ASM208 Bad Theology Kills with Kevin Garcia

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[Music] okay friends today i am talking with one of my favorite people in the world the one the only kevin garcia who's a digital pastor intuitive life coach podcaster you may recognize from their show a tiny revolution they are the creator of the queerly beloved apparel line of which i own several items and also the big queer adventure company kevin is an artist and an advocate and a thinker and a brilliant human being gosh i don't know it is weird kevin to do a bio for you because although i am so impacted by your work i am so much more impacted by your life and so friends uh listening you are just getting to hear a conversation between friends i just love kevin so much and uh today we're gonna have a conversation about life and about faith and uh especially about a new project that kevin has about to come out maybe we could start there kevin tell people what you're up to right now well first of all thank you for all those nice things i think very similar things about you i am working my newest project then like the one that's like closest to my mind right now is my new book it's called bad theology kills and the subtitle is undoing toxic belief and reclaiming your spiritual authority and this book has been floating around my head for like two years now and i was running around trying to find someone to get representation for it to get a publishing deal and then um it was actually after talking with jamie finch she's like yeah i just self-published it and it's been fairly successful and i you know there was like a lot of hoops that she didn't have to drive through and also i was like you know i can it's like after you send the book proposal to a few people um you recognize like ah the industry is quote unquote and already they keep saying people aren't ready for this and then i was thinking i was like no it's not that it's that the industry is not ready to take a risk on a book like that is going to like point out you know all the problems um rather than just like offering a solution you know i try to do both at the same time um but the book starts out with my narrative sharing my story of being queer and christian and coming out and surviving queer uh queer conversion therapy i talk about reframing old bible stories that i have for so long seen as oppressive texts as the things that have really liberated me um we talk about um opinions we talk about bias we talk about guns we talk about women's bodies we talk about immigrants we talk about queer stuff because it goes beyond just like the conversation of whether or not it's okay to be queer um because i want to talk about the theology that is killing every single one of us um because uh i'm ready to not have my people hurting anymore i'm ready for people to start fighting healing and i'm so happy that i gave myself permission to just write the damn thing um which i think is wild because four years ago like you know my pastor said i couldn't leave a small group and i like cowered in fear and you know now i'm wearing red lipstick and preaching on my seminary's pulpit so like [Laughter] and you can wear some red lipstick wow thing i will say like i love wearing a red lipstick but it has been one of those things where just like if i have to wear this i have to be so confident in this because it can easily also go in one other direction where like if i try to do like too much in my face and wear a red lip i just kind of look like a clown which i love clowns but uh i don't want to be a clown unless i'm going out and drag and that's a whole other story you know i wonder if part of the tension that the quote industry unquote runs into is probably something that's happening in the listeners right now in the combination of the words queer and christian there are a lot of queer listeners of ask science mike and there are a lot of christian listeners of ask science mike but the number of queer christian listeners is a lot smaller so there's people whose journey into exploring and understanding their own gender identity and their own orientation and their own unique representation of humanity has led them to move beyond and even and even no longer like at all their their faith's origin face story of origin and on the other hand you have christians who are listening who might be um empathetic even sympathetic to the issues around queerness and lgbtq uh matters in life and even in theology but they personally um don't identify with the term queer and so they might uh they might be more likely to retweet you than to jump into the book but having um having read your text in various versions throughout its evolution and growth there's something for not just queer christians but queer people who no longer identify as christians and for christians who don't actually identify as queer what was that tension like for you as you wrote this book i think what i realized as i was when i if it started with like okay i'm gonna just self-publish this thing and be done with it and that i think gave me permission to say the thing that like this book has been trying to say the whole time um which is basically like i think by the end of this book i was i feel like i was like writing a book i need to write a book to save my own faith it's like maybe what i was on a mission for and in some ways i think i accomplished that but not in the way that i expected because at the end of it it's like okay like you know we're making this case about what path theology is doing and how we can restructure it so we can hold on to this label you know and and and hold on to just like the way things have always been but as i was writing like the thing that came up is just like guys we have to question everything absolutely everything and also like it just kind of like hit me in my face