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Dec. 10, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:05:35
936 Insomnia - or - War Is Not Done With You...

A listener can't sleep can't sleep can't sleep can't sleep can't sleep...

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So, a little light sleep.
Yeah, it comes and goes over the last few weeks or so.
Mostly over the past few weeks since the holidays have been starting up, which is a stressful time for...
Like I said, I've been dealing with insomnia lately, and as you probably know, I know this is something that you've dealt with quite a bit, especially when you were going through your therapy.
But essentially, the way it happens for me, and I don't know if it's the same for you, is that I'll have a lot of anxiety before bed, and I'll think about something that triggers that anxiety.
And I'll go to bed with that, and I'll be thinking about it, and I'll try to think about other things to get my mind off of it, and then I find out that I'm just being anxious about those things, and it kind of has this snowball effect, and your mind races faster and faster, and then And before you know it, it's the end of the night and you got less than two hours of sleep cumulatively.
Well, and there's this terrible thing, like as the night progresses, that you feel that there's growing anxiety because you haven't gotten sleep, right?
So it's like two o'clock, three o'clock, you got to get up in the morning and it's like, I'm going to be tired tomorrow and that's making me stressed.
So then the state of falling asleep, it gets even worse, right?
And you look at the clock, and then it's just like, okay, I'll get four hours.
Okay, I'll get three. Okay, I'll get two.
So, I mean, my general question is, and I'm betting that in cognitive behavioral therapy, we've done a There's a fair amount of study into this, and they probably have good ideas about it.
But I'm curious, since your therapist was big on cognitive behavioral therapy, I kind of want to know some of the general techniques she used with you when you were dealing with your issue of insomnia.
Yeah. Well, just to put a minor correction out, my therapist was not a cognitive behavioral therapist.
She was more of a Jungian.
Insofar, and that's where I got the dream analysis stuff from.
So she didn't do anything in particular.
Now, my wife is much more on the cognitive behavioral side, but my therapist was much more deep analysis and dream analysis and symbol analysis, which of course is where I gained a huge amount of respect for that process.
So she didn't actually...
Sorry, go ahead. Do you know, what are some of the general differences between the two approaches?
Well, it's a big topic, but just very briefly, the cognitive behavior model It says that all of our emotions and states of minds result from particular thoughts that we have, and we may be conscious of these thoughts, and we may not be conscious of these thoughts.
And so when we have a feeling, it results from a thought or an idea or a conclusion, what I would sort of call a mythology, if it's not correct, about a situation.
And so what the cognitive model does is it challenges the The incorrect assumptions that people have about their lives.
So, I just did a conversation with a listener today and his dad sort of left him by the curb after finding out about his depression and he said something like, you know, my dad didn't want me to see how upset he was.
Actually, I was catching the first bit of that before I came home from work.
Oh, okay. Okay, good. Yeah, definitely.
That's a very good one, especially the last half.
But that's a story, right?
And you can see me do this in listener conversations when people say, like if I say, I'm mad at you because you're ignoring me.
Well, the I'm mad at you is true.
The because you're ignoring me is a story, right?
So the cognitive model It looks at the thoughts that precede the emotions.
Now the Jungian approach is much more around the achievement of something called authenticity or self-realization, self-actualization.
And what it is more about is the cognitive model is a little robotic, which is not bad for...
Getting people out of a particular rut or difficult situation.
But the Jungian approach is much more around we are an ecosystem of competing energies and the thoughts and the emotions and so on all work in harmony or in disharmony.
And it's very much more focused on the unconscious and symbol analysis, dream analysis.
And so on.
And it has certain mystical elements to it, which I'm not a big fan of, but you could say that it's much more holistic in terms of how it approaches the personality.
And it assumes that when we have accepted the things which we do not want to accept in our lives, the things which are unacceptable, then the personality will write itself, sort of like an ecosystem.
So I hope that gives you some sort of sense of the difference.
Yeah, I just wanted to know a general idea so I can better understand.
I'm still somewhat new to psychology, so I'm still kind of reading books.
I've read Psychology of Self-Esteem.
I'm going to go pick up some Alice Miller books as well.
I've heard a lot of good reviews about those.
