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June 2, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
53:21
780 How not to take out your past on others

My apology for not listening, and some in depth self-knowledge for a listener

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Hello, Steph. Hey, how's it going?
All right, there's a huge lag here because I'm on satellite internet.
Is that right? All right, well, no biggie.
No biggie. I'm sure we'll survive.
Well, thanks. If I could just pester you for a little bit more time, I'd appreciate it.
At the end of our chat that we had yesterday, I felt good, but I also felt dissatisfied with my end, not anything to do with your end.
So... I sat down and I sort of realized what was missing for me and that I owe you an apology, which was that you sort of clearly said what it is that was missing for you in your life.
And you didn't say to me, hey, Steph, you know what's missing for me is a lot of really complicated theories about why I am the way I am.
But you did say that what was missing for you was sort of emotional depth or the emotional resonance that you felt you were capable of but that you were missing.
And so I think it was good that we had to chat about the theory, but I think I totally missed the boat and the ball in terms of asking you questions about the stuff that was most pressing for you, which was the emotional death stuff rather than the psychological theory stuff.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, I guess that makes some sense.
I mean, I still found it very productive, and actually I was just in the middle of responding to the email you had sent me, Where I basically come to the same conclusions on my own last night after the conversation.
Yeah, you're talking about how I was frustrated with my lack of feeling and how to...
Why don't I feel these things as strongly, I guess?
That's something that came up in the conversation.
It wasn't my original complaint, or it wasn't the original probe that got me going on this topic.
Right, and my concern, though, was that I was telling you in the conversation, and I think, you know, we sort of agreed on this, that in your past, people would sort of be interested in the what, but not the why.
And I went into the why from the sort of theory standpoint, which was valuable, but I'd like to ask a few more questions about the why of the initial feeling that prompted the letter.
Because the feeling that prompted the first email that you had It was really, really powerful.
And I didn't ask real questions about that and not sort of, you know, shine a light bulb in your eyes and get the rubber hose out, but just some questions about the feeling itself.
So would you mind, if you don't mind, just reading me the bit of the email where you talk about the emotional reaction that you had about the donation?
Yeah, let me start up Firefox again.
But again, that's what I was thinking about last night, is it comes back to that strong feeling of being ignored.
That is the...
And I understand, intellectually, that that is a...
A response to the fact that that was a need that was not met when I was a child, that I was essentially ignored.
My interests, my responses to the world, my emotional reactions were just simply inconsequential to those around me, to those who were supposed to be helping me develop those interests and those skills of handling my emotions and my response to the world.
And now I'm kind of expecting, well, The board or my wife or my child to meet that need.
Don't ignore me.
And as much as that was a valid need when I was a child, now I certainly can't shift that obligation to anyone else.
Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure.
For sure. It really does.
It really does. But I think that what I was talking about yesterday, and towards the end of listening to the podcast again, I sort of got annoyed at myself being such a, what do we call it, big chatty forehead.
But I think that it's going to be hard.
Like, to get something intellectually is one thing.
To get it in your gut is another.
And I think it's going to be hard to avoid the behavior that you describe unless you can get the feeling back in your gut.
That's sort of what I wanted to do.
You ask a little bit about today.
Okay, so I've got the email out here.
So, after you invited Greg and Nate to a Skype chat and then any others who want to join in, I said I just crashed.
The bottom fell out of my skull.
I had a strong physiological response that I am able to partially grudge up right now.
A surge of sensation down my limbs, increased heart rate, sweating, and I thought if I had not unlearned how to cry, I think I would cry now.
And I said as much as I wanted to sit with the emotions for a while, I had clients to see and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get myself together in time if I let those feelings flow freely.
So you want me to go into more detail about what I was feeling there?
Yeah, if you could tell me a little bit more, like you gave a physiological description, but if you could tell me just a little bit more about what the feelings were that were coming up for you in that moment.
Just, you know, am I invisible, I guess, is what I was feeling.
I just feel like disregarded.
What's the feeling? Disappointment.
I mean, I think part of it was that I was on such a little bit of a high right before that, in that I was really enjoying the conversation that was going on with...
The four of us. And then there was just, like, the rug pulled out from under me when it was like, let's go talk about this ourselves.
Oh, and anyone else, you know, like, your contribution was not that important, Jason.
