VBB 289 Rahti Gorfien — ADHD A Superpower Or A Stigma For Women!

Intro [00:00:01]:

Virgin Beauty Bitch Podcast, inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being defiantly different. Your hosts, Christopher and Heather.

Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:20]:

As host of Virgin Beauty Bitch, Heather and I invite women to share their stories with the hope that these voices will resonate with others who may have similar experiences but may not feel confident to speak that into the world. The same happens in our personal lives. Friends who confide in us sometimes don't realize how many women are experiencing similar challenges. One topic that has come up recently from female friends, and these are mature and very accomplished women, is that over time, they believed they were either born flawed or broken, only to realize they fit the profile of many women diagnosed with ADHD. To help us connect the dots, we welcome a woman recently recognized as one of the top ADHD coaches by Coach Foundation.com. We welcome Rati Gorfien to Virgin Beauty bitch. Welcome.

Rahti Gorfin [00:01:20]:

Woo hoo. Thank you for having me. This is so exciting.

Christopher [00:01:25]:

We are honored to have you. Now, Rati, I really want to hear your personal life journey to becoming a coach because your story is unique and fascinating. But first, maybe we can get your help in understanding the basics of attention deficit hyperactive disorder, aka - ADHD.

Rahti Gorfin [00:01:47]:

Absolutely. And so you know it used to be ADD, not ADHD. Now everybody, for whatever reason, in their infinite wisdom, decided in DSM five it would just be ADHD. H stands for hyperactive, which is why I think it's ridiculous. People were not, and women were not getting diagnosed as much as boys were getting diagnosed because boys tend, I think, to need to move. They can be more disruptive. They have more, you know, they can have more aggressive energy, which, of course, they're raised and encouraged to have. So they can be identified as having ADHD, whereas girls, the way it manifests many times is maybe they would talk too much in class to their friends or they would daydream.

Rahti Gorfin [00:02:43]:

That was me. I would just daydream and look out the window. Full disclosure, I have another neurodivergent condition, which is I don't have a formal diagnosis of ADHD, but my brother does. And I suspect that I have it, too. But I don't want to be a poser about it. You know, it's funny, I'm wary of labels. I just had a very interesting experience with labeling myself, which we can talk about if you like.

Rahti Gorfin [00:03:14]:

I mean, I have bipolar disorder, which is also neuropsychological, just like ADHD. And many times those conditions are concurrent. Depression, ADHD, and various psychopathies can be concurrent. Girls were not getting identified as having it as readily as boys. A lot of, you know, it's one of those things that's a big aha when you get diagnosed and all of a sudden your whole life is in perspective in a way, that you go, oh, that's what was going on. That's why I couldn't do this, or that, and the other thing. I think I've met more women who've been able to adapt to their unique brain wiring, which is all ADHD is; it's a unique brain wiring.

Rahti Gorfin [00:04:10]:

It's no better or worse than any other brain-wiring. I think sometimes it gets touted as a superpower, which is all very nice, but there are challenges. More women I know than men seem to have tapped into the strength side of ADHD and managed to do very well in school or in employment situations. One thing I don't think people know is that it's not common knowledge; they think ADHD is not being able to stick to one thing and jumping around. Equally true is being hyperfocused. People with ADHD can go deep into something, and there's certainly a lot of geniuses who've allegedly had ADHD, or it's surmised that they did, like Albert Einstein, because it's a challenge of interest.

Rahti Gorfin [00:05:17]:

That's the thing about jumping around. People with ADHD cannot tolerate boredom. The rest of us can. If we have to do something we may find a way to get it done or be able to soldier through. Not it being very exciting, but a lot of my work. As a coach with people who just can't overcome boredom in order to function, to get things in their life accomplished that they need to.

Christopher [00:05:47]:

I find it interesting you called it a superpower.

Rahti Gorfin [00:05:50]:

Well, I don't. A lot of people do, but, no, I sometimes refer to it that way.

Christopher [00:05:55]:

I can see it that way in how we want our boys or men to operate in our society. But for women, it becomes, is it not more of a stigma for them?