was like kevin we stopped asking permission a long time ago why are you asking permission from christians to be christian if you want to be christian and it was almost like this thing where like as soon as i was okay with letting the label go as soon as i was okay with saying you know what like if people don't see me as christian that's like fine okay cool like i'm still gonna do this thing that i wanna do and help this particular group of people and um it really doesn't matter if you call me a christian or not because the work is gonna get done um so it's like the question i've been enamored with is like who do you say that i am you know if you look at my life and like you see jesus then great then i'm a christian you look at my instagram and you see all my tarot card readings and you say oh my gosh that's a witch and i'm like okay well then i'm a witch fine like whatever is good but like at the end of the day like i'm i'm genuinely not con i feel very free of this um need to need to justify myself any longer and there's like a i don't know there's a there's this deep sense of knowing that like if i get new information in the future i can change my mind but right now i'm i feel like i'm walking into like i don't like saying the wild wild west of theology but i'm like i'm particularly referencing the movie with will smith wild wild west where it's just like steampunk wildness full of just like all sorts of people who are reimagining what it is to be a spiritual being in the world and that's really like i think as i was writing this book is like i wanted a my mom to be able to read it um and make sense of my experience in some ways and i think there's for all the coverage of queer folks in the world there's not a whole lot there's still like a lack of representation like you know there's like we need more queer stories until they become so common they actually saturate the market like i want people to get bored with this narrative so that we can move on from it you know what i'm saying like let's let's get let's get the trauma out there so we can heal the trauma and move on that's what i'm really interested in um and i think that's like what this book has helped me do is like really spell out exactly how i arrived at what i believe and why i believe and then also at the same time holding in tension i don't know [ \_\_ ] and that's like the most comforting thing he's like i can just i don't have to know i just need to do the next right thing and that to me is very comforting and as i was thinking about who would be reading it is like i want this to be the book that you know my mom picks up and finally understands me or a book that is like you would give to like your one like nice moderate friend who has been sitting on the fence for a while and like they're really really big about like ending sex trafficking but they also don't care about black lives matter um that kind of friend who's like you know they're woke tm but they're not like ready for restorative justice thing you know the wine i've never heard that phrase until this moment and it is delightful yeah that's that's what i call it it's that one person out there who's like just like they it's like they over police everybody about their behavior because they're over critical of themself you know what i'm saying and it's like oh dude you are you're doing that performance thing but you're not actually being transformed you still think it's about right action it's about just being oh that's another thing i get into in the book but well you know you guys can go read it if you want me to i'm not going to preach at you for an hour because that's not just we're going to get them enough to get interested but not so much that they feel satisfied that is my goal with this conversation yeah we're gonna give you a taste you know i'm so careful in choosing sponsors for ask science mike because i want um i want to keep doing the show and i want you to feel like like i've earned your trust and i love that better help is one of the sponsors of this program because i think mental health is so important if you don't know better health better help they are an online mental health counseling service they are wonderful and i use this service myself in my pursuit of mental health and stability what they do is they let you use a website or an app on your computer or your mobile device to talk to licensed therapists over 3 000 in all 50 states by the way over chat or text or phone or video and it's super convenient and super affordable and super easy sometimes it's hard for me to drive to the therapist office in los angeles traffic and also finding a therapist is an overwhelming process and better help is very simple you go in you fill out a secure convenient questionnaire and they will match you with a therapist you like and if you don't like the therapist you're matched with you can request another one at any time and they will find you a new therapist there's so many specializations available and anxiety family conflicts anger depression sleep issues trauma relationships grief grief self-esteem lgbtq matters all of these things have specialists assigned to them and i know that for issues i'm working through right now i was amazed at how betterhelp was able to zero in on a professional who was uniquely able to help me in that situation so if you'd like to join me in pursuing better health just go to betterhelp.com mic where you can get a 10 discount off your first month and don't forget that the service is affordable and available on a sliding scale for people with low or restricted incomes to learn more and to get started today just go to betterhelp.com sciencemike [Music] there is one thing i'd like to explore a little deeper on that that note as you kind of go back and saying who do you say that i am and that you're you identify as a christian whether