We don't need to specifically invite you.
So I just felt... And if you want to tag along, that's okay.
Ignore... Yeah, exactly.
Anybody else, you know, whoever might be here.
So that's what really, you know, that's what I really responded to.
Gavin, I'm terrible at defining what my feelings are, am I not?
No, I think that you're coming up with some very big words for it, just as I did yesterday, so there's nothing wrong with that.
But generally there are these sort of four feelings that float around, sort of mad, sad, bad, and glad.
Sorry, mad, sad, glad, and scared.
Mad, sad, glad, and scared.
So, without wanting to get to a totally primitive cave rock painting scenario in terms of looking at the feelings, where would you categorize what you felt physiologically?
Sadness. Sadness is, yeah, very sad.
Very low. I can't say.
And then, of course, fear at the response of how strong that response was.
What the hell's going on?
So that was, you know, number two, I guess.
But, yeah, sad would be the one out of that big cluster of four.
And if you can tell me a little bit more about that sad feeling, just sort of how it felt deep down, that would be helpful.
I guess just loneliness, isolation.
Yeah. You know, just feeling like you're reaching out for someone or wanting something from someone, and they're just saying, uh-uh, no.
This is something you need, but you don't get it.
And it just, ah, you know, what am I going to do without it?
That kind of empty sadness.
And what were the thoughts that occurred?
And this is really hard.
This is like Quicksilver. This is like trying to see something out of the corner of your eyes sometimes.
What were the thoughts that occurred right before the feeling of sadness hit?
Gosh, that's really hard.
Well, I think there was a little anger.
I mean, there was a...
Like, what the fuck?
Am I... Did he not see those posts?
I don't know, something like that?
You're right, this is hard to see.
It is. Look, I mean, you're doing great, and I hope that this is going to be helpful.
I'm sure it will be, but...
So, when you feel that you've contributed, and you had, and then...
I say, I'm going to go over here with these few people, and if anyone else wants to tag along, then you feel anger, which is something around, I've contributed, and I think the only reason that anger would occur,
and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, is that you feel like, I know, like Steph, I, Steph, know that you have contributed, and I'm rejecting you, not Despite having contributed, but almost as a specific rejection of your contribution, right? Like, you had to take it personally in that state.
Does that make sense? Exactly.
Exactly. There was that initial flush that, like, what the hell are you doing?
I mean, did you not...
I know you saw what I wrote, and...
I'm saying... Actually, there was another post in there where I specifically addressed you and you had not addressed it, I guess.
Hey, I remember that, so it must have been important.
Yeah, so I guess it felt a little more personal than I was willing to admit.
Yeah, well, sure. I mean, for certain, it hit something in you that was ready for that, right?
We all have a kind of incognitive therapy that's called core beliefs about our self.
So if you're striving to contribute, you are contributing, reasonably and justly so, and then somebody doesn't just ignore you.
Because if we're ignored, unless it's conscious, it doesn't generally tend to make us angry.
Like when I'm reading on the bus, I'm ignoring everyone on the bus.
It's not personal.
I'm not sort of... But when somebody says to me, do you have the time, and I don't look up, then I'm specifically ignoring someone, and I'm aware that I'm...
Like I'm rejecting them, if that sort of makes sense.
Yes, exactly. And that is definitely what I felt.
I mean, I felt like I'd been, you know, in that particular conversation, I'd been in it the whole way, and then Yeah, it was just utter, like, wow, he's specifically disregarding me.
That's what it felt like.
So it felt like a sort of...
And I don't want to put words in your mouth, so just tell me whether this resonates.
I just want to make sure that I really get the feeling.
That I was aware that you were contributing, and I was specifically excluding you.
You could say passive-aggressive or something like that, but I was specifically...
In your face, kind of saying, well, I'm not going to name you as contributing, although I know you have.
So it's not just ignoring you.
It is, in a really nasty way, rejecting your contribution and trying to put you down.
Does that...
or consistent?
Yeah, I mean, that absolutely was the feeling in that moment.
You know, I didn't, of course, you know...
I immediately started thinking of possible excuses for you, which, of course, is my habit.
But yeah, that's what I felt.
That's what clearly triggered the strong emotion.
I can have that same feeling when I know my wife is specifically in What?