Rahti Gorfin [00:06:08]:

I don't know if it's any more of a stigma for women than it is for men. I think any kind of neurological label can be a stigma. I mean, I just had an interesting experience as someone with bipolar two. I went to a ten-day silent meditation retreat, and I've done it before.

Christopher

Vipassana?

Rahti Gorfin

Yes. You know it? Have you ever done it? You've done it. It was my second situation.

Rahti Gorfin [00:06:38]:

The ten day, they call it a sit. It was my second sit. It was with different teachers. And for whatever reason, this particular teacher was very anxious about my diagnosis, and wanted me to check in every day with her. And I'd already been through it once. I didn't really understand. I felt treated like a diagnosis, quite frankly.

Rahti Gorfin [00:07:02]:

And there were issues with the retreat manager that came up that were unpleasant, that were sorted. And then I started having some, what are called Kundalini manifestations, you know, where, you know, my involuntary movements while meditating with the energy rising. And they pulled me out. I mean, the first time she pulled me out, she said, you have carte blanche. You can eat whatever you want. You know how it is. The last meal is at noon, right? Or 05:00 tea.

Rahti Gorfin [00:07:44]:

She said, I want you to get grounded. You can eat whatever you want, you can exercise, whatever. It was like she really was afraid I was going to have a psychotic break. And, you know, the next morning I was still ticking, you know, not ticking. I was still having my Kundalini things. Ticking is something else that I actually managed to cure on this past retreat, which for me was six days, because she pulled me out and she said, I think it's. I think the retreat is over for you. I think she was being over vigilant.

RahtiGorfin [00:08:22]:

I don't know if something happened in the last five years since I first did it, and I can understand they're not equipped to handle it. And things do happen with intense meditation, with people who don't necessarily know themselves psychologically very well. And the stimming also, one thing that caught our attention was the fact I do stim. And a lot of people with ADHD do what is called stimming. And she said, well, we call people on it because it's a way of self comforting, and that's a misunderstanding. People with ADHD who stim, people on the spectrum who stim, yes, it may be, absolutely. For some, it's self comforting, but for me, it's focus.

Rahti Gorfin [00:09:14]:

I find I do it when I talk to people. It's like I'm, like, rocking so that I can understand something. Or, you know, when I'm coaching, I make these little out of baby bon bell wax. I make these little sculptures. And you can tell how challenging a coaching session might be by the intricacy of the sculpture because it helps me focus. So, there's some, and I love them. I think the passion is awesome. And I was alluding to an incredible breakthrough I had in the six days.

Rahti Gorfin [00:09:58]:

So in a way, she's right. I graduated early. I've had these lifelong OCD, tics that in this past sit, for whatever reason, I was able to release. And these have been lifelong, involuntary, don't step on the crack, you know, so having to step back, weird, you know, people with touretic tendencies, that's what I had. I got rid of them. So it's a really good system, but it's an example of stigma. It's an example of being stigmatized.

Heather [00:10:31]:

Of a diagnosis in your coaching. Just given all that you've done in your own personal development and, you know, the stories that you just shared, what have you found useful for the people that you work with when they're trying to maybe first identify if, you know, or maybe walking through, okay, I wasn't diagnosed at a young age. But now, maybe I have been diagnosed, or I'm starting to think that I'd like to revisit that. Maybe there are layers of stigmatism. Like, what is that journey like for you and the people that you work with? And then if you could share with our listeners ways that you've helped people that you work with to get through the boredom piece to find ways to function through some of the things that they know that they need to do but have a struggle to do, could you illuminate some of the things that you've found in your work?

Rahti Gorfin [00:11:26]:

I'll be honest, I haven't had a lot of issues with people struggling with the stigma of ADHD once they've been diagnosed. I've had more challenges with clients, both male and female, who really identify with the label, and they kind of see it as a disability, and it becomes an excuse. It's a reason, not an excuse, for things not going the way you want in your life. And the reason is because you've got this fantastic, highly calibrated brain, like a Maserati, that you don't know how to drive. And as a coach, that's what I'm helping people learn to do, is find out where all the gears are, what stimulates them, what allows them to focus. Some people have to be in an environment with some noise to focus. Some people can't have anything, and they have to turn all their alerts off and they have to turn the wi-fi off. It's very individual, a very individualized process.

