Figs
Figs

I’m Fiachra “Figs” O’Sullivan, a couples therapist and the founder of Empathi.com. I believe that the principles of secure attachment and sound money are the two essential protocols for building a future filled with hope. I’m a husband and dad living in Hawaii, where I paddle outrigger canoes and get humbled daily by the wind and waves. I’m also incessantly funny—so much so that I should probably see someone about it.

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Last Notes

2025-09-17 17:19:53 UTC

Funny thing about people: we won’t change until the pain gets unbearable.
That’s true in relationships. It’s true with fiat.
And it’s exactly why Bitcoin matters.
I wrote this piece connecting the dots between love, pain, and Bitcoin:
https://empathi.com/blog/love-bitcoin-and-why-you-wont-change-until-it-hurts-like-hell

2025-03-24 07:16:21 UTC

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Thank you for posting this. I am surrounded by dems with Trump derangement syndrome in one part of my life and Trump apologists in the other.
It feels lonely being disgusted and wanting to avert my eyes from the vulgarity of both sides.

2024-11-14 07:36:42 UTC

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amazing!!!

2024-10-25 20:26:23 UTC

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The difference byn the soundest of mental health and dissociative personality disorder/multiple personality disorder is very small.
Those with the soundest of mental health know they are a multiplicity of subjectivities and can welcome each one of them, let them be felt, expressed and integrate their perspective into your adaptive/ego identity.
Dissociative personality disorder your different subjectivities take over whenever they feel like it and your adaptive identity never integrates their voices into the sense of self. We are left at their mercy as separate disowned parts of ourselves shouting ever louder to be heard.
So perhaps the voices are just disowned parts of your multiplicity begging to be heard and taken in from the shadows and integrated into your sense of self.
🤙

2024-10-13 06:28:10 UTC

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I listened to @npub1pyp…c0qq podcast interview last week and he seemed to conclude he doesn’t expect a lot of corps will follow the mstr playbook given the rare combo of experience in trad finance, a deep understanding and conviction in bitcoin, and an ability to wrap one’s head around the idea that diluting one’s stock can be a net benefit. It flies in face of common wisdom in corporate finance.
🤷

2024-10-13 05:58:58 UTC

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I hear you and I totally agree. I just being silly.
Food is definitely the hardest place for me to have my low time preference self win out and thus food is the area in life that I am most dedicated to working on. :)
Damn you bitcoin making me value and work on having low time preference!

2024-10-13 03:26:41 UTC

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Yep, my wife saw my primal app open to this the other day and it was too difficult to explain….🤷

2024-10-13 02:23:59 UTC

Do I have to be disciplined around food to be considered a good bitcoiner or is staying humble and stacking sats enough regardless of how much I love cake, pizza, popcorn, chocolate, potato chips and tea and toast?
#food

2024-10-11 18:14:03 UTC

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One’s love language is typically the inverse of the way you didn’t receive love as a child.
If you were abandoned - your love language will be presence/signs you can rely on your partner to be there for you.
If you were made to feel not enough as a child your love language will be to be enough/accpetable.
If you were not a priority for your parents your love language will be to be the most importsnt person to your partner.
And so it is.
Our need to be attached - emotionally bonded will be the last part of our humanity that will get striped away despite how hard we try not to need to be attached.
It is what it is.
Don’t shoot the messenger.

2024-10-11 07:46:58 UTC

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Mine is take a project off my hands and complete that project without needing any input from me. Then I feel loved.

2024-10-10 22:05:44 UTC

I have helped a few friends get off zero. Pat myself in the back.
But I do still need to thread lightly.
They are still not orange pilled.
And I can easily be overwhelming and scare the shit out of them.
I have learned the hard way that just because they got off zero it doesn’t mean they are ready to go deep down the rabbit hole yet and I scare them when I start talking g to them like they are a full fledged bride in bitcoin now.

