Hi, I'm Piper Harris, a licensed professional counselor, and welcome to the Untangled Mind Podcast. This is a show for people who want to understand why their mind works the way it does, not just how to cope with it. Drawing from neuropsychology, neurophilosophy, and data-driven CBT, we look at how anxiety and trauma shape perception, behavior, and choice and what actually helps people change. I'm an integrative CBT therapist based in the Atlanta suburbs. Each episode is designed to teach you something concrete, how to recognize what's keeping you stuck, how to interrupt unhelpful patterns, and how to move forward with clarity and steadiness. Today I'm talking about a type of interaction that gets brushed off far too easily. It's when a stranger inserts meaning into your life, often using moral or spiritual language, without asking for consent or considering context. It's framed as kindness or concern, but it crosses a boundary. This isn't about faith or good intentions. It's about the psychology of forced intimacy, why it feels violating, and why women experience it so often in public spaces. I'll break down the behavioral pattern behind it, the cultural messages that encourage it, and why restraint, not expression, is one of the most overlooked psychological skills we could have. If you've ever walked away from an interaction feeling unsettled but unable to explain why, this episode will put language to it. So today's podcast is going to be a little bit different, particularly because I speak about things that more are centered around my work here within the office for anxiety and trauma and in particular for untangled mind. However, uh something happened this morning that I think is very relevant and something that needs to be spoken about so that all of us can manage it within our life. So what this is is that I want to speak directly to unsolicited meaning, meaning that psychological uh intimacy that is placed on someone without permission. So, to give you a little bit of context, I went to the gym this morning. I gotta go a little bit later, which was fabulous. I had late clients today. Um, and I go to the gym and um I'm fully clothed. Um, I'm just not one of those women that's comfortable with just you know wearing a sports bra and my butt hanging out. I just am not one of those women. So I'm fully clothed to give you a little context. And for the most part, um I have been told I have RBF because I'm there to work. I'm there to work very, very hard. I work um in heavy loads, I love lifting, and I work to failure and intensity. So, what happened is I had a fabulous workout today. Shoulders and arms, I was dying, I was hurting, and I had to go in the back room because all the benches were full where I typically do my shoulder work. I went through the workout, everything's great. The whole back room is filled with men. My husband didn't uh make it to the gym with me this morning, he had to do some stuff for family. And so, as I was leaving, after a whole hour of just obliterating my shoulders and my arms, a gentleman is sitting on the floor stretching. And before I go any further, I want to make this very clear. I am not a feminist. In fact, I'm probably very I am very against feminism. However, I want to make very clear, I am very pro-boundary, pro leave me alone. I'm sweating and working out, I don't want to be talked to. Um, I am very pro-husband, pro-marriage, and I don't ever give the insinuation to anyone otherwise. So I digress. As I'm walking out of this back area, a gentleman is there stretching and he reaches out and I was like, oh gosh, because I have my earphones in. And he hands out, he was holding out something, and I was like, Oh, did I drop something? So I pull out my earphone because I can't hear them, and he hands me this little tiny Jesus figurine. Yes, Jesus Christ cartoon, like squishy plastic figurine. And I said, Oh, Jesus, and he goes, Yeah, I was praying for you. And I said, Great, could use all the prayer I can get. And I quickly exited and went to the locker room, got my stuff, and put little cartoon Jesus on the counter. This is what I want to say is that in and of itself, it was a very upsetting thing because I enjoy going to the gym and I enjoy it being a safe space. Did this individual cause physical harm? Nope. Did they violate my psychological boundaries, my emotional boundaries, all of those things? 100%. So do I feel unsafe physically? Not yet, but you're bordering on it. There is a behavioral configuration to these individuals, and I want to talk about this because we can see this male or female. It just happened to be that I experienced this as a female. The first one is this behavioral configuration that I want to speak to and think about this is that there's boundary blindness, meaning that individuals can initiate contact without relational permission. So I had my headphones in, I'm a stranger, I've seen the dude in the gym for the last two and a half years I've been in there. I've never spoken to him. And it was a very transitional moment. I'm leaving the gym, I'm done with my workout. So there was boundary blindness. Number two, there was symbolic authority borrowing, meaning that someone, and it happened to be this gentleman, can um use moral or spiritually loaded symbols, hence Jesus and prayer, to elevate an interaction above normal social rules. When I came home, and I my husband said when he got home too from his stuff, he said, How was the workout? I said, Well, the workout was great, but the end