I've got to repeat myself again?
You know, that kind of... You know it's very deliberate.
Right, right. Okay, so let's...
I mean, this is tricky.
So we'll try and freeze time at that moment where I said, hey, let's come over here, everybody, except Jason, and have a great time.
Right? So what if...
I mean, I know it sounds silly, but I mean, this is what was really going on for you, and it's really important.
If we can freeze time just in the moment that you...
Saw that response.
What feelings did you have about yourself when that occurred?
I'm saying something that matters here, that this is worthwhile.
I want to be having this discussion.
I want to I'm contributing, damn it.
What I have to say is valuable and you're ignoring me.
I don't know. That's what So if you could have, and let's pretend that everything that you felt in that moment about me was totally just, right?
So let's just totally pretend, right?
That everything that you felt was totally just, and you had a completely safe environment to say exactly how you felt towards me at that moment.
What would you have said?
It's like, I would say, what the hell was that, Steph?
Yeah. Why are you ignoring me?
Why are you just blowing me off like that?
No, you're asking me a question there.
You got to tell me everything that you felt about that.
So you're asking me to justify my actions and so on.
But you had feelings that were around the conclusions about what I had done.
So if you got to tell me off in that moment, and I had done exactly what you had thought or felt, what would you have said?
You're really pissing me off.
I probably would have called you a name.
I'm going to just back you up for a second because you're still talking about it and then you follow it up with a laugh.
But I'm really serious about this.
You're trying to get me in there.
Call me names. I've got no problem with that.
I mean, I'm not going to take it personally.
But try it like really seriously because it was so serious for you that you felt that the bottom was falling out of your skull.
That's serious stuff, right?
So try it like without a laugh.
Just say the stuff that gave you that feeling, that provoked that dizziness, that provoked that feeling of anger and all of that.
Just say that because that's the truth about what your emotional experience was, right?
Yeah, it's like, hey, asshole, come back here.
I'm talking. You know, don't ignore me.
I... That's what I can...
I mean, God, knock it off.
I'm right here.
I'm talking about the same stuff you're talking about.
I'm not, you know...
I'm not nuts.
Just... Listen to me.
Okay, so...
When you say to somebody, I'm not nuts, what's underneath that?
Okay. What's underneath that?
Am I...
Boy.
I don't know what else.
What's underneath that?
I don't know what else.
I don't know. Every time I try to do it, I keep coming back to how I'm being treated, like I'm invisible, like I'm not there.
Right. And how do you feel about yourself in that moment where you feel invisible, rejected, ignored, excluded?
How do you feel about yourself in that moment?
Just like I'm non-existent.
Like I'm not there.
Or I'm certainly questioning whether I'm there.
That I'm, you know, worthless or something.
Workless or not there at all to even, you know, be judged worthless.
Right, right. Because the feeling that I got from the email that you sent to me was...
As if somebody had the power to erase you.
Which is a terrifying power to be erased, right?
That somebody had the power to erase you, which also means to reject everything that you're putting forward, right?
And specifically, not to ignore you like I ignore people on the bus, but to specifically reject you, which has the power of erasure.
Because when you said, like, the bottom was falling out of my skull and so on, it's almost like somebody was pushing you off a cliff.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, there was just a total, you know, feeling of destruction, of crushing, you know, just being squashed out of existence.
Right, right, right.
Which, of course, is because the feeling of being rejected is going to provoke the feeling of worthlessness, and it's also going to provoke the feeling of anger, right?
Because how do you feel about someone who specifically works to make you feel worthless and non-existent?
You don't feel very kind towards them.
You don't feel good about that.
Anger, rage.
And can you think of any other situations in the present You mentioned one with your wife, but can you think of other situations where either you're in a situation where that anger, the worthlessness and the anger occur, or situations where you avoid that provocation of those feelings?
Again, this just goes back to when I know that I can get I can have these violent outbursts of rage.
I wouldn't say the road rage is...
I mean, it's not really road rage, but it's that flare-up of fuck you, asshole, where, again, feeling like I'm personally being disregarded.
I don't know.
Maybe I do am feeling that that is an erasure aspect as well.
But no, right now I've been removing so many personal interactions from my life that my wife would be the one that I would be most likely to avoid going into anything like that with.