you know other christians would accept that identity label or not and you know for me as someone who does not identify as queer but who has pretty deeply studied queer theory and queer theology um i have found that for uh the sis hat straight monogamous crowd there's actually tremendous freedom on the other side of studying queer scholarship yeah because the marginalization that straight cishet monogamous people create that force queer people to plot their own way and to claim their own identity boldly i think about how many people listening right now who might identify as straight and might be cis but like in their bones the notion of being a christian whether or not someone else allows it speaks to something do you know what i mean so there's this weird way in which the system that gives me as a a cis cis-man privilege um the way out of that self-captivity is to learn from the one marginalized by the system that holds me up and it's that remarkable notion to me yeah it's very interesting um i've been kind of um flipping the way that i view other people around recently because i was uh talking to someone else for another podcast for the book and i i out this is me outing myself again i read a course in miracles and i [ \_\_ ] love it and just for the record all of you people out there marianne williamson did not write a course in miracles while she teaches from it she's not the only teacher about it and something that just like really stuck with me is a passage that said um if you go to wake somebody who is a part of who is in a frightful dream like you come into the room with a light and you disturb them they're going to perceive that light to be a threat because they're like they're not fully conscious yet they they're going to think that that light that you're bringing is a part of their fearful dream but once the light is actually perceived for what it is the person who is awakened know also finally perceives the light to be what it is as the release from the dream so that they can see that not only have they been set free but that they are truly free and so what i think about in my own walk recently and this i think like the work that so many queer people of faith and organizers do is we walk into these spaces and actually like you do it too actually mike it's like you walk into the space with like your light because like i've possessed it i've worked on it and i'm here to just be who i was created to be if you will and so when i walk into a space saying something that like jesus loves me and i'm queer you know or that i'm a queer christian or a queer person of faith um you know the light of who i am is going to disturb the person who is in the frightful dream so when i think about like all the people who are going to take issue with me it's just like oh like you you don't it's the thing is like it's not that you take issue with me is that you're you live in an illusion where you think that you are separate from me like you think that my words are a threat to you when really like they are an invitation for you to come and so it's like it's almost like it's allowed me to forgive so many people who have hurt me in the past because i recognize of course she would act this way you know now granted it doesn't like um this does not take away the responsibility of people who have done harm people still need to repent reparations still need to be paid and at the same time it allows us for a path forward at least in my understanding so one example i talk about in my book is my relationship with my father who passed away two years ago um my father never got to wake up from his own illusions he was someone who was a lovely human in many ways but also deeply flawed in many ways and he hurt me and my brothers and my family in really really huge ways but when i look at him from like you know a thousand feet and you know really like see him for who he is i see all the bad things and i also see all the hurt you know my dad like you know didn't have his mom growing up was a part of an adopted family who was abusive joined the military at 18 and like lost all of his racial identity because he was americanized through the military because that's what he had to do to survive and when i look at that life and how it his life impacted mine it's like well of course you would act like that you were living in a frightful dream and no one was there to help wake you and so for that like you know i can have mercy for that reality and also just recognize that even though i didn't talk to my dad before he died you know like i was also doing what i had to do i don't know if that makes any sense but all to say it makes absolute sense to me yeah and so it was like when you were saying just like you know the system that props me i was like oh well yes and no it's like sure you'd benefit from privilege because that's just like the world we live in and also you recognize it for the illusion that it is you know what i'm saying it's like because you don't you would you don't see me and you as separate like that's the thing gosh no and that and that's also true of like everything else it's like um and maybe this is like uh this is my ridiculously hopeful self is like i was talking with andre henry the other day um and we were joking he's like so what's the deal with like are you what you do because it's just like you don't want to call nobody a racist because like they're not they're it's not that they're racist is that they do racist things i'm like well that's one way to put it or you could say that they are racist but they don't have to stay racist you know you can repent [Music] you can change your mind oh i think what i'm so excited about um everyone getting to listen in on us talking today is um you know less than half of the listeners of my program identify as christian a significant majority of those are