldn't just ******* marry the first person you ever meet and then not kiss them or not have sex with them until you get to the altar. That's neither here nor there. But it is very frustrating to me that she says this without acknowledging that the culture that she operates within and again that she has helped to perpetuate places a lot of value on women's worth being as a partner as a help meet this like fixation with the end goal ultimately to be getting married and to have babies and like do the thing like the Christian woman thing is very like it's a crushing weight for a lot of people who live within this culture. And so it's I think a lot easier said than done to say like oh you know well I'm just having open hands and choosing to be super open minded about it like yeah sure I guess until you know things don't work out and don't work out and don't work out and you're starting to feel a crippling sense of shame and fear and guilt because the culture that you're living within is telling you that there's something wrong with you because you're not married by the time that you're 19 years old like that's scary and we're not acknowledging that that's a real thing that exists again is this very gaslighting energy of like easy breezy and everything's fine and like no it's not it's just because you like slap a flower headband on it doesn't make it any less threatening or upsetting. And as you have that open handedness and that surrender of the outcome and you're viewing each outcome as a success because the goal is to discover whether or not you should get married. I think that alone will take off so much of the pressure so much of the anxiety that you may be feeling from the start. Okay. That's the first hugest thing. Second and I've already hinted at this I kind of already gave this point away but recognize that it is a journey and trust God for the current day at hand. You know in a relationship we just want to know and I remember feeling this like I just want to know is it going to work out or is it not going to work out like you know when you hit some bumps and you're like I don't know maybe maybe yes maybe no. And you're trying to answer a question that can be answered until the end of the journey. And for some people the journey may be three months six months a year to discover whether or not you should marry this person right. It's different for each relationship. Okay. I also wanted to acknowledge this because I don't think this is the worst. This is a pretty stark contrast from the message that we got from Paula Morgan about how you should only date someone for like two ******* months before you know if you're going to get married or not. So like bonus points I guess we're not perpetuating that idea. But most of the advice in this video so far can be summed up as like just don't. If you're if you're curious about how to not be anxious in a relationship. Have you tried not. Thanks Kristen. Like that's super ******* helpful to no one. Also sorry if you can hear my cat. She is a bodybuilder and she is trying to break the door down. I'm probably not going to let her in today though because we are on a tight schedule so just. But you can enjoy so much more of the relationship by just trusting God for the outcome and then trusting him for the day at hand and then even enjoy the day at hand. So like today what is true for today. You don't know if you're going to marry this person yet. Right. You're in this relationship. You think yes maybe no I don't know where you are but you can trust God for today and then you can enjoy today. You can enjoy the journey. Enjoy the process. Trust God with the outcome. OK. I'm really trying to not pause this video every five seconds but I also wanted to talk about this. She makes it sound as if you were like a helpless bystander in your own relationship. I want to be super clear. You should have some autonomy in getting to decide whether you marry the person or not. I know that it's more so like a verbiage thing that people in these religious circles use this phrasing a lot like I get that but I do think it sends the wrong message like you're supposed to be just like wandering around waiting for sky writing to appear from God like thumbs up buddy like it that I that's weird to me. You are very much allowed even if you are a religious person to exercise some level of control or decision making in your own relationships. This idea of just like waiting to discover if it's the like there is learning and probably like an appropriate amount of time that should pass before we make that decision. But just like this attitude of like you're just waiting around to find out is super weird to me. The next thing and this is so important I mentioned this at the very beginning of the video but stay connected to a godly mentor. You don't have a mentor. Find a godly woman. Start praying for this. We have so many blog posts over at girl to find dot com just search mentor mentorship and you can find exactly how to even like ask a mentor how to find a mentor how to start praying for a mentor what to look for in a mentor find a godly woman ask her to walk with you through this relationship journey someone that you can ask the hard questions to you can share your deepest concerns and fears someone that you get advice from hopefully a married woman that would be so helpful. I'm having a godly mentor involved intimately with you and your side of things will be so helpful as you seek to navigate this relationship because trust me and you know this when you're in it you can get in such a bubble that you don't even see some things that can be so obvious to people on the outside. OK. This is one of the things that pushes my buttons the most because is it inherently a bad thing to have a mentor to have like advice and like support from your community. Obviously not but I do think it's important for us to talk about the subtext here because to me this reads very much as an attempt to keep people in the circle you know like it's not just any mentor you can't talk about this with a secular therapist you can't talk about this with like just anybody has to be a godly woman hopefully a married godly woman I guess with the intention that they'll steer you in the direction of following the