Rahti Gorfin [00:12:43]:

I also use an assessment from a methodology called positive intelligence that basically identifies and helps people identify what I'll call their demons and what Shirzad Shamin, who created that methodology, calls saboteurs and people. It's an incredibly accurate assessment. A lot of people I work with, they're very high on the avoider saboteur, which is not too surprising. And also on the restless saboteur, not too surprising. And the thing is, these are not flip sides of strengths. There are attributes. They are the abuse of certain attributes. People who tend to avoid can be very easygoing and very fun-loving.

Rahti Gorfin [00:13:41]:

People who are restless tend to be risk-takers often. But we abuse our strengths, I think, no matter what our nerve wiring is, so that we have certain things that mess with us, like being avoidant, being too restless to sit down and make the bed, or whatever. There's nine of them, actually, ten, including the judge. We all have the judge. So, in taking that assessment, it's very clarifying for the client. When in the first session we go over that assessment, and it really helps me understand how they could potentially get in their own way. And it gives us a vocabulary in common, especially the victims. No, you know, victim saboteur, people sometimes have that as their top saboteur, and it doesn't mean they're intolerable people.

Rahti Gorfin [00:14:40]:

Actually, my best friend and the mother, the godmother of my son, has had the victim saboteur. Victim consciousness has to do with helplessness, a sense of helplessness, a sense of believing what they feel to be who they are. People who have a victim saboteur, they really, if they're depressed, that's who they are. I'm a depressed person. I'm just, you know, and that affects their functioning, those beliefs we have about ourselves. And so it's that kind of separating, that's a lot of the work I do with people is separating from what they feel, how they feel to what they want. Who they are is about what they want, not how they feel.

Rahti Gorfin [00:15:41]:

There are different ways people can manage those mindsets. One commonality with all my clients is some form of meditation. In terms of separation, right? Meditation, Chris, as you know, the thoughts are going to happen, but you're developing mental command by directing your attention, and the thoughts become like noise on the subway.

Rahti Gorfin [00:16:14]:

You're there with a book you're reading in the subway. The noise is still there, but you really get into the book. Right? And that develops mental command. And when people see really resistant to doing something, I do what I call scaffolding. We put up a bunch of different systems to hold them so that they get their objectives accomplished. One is mindfulness training, mental command, and mental fitness training. Another is accountability. There are wonderful apps out there I recommend to people for focusing.

Rahti Gorfin [00:17:02]:

One of them is Body Doubling. It's a weird expression because it doesn't really describe what it is. Body doubling is when you co-work. It's kind of like kids who parallel play little toddlers. You have a work date with someone, and you turn on your computer, you show up because they're showing up, and you tell each other what you're going to do, what you're going to accomplish in a prescribed amount of time, and then you go do it. It's amazing how, you know, I don't know if there's dopamine, but there's a connection. It really helps.

Rahti Gorfin [00:17:40]:

Some people do a combination of body doubling and help people create flexible schedules that work for them. No two schedules are alike for people with ADHD and most creative people in general. Creative people resist structure and yet thrive within it. But it has to be the right structure, so there has to be flexibility in the structure.

Christopher [00:18:09]:

How long have you been coaching in this vein?

Rahti Gorfin [00:18:14]:

I put my shingle out in 2003. I started as a creativity coach and working with artists, I tend, I think a lot of people do, is you coach yourself initially, you coach yourself. People who reflect your experience, which is why I'm not an executive or corporate coach, although I would love that money. So, at one point, I was coaching women, you know, momtrepreneurs, you would say, freelance moms, freelance artist moms. And at a certain point I decided I wanted certification because I was backpedaling from it. People would ask if I was certified and I would go, well, no, but, and I would cite all my experience. That didn't feel good.