2024-10-10 21:08:19 UTC

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https://youtu.be/su9PtmpE1lI?si=3liQTXVFRzPYYCmC

2024-10-10 20:54:44 UTC

There are two types of couples therapists.
There’s honest ones, and there’s the rest.
The honest couples therapist gets up in the morning and looks themself in the fucking mirror, and sets their standard. Sets their stall out, and says I’m going to get better. I’m going to get better. I’m going to get better.
They don’t complain about the clients, or the internet connection, or the model. Or all these sorts of things.
These are just peripheral things that weak couples therapists have always complained about. The dishonest couples therapist.
If The couple are not getting the cycle, if they are not deescalating, if they are not surrendering to one narrative - it is on you.
And we accept that, and we do something about it. We keep working on understanding them, loving them, reflecting the cycle more creatively, deeper, invest more of your own vulnerability. You do what it takes.
It is a battle. Bare knuckle stuff. You must win the battle. You must win for the relationship.
:)
#relationships
#couples therapy
#marriage
#relstionship advice
Credit British and Irish lions speech by Jim telfer 1997 for inspiration

2024-10-10 05:36:35 UTC

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Hmmm..video won’t upload. I guess one of the things about nostr I gotta get used to that even my posts with errors remain on my profile? Hmm…indeed.

2024-10-10 05:31:25 UTC

If you do a good job as a teacher all your students will take everything they can absorb from you, devouring your essence, and then throw away your carcass and disown your role in shaping opinions/career/success. 😭
A little tricky to have my wife do this with me, but c’est la vie.
We are both couples therapists and have our own podcast at comeheretomepodcast.com
This video here is an unedited little recording we did today on a family fun day as our kids are on fall break.
#relationship #marriage #systemstheory #attachment theory. #bitcoinersdeservegoodrelationshipstoo

2024-10-09 02:51:09 UTC

Living our best life.
I love that this is what we say to each other here in Hawaii as a greeting, an expression of gratitude, appreciation, a reminder to be present and take in the beauty all around Pune us.
I am as obsessed with outrigger canoeing as I am with Bitcoin.
My poor wife must have been very bad in your past lives to end up with me!
Although she does these early morning recreational paddles with me. It’s our Hawaii version of a romantic date.
https://m.primal.net/LPUZ.mov

2024-10-08 20:47:14 UTC

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Not everyone goes to therapy to resolve mental illness. It is more of a process of self development, integration of your multiplicity of subjectivities, and a method to become more fully alive.
I am a therapist and the vast majority of the people i see do not have any mental illness. They are just garden variety neurotics like myself.
Besides, symptoms of psychopathology is just the organic self/soul calling to be heard.
There really are people who are skilled in helping the organic self be heard and integrated (brought in from the shadows) and thus growing your range of aliveness.
Why do all of that ? growing ones ability to be alive is arguably our responsibility/a privilege once we have food and shelter covered.
And if you are a parent - we need to grow our ability to be alive to model it for our kids.
That’s what I do- help people grow their ability to be more connected to self and other. That is a fun process.
It is not a journey that has a final destination.
❤️❤️

2024-10-08 19:43:56 UTC

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Research shows that those that think sauna is “gay” are scared of their inner unclaimed full fledged gay queen persona.
You will find your way through a his inner conflict you have.
Send ing thoughts and prayers to you and your loved ones as you navigate coming to terms with who you are.
Don’t fear yourself.
🤓

2024-10-08 03:40:00 UTC

I studied business and economics at trinity college Dublin back in the early 90s.
Recently I asked a bunch of my former classmates, “what is the best way to buy bitcoin in Ireland?”
Some helpful attempts to answer the question that I appreciated.
But..one of my former classmates who has spent his entire career in stock portfolio management here in the US asked me about Bitcoin and told me about how
skeptical he is.
I risked the unwanted hijacking of our Group whatsapp chat by making a sober case for the values of bitcoin and my only ask was that he and others spend at least 10 hours to Really study it.
What was frustrating from our conversation:
He finished off our back and forth with, I am still not convinced. - well, duh! All I was suggesting is don’t dismiss bitcoin out of hand and tear yourself away from following Liverpool or man united for a few hours in the next few months! Ffs.
But the thing that really stuck with me is what he wrote in regards to inflation:
“The inflation protection ( from bitcoin) is a fallacy. Inflation doesn’t come from the currency you pay with. It comes from the price the seller charges. That will come from the cost of inputs, not how you pay.”
And that’s when I realized these people are living in a curated dream world l. In high school and at trinity we were spoon fed Keynesian economics and this wizard of oz shit - it isn’t money printing that causes inflation- that is inconceivable!
Almost all my friends in Ireland tell me bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. Just one that happens to be working.
That’s when I realized I am completely wasting my breath!
I don’t have the patience of Michael saylor and others. I will let them at it and they will get bitcoin at the price they deserve.