religious rules and mores which is problematic in my opinion because sometimes a lot of times especially within this specific culture that Bethany and Kristen operate within there are problematic beliefs and expectations and views that can be very harmful to people. And if someone is in the middle of initiating a deconstruction process having a godly mentor who is actively discouraging you from making decisions that feel the safest for you as an individual is very very damaging is very very painful. So I am very frustrated by this. You know again it's like the sort of we are like smiling through it and talking about it in a way that seems like it's super fun and really cool but it's actually kind of toxic and scary because the other thing about this that I wanted to point out is again that Bethany and Kristen if these religious views are as life changing and wonderful and amazing as you say they are you wouldn't have to try so hard to keep people sucked into your ******* culture. If it really is this amazing and transcendent experience people wouldn't be living in droves and you wouldn't have to try so hard to ******* suck people in and keep them sucked in. You wouldn't have to limit their exposure to the outside world to keep them from ******* escaping you. So like when people say stuff like this be very wary of what the subtext of that is and why they might be saying that because if they have a vested interest in limiting the exposure that you have to outside resources and to exposure to different beliefs and they find that very threatening bad sign very bad sign. That was true for me it took me so much longer to end a really unhealthy relationship because I was so blinded by my goal of thinking it was just going to end in marriage that I couldn't even see so many of the red flags that were very obvious to everybody else. So have that godly mentor can connect with her on a regular weekly basis if you can. Okay the next thing to help fight anxiety in your relationship is have a plan for getting to know his heart. I know so many of you will say like we're getting to know each other but I just don't really know like I just don't know him and I'm struggling to know how he really feels about certain things or what he believes about certain things or certain theological issues like it's just hard. And so because so many of you have asked us like how do you get to know like really get to know his heart and vice versa. We created a free downloadable. It's you've probably heard us talk about it. One hundred and thirty six questions to ask in a relationship and you can get that. Stop it. I thought that was a meme. Oh my God that's real. Stop it. I thought that was a joke. Oh my God. I've seen people on the Internet talk about their questionnaire. I thought people were being hyperbolic. I didn't realize that this was a real thing. Can you download this. Can you look that up in your phone please. Incognito mode that for sure. Pause hold please. Have you ever been in trouble with the law. If so explain the extent of the circumstances. Is this a job interview. What about the Lord's Supper. Who should participate in the sacrament. What is your view on the celebration of Christmas and Easter. Can you describe your relationship with your grandparents. Can you describe your relationship with your friends. Have you ever been peer dependent. How did you resist this. Peer dependent. Yeah what does that mean. Dependent on your peers. Have you ever manipulated my mother. As if a manipulative person is ever going to answer that honestly. Have you ever manipulated my mother. Recognizing we are all imperfect in what one or two areas do you think God wants you to improve most. Describe your relationship with your mother. Was it honoring. Was it obedient. Obedient. Do you have money in general. How much to the church. What are your habits regarding sleep. This is so invasive. Are you a virgin. If not please explain. No. Were you are you involved in any of the following. Constant thoughts about sex pornography masturbation homosexuality pornography. Video games. Internet sites. My favorite. OK we're going to make a whole different video talking about this questionnaire probably because this is hilarious. Get out of the sauce. That's a whole nother. I know. OK. Sorry sorry sorry sorry. That's hilarious and also very embarrassing. Don't get me wrong. It's a helpful supportive factor to have like almost a list of topics or like things that you can kind of queue up in your mind to have in your back pocket just in case you get overwhelmed. This is a very useful coping strategy. However it is very strange that we have one hundred and thirty six also not one hundred and forty. We couldn't do one hundred fifty hundred thirty six questions to ask a first date or to ask a new romantic partner like oh yikes. A lot of the questions on there are also invasive and weird and just this is like strong homeschooled by one hundred and thirty six John 3 16. No they didn't do that on purpose. Do you think. No I just made that up for free over at girl to find dot com slash questions and that will help give you just some rails. feel like you're progressing that much in getting to know his heart on like things that are really important to you. And so this guy will give you the questions to ask without you having to sit there and feel like you're grilling him. You can make it really natural. Just tackle a few every time you're together. He can ask the same ones back to you. In what way is asking someone are you a manipulative person ever going to come off as a natural. Were you obedient to your mother. What's your hygiene like. Like that's never going to come off as normal. I'm sorry. Again I want to validate the use of having questions like sort of in your back pocket to help grease the works when you're getting to know a person this is a valuable coping skill. But it's important to do it in a way that promotes like a sense of safety and security in a relationship and also like greases the works instead of making it awkward and weird. I also feel compelled to point out that if we didn't perpetuate this culture that promotes speed running relationships to get to marriage as fast as humanly possible and then to have children as fast as