Boy, I'm using such specific language at this moment.
Okay, now let me ask you something, if you don't mind.
I'd like to ask you about your wife, but I don't know if that's appropriate, so you can let me know.
But let me ask you something else, if you don't mind.
Let's say that in somebody else's mind, you really are worthless, right?
So somebody's in the room with you, and maybe they know you, maybe they don't, or whatever, right?
But somebody truly thinks that you are worthless.
Right?
And if that is true, that they feel that, what is your emotional response to that?
Like, I don't care if I...
Who are you? I mean, I don't...
Does that matter to me?
I don't think it matters to me.
I mean, this is just a new person.
So if somebody thinks that you're worthless, because on the road, that's an example, right?
So if somebody cuts you off in a car, I don't know whatever it is that provokes you, then clearly they're not viewing you as being worth that much, right?
Because they're just cutting you off and they get it right.
Yeah, that's... And you want to say to them...
Yeah, I do get angry. And the reason that you get angry is that you want to say to them, I'm not worthless.
Dammit, I'm not worthless.
I'm not worthless.
I'm right here. Don't disregard me.
Don't ignore me.
I'm valuable.
Right. Now, what's underneath a vehement statement that says, I'm not worthless?
Of questioning your own worth.
I think a little more than questioning.
Denying? Well, if I vociferously say to someone, I'm not stupid, dammit, I'm not stupid, I'm not stupid, I'm not stupid, out of nowhere, let's just say, I'm on the bus and I turn to the guy next to me and say, I'm not stupid, right?
What's the thought that's generated there?
I'm stupid. Exactly.
Exactly. So the problem...
Well, you can tell me.
Yeah, the problem is I don't value myself.
I still lack self-worth.
Self-esteem. In certain situations, and you don't want to define yourself completely like that, but you were told implicitly and explicitly in your childhood, you're worthless.
Right? Which is...
Yes.
Clearly, you don't say to somebody, you're worthless, if they're genuinely worthless.
You don't walk up and down a cemetery pointing at gravestones and saying, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead, you all over there are dead.
You, all the people in the masoleum, totally dead, right?
You guy being buried, dead, totally, right?
You don't, because it's just a fact.
You don't have to say it, right?
Like, as I said before, I don't think Tom Hanks comes up to you and says, you know, I'm a really great actor.
I think I'm a really great actor. I got two Oscars.
I think I'm a really great actor. Because he just is, right?
So he doesn't have to say, right? So here we have two parallel reverse situations, right?
You don't say to somebody you're worthless if they are actually worthless.
Does that make sense? Yes, that makes some sense.
Because if I say to you, Jason, you're worthless.
I have to believe that that's going to hurt you.
Because you don't want to be worthless.
You want to have self-esteem.
You want to have pride. You want to be taken seriously.
You want to be listened to. All of which indicates that you don't think that you're worthless.
Does that make sense? Yes.
Yeah. Say that again, actually.
I'll take a parallel example.
If I say to a kid, you're bad.
If the kid is really bad, they're not going to care.
If I try and hurt a kid by saying, you're a bad kid, that's only going to hurt that kid if the kid wants to be a good kid, wants to be approved of, right?
Yes. Which is good, right?
Yes. So if I say to you, you're worthless, it's only going to hurt you.
You know it hurts. Yeah, because you're not worthless.
right and Tony gonna the more that you think you're worth something the more being called worthless is gonna hurt so these strong feelings that I'm having about you know these interpreting actions as being told I'm worthless these strong feelings of feeling worthless are are indicative of finding self-worth
Thank you.
Well, if you're told that you're worthless by your mom, let's just pick someone randomly, If you're told that you're worthless, I mean, just out of anywhere, six billion people in the world, let's just say, throw the dart over the fence and hit your mouth.
If you're told repeatedly that you're worthless, and you're not worthless, right?
If you were worthless, and let's just equate for the moment being a total sociopath with being worthless, then you wouldn't care if you were called worthless.
Because you'd have no conscience, you'd have no emotional depth, right?
You wouldn't care. Like if I say to a kid, you're totally insensitive.
If the kid is totally insensitive, that's not going to hurt him.
I'm only going to say that to a kid to hurt him if the kid is sensitive.