2024-10-08 00:16:07 UTC

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Wow that’s crazy. There is a real need out there and the market meets the demand!

2024-10-07 18:48:57 UTC

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This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Jalaluddin Rumi

2024-10-07 14:58:58 UTC

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Ah thanks for heads up. Yes- went back and forth on my “handle”.

2024-10-07 08:20:09 UTC

Bitcoin excites me on so many levels. But I am completely alone in my day to day life with my love for bitcoin. Everyone around me is deeply embedded in the fiat matrix and thinks I am just a bit touched.
My wife is kind enough to let me share my excitement about bitcoin with her even though she has barely any idea what I am talking about.
Bless her heart.

2024-10-07 08:02:53 UTC

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I will use that wording on some poor normie this week- I refer to normies as people who don’t do personal development for a living! And I mean it as a compliment to normies! They are much easier to make progress with!

2024-10-07 04:45:35 UTC

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I am a therapist and sometimes I have to work on helping people develop the basics of being conscious awareness.
To be conscious means it is always like something to be you:
Take a table- it is not like anything to be a table.
So when I ask my clients “what was it like right now to. Remember that/say that/share that with your spouse, etc., and they tell me it was fine. I felt nothing.
I tell them you are not a table.
We want to get as far away from being a table on the consciousness spectrum as possible!
Some people have never had anyone help them to not be tables!
Tables also are not aware of their internal monologue. They just need a little help..people that is, not literal tables…of course. 🤓

2024-10-06 17:43:06 UTC

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I also try and hike barefoot as much as I can. It slows me down for sure, but that’s not a bad thing. It helps me be more mindful and hike for enjoyment of nature not as an opportunity for my competitive side to run away with itself.

2024-10-06 17:39:03 UTC

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I love being barefoot. But I will say I stub my toes a lot more. My second toe is bigger than my big toe so I use it as a battering ram way too often.

2024-09-06 22:35:28 UTC

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You are like a wet dream come true for Christians with a question like that!
I imagine someone coming to me and asking me:
How does one feel strongly about Bitcoin? How does one have a personal relationship with Bitcoin?
I would have to excuse myself and do a little dance first before I answer the question without peeing myself in excitement.
Christians, enjoy this moment, but try not to pee yourself!

2024-09-06 20:53:03 UTC

Ever wonder what it is like to watch a couple of couples therapists process their feelings and resolve betrayals?
Here is our latest podcast episode, in which my wife and I process a rupture in our relationship that happened when our bond was in its infancy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_djQaYDgfwg
#relationships #couplescounseling #marriagecounseling #psychotherapy #communicationskills

2024-09-06 02:05:47 UTC

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how could you believe a word out of his mouth (or any politician's mouth)? Did he increase spending last time? Enough said.

2024-09-05 19:09:50 UTC

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Love this. More please! ❤️

2024-09-04 22:29:20 UTC

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This gives me pause on how much I want to share on here and other platforms.
I am still on fence about being out and vocal in the world as a bitcoiner.
Bitcoin is not how I make a living/my profession. It is not my area of expertise to talk about/I don’t anticipate or want to be a leading communicator only bitcoin wisdom. Shouldn’t I just keep my privacy enact? But I stay alone isolated from likeminded community.

2024-09-04 20:00:56 UTC

WTF has happened to music????
This video by Rick Beato is a thought-provoking exploration of modern music. Beato, perhaps unknowingly, provides a compelling description of what we, as Bitcoiners, would term “fiat music,” a concept that characterizes the current state of music. His insights are particularly noteworthy given his significant influence on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/1bZ0OSEViyo
In brief:
Services like Spotify ensure there is no scarcity of music and no need for proof of work/converting effort or actual work into monetary energy to buy music—Young people today have a high time preference for music due to having an almost infinite catalog available at all times. He gives examples from his childhood of how much thought and effort went into choosing an album to purchase. How sacred the time that one spent listening to music was. How what you bought was thus a big statement of who you were as a person.
The technology available makes it too easy to produce music. The music industry is basically printing music, and quantity and ease of production are valued over quality. It costs too much to discover and manage a rock band compared to how little effort it takes to create a formulaic pop boy/girl band. :(
I would love to see a top Bitcoin podcaster interview this guy.
#fiatmusic #fiat #fiatfood.