Actually, is there anything else you would actually recommend as far as some really good books that you feel that...
I like the psychology of self-esteem.
Is there anything else that is equally as powerful as something like that?
Well, I mean, that was the first book that really got me into psychology, so it's not...
I don't think there's any book that had that kind of impact.
Alice Miller, to some degree, had that kind of impact later on.
Boy, where to start?
Jung has some great stuff, and he's definitely worth reading.
I prefer him to Freud.
Freud, I do find Freud a little bit mechanical.
And also with Freud, there is this perception that the human personality is dysfunctional in its essence.
And he sort of doesn't have a model of health, only of pathology.
And as he said to most of his patients, he said, well, the best that we can do is to hope to return you to an ordinary state of unhappiness.
So I didn't find that to be particularly ennobling or inspiring.
But Jung is definitely worth reading.
Adler is definitely worth reading if you're interested in this kind of stuff.
But yeah, there's lots of I stay away from the behaviorists like the Skinnerians and so on.
This is just the idea that we are basically big computers.
I just don't find that stuff either true or inspiring or relevant to my experience of having a fairly deep consciousness and so on.
It could be true but it's immaterial because there's no way I can approach myself as if I'm a big machine or a big robot.
It just doesn't work. So, yeah, I mean, there's lots of people who are great to read in terms of psychology.
John Bradshaw has some good stuff on the family, and Dr.
Phil has some pretty good stuff on relationships, particularly on how to evaluate people up front, so that you ask them sort of smart questions and that kind of stuff.
So, yeah, there's lots of people that, but, you know, what I would recommend is just go up and down the bookstore or the library and Grab books, read a couple of pages, see which one really grabs you.
Yeah, I've been trying to collect some audiobooks because it's definitely a subject that seems to have helped me so much just learning about, even if that's all I do is just learning about.
Rather, it helps me understand a past relationship.
When I was listening to the psychology of self-esteem, there were some parts when they were talking about the nihilist personality, how nihilists will comfort themselves with their beliefs, with these kind of nihilist beliefs, and it was just the entire time just sitting there thinking, my stepdad, My stepdad, my stepdad, my stepdad, the entire time.
Yeah, I remember us talking about him and there was a very strong nihilistic streak to his personality for sure.
Yeah, I don't even think that does it justice.
Right, right. Instead of nihilism being part of your father's personality, your father's personality is a superset definition of nihilism.
Nihilism is simply as a definition part of your personality.
It's more than that, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I would even say probably the definition he gives is probably a little bit easier for me to stomach.
But anyways, so back to the subject of insomnia.
I mean, so I'm interested in knowing how your therapist approached you in helping you deal with these issues.
Well, as a Jungian, she did not help me deal with my insomnia in any way.
And directly, right?
And the therapy, her diagnosis, so to speak, changed considerably.
As you can imagine, I'm quite a handful as a therapy patient because I was working very hard.
I mean, I was writing... Eight to ten hours a week in a journal, keeping a dream log, just really struggling to understand because I really recognize that, I mean, this is not to sound alarmist, but a life without sleep is barely worth living, right?
Because you're just dragging your ass around during the day.
And then you're just obsessing at night.
The next day is the time you dread.
Oh, yeah. I mean, when I'm in the morning and I'm trying to just check my email and get my first few tasks of the day done, I'm like retarded when I get less than two hours of sleep.
Oh, yeah, particularly as time continues.
I mean, your IQ just drops and so on.
So, and I... I had a job at the time.
I was chief technical officer at a software company with about 30 employees, and that was quite a lot of things that needed to be done.
And it was just astoundingly exhausting.
So I fully understand that.
I mean, in somebody, it won't kill you.
It just makes you wish you were dead, right?
It's a... It is a very, very difficult situation, and it's something that's really underestimated in terms of how much it carves out the happiness of your life or the contentment of your life.
So, I mean, all due sympathies, it is a terrible thing.
Now, there were some practical things.
There's a book called Say Goodnight to Insomnia.
I can't remember the author's name, but it's easy enough to find.
And that had some pretty practical tips.
I have to be careful because the book starts off by saying, insomnia is not psychological.
Insomnia is not psychological.