Right, so you know, and we said this at the beginning of yesterday's chat, you know that you have an enormous amount of intelligence and curiosity and depth to bring to the table.
We said that yesterday at the beginning of your conversation about your family.
So, our parents will, if they're bad, they will zero in on our greatest treasure, the thing which is most valuable about us, the thing which can give us the most pride in ourselves.
And they will attack that.
Because she could have called you any name, any number of names in the book, right?
Mm-hmm. So she picked you're worthless because that's very important to you to be worth something because you know that you are deep down, like way deep down, way below what your mom did to you.
You know you're worth a lot, right?
Yeah, I do. But your mom layers over you're worthless on top of that.
And then you layer over Anger about being told you're worthless on top of that, right?
So there's the defense, which is the top layer.
Think of this as like a nice cake.
There's the defense, which is like...
There's a false self. Yeah, the defense which says, I'm not worthless, dammit, I'm angry at you.
Underneath that is, you know, maybe I'm worthless.
Maybe she's on to me. Maybe she's got my number.
She's my mama. She knows me.
And then below that is... I'm worth an enormous amount.
That's a big, deep cake.
It is. It is a deep cake, right?
But you know that it's a deep cake because of your emotions, right?
Yeah, yeah.
That it's not as simple as, you know, scrape off one Now, it wasn't your mom's words.
She didn't walk around. She didn't give you a t-shirt saying that, you know, my mom went to Florida and she came back and told me I was worthless.
She didn't sort of say it over again.
It was through actions that you were told that you were worthless.
Is that correct? Well, you know, again, I'm going to be...
I guess I'm going to be defensive of her at the moment, but the way it was done that I was worthless was that she just did all the plans for me.
I wasn't a consultant.
My interests were never explored, so I was worthless by default, that my worth was only as a tool for her.
She was going to make me...
I was worthless and she was going to make me valuable by meeting her plan or her needs.
Does that make sense?
Right, right.
So you were, as we talked about yesterday, you were only assigned value to the degree that you served your narcissistic need for approval by others, right, and so on.
Yeah, exactly.
Nobody sort of came out and said to you, you're worthless.
A fair way of saying you're worthless.
Sorry, go ahead. Well, no, no one came right out and said you're worthless.
As a matter of fact, there was tons of the empty praise that lets you say that unless I'm meeting your vision of me, I am worthless.
And so... All right.
No, that's great. And look, I really do appreciate you hanging in there.
I know it seems like we're making him thicker and thicker, gaudy or not, but there is something clear and simpler at the end of it.
Let's say that we all have a nightmare scenario that provokes our defenses, right?
And the nightmare scenario is whatever the worst thing is that can happen to us, right?
Let's just say for the moment, let's create this alternate universe wherein you are worthless.
What does that mean?
Because as I say, we are these mythologies, right?
So you have this ogre, this demon within you called worthlessness, which you fight or you retreat from or you attack, but it's a tussle, to say the least, right?
You're in a permanent wrestle with this question of worthlessness.
But what does being called worthless or actually being worthless, what does that mean?
What is on the other side of you just saying, I am worthless, right?
I don't know, just being worthless would just be an utter leech.
That's what I would just say is evil.
Someone that provides no value to anyone or anything that is just a...
sucks everyone's life away from them.
Yeah, that's an excellent question.
What does it mean to That would be helpful, yeah. Yeah.
But let's stay with dead.
I don't mind if we stay with dead, because dead can have a lot of ramifications, right?
A lot of emotional ramifications.
But let's say, because what you gave as a definition, I don't think is...
The term almost doesn't make any sense.
But you're saying that worthless is negative, right?
But there's a difference between, you know, I was sort of thinking like, when somebody says to you, Jason, you're worthless, it's like they're stealing your money.
Whereas just acting as if you're worthless is like the government inflating the money supply is causing your money to become worthless.
But what you gave as a definition of worthless seemed more malevolent and negative than that.
Does that make sense? Like, if you have a Roman coin or some, you know, you get a slug instead of a quarter, it's worthless.
But it's not exactly that it's negative.
I mean, sure, you've lost a quarter or whatever, but worthless doesn't mean negative, right?
No, except just if I am alive, I guess people are going to feel obligated to I don't know, keep me alive.
I guess that's what I was trying to get there in the sense that I would just be a drain on other people's resources.