Rahti Gorfin [00:19:05]:

And I was also referring people to a lot of shrinks, not necessarily because that's what they needed, but because I didn't really know how else to help them. So, I obtained training, which really filled in those gaps, and it was recommended I do this particular training. The ADD Coach Academy is accredited by The International Coach Federation. And since my son had been diagnosed with ADHD, I married a man with ADHD, and I have a brother with ADHD, and even though I had said I didn't want to coach those people, I realized it was sort of I was meant to coach people with ADHD. And if I can coach them, damn it, I can coach anybody. I don't know that that's true, though.

Christopher [00:19:55]:

I get that because you've had such a uniquely colorful, vibrant past, your history as an actress. Can you fill us in on the path that brought you to this junction?

Rahti Gorfin [00:20:15]:

Sure. Well, you know, the theater broke my heart. It broke my heart, but it was the best teacher. It prepared me. I believe this is true with everyone. I think our experiences are cumulative if we're wise enough to frame them that way. Everything that's ever happened is preparing you for your purpose or for your next purpose.

Rahti Gorfin [00:20:41]:

Right? I think we can get hung up on finding our purpose. But I wanted to be an actress from as early as I can remember, and I do a whole. I don't know if I want to go into the whole Meryl Streep story, but in my first role at 15, I was a company apprentice for the Yale summer cabaret theater. I'm not allowed to name her in the book, but I was as a corpse under the couch, and Meryl was the lead in a Tom Stoppard play. And she was flouncing around in a gold lamay dress, and I was the best corpse. I did not breathe for an hour and 45 minutes. I did not move. I was committed. I was committed.

Rahti Gorfin [00:21:32]:

And my father came to a performance, and, of course, I ran over to him afterward. I said, what do you think? And of course, back in the day, our parents didn't understand. You know, parenting has come a long way since the boomer generation. My father said, referring to Meryl, that big blonde's gonna make it. She looked big on stage. I guess that big blonde's gonna make it. And of course, I needed him to say what a great corpse I was. You know, he didn't know, but we form beliefs.

Rahti Gorfin [00:22:11]:

When we have these moments, they become these pivotal moments. We form beliefs or stories. And the story I created for me was, if I'm going to succeed as an actress, I have to be as good as Meryl Streep. I have to succeed on that level. And of course, the higher her star rose, the more I felt like a corpse under the couch. As time went, and I went through acting school, which has nothing to do with the marketplace, which is devastating, not understanding my place in the industry and how I look. And, you know, I mean, it just crushed me to the point where at a certain, you know, I was so depressed, a friend of mine dragged me to an ashram. My dear friend, who's the godmother of my son, found out about this three day retreat at Kripalu.

Rahti Gorfin [00:23:15]:

At the time, it was in Pennsylvania. And I went there, and that was my first experience of Shakti. Amrit Desai zapped me. He did, you know, shakti pot, and all of a sudden I knew what I had to do next, and that was move in. I had to move into the ashram. And I did. I lived there for two and a quarter years. I thought I was a lifer.

Rahti Gorfin [00:23:45]:

I really did until I got myself kicked out. How do you know something really isn't a cult? If they kick you out; cults don't let you go. I was just acting out. I was getting into physical fights with people. And once in front of the whole ash, the whole Sangha community, I called him a benevolent dictator, at which point he said, you need to take a leave of absence for a while, which scared the shit out of me. And I felt bereft because there was a message. Even though I don't think it was a cult, there was a message conveyed, which was, if you leave the ashram, you are copping out on your spiritual growth.

Rahti Gorfin [00:24:31]:

I didn't want to cop out of my spiritual growth, but all of a sudden, I had permission to leave. So that's when I came back to New York. I picked up my acting career, and I also became a stand-up comic because, at the time, if you couldn't sing like Barbra Streisand, stand-up comedy was the way in. And I did a cabaret show. And the pattern between the songs was what really got people. I started learning and applying what I learned at the ashram, which is that the company is stronger than the will. You don't do anything alone, really. I started forming accountability groups and reading books like Wishcraft by Barbara Scherr and The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and taking groups of people through them. And at a certain point, I was married, and people were having great results.