And then by the end of the book, it's giving you all of these psychological tips, right?
I think it just wanted to, I think the author just wanted to bypass the people who were frustrated by people telling them that.
But it's a good book.
Some pretty practical tips.
You know, things like don't exercise within two hours or so before.
Yeah. I've been looking up websites on the kind of more practical things.
It's darkening my room.
Get up the same time every day.
But that's kind of advice that's tough to give to somebody who's having trouble sleeping, right?
I mean, if the only thing that keeps you sane is the extra three hours on a Saturday morning, it's kind of tough to give that up.
I found that to be somewhat helpful.
I definitely got a pair of sort of, you know, those nightshades that you could put on over your face or whatever because I couldn't keep my room that dark.
So that stuff helped.
It was practical. I found that exercise helped to some degree.
Strangely enough, changing time zones completely helped to a large degree.
I mean, this is not very practical, but I actually had a breakthrough in terms of my sleep when I spent three weeks in China.
I don't know why. It was like completely reversing my schedule worked out to help to some degree.
Maybe it's because it interacts with your eyes or something.
Well, or it just totally messed up my system to the point where it hit some sort of reset button.
I mean, who knows, right? But those aren't very practical solutions.
What did come out over the course of my therapy was that I had a problem With a kind of narcissism.
And I'm pretty well tuned to narcissism in others, hopefully not to the point of over-diagnosing in my mind.
But what happened for me, and I sort of remember this very clearly from early on in the therapy sessions, I had a dream about a very angry woman.
And because I was a good little Jungian, I said, well, this is probably my female side or my enumus or whatever it's called and so on.
And she said, well, it could be, but perhaps we could just go with the idea that it's your mother.
And that aspect of interpreting my dreams as self-referential rather than referential to the world was a pretty key aspect to, it was a real shock to my system to think that That what was going on in my unconscious could be directly linked to what was going on outside in the world, right? So you'll see now when I'm doing a dream analysis, I will ask the person who's posting the dream, what did you do that day, right?
Because I sort of viewed the unconscious as a primal, seething, you know, self-generating cutoff from like so far down in the body or in the mind that it didn't have any direct access to Or even indirect access to daily events.
It was like throwing a pebble into the Mariana Trench in the ocean.
It takes days to fall to the bottom, right?
So when I really began to understand that my unconscious was having a very direct interaction with my daily waking immediate life, then I began to understand that my unconscious was not about The past, it was not about a self-created inner imaginary world.
It was a direct conversation with my daily activities.
Now, this, of course, is far too abstract to help you in any particular way, but this is one of the things that occurred for me that might help shorten this cycle for you, is that once I got that what was going on deep, deep, deep within me was directly related to what was happening in my daily life, Then I really got that my actions affected my deepest state of mind, if this makes any sense, right?
So if I was dishonest in the software field, as in all fields, right?
It's a temptation, right?
If I was less than honest or if I stretched the truth or whatever, then I would have a bad dream.
And it was shocking to me that the decisions that I was making in my sort of waking rational life were having direct and immediate impacts at the very roots of my being.
And the reason that I'm going into this ramble is because the choices that you're making in your life have a direct effect very deep down in your unconscious, in your body, right?
And so it's entirely possible.
Again, it's worth going to the doctor, get yourself checked out, and so on, just to make sure there's nothing else that's going on.
Sure. The choices that you're making in your life are having an enormous and direct impact on your sleep patterns, on the regulation that is going on of your body and of your nervous system and of your unconscious right at the base of your brain, if that makes sense. Well, what I can tell you is, as far as any of the clues that I've gathered as a possible cause...
Do you remember the podcast you did?
I think it was actually a premium cast, but it was talking about how people weren't being vulnerable with their parents, and they were simply discarding them, and that was philosophical hedonism.
Yes, I do recall that.
And I'll admit, when I was listening to that, I was thinking, is this what I am doing?
And since then, there's been certain, I've almost felt sort of pressure, because I think the last time we talked was when When I was telling my parents I didn't want to see them for Thanksgiving, and I've done that.
I've asked them not to contact me, but like most people's parents, they'll keep doing it anyways, which they have.
But I don't reply, but still.
And since then, I've been kind of...