what we would call post-christian they were christians now they're not but then you know a big part of my original appearance in the world of media was a guest on you made it weird with pete holmes yeah so uh that in my early kind of works and and talking about atheism from an advocacy perspective uh means that there's a significant number of secularists and humanists and and even anti-theist people who think belief in god is kind of dangerous uh listen to this work and it's very uh and so there's this weird this weird coalition but they get to hear me talk about um confronting these systems as being both costly and personally liberated but they get to hear it on like the backside meaning after i've done a bunch of reading after i've had a bunch of off microphone conversations right and i guess what i'm trying to say is the reason i feel comfortable identifying as a christian is because of you you're one of a handful of people that make me feel not just comfortable but proud to hold on to that part of my identity because i see it in a way um that reclaims this faith as for something that comes from the margins so the christianity the jesus of kevin garcia um embraces queerness the the the jesus in that space is not propping up american exceptionalism and white supremacy the jesus i encounter through you and andre henry or austin channing brown it's a it's a faith i get excited about um in a way that i i don't think many of my white secular listeners can understand like how on earth could you uh reclaim this label but it's because i started a journey that was books and reading scholarship um but then it was it's really friendships like my relationship with you that have changed me as a person and frankly made me less fragile because it's no longer um that queerness is some hypothetical context or something i encounter with people online um queerness is something literally at the thanksgiving table yeah and it's such a different and wonderful and freeing context i've i wrote in my next book about um kind of the the personality change the life change that comes for men and white people and especially white men from breaking out of our self-created social exclusion from all these other wonderful intersections of identity in the world and it's funny to me how the twitter fight of the day about free speech or whatever takes on a different tone and timbre when different identities are no longer hypothetical but they're the people you talk to each day yeah and that's something i also i wrote about in uh in my text about how people it's very interesting to me it's there are still people in the world who like for whom queer people are hypothetical like for franklin graham for example um and i'm specifically referencing the whole recently hallmark pulled that commercial with uh two queer women kissing on camera after they got married and uh then people you know obviously raised hell about it and then they were like glad got involved and then hallmark said our bad we're dumb we put the commercial back and we're like yay don't do it again that's my feelings about it but then franklin graham tweets out uh first of all i don't watch hallmark channel because i can't stand it i can't stand christmas movies are people going to crucified me about that but they are not good they're all they're not good and the people will come at you about that and the thing about it is is that the people who watch them know they're not good and still want me to watch it with them i'm just like could we do anything else like can i at least like play pokemon shield while you're doing this i'll stay in the room with you but this is horseshit on the tv i'm sorry mom um right right anyways um franklin graham to bring it back to the point franklin graham tweeted just like there are some of us who are going to change the channel when this uh he didn't say abomination but he might as well you know he might as well just drop an f-bomb because we all know what he wants to say um but he's just like we're gonna change the channel and i'm like it must be so sad for you to hate somebody so much or hate something that you don't even it doesn't have flesh and bones on it for you because if you knew actual queer people like you wouldn't [ \_\_ ] say that to them like because like you you could not sit in front of someone and say like you're not even worth me looking at you on the television like you're not even worthy to pass in front of my eyes that's what you're saying franklin graham and so when i look at that i'm just like that's bad theology baby and like that's the thing it's just like you you your your god is so small and it's it's that idea of just like if you don't it's exposure and within like evangelical subculture like they uh everything outside of it is a threat and it's also really hard to undo those mindsets and i know because i was one for so long you know and but the thing about it is it's like it's that illusion of separateness like franklin graham thinks that he is separate from me franklin graham doesn't think that my queerness is welcome in the kingdom of god he's in the frightful dream um and i want to wake his ass up there's a part of me like i tell you what because i'm uh such a feisty human i've had fantasies in my mind not sexual fantasies mind you um where i'm on the stage i have to you know i need to specify because i talk about sex a lot so gotta specify because this involves franklin graham and i don't want to have a sexual fantasy but franklin graham oh frankly especially because he's got uh oh no that was jerry falwell who had the the pool boy right yeah jay action i can't help myself just kidding that's gross no he's not gross he's just um a despicable man um anyways franklin graham i would love i would love to just sit on the stage with any like christian like faith social leader like put me on stage