RahtiGorfin [00:25:22]:

And my husband said you should start charging. And I thought, well, that's interesting because it was something I enjoyed doing. I don't know. It's different than acting, but it's as fulfilling in a different way. And it has. I have the transferable skills from acting, which are listening, being able to really listen, and being able to help someone shape their narrative. Because I'm also a playwright, hearing, you know, helping people construct the vision for themselves. So that's how the theater led into the coaching.

Christopher [00:25:59]:

That's powerful.

Heather [00:26:00]:

That is so beautiful. I've found that in some of the, like, visualization techniques, to go back into some of those moments that you're describing, especially, I have such a clear vision of you as the corpse and that clear moment of what you were hoping from your father and some of the visualization techniques that I've done with a guided meditation that have been so powerful, have taken me back into these really pivotal moments that stand out in our memories. And then being asked, after you've described it in detail or a specific moment, that's almost a picture in your mind. How would you rewrite it? Or what would a different still picture look like in the ways that you wanted that person to show up for you? And I've just found that practice to be so healing, not in that to kind of double down with what you didn't receive, but to open up almost the neural pathways of, you know, you are deserving to receive the ways that you wanted someone to notice you or to show up for you. And I think what you followed up with there was also so well said, because you said, you know, he didn't know. So that's the other piece of the puzzle, is, you know. I find often that the ways that we wanted our parents to show up for us, they only had the tools that they grew up with or that they had at the time to offer us. So, like, the practice isn't to kind of harbor resentment, but to instead kind of open up what really did hurt you, but also in a way that's kind of bound in forgiveness.

Rahti Gorfin [00:27:41]:

I was very fortunate because I had good relationships with my father, who was a scallywag. But that's another story. And I told him years later, and he felt terrible. And I did a cabaret show, that cabaret show was all about the pattter. I mean, the singing wasn't bad, but the patter was good. He came up to me afterward, and he hugged me and said, watch out for that little brunette. And I'm still getting chills when I remember that.

Christopher [00:28:20]:

Beautiful.

Heather [00:28:21]:

Oh, beautiful.

Rahti Gorfin [00:28:24]:

So I had what you're talking about from him. And I think your exercise, though, is lovely because many of us can't get that from a parent or someone we're estranged from or someone who's died. But he gave that to me.

Christopher [00:28:42]:

The thing is, though, Rahti, is that you were courageous enough to expose your vulnerability to him so he could then actually understand his role. A lot of people don't expose that vulnerable part or what that hurt part of themselves happens to be. There's no resolution because the other person cannot impact them. They just don't know.

Rahti Gorfin [00:29:11]:

Takes two. I mean, I was very fortunate to be born a woman in my family, actually. It's ironic. I was actually lucky to be born a woman.

Christopher [00:29:20]:

Why do you say that? We don't hear that often.

Rahti Gorfin [00:29:22]:

I have to be very careful because people are still alive. But it was not good to be born male in my family. My father, like many, many other men, came home from World War two with undiagnosed PTSD. He was on Iwo Jima. He was self-medicating. He was full of rage. He was physically abusive to my brothers because somehow that's more acceptable to be physically abusive to men. I know it's also a thing where, in a different way, women are physically abused.

Rahti Gorfin [00:29:54]:

But in terms of corporal punishment, at least in my house, that was okay for the boys. It's not okay for anybody. My siblings did not have what I had with my father. They had something else, I'm sure. However, I think I've been able to connect and have a family and do things, and a lot of it has to do. I know there's reincarnation stuff, but I could fly under the radar. I think, too, as a woman, there was a lot of competition, I think, between my brothers and my father, and that's not necessarily healthy for boys. And if someone is not examined that someone is suffering from trauma and maybe a little bit of narcissism.

Rahti Gorfin [00:30:57]:

Not good soil, not fertile soil for the same-sex child as fortunate.