Ah, but you see, again, and I don't mean to pass you, but that doesn't logically follow.
Because if you're truly worthless, nobody's going to bother keeping you alive.
Yeah, that's true.
So, yeah, what does the word worthless even mean in the sense of a living human?
Yeah, if it were true about you, what would that mean about you?
That I was dead.
That I was dead.
I just...
I don't know.
Now, those two are very different, right?
Dead, you're beyond suffering.
If you're alive...
more like being a ghost than being dead, like a restless spirit or something.
Again, use mystical terms, but those two are very different, I think, right?
One is almost like hell, and the other is just like the atheist view of death, which is just non-existence.
No suffering, no right, you sleep without dreaming, and so on.
But to me, there's a peculiar kind of horror involved in non-existence for you that is more like the horror of hell for a Catholic or something like that, if that makes sense.
There's a real kind of existential horror to worthlessness that does not, that's much worse than death, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it's the there and not there at the same time.
I mean, it's...
Thank you.
It's the invisibility.
But invisibility doesn't have negative connotations.
I mean, invisibility could be fun.
No. Yeah, it could be useful.
But no, this is more...
I don't know.
You're there to be taken from, but not...
I don't know.
Not acknowledged or...
An image just popped into my mind, and again, I'm just trying to...
I'll throw it in there, see if it helps, right?
The image that I got into my mind when you talked about worthlessness and this existential horror was something like this.
that you are thrown into a dungeon, and you are forgotten, and you will not die.
Just, yeah, endless isolation.
Just... Yeah.
Endless loneliness and...
I mean, that's a cruel kind of suffering right there.
Well, it's the worst, right?
It's worse than being tortured and killed.
To be thrown into a dungeon, to have...
Like, you're thrown into a dungeon, the ground is walled over, everyone who knows about you is killed, you're in the dungeon, you can't see anything, you will never be free, you will never get a drink, you will never get any food, and you will never die.
That's quite suffocating to think about.
And that is not a fear that you have about the future.
The problem is when we're defended, and there's absolutely no reason why you wouldn't be defended in this area.
The defenses that we're talking about here are perfectly and magnificently healthy.
But you think that they're about the future.
That I have to make sure that nobody thinks that I'm worthless.
Because this terrible punishment may occur to me in the future.
Which is not true. This terrible punishment of which we speak is not going to occur in the future.
There's a reason that you know it so well already.
Because it happened. Because that is the reality of my childhood.
Exactly. Exactly.
I mean, it's why I... The terminology I've always...
The word dissociated.
I mean, just to me, when I look back on my childhood, I feel like I was dissociated from the moment I am aware of memories.
Right. And I'm sure that you were.
I was not connected to anyone.
I was not connected to anyone.
And barely to my world.
Right. And I'm sure, I'm sure that you know...
That there's a part of you that is still in this dungeon.
And only you know the location and only you have the key.
Yeah.
Where did they put the key? - Well, one of the reasons that you lost the key, which is perfectly natural, is that you're fighting this like it's in the future.
Like you're afraid of this happening in the future, which is not the case.
The fear, the dizziness that you experienced, which comes right after the high, which is great, right?
The high is the ego strength building up, which means that you can handle the dizziness of the remembering.
Because what was happening was, you felt that I was pushing you into a dungeon and throwing away the key.
like this was happening in the present, could happen in the future.
But it was reminding me that this is what happened in the past.
And that there's still...
Yeah, I feel like I've known this.
What's the difference between knowing this?
I've known that I was disconnected and not a part of everything going on around me.
What's the difference between knowing that intellectually and having that Alter, you know, I don't get that response under control.
Not control, but, you know, just respond appropriately.
Right, right.
Well, what I sort of get a sense now, what I sort of feel, is I'm feeling a great deal of sadness at the moment, which I think is something that is maybe coming out within you.
Well, yeah, this is the...
What I was even writing in the email before to you was, you know...
How do I, at this age, figure out what my real interests are, what I really enjoy?
How do I know that?
Because I've missed all those years of actually getting to explore and decide what those are.
I've lost 20 years of connection to the world, or 18 or however many.
Yeah, that's a lot of time lost.
Right, and this is part of the complicated nature of the word worthless to you, right?