I mean, the type of thoughts that go through my head, like last week when I was really having trouble...
Well, it wasn't so much last.
Yeah, last week was kind of bad, and then the week before was really bad.
And what I'm usually thinking about before then is how I'm going to, what my next conversation with my parents is going to be.
And that's been sort of been a source of anxiety.
And usually when I start thinking about that, then I'll say, okay, think about puppies or something like that, and then I'll find some way to make it so now I'm anxious about puppies or something, or maybe not so much anxious about that itself, but I'll find some other way to be anxious, and then, like I said, you count down the hours until finally it's 8 a.m.
and it's ready to go to work. Right, right.
So what you're trying to do is control the uncontrollable, which causes enormous amounts of stress, right?
I mean, insomnia is incredibly humbling.
At least I found it to be that case.
Because here I was sailing through my 20s, my early 30s.
I was king of the world, you know, founding companies, writing books, doing presentations at conferences and so on.
And I thought, you know, wow, Wow, this is, you know, great.
I'm king of the world. I've got it all sorted out and so on, right?
And everything that I was doing, I was in control of, right?
I mean, the writing was going fine, the coding, the management, the sales presentations.
I was in control of all of that.
And then, bam, along comes insomnia and throws me right down off that throne, right, where I feel that I am in control.
And this, of course, is part of what you're going through.
It's an incredibly humbling experience because it's like, well, I've got this plane, right?
And all these levers and the joystick and the rudders and the pedals and so on, I had this incredibly fine control.
I could do these Immelman dives and curves and so on.
And now, nothing that you're doing is working, right?
Like you're moving the joystick and nothing happens and you're pushing the pedals and it doesn't turn, right?
So you can't make yourself sleep.
And there's something incredibly humbling About that, right?
And I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to make myself sleep.
And if you can't even make yourself sleep, it's just humbling and you go, well, I'm clearly not in the kind of control or I don't have as much control as I thought I did because I can't even make myself sleep.
And we pull all these mental tricks.
Like I remember a girl I was going out with at the time, her mom said, you know, like, well, just think of your name painted slowly over and over in velvet, right?
Something like that, velvet paintbrush or something.
And that's what I've been trying as well.
Yeah, it doesn't work. And as soon as you think that's starting to work, then my mind kicks back in and says, you're not sleeping, you're still awake.
It's like a sick joke almost.
It is. It doesn't work. Visualizations don't work.
I would do an hour and a half of intense yoga followed by an hour and a half of aromatherapy massages and I still couldn't sleep.
And the reason for that, for me, again, this is just a possibility, the reason for that is I just wasn't listening to myself.
So you're trying to control a conversation with your parents that clearly you have no control over, right?
I mean, if your parents corner you, what's going to happen is what's going to happen.
You can't predict that. Now, what you can say is that I'm going to do the right thing when that happens.
And this is a weird kind of self-trust that I think you're probably striving for at the moment, where you say...
I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that I can handle it.
I don't know if they're going to show up tomorrow.
I don't know if they're going to call the cops.
I don't know if they're going to have Steph arrested for starting a cult.
I don't know. But I do know that whatever happens, I'm going to do the right thing in that situation.
I think it's funny you mention that because when you said that, that's kind of exactly what I'm going through.
At the time is that because there's a huge part of me that says, you're doing the right thing, Sean.
You are improving your life.
This is the right path to take.
And then there's always that little nitpicky side that's just like, well, are you doing the right thing?
Maybe you weren't doing this with your parents.
Maybe you should have did that. Or maybe this is just as valid as any religious cult or something like that.
Which I know, rationally, that's not true.
But it's almost like this emotional reaction that tells me to retract.
And it's usually when I'm, like on these nights when I have the sleepless nights, it's on those nights where I'm like, it's where I feel like I'm really confident about my philosophy.
I feel confident about that, and I'm taking it to the next level in my mind, and then it's these emotional barriers that kind of pop up that I'm trying to overcome.
It's that idea that I'm trying to trust myself.
Really, that is the fear that I have the next time that I encounter my parents, is that I'm going to say something stupid.
I'm going to cave and start crying.
Or I'll, you know, give into their little game and insult them back or something like that.