Heather [00:31:06]:

Thank you for raising that, because Christopher and I, we do a lot of work on this show to understand and unpacking and reimagine what feminine is to ourselves, to each other, to society, and how it's changing. But, you know, the other half of that coin is to, of course, understand and heal the masculine. And, you know, what you've pinpointed here, I think, is true in how boys treat each other and how men can treat each other. I've heard several examples of, you know, what you're saying, where the boys in the family were either, you know, very seriously abused or treated very differently to kind of toughen them up, so to speak. Just because we've kind of touched a little bit on this, and we like to ask our guests: What Does Feminine Mean to You?

Rahti Gorfin [00:31:59]:

Well, first of all, I think whether you, whatever your gender, you've got both masculine and feminine. I believe that. I think the feminine skills are the soft skills, the listening skills, the connection. Relational skills are more feminine, the nurturing ability to nurture. We all have both. You know, I think aggression is considered more masculine, you know, and yet we all need some aggression. It gets a bad rap. You know, there's positive aggression. And women, you know, need to learn to penetrate in their own way.

RahtiGorfin [00:32:42]:

It's aggression. They need to. Sometimes you gotta cut through to get something. So, you know, that's what I identify. I think it's powerful. I think the feminine is incredibly powerful. I think y'all like. Like, you know, people come out of our wombs, right?

Rahti Gorfin [00:33:12]:

I just get this sense of earthly embrace and power and wars are full were fought over women. And, you know, I loved my power as a young woman. There's another coach, Mama Gina. I don't know if you ever heard of her. Yeah, you know, Mama Gina, she talks about, you know, the pleasure, discipline of pleasure, and she's all about women claiming their power. And I instinctively knew this was pre-AIDS. At a certain point, I realized I'm a beauty. That I'm a beauty.

Rahti Gorfin [00:33:50]:

First, of course, I was a Virgin. And for me, virginity was something I just had to get rid of. It was in the way. Then I was a beauty, and I could go into any place, any bar, any restaurant. I just had to find a guy I thought was attractive and I could sleep with him. And it's kind of like Carol Leifer, a wonderful stand-up comedian. She has a great line. She says, if you want to see a naked man, ask him.

Rahti Gorfin [00:34:20]:

For a woman, that's true. That's pretty powerful. I enjoyed it tremendously. And then there's the Bitch, of course, where I was, you know, at one point, I was, like, going out with three different guys. You know, I was, like, going out with all these different guys. Oh, it's fun. And there was one dude who was, I think, kind of fragile.

Rahti Gorfin [00:34:51]:

We were in a film acting workshop, and I had done an amazing scene with my, again, dear friend, who is the godmother of my son from Ruby Fruit Junction. It was a very steamy lesbian love scene. It was just a beautiful scene. Nicholas Ray ran this workshop. He directed Rebel Without a Cause. And there was a guy, a director student, who really liked me, and I liked some other guy, and I kind of went out with him for a minute, but I really wanted to be with this other guy. So he got jealous. He treated me like I was a Bitch in the sense that he stole that videotape. We never knew where it was.

Rahti Gorfin [00:35:38]:

It was the kind of videotape that could have helped my career in terms of having something to show agents. Nobody could find it. Everybody got their work and could go home with it. He took it. And so I don't know how that might have affected things or not. Years later, I was in touch with him again, and it turned out he admitted what he'd done. It's very sad because I found out very recently he'd committed suicide. Very, very tragic, very creative, beautiful artist, actually.

Rahti Gorfin [00:36:18]:

I mean, you do that to a Bitch, you get back at a Bitch, you take revenge on a Bitch, you take a little bit of her power. And that's what that video was for me, it was power. There was a little power there, which is hard to come by in show business as an actor. So who knows? It may not have made a damn bit of difference. I don't know. I never will.

Christopher [00:36:46]:

However, it meant something to you. That was the power. It meant something to you.

Rahti Gorfin [00:36:51]:

That's right.