2024-09-04 19:46:44 UTC

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Thanks!

2024-09-04 19:44:09 UTC

WTF has happened to music?????
This video by Rick Beato is a thought-provoking exploration of modern music. Beato, perhaps unknowingly, provides a compelling description of what we, as Bitcoiners, would term “fiat music,” a concept that characterizes the current state of music. His insights are particularly noteworthy given his significant influence on YouTube.
In brief:
Services like Spotify ensure there is no scarcity of music and no need for proof of work/converting effort or actual work into monetary energy to buy music—Young people today have a high time preference for music due to having an almost infinite catalog available at all times. He gives examples from his own childhood of how much thought and effort went into choosing an album to purchase. How sacred the time that one spent listening to music was. How what you bought was thus a big statement of who you were as a person.
The technology available makes it too easy to produce music. The music industry is basically printing music, and quantity and ease of production are valued over quality. It costs too much to discover and manage a rock band compared to how little effort it takes to create a formulaic pop boy/girl band. :(
https://youtu.be/1bZ0OSEViyo?si=fTjlP_YGDRBFOJ7f
I would love to see a top Bitcoin podcaster interview this guy.
#fiatfoods #fiatmusic #music

2024-09-04 05:40:02 UTC

@npub16se…jdxk thanks for the prompt to #asknostr
I am a us citizen. Am I incurring a taxable event every time I zap someone?
Can someone help me wrap my head around how I make the mental transition from stacking and hodling only to now making taxable micro payments in bitcoin/lightning?
Thanks!
#asknostr

2024-09-04 03:07:05 UTC

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Thanks! I will reach out to them. Thanks again. ❤️

2024-09-03 21:25:07 UTC

I am excited to be here and to be part of such an amazing community. I am a couples therapist by day and a Bitcoin treasury reserve manager for my family by night. :)
My Bitcoin journey is similar to most.
A couple of differences:
I worked as a stockbroker for major wirehouses in the 90s in San Francisco.
So, I had already been at the center of many opportunities to get in on big life-changing opportunities early. Still, I took the consensus trade and talked myself out of opportunities right under my nose.
I thought San Francisco house prices were too expensive when I was in my early 20s. I was making a ridiculous amount of money for someone that young. I used to have a Debt is Slavery sticker on my fridge. Doh!
I was convinced that Google IPO was too expensive, so I didn't buy it even though they were my client while I was a corporate client group director at Citibank. Amazon didn't make any money, so of course, I didn't buy it.
The nice thing about getting it wrong over and over and becoming aware of it is that it primed me to be ready for the next time the opportunity arose where the herd couldn't get it, and those brave enough to buy and hold would inherit the earth!
I almost fucked up with bitcoin too. When I tried to buy some in 2012, I needed to get off the couch to get my ID and verify my identity. That was too big an ask, so I didn't buy any. Arrgh!
In 2017, I thought I was a genius trading Bitcoin. My wife asked me if I was sure I wanted to stay a therapist when I could make so much money every day. Yep, I know everyone is a genius in a bull market. I fell for that, too.
Another big difference from most people's journey is I studied economics at Trinity College Dublin. I didn't even know I had been brainwashed. I was a lefty European-San Francisco progressive through and through. I had no idea I had been ideologically captured. Shout outs to @npub15vz…k4um and @npub1a2c…w83a for helping me to get edumecated.
I was outraged by the 2008 financial crisis and the banks' bailouts, and I was an active participant in Occupy Wall Street. In 2009, I wish I had found the Bitcoin white paper rather than the Occupy Movement!
Needless to say, Bitcoin has changed my life and how I understand economics. Discovering Austrian economics and libertarian philosophy through my Bitcoin journey has profoundly changed me.
Today, I am blessed to live life inspired by a Bitcoin mindset:
I own my business, my house, and Bitcoin. That is all. Shout out to @npub15dq…lm5m and @npub1cn4…3vle for inspiring me.
I make sure I am a net producer and live within my means. Shout out to @npub1s5y…6q7z for making me feel like I was going crazy by integrating the importance of continuing to give more value than I extract. Changed my whole mindset about what it means to retire, etc.,
These days, I dream of providing my wisdom and skills as a couples therapist and relationship expert to Bitcoiners. Bitcoiners are people, too, goddammit!
For the last 14 years, I have primarily served as a relationship expert to Silicon Valley's movers and shakers. I had to be good at something—couples therapy is my area of mastery/competence! And I love it. So, I am here for bitcoiners who could do with help figuring out how to make love and relationships work. Good luck trying to implement your right to divine individual sovereignty in your relationship!
I am also shifting my focus to giving my expertise and wisdom to my local community here in Hawaii. Spending the dollars I earn from the mainland here is not enough. I have to do more to help people here in Oahu. Shout out to @npub14mc…frlx; what you do in Bedford is inspiring.
My big crazy dream is to educate local Hawaii residents who have been priced out of paradise about Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the equivalent of the 21st-century version of 18th-century Hawaii, Manhattan, and Miami Beach property. Hawaiians could buy Bitcoin right now from under the noses of the elites that took their sovereignty from them, hold the Bitcoin for a decade, and be in a position to get their land back or keep their Bitcoin forever.
If anyone here in Hawaii has ideas on how to spread this idea to the local community, please let me know.
A long introduction - but this is like my own coming out as a Bitcoiner - so I am primarily writing this for myself. If it is too long, I respect your right to keep scrolling. ;)
Mahalo!
Figs
#introductions