like judah smith like somebody who's like real high up there and i just want to like talk circles around them and just be like to make it make sense to me like tell me how that tell me how you saying that me being gay i love you but i i hate your sin tell me how that makes sense to you because you seem like you're a logical person seems that you can and that's the thing is like people won't admit that they've got this bias and they don't even [ \_\_ ] know why i'm like at least know why and the thing about it is if you just think it's gross just say it's gross and then like well no not talk to you anymore um because the thing about it is like someone out there has a gay friend or and they know gay couples and like they don't think it's it's anything gross but then there are those who the disgust is bred into us i mean that's what was bred into me as a child was just like gay things are disgusting abomination so it's a cultural thing that has to shift it's just like y'all gotta which is again why we need to have queer representation to normalize in front of everyday people so we can hopefully move the vote and then blah blah blah 2020 save us bernie sanders or elizabeth warren or literally anybody else except the monster what's the linkage between what you just said that when we were growing up we were just taught that queerness is gross and the core tenet of the book which is that bad theology kills is there any link there yeah it's exactly that so this is actually um i made a post on the instagram today um just a slight trigger warning for those people who are very sensitive i'm going to talk a little bit about uh depression suicidal ideation for 0.5 nothing super heavy though um in a group that i'm in on facebook somebody posted that another one of their queer friends took their life um and this was the second person in two weeks and it's like i mean like i know what that feeling is like because i was someone who attempted twice and the reason i did that is because i was disgusted with myself i was disgusted with myself because i was taught that it was disgusting it was an abomination that god thinks this is gross not just that it's bad to do but that it is disgusting and vile and only only gross people do this like that's like was the feeling it's not just it's gross um and to find something gross or disgusting is to view it as something that is not human because we can only think that which is not human is disgusting because if you saw something as human you could never say that and so we learn to view ourselves as not human and therefore not worthy of the same protections as other humans we see ourselves as the problem or at least like we see our bodies as the problem because we're that's where desire originates you know in the body so when your desire when you learn how to be disgusted by your desire which also like you know if you're someone who experiences allosexuality like you know you're attracted to other humans of any variety um you know like i'm somebody who like i walk down the street and like i'll notice somebody who has a body period and be turned on probably because i'm turned on by almost everyone because i think people are beautiful but like imagine you know being a teen and having your hormones raging and every single moment thinking he thought oh my god you're disgusting only gross people think that kevin and i would talk to myself like that and that's what i was taught to and i also i did this thing um this is a small little anecdote in the book that i like um i had a they taught us to do this thing with a rubber band where every time you had a lustful thought you were supposed to snap the rubber band so that you would associate uh the bad thoughts with uh pains like a pavlov's dog sort of thing however what they did not count on was the fact that like that i think somehow informed like my kinks later in life because i'm just saying a little bit of pain goes a long way for me and i'm like whoo that's something i need to bring up with my therapist probably i mean that's a common thing based on uh the questions i get from listeners that is not in any way uh rare i mean i you know uh a little transparently this this show we talk a lot about sexuality uh and but i you know i'm kind of like let's spike pleasure with pleasure guy personally oh i love doing that i double that a lot of people i've noticed that that is a thing uh one thing i was reflecting on in like this i'm always thinking about how do we universalize a story right the personal is universal is something roberto says a lot and um and so i'm saying this i'm not de-centering you and if this is a swing and a miss we'll edit it out of the show okay but as you spoke something resonated in me that i wonder if might help other listeners right now right explore their own life experiences and i thought about how like when i was a little kid i hated seafood like i hated seafood so much that i would literally wretch if someone tried to get me to eat fish like like i was about to vomit and uh i grew and grew and grew and i just knew i hated seafood and then one day in my 20s i went to a sushi restaurant with somebody i really wanted to impress and everybody ate sushi and so i not wanting to not to look uncultured basically uh hate sushi and then figured out whoa i love sushi so one thing i just wanted to name is as we grow things that used to be appalling to us socialized or otherwise may not be right but to make that even more specific when i was young and culturalized i absolutely thought queerness was gross and i don't want to trigger anyone saying that yeah by saying that but i thought it was physically revolting and then i got to puberty and suddenly same-sex interactions between women weren't gross anymore uh but i still had this anti-gay physical revulsion and i got to the point where my theology changed and