Because worthless also means, I cannot assign worth.
Which also means, how do I make decisions?
Yeah, I've always been very, very indecisive.
Although I've felt that improving actually recently.
Sure, and that's why you're able to do this, right?
Because you're growing stronger.
But if you think about a child in a night black dungeon for 20 years, just imagine that you read this in the newspaper, that a child had been trapped in a black dungeon for 20 years, wouldn't you feel the most awful kind of sympathy?
Yeah, I mean, just...
Acute horror. I, you know...
Yeah.
I mean, I see this every day in my job.
You know, these children that are just living in terrible situations.
And yeah, that's what I was in.
I mean, I've not allowed myself to realize that because it looks so relatively decent on the outside.
But yeah, that I was as a better lady alone.
Right, right. And of course, if you can imagine your daughter ending up in this kind of fate of being in a dungeon for 20 years, being put in there and having the key thrown away, I mean, the pain that is associated with that deep down is almost unbearable, right? I mean, that thought.
Yeah. That would be...
It's insane to think about.
And yet not, right?
Because this is your experience.
And the fact is that your prison was a little bit more like the Matrix, right?
And that compassion...
Yeah, I mean, it looked like a normal world.
Right, right. And that passion that you would have...
I mean, this is the amazing thing about us, right?
I mean, all of us.
If we were to read about...
A child trapped in a dungeon for 20 years in Ceylon or Sri Lanka or whatever, right?
Somewhere, right? You'd be like, oh my god, that is beyond horrifying, and it would give you a chill, and you would feel an enormous amount of sympathy, and you might even donate some money or whatever.
But the amazing thing...
Sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry?
Or demand some sort of intervention of some sort.
Yes, exactly. Right, right.
But the amazing thing is that when we look inside, you know, to the child that we were that was trapped in a dungeon, it is very hard to connect with the same level of sympathy that we would have for a stranger.
Yeah, it's all still very abstract.
I mean, to say that I'm feeling that same thing for myself that I would for...
You know, my daughter or even just some stranger in the news.
Yeah. It's hard to pull up that same feeling, to see that same kid, to see myself receiving that same thing.
I mean, I've spent so many years, like you say, defending it or justifying it for my own survival.
Right, right. Now, there are a couple of tricks, and I don't mean circus tricks, but things that you can do.
Obviously, you know, therapy is the best way to do this in the long run, but I think that one of the great ways to...
I mean, you don't have to pull these feelings up, right?
I mean, you were very surprised by the feeling that arose in you when you wrote me that email, right?
This wasn't a feeling that you pulled up.
This is a feeling that kind of pushed you over, in a sense, right?
Oh yeah, just right out of the blue.
I wrote that email five days later, but that feeling was intense and completely not controlled consciously.
And for me at least, the best way that I was able to find absent of therapy to start working on this stuff was you have to start disrupting your defenses.
You have to start disrupting your defenses because the defenses are what keeps this carved channel of dissociation.
The defenses are there to avoid pain.
The pain is essential for freedom.
You've got to really not be in the jail cell to get out of the jail cell.
So the pain and the horror are essential to free yourself from the path that you can finally own your life in a way that is productive and positive.
But the defenses keep The pain at bay.
They keep the pain away.
And so you have to disrupt the defenses.
And what that means is, I would suggest, that you can just, what you would formally avoid, you have to embrace.
So when you would get angry at somebody who would make you feel that you're worthless, if you can intercept the thought that provokes the anger and challenge that thought.
If you would normally avoid situations where you would feel vulnerable and open to rejection, I would, if I were you, embrace those situations, right?
So if you're at a party, just go and talk to some strangers or whatever, right?
Chat with people on the bus.
I don't know what it is, right?
But the first thing that you can do is to change the habits that you have in dealing with this central existential horror that you have around this question of worth and worthlessness.
If you change your behavior...
It will begin to disrupt the defenses and give you the opportunity to see what's behind the defenses, if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, it does.
I mean, I, you know, to some degree had been trying that with the rage issue about at least figuring out, you know, trying to at least give myself a moment to feel it instead of Feel the rage, squash the rage, move on.
To at least, yeah, sit and try to figure out what am I raging against or what is that.
All the other defenses I'm much less aware of, I'm sure.
Right, right. Well, what's behind rage is always tears.