humanly possible. It probably wouldn't feel so hard to get to know someone because these are things that we learn typically like in a regular setting over time. It's pretty easy to understand the nature of someone's relationship with their mother. You get to know them. You spend some time around their family. You watch them interact with their mother. You talk to their mother about them. We absorb these things through context when we give ourselves the time to actually ******* get to know a person. So we don't need questionnaires to like dive straight to the center of the issue when we do relationships in like a typical like a safer timeline. Really helps you get to know his heart. Okay. And the last thing that I want to say on this topic, because there's so much more, but this is just just giving you some things to think about in wrestling with anxiety in your relationship. The last thing is acknowledge every flag. And what I mean by this is we often talk about red flags, which we do have a whole chapter on red flags. Really, really good. Really helpful. Um, but there are more than red flags. Red flags are obvious, you know, red. It's like problematic. Things that are, it's like a stop sign thing. Stop. You need to address this. This could be a deal breaker. Maybe not, but you need to dig deeper into this. If you're seeing red flags. Okay. But there are also yellow flags. They're not, it's not stop. It's just, Hey, slow down a little. We're seeing some things that aren't great. Maybe you're, you keep compromising on boundaries. Sorry. My cat just like jumped at the door. Sorry. Set morally. And, um, you know, maybe that is a red flag or maybe it's more minor things. And you're like, okay, we need to revamp. We need some counsel, like yellow flag. Let's just push pause a little bit. You know, not push pause, but like slow down. Okay. Acknowledge those flags. Or you may be experienced some experiencing some green flags where it's like. Go like lights are green. You're seeing things where you're going, wow, this is amazing. You're alerting more traffic school. Is this what it's like to listen to me talk sometimes? Cause it's just like, shut up. We get it. We know like we heard it already. Is this what it's like? Yeah, it is. Character or you're seeing, he's so consistent in what he says he's going to do. He does it the way he honors you, the way he seeks Godly mentorship. Um, you know, just the relationship in general, the Godly people are in your life, you're all praying about it. And it seems like, wow, God is really giving us the green lights to continue moving forward. Acknowledge that. So don't ignore a lot of anxiety and fear comes from not acknowledging red flags, not being honest about them. Yellow flags, not slowing down or green flags, not saying like acknowledging the joy and the good that you're seeing and celebrating that and saying, wow, we're moving forward. This is so exciting, you know? And so I think it's so important that you, you actually acknowledge all three different types of flags and that will really help you, um, know what to do. Stop slow down or keep moving forward. Right. I don't disagree with this, but it is again, very frustrating to me that she's talking about this while also actively participating in this culture that encourages people to speed run relationships and value marriage above all else, and to value relationships above all else. And we do the shoe horning of marriage thing where like the belief that marriage is a given that all people must get married or want to get married. Oh, and also again, it's just this energy of like, how do you deal with anxiety? Just don't, just don't be anxious. Like, thanks Kristen. Okay. So those were, that was like such a massive flyover, but I hope that is at least somewhat helpful in your relationship and how to handle anxiety. Like we saw from Philippians four. Okay. It's mostly wrap up and I'm pretty sure she's going to try and sell us on her Patreon. Um, again, so we're going to cut it there and we're going to talk about it. Well, I feel like it really missed me. Okay. So I think it's fairly obvious that this is bad advice, but also just kind of like nothing burger advice. Like there wasn't really any meat and potatoes to dissect here, other than their problematic beliefs. I honestly, I think people could find more useful and actionable tips about dealing with anxiety. Just by following therapists on Instagram. This is something that I encourage people to do a lot. Uh, especially as therapists are learning that social media is a valuable way to advertise their private practices. It's becoming more and more normal for us to give away like psychoeducation tips and tricks and things like that on social media. So following licensed credentialed professional therapists who went to real universities, um, on Instagram, TikTok, social media generally can be a super useful tool, so I would encourage you to do that if you're looking for more tips. But I, again, I, at the end of all of these videos, I always talk about this, but I want to be clear, even if you are a religious person, it is very much possible to have religion and a relationship with God and to participate in that culture while also honoring that your mental health and your mental illness is real and matters and that you are also allowed to work on that. Being anxious or having mental illness does not mean that you don't trust God or that you're sinful or wrong or bad. All of these beliefs that Girl Defined pushes are so detrimental and they're so harmful to people. So I really want to encourage people to stay away from their content. Please don't go hate watch their stuff. Please don't go subscribe just to like get the tea and see the drama. Like, please don't, because it's not good. Um, it just encourages them to keep doing it. And like, just generally is not, it's bad vibes. So just don't. Okay. That's it. I hope that you guys enjoyed the video. If you did like the video and subscribe to the channel, we make fun, deep content about once a month. So turn the notification bell on if you want to get notified when those go up. Um, and then share the video to help the channel grow and to help each other grow. And I will see you guys next Saturday. Okay. Bye.