Rahti Gorfin [00:36:53]:

So I think when a woman is a Bitch, she gets her comeuppance. I've been a Bitch to people in that sense. There are times when I would say I was really a Bitch when I didn't pre-diagnosis and I didn't know I had bipolar, and I didn't. I couldn't, you know, I couldn't manage my. I had no impulse control. You know that.

Rahti Gorfin [00:37:20]:

You know that. You know that labels are so terrible. They're labels for behavior that, you know, we're not always in control of consciousness. But anyway, I touched on it. Yeah, I got there, right? Virgin beauty, bitch, you got them all.

Christopher [00:37:44]:

I mean, Heather and I, when we chose these words, we actually chose them because they were very powerful, in fact, of shock value. However, as we continued on this path, these words have such depth and meaning to them, as you just expressed. And it can be different for every single woman. Right. So it was, I think, it was gifted from heaven to have these words together in our show. We didn't know what we had landed on when it landed on us.

Rahti Gorfin [00:38:23]:

Where did it land from?

Christopher [00:38:26]:

It came out of the ether. I was thinking of how what should we name this podcast. And these three words just came in that order to me. I shared it with Heather and she stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't go any further with any other options. This was it.

Rahti Gorfin [00:38:44]:

That's great. I've been all three, and I think most women have, but I think, you know, we can label ourselves in those moments, but I think people place those labels on us.

Christopher [00:39:00]:

Also, which is exactly where the problem lies is. Do you allow others to put that label and define it for you, or do you take it on and define it for yourself?

Christopher [00:39:16]:

You can't necessarily control what other people do, but you can for yourself. Rght?

Rahti Gorfin [00:39:21]:

Yeah, you know, I guess I really admire, It's kind of fun how the trans community is reclaimed, and I think it's, you know, black transgender men really reclaim Bitch, didn't they?  It becomes part of it now. You bitch. You know, I'm from Brooklyn, and actually, I like, you know, in that sense, I'm a tough bitch. I'll take it. I'll label myself that, you know.

Heather [00:39:54]:

Yes, I love the vigor in that.

Rahti Gorfin [00:39:58]:

Broad, a tough broad, but, you know, tough, tough, and bitch. I like that. My husband calls me the bulldog.

Christopher [00:40:09]:

Endearing.

Rahti Gorfin [00:40:10]:

He's a very non-confrontational man. He's got a lot of feminine energy, and I've got a lot of aggressive energy. And when it comes to dealing with doctor's appointments, which happens more and more, any kind of bureaucracy, I'm the bulldog.

Christopher [00:40:32]:

Tell us about your book, and where people can connect with you.

Rahti Gorfin [00:40:38]:

Sure.

Christopher [00:40:39]:

If they want to learn and hopefully work with you.

Rahti Gorfin [00:40:42]:

Oh, what fun that would be. I would love that. The book is called The Five Emotions that Stop Success in Coaches, Clients, and Creatives Overcoming Personal Obstacles of the Mind. Because it's from Rutledge Press, which is academic, they have to get every keyword in the title. I think of it as just The Five Emotions that Stop Success. And it's coming out in audiobook form on May 28 as well. And they can find all things Rahti if they go to my Linktree, which is Linktree, Coachrati, one word, Rahti. But because it has, they can go to my book, they can go to my website. They can make an appointment.

Christopher [00:41:28]:

Okay. We will put that in the show notes so people can connect to you as well. This has been so stimulating to get to know you and to hear your experiences on a lot of things so many people struggle with. To hear your experiences and your way through these experiences is invaluable. We can't thank you enough for sharing that with us.

Rahti Gorfin [00:41:57]:

Well, thank you. It's been so much fun. It's nice. It's always fun to talk about yourself.

Heather [00:42:06]:

It's been such a joy to get to know you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Christopher [00:42:11]:

And on that note, you've been listening to.

Heather [00:42:12]:

The Virgin, The Beauty, and the Tough Bitch.

Christopher [00:42:17]:

Find us. Like us. Share us. Come on back. Let's have some more fun. To become a partner in the VBB community, we invite you to find us@virginbeautybitch.com. Like us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And share us with people who are Defiantly Different like you. Until next time, thanks for listening.