In my experience, I mean, you can certainly find.
What's behind rage is, like, the reason we get so angry is because we're terrified that whatever we're being accused of is true, right?
So you get angry in a road rage situation because you think that you are worthless and that's the worst thing in the world, right?
So the person who's treating you as if you're, as if they're throwing you in prison, right?
And throwing away the keys. So of course you're going to get angry, right?
If you say, I mean, yeah, okay, maybe I am worth it.
If you take the existential horror out of the word and the attitude, these are just ways of dismantling the defenses.
But again, I mean, if you can have some therapy, that's the best way to do it because you can do it more.
As I've said before, the problems that are created through solitude cannot be solved through solitude.
You can only solve dissociation, alienation, and isolation through connection with other people.
Okay.
Okay. Well, thank you.
I appreciate that. I'm glad that we got a chance to chat again, because I definitely didn't want to leave it all theory, because it's not like you're not smart enough to figure all that stuff out for yourself intellectually, but I wasn't sure that that was exactly what was the most helpful.
Well, yeah, again, some of this stuff, even intellectually, is obviously very challenging, and...
But yeah, removing it, I'm sorry, moving it to the real world, moving it to actual practices, that's a big step.
And how do you feel now?
I'm a little sad.
I'm feeling a little sad.
Just, I don't know, I'm just wanting to go and think right now about this, and I'm concerned, I guess, is where I am now.
Well, all of that makes perfect sense to me.
It's not glad or mad.
Right, right. Strike two off the list.
Strike two off the list. And just so I understand, I certainly understand the sadness.
I certainly understand the desire to think about it.
I don't want to interfere with that, of course.
It's all perfectly justified and valid.
But you said that you felt concerned.
Can you just tell me about that? Just how I go about doing this.
Right now I've got financial stresses going on.
I've recently taken over private practice and so there's just a lot of changes going on in my life where I had to cut out the therapy and focus on this for a bit.
But sometimes there's just a little self-doubt, like am I going to take the time to I mean, obviously you know this, right, that this is the most important thing because this is around happiness.
And this is also about making sure, and I absolutely have no doubt that you're completely and totally committed to being the best father on the planet, and I'm sure that you will win that award as well, but it certainly will be helped along through the question.
Now, you might want to try, there's a book by Charles Whitfield called Healing the Child Within.
Obviously, you want to get a Tom Clancy cover and paste it on the outside, you know, because, or, you know, Robert Howard or, you know, something like that.
Some macho, I'm speaking in Italy, it's a war book.
But to give that a shot, that may be something that will help sensitize you to this.
What's the author's last name?
Whitfield, W-H-I-T, F-I-T-L, Healing the Child Within.
Got it.
Yeah, I'll take a look at that.
Which has gunfire interspersed with it, which should help.
Just kidding. Excellent, excellent.
Well, thank you, Steph.
Yeah, this is going to be a lot of stuff to...
This will make my alone time more productive, I hope.
I'm certainly glad for that, and I do appreciate you taking the time to have a genuine book.
There's a companion book to that, Healing the Child Within, called A Gift to Myself, that...
It's the workbook. Because, you know, you're an intelligent, analytical, verbally skilled individual, so you're going to read that book and go, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
But there's also a companion book, which is a workshop, right?
So it's a book, so you actually have to sort of complete questions and answer things and create logs and so on.
I've gone through that in a similar book, and I found it enormously helpful to sort of engage in that process because we need to be active in our own healing, right, in this kind of disaster past that most of us have, and this makes it more engaged from your standpoint, so it's a little less passive. Yeah, I've been having the strong desire to just write elements of my history when I remember them.
I've been having that strong urge, but I've also just felt I was just kind of core-dumping Yeah, and it does tend to accelerate the therapy.
Very hard to answer. Well, thanks again.
I really do appreciate it. I'll post this, not in general, but you can have a listen to it if you like and let me know what you think, but I certainly think this may be helpful.
I sort of wanted to get the community a little bit more towards some of the emotional stuff that we've talked about in a pretty abstract way, but I certainly do appreciate you taking the time for this.
Well, I appreciate you taking the time to delve into my skull here.
No problem. Have yourself a great weekend, and I'll talk to you soon.
All right. Thank you, Steph.
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