my understanding changed and my heart opened to gay men and to trans women and trans men but i still had this like physical ick factor that i kind of struggled with for a couple of years um and then what do you know it just start it just faded over time it just got so normal so now if i see a commercial where or a tv show where two men kiss i'm far more likely to cry i know than anything else because i'm like please let's make this world let's make this world where just love is accepted and celebrated and the reason i share that immediately after you're you sharing your own experience with kind of an internalized homophobia is not to center the the cis perspective i don't want to do that but to say that this is a journey we all take when we confront powerful social narratives right because our brains equate dominant social narratives with physical safety so it protects you in some way if you grow up in in a deep conservative fundamentalist context to have a physical revulsion to something that you're either kind of benign don't care about really or are actually attracted to because there's a high cost to being ejected from a social group when you're a human being yeah and i just wanted to name and reiterate that we grow and we change and whatever happens in our bodies we should be aware of but we shouldn't assume is permanent or inflexible right uh or or or some kind of fate that we cannot uh find a way out of yeah it's one of like it's one of those very interesting things where like i look at my mother for example too my mother excuse me my mother when i first came out um when i was a teen much by accident my father ended up outing me um she was not accepting she was not on board she didn't know what to do with it but she did know that she wanted to protect me and also protect me from the fires of like literal hell so sweet misguided but sweet um and so i was in ex-gay therapy we started that when i was like 15 years old and i was in there for 12 years between different kinds of groups even after exodus international folded i was still part of things like living waters and then various men's groups at different churches because like they'll sneak it in there x-gay therapy is sneaky like that they won't call it x-gay therapy they'll call it like i went to this thing they called it the rescue like and it was this whole like band of brothers situation like we are men and we're gonna do man things and i'm like oh you guys really don't get this do you um anyways all that to say 11 year like 12 years later when i came out to my mother again and told her i said like you know when we tried doing that i wanted to kill myself she for her it kind of clicked with her and she's like okay i'm going to try to understand this and even if i don't understand it i know that i love you and i know that you're a good human and that you know i can trust you and so it was a really interesting moment where it's just like this is like the same woman who you know a decade earlier told me that don't make me choose between god and you kevin because you know who i'm gonna pick and now she like and then like last year uh or two years ago um i took my partner at the time home for christmas and she loved him so well i was so kind and just like and it wasn't weird anymore and it was so shocking to me because like you know i i i had the very worst not the very worst but i had like a hard time my first time coming out and then the second time she showed up so it's like you're right like people do change people grow like people can do the work of changing their minds about certain things granted like i'm lucky because that doesn't happen for every queer person but it is like proof positive for me that if i am gentle and i show up with my light and simply shine it show up with who i am and simply like and don't apologize for it don't shrink back from it and stand up for myself when i need to if i just do be myself and like everything will work itself out and the thing is too it's just like even if my mother never came around i think that there is like a resiliency that i've developed or maybe was gifted to me i'm not quite sure where it comes from um yeah does that make sense it makes total sense i mean and i so appreciate the sensitivity to share a story of hope and then also to have the sensitivity for those people for whom that hope won't happen or is impossible say it yeah you know person who both their parents have already passed and never never came around and yeah and that was my dad my dad never really he never really came around from being honest he told me he's like oh like i call i came out to him on the phone he said kevin you know i never really had a problem with your sexuality i'm just like [ \_\_ ] barbara i was so i was so mad at him like you whack but you know people love believing their own narratives i mean that's myself included but like it's really really interesting like when you have people i have people in my life who like i say they can take they can tell me no like i have people in my life who will tell me the truth and tell me if i've gone too far um and if i need to apologize like i actively have friends who call me out on [ \_\_ ] because i need them um and i think there is something about having people who would tell you the truth and there's so many people who are just going along with the delusion and who are willing to go along with your delusion because they don't want to deal with your shitty feelings about getting called out and so like there has been a part of me where like we have to stop equating being wrong with being bad um because i will be wrong a thousand times over but that never impacts my belovedness my goodness uh my worth um i had a conversation with um one of my people recently um where we had to talk about just like hey like i feel like you crossed a boundary within