really sucked. And I told him what happened, and I said, I don't understand. Like, what was this person legitimately trying to pray for me? Why would you assume I needed your prayer in the first place? That part kind of irritated me too, if I'm being honest. So that that part was there's this kind of this symbolic borrowing, like, I prayed for you, and here's Jesus. The third thing that we'll see with individuals that do this, that have this um breaking of boundaries, are our internal boundaries. We don't have to speak out boundaries. Um, the third one was forced significance. So that's when an individual creates instant meaning without shared context. So they bypass consent of being like at least uh acquaintances, or I could have been there with some of my friends that I know, and then he speaks to me because I'm with them. This forced significance through the use of Jesus and prayer bypasses that consent and replaces it with um a mutual a mutuality without a declaration of like, hey, I'm friends with so-and-so, or they're in the same place. The other thing that can happen is this self-centering that's disguised as altruism, and this is a really big one. The phrase, I was praying for you, is not about me. So when you hear these things and something kind of comps up, like, wait a second, what? So when that phrase of I was praying for you is not about me, it was about positioning the speaker, him, as the perceptive chosen one or more spiritually active one that is going to help your life. Now, I want to say this: I love Jesus Christ with all my heart, soul, and strength. 100% everybody knows this. I do not, do not approach some random man at the gym and say, I've been praying for you. Here's a little baby Jesus. Um, there have been situations where I've been at like a grocery store and I could see pain on someone's face and I'll say, Hey, you doing okay? But I never do this kind of um self-centering of, hey, Jesus spoke to me and told me that I should interrupt what you're doing and talk to you about what's going on. I know a lot of people evangelize in that way. That is not something that I do, and I do not believe this individual is evangelizing me. I just don't. The last point I want to make is um what we kind of call is like a low narcissistic, a low supply, low risk narcissistic supply. Meaning this public spaces plus strangers equals minimal accountability and maximum validation if I were to respond in a different way. Now, it just sucks to have this conversation and say to my husband, I wasn't doing anything, I was working my ass off and I was dying and going to the locker room. This individual chose my leaving to just kind of lob something out there to see what I would do. But there's minimal accountability to those actions. Could I have just been like, dude, take your Jesus? I could have, but I think in that moment I just was like, okay, just be nice, be polite, which is part of what I believe is some of the societal training that we see of women. So, what I want to talk about is those are relevant to male or females. I know women, in particular, some women, that out also have these core features. So boundary blindness, symbolic authority borrowing, forced significance, self-centering disguised as altruism, and low-risk narcissistic supply. This is not just for men, this is for women as well. Why this felt so violating, especially to those of us that are adults, is that this interaction in particular triggered immense disgust with me. Immense disgust. Um, the word that came to my mind was this is repugnant. Um, and it violates three levels all at once. Okay, so number one, it violated an interpersonal boundary. It was an unsolicited interruption. I gave no contact, eye contact, I gave nothing. I'm leaving the gym. Number two, there's that symbolic boundary that was also crossed. The misuse of something sacred. I'm trying to give grace. Maybe this dude thinks he's evangelizing. Not the best use, okay? But you're misusing something that I hold very, very dear. And so you are you are crossing my spiritual Jesus boundary. Number three, you are crossing, these individuals can cross a narrative boundary. And so this is what um I think is really important for people that are listening to consider is when this happens, that individual, whoever it is, male or female, is assigning you a role. So for me, the role that was assigned is someone needs prayer without starting a dialogue, without assessing if it's appropriate. Okay, so those are three boundaries that are commonly going to be crossed in these situations, male or female. So interpersonal boundary crossing, so that unsolicited interruption for me, symbolic boundaries, so and the um emotional or excuse me, faithful boundaries. Um, don't misuse sacred symbols. Um, and then the narrative boundary of like I've decided you're the person that needs prayer. So why I think um this is important to talk about is that unfortunately women are experiencing this more um disproportionately to men. And again, men experience this too. I have seen women do this before too. It's just in a little bit of a different way. But why I think women experience this more disproportionately, and again, I'm not a feminist, but let's just put things out on the table. This just is. Um, we have been conditioned to be polite, so hence my I could use prayer and walking off. In actuality, what I would have preferred to say is, who the hell do you think you are? I don't need prayer. But again, then that goes against who I am