2024-09-03 19:27:28 UTC

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I appreciate you do. I primarily listen to you, Preston, jack mallers, Jeff booth, and others to keep stacking and hodling through the doubt. Thanks!

2024-09-03 19:21:26 UTC

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I have been around since early 2017. Not an og..but here long enough to believe. But I never feel 100% certain we are going to have price action that repeats/rhymes with past cycles.
How do so many bitcoin communicators speak with zero doubt about bitcoin’s future?
I am as committed as a pig in a ham and cheese sandwich. But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry/doubt.

2024-09-03 02:47:28 UTC

I spent yesterday afternoon orange pilling my neighbors at our neighborhood block party.
I wore my bitcoin halving equation shirt and I was blown away by how many people asked me about it.
I felt like Michael saylor repeating myself so much that I was letting out sighs a couple of hours in to the party.
My wife was in shock. I usually have to be dragged along and I was chatting with everyone.
She told me I knew you came to work this party when I saw you arrive with that t-shirt on.
https://m.primal.net/KbZz.jpg

2024-09-02 16:08:09 UTC

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I followed you. 🫡

2024-09-02 05:29:52 UTC

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That is a fine stick. I would be my dog’s hero if I found that stick for her.

2024-09-01 05:23:14 UTC

I can’t quite wrap my head around zapping people for posts, podcasts, etc.,
Taking on a taxable event every time I tip seems in opposition to the transition I made from 2017 me- trading bitcoin, eth, ltc, xrp and god knows what else to
2020-21 me- “oh shit I get this bitcoin thing…finally”. I am selling everything else l, setting up multisig and only holding bitcoin.
To 2023-24 me- what can I do to make sure I never sell my bitcoin…ever!
#zaps #nostr #bitcoin

2024-08-31 15:55:57 UTC

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Hawai’i is more purple than people think. The missionaries got their bibles in the hands of the native Hawaiians and the rest of the Pacific Islanders, lots of military people here, and the Filipinos treat the pope like a rockstar.
Honolulu city is solidly blue. The rest of Oahu not so much.
Aloha!
Nice to be connected in here.

2024-08-30 03:50:36 UTC

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Last election we had some fella running up and down Kailua beach with a trump flag.
What is nice about living in Hawaii- we let everyone do their thing- live their best life. I would hate to have that change.
There is room for all perspectives here. I will paddle (outrigger canoe) on the open ocean with a democrat or a republican. Just as long as they can keep their shit together and work hard out there in the swell, wind and rain.
🌊

2024-08-30 01:55:49 UTC

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Just finished book 3 of the stormlight series. So this image hits different!

2024-08-30 00:03:35 UTC

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That would be amazing. As would an interview with @npub1cn4…3vle by Lex.

2024-08-29 22:06:13 UTC

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How can you still support him when they engaging in shitcoinery?
The alternative is unbearable too…but ffs.

2024-08-29 05:41:00 UTC

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I am a couples therapist and I feel the same way. My he moment a couple can go from seeing their relationship as a me or a you problem to seeing it as a us problem is a profound shift on the same level as the penny dropping about bitcoin.
Changes the two people, the family’s life profoundly.
So excited to meet another therapist bitcoiner!!