this area of my life and it was like really tough to have the conversation with this person and then on the other side like we were free again because we we could we we trusted each other enough to tell each other the truth and now it's like we i trust her more now because i could tell her the truth and she could receive it and the same thing with my friends who call me out on my [ \_\_ ] i trust them more because i know that they will tell me the hard truth so that's the people i look for in deep relationships and i think that's something that like i want to i think that i'm encouraging in my book i talk about radical honesty i call it radical honesty i don't know if it's actually radical or if it's just telling the truth because it doesn't feel that radical now that i've been doing it for a while um but when i explain it to people um people are like whoa that sounds tough and i'm like i don't know if it's difficult i think it's different but i don't think it's that difficult and so here are the rules number one is i'm always okay to say what i feel and i know that i'm responsible for my feelings meaning that like if i if someone's upset with me or if i have upset someone or i am upset with someone i need to own that and i either need to go to them and bring and say like hey you've upset me i want to reconcile and be okay or i need to learn to let it go because i'm being petty most of the time i'm being petty i'm being if i'm being honest so that's the first part the second part is i have to always name my needs and i know that i'm responsible for getting my own needs met um so i can name my needs to my community to my family to my friends and if for whatever reason they can't meet it it's like okay well i still have a need for for me like i have this need for physical touch that i have actually been neglecting a lot recently and it came up in my therapy session earlier today let me tell you stay stay in therapy kids it helps um but i uh i i need it i need touch and because we're not um socialized to have like non-sexual intimate touch it's hard to find that sometimes like it's like i have some of my friends i'm just like can i please just like sit next to you and you put your arms around me because i just i need that for to stay sane um but i know that's responsible for me to get that need met period um and i have to ask for it because how are people gonna know if i need something if i don't say something what a concept and the last thing is i'm always okay to ask her what i want if i'm always okay with hearing no and that's a concept i borrow from the ethical [ \_\_ ] and a lot of times i had like they use that rule like in the bedroom it's like you can ask for anything as long as you're always okay with hearing no and i think that's true of anything like i can always ask for the thing i want and always i can be okay with hearing no because you know i don't ever want to impede on someone else's freedom and i also want to get the things that i want because i'm a human with desire and it's really really hard to do all those things perfectly all the time but it is a goal that i strive for and what i do within saying what i i feel and naming my needs and asking for what i want is there is no longer any ambiguity in me um about who i am or what i want or what like i feel like i'm finally like a unified person i think this is what they call integrity in some circles um but it is it has become like i'm now a person who like my yes is my yes and my no is my no and i don't have to fear people misunderstanding me because i've been very clear and if you misunderstand me that's because you might have misperceived me or maybe i'm wrong and if i'm wrong i'll repent it's very see how that works is you can say sorry yeah but i'm never afraid of being wrong anymore and that's really what i'm so happy about is like we can be wrong and it's not the end of the world we're not gonna be punished forever in a lake of fire nope because we made that up too and yeah i just this is the kind of like that's a good religion to me and i feel like it's if we can figure out how to let me say that if i can figure out how to do this for myself maybe i can help other people do it too and then maybe we'll have a revival but not like that you know um the book is bad theology kills when and where will it be available it is going to be available right now it's available for pre-order on my website which is the kevin garcia.com and it's going to be out end of uh end of january beginning of february we're still working on a release date because we've got some moving parts going on but um end of january is what i'm shooting for and i really really cannot wait for people to have this in their hands and they can also engage with your larger life and work there as well and connect with you i assume on social media as well yep the kevin garcia.com is a way to connect with me on all the social medias um the kevin garcia if you want inspiration go to instagram if you want snart go to twitter if you want long form mini blogs go to facebook and if you want a tarot reading um slide into my dms and let's get it going okay and we will have links to kevin's website in the show notes on this episode of ask science mike on our website sciencemike.com kevin yeah thanks for talking with me today i have so enjoyed getting to talk to you mike it's always a pleasure i genuinely like you likewise my friend yeah i was so excited when i looked at i was like two recording sessions in one day what am i gonna do i don't have that many spoons and then i saw that uh it was a conversation with you and i said oh that's not gonna take any spoons yeah i'll probably get come back and you know what if i can give anyone a spoon big spoon or a little spoon you let me know i'm versed you know what i'm saying this is why i can't be allowed in public you guys