as a Christian, like it's a whole thing. So there's the politeness conditioning, there's also social penalties for confrontation of women. Women are commonly called bitches if we confront inappropriate behavior. It happens all the time. Now I'm not saying every woman is right in their confrontation, but routinely we're called bitches for confrontation. And third, um, a lot of times when these things happen to women, it's because it's that transitional vulnerability. So it's like in the gym, it's in the parking lot, it's in checkout lines, that sort of thing. So, and it's also, also rarely done in the presence of another man because those boundaries require asymmetry, not courage. This dude, I've seen him in the gym for two and a half years. Surely to goodness, he's seen me with my husband. Surely to goodness, he's seeing that I don't talk to any other men. So women are disproportionately in these situations, and it's something that we really do need to discuss. The politeness conditioning is a tough one, so is the social pen um penalty for confrontation and as well as those transitional vulnerabilities, those are definitely there. Um, I've had clients share that they were even at the gym with a girlfriend and a man still approached. You know, I don't know, I'm not seeing what's going on contextually. Um, but again, this happens a lot to women, unfortunately. So um broadly speaking, um I what I want to do is that talk about some things that I'm seeing societally and um culturally within the therapeutic field. Part of the problem, I think, is with what I saw today is there has been a therapeutic overexposure in our culture. What I mean by that is that the idea of my inner state, like how I feel, needs to be public property. It that idea has been normalized. Um, you know, well, these are my feelings, these are my truth. Great, keep it in your head. But now what we're hearing is I felt led or I sensed something about you, or I was moved to share. No, what you did was you bypass any need of the other individual for you. And I think because of this therapeutic overexposure, um, we're seeing this more and more and more. So I think that's that's part of the issue. The second issue I see is it's this um moral performance, right? So social media rewards these symbolic gestures over a disciplined character, and I think that's what I felt repugnant, like this repugnancy about this, because I was like, dude, I I got tattoos all over me that represent Jesus. Okay, maybe you don't, you know, read Greek and Hebrew. I get that. But I'm I'm wearing my necklace. You can see that I'm I'm a Christian, you can see I have a wedding band on, but you you use this moral superiority as a way of approaching me rather than having a disciplined character. Public spirituality like this is um a shortcut to perceived goodness. Do you see the bypass? Like the bypass of like, well, I'm gonna force psychological um uh what's the word of um uh force psychological um intimacy with you through this moral idea, not the way to go. So the best way to do it is quiet restraint, right? But public displays are the thing that we see everywhere. Everybody is vying to be seen. And how do we do this? Could it just be the fact that this dude just didn't know what he was doing and he was just being dumb? Sure. Um, could it be because um this is what we're seeing in every day, and he thinks it's again an appropriate approach? Uh okay, but again, what you're doing is you're bypassing, you're bypassing discipline, discipline, and forcing um this this you know uh faith intimacy. Wrong thing to do. Here's the other thing it does is that what I'm seeing culturally, and that we really need to discuss about is that what happens is these kind of situations really collapse private versus public meaning. Not all meaning belongs in a shared space, okay? I love the Lord, I pray for people all the time, my clients know that, even if they don't believe in God. I'm like, I know you don't believe in God, but I'm praying for you. So I get that, but to force, hey, I am praying for you, here's a Jesus. No, we we don't share any space for you to have that access to me. So we've lost the ability to really hold this interior experience without spitting it out, okay, which is huge. Um, we've gotten away from who having discipline, holding it in, and not having this compulsion to say whatever. Um, so and not to step into more of the feminist look of things, but some men really do reach for symbolic dominance, um, moral, spiritual, ideological when it comes to relational competence. Okay, so it's safer to have someone hand you a Jesus than to develop self-regulation, social skill, or even genuine courage to appropriately approach a single woman. Um, but again, I can see this in women as well. So I'm really not trying to just make this male bashing. The man this morning in the gym, I think, has earned it. Um, a little bit about that. Why this matters clinically and why I think this is really important for us to talk about from a psychological standpoint is this. Um, what happened is those kind of exchanges reinforce the entitlement of others' inner lives, right? It's this entitlement of like, well, I felt this way, so I'm gonna say it. And it confuses intent with impact, like, well, my my intent was this, but the impact was awful. Um, it trains people to ignore nonverbal cues, didn't even make eye contact. I mean, I was doing my last set, my finisher, and I was like, this. I mean, I I like read the room. Um, and it really a lot of what we're seeing psychologically and culturally is that it is normalizing moral intrusion. Okay. I know we can see hear this from both sides. I'm strictly speaking about this contextually. Okay, please stay on my comments. I don't want to hear it. So left unchecked, it shows up later as spiritual bypassing, coercive helping, and emotional overreach framed as care. Do you see how that happens? So we're normalizing this language through everyday therapeutic practices, therapy speak, all these idiot TikTok therapists, all of this stuff. And what that's doing is it's reinforcing the very behavior that causes a lot of us enormous distress. Um, so I am not arguing whether this dude had a genuine evangelical approach to him. I'm not arguing that. What I am saying from my perspective, I can't read the dude's mind. Number one, I gave you no idea that I wanted to talk to you. I was literally shaking. I was exhausted. I was leaving the room. I had my ear pods in, my airpods in. You could see I was directly leaving. There was no implication that I wanted to speak to you. None. The other thing is, how dare you say to me, I'm praying for you, and you have a here's your Jesus. How about you find out who I am and my faith before you tell me I need your prayer? Um I I what I'm arguing for, what I'm arguing for with everyone, and what I want you to hear and be aware of is we need to practice discipline and restraint. Period. Shut your mouth. Too many people just kind of go with it. I don't know why. I, you know, I get to know people in here and I can put those pieces together, but for today with this individual, I don't really care because it crossed all of those boundaries for me. And I'm upset. I want to go to the gym and enjoy a workout. Now I'm gonna have to worry about my husband being madder in hell, and he should be. So it's taken away a space that I go to center myself and be healthy and well for my clients here, and it was destroyed by a person's inability to read the room and practice restraint. So, what I want to say is a mature moral life knows that not every impulse is a calling, not every thought needs to be expressed, and not every stranger is your audience. Sometimes the most ethical, most balanced thing to do is just practice silence. So that's really one that I wanted to touch on today. Um, typically, again, I talk about CBT, I talk about the practice and anxiety and trauma, but I really thought that this was very important to speak of because we all live interpersonal lives. We have people that were around all the time. And it's really important for us to recognize when we feel like something's off, some people are highly attuned to it, like me, where I was like, dude, what in the hell? Like I was just so put off by it. But some people aren't aware of that. We've got to learn to listen to those internal sensations that are like, hey, boundary is off, something's going on. We've got to kind of step into that and really understand this is what's going on. So again, you can identify this intruder. I'm kind of calling it like a psychological profile of a moral intruder by the boundary blindness, symbolic authority borrowing, because again, this is a way to elevate their position in your life, which is weird because they don't have a position in your life, but it that's what they do. Then there's like this forced significance, right? This shared context, but they're bypassing all of the social norms of creating relational context. Um, also being aware of that self-centering, like, you know, um, I I just, you know, I thought you needed prayer disguised as altruism. It it it's all about them. It's not about the person they said that to. It's all about how do I feel because I felt I needed to say something. And then again, being aware of that low-risk narcissistic supply. So that's where we see public spaces, strangers, which means there's minimum accountability, minimum accountability, maximum validation if somebody receives it. So just being aware of those things. This can happen with men or women, but obviously, today this happened to me at my gym and it really pissed me off. And I apologize. Yes, people can love Jesus and cuss. Um it's really discouraging because this is one of the things that I love to do. I love to go work out, I love to push my body, and now I have to feel uncomfortable, as does my husband. Um, and again, if you just learned a little personal restraint, everything would be fine. Go find a chick that is single. Hopefully, she's single. Um, but again, this can happen with men or women. I just thought that this was a really important topic for us to touch on because um too often we don't speak about articulate why people might feel like a violation. We hear people screaming about being, you know, violating their rights, that sort of thing, but there's not a complete articulation of what that is, and I hoped that I gave you that today. Take care, and I'll talk to you next time. That brings us to the end of this episode. Thanks for joining me. I hope you learned some tools that can equip you to untangle your mind and untangle your life. If you're curious about working with me for your anxiety or trauma, head on over to my website at untangledmind.net to connect with me. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review me on your podcast listening platform and share it with your friends and family. As always, thanks so much for listening to me, Pyper Harris with the Untangled Mind Podcast. I'll talk with you next time.