You know, and all these things I know are bad things.
And I'm just, that's what I'm afraid that I'm going to be cornered and do those type of things almost.
Does that make sense? I see.
Yeah, that makes total sense.
And I think that I might be able to help you with some perspective on that.
So if you do those things, let's say that you get mad and you scream at them and you call them F and this and that or the other, right?
What's the result of that?
Sure. Then I would say I'd probably get it back first.
And then any type of progress we would have made in the conversation would be thrown out the window completely.
And it would just be this endless cycle of insulting each other until someone gives in or starts talking about something else emotional and tries to...
Something to get away from the real point of the conversation.
Right, sorry. What I mean by that is, let's say that your parents drop by your place tomorrow, and they provoke you, and you yell at them, right?
Or you say something nasty or mean or whatever, right?
Sure. So what?
Like, what would happen?
Well, I mean, just step me through.
What's so bad about that?
Well, I guess the only reference I have is that last time I really tried to...
I really tried to talk to them.
The thing I'm afraid of is the attack, the personal attacks, the character assassination.
Yeah, but you survived all of that when you were a kid, right?
Like, if you could survive that and flourish into a great guy, if you could survive all of those attacks when you were three and five and ten and when you still had years to go of being under their power, what makes you think that you won't survive it now?
That you're free and never have to see them again if you don't want to?
Or if they come by, you can just call them more names and they'll go away.
You know what I mean?
If you could survive, and I'm not trying to say these attacks weren't scary and horrible, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't fear the memory of them, but the fear that you have cannot be about the present or the future, because you survived and flourished as you have those attacks when you were a kid.
Right? So it's weird to say, well, I could lift this car when I'm a kid, but there's no way I'm going to be able to lift this crowbar now.
So, are you saying that when I'm thinking about my parents, and it gives me so much anxiety that I can't sleep, that my parents aren't exactly what I'm thinking about?
Or am I off track there?
Well, I don't... I think this is...
I mean, the Sunday shows up, and have a listen, because we talk about this with Nate.
But... And it is funny how these things come together, right?
But the reason that people...
This is going to sound like a tangent, but I promise it's not.
The reason that people conform to their parents is because we all have this desert that we have to cross.
Where we assert our own preferences and our own desires.
And the reason that people don't do that, because we all know what's on the other side of that is great, right?
We all know that once we've gotten the bad people out of our life, we've become authentic and we are honest and we are open and we are vulnerable.
That's a beautiful life. There's no question of that.
Nobody would dispute that, even corrupt people.
But the reason that they don't do it is because the moment that you start to disagree With the people in your life and start to have your own opinions and start to expect respect or earn respect, then what happens is you run into the voices in your head planted there by your parents.
I know, from our conversations before, your experience with your parents cannot conceivably leave you with a strong desire to see them.
I mean, that, just objectively, right?
I mean, if you were just reading the story of this kind of person, you'd say, yeah, I can understand why he doesn't want to go home for Thanksgiving.
Who would, right, in that situation?
Yeah, I can't think of any reason why.
So, the question then becomes, if it's not you who doubts, then who doubts?
So if it's not me who doubts, it's who...
So who are these voices, right?
Because when you were conforming to your parents, these voices were relatively still, right?
Now that you have decided to change your mind, and rationally or whatever, you have decided to change your mind, now these voices...
Ooh, maybe they did the right thing.
Ooh, maybe they did the best they could.
Ooh, they come from a different generation.
Ooh, they were raised with different standards.
Ooh, maybe you should find some other way to do it.
Ooh, maybe you should be the bigger person and forgive.
Ooh, maybe you should take the high road.
I mean, just paraphrasing, but it's all these kinds of things, right?
So whose voices are they?
You mean fundamentally?
Mine. Well, sure, but who originated them?
Where did they come from?
My parents. Sure, sure.
And this is the conflict, right?
Your parents and you are wrestling over the controls of you.
Yeah. And what's kind of weird about that, I mean, but I don't really talk to him much.
Is this something that remains no matter, even if you don't have contact?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because we're programmed this way, right?
And I don't know if you've listened to a call in show recently, this guy in his 50s.
Who didn't do the work.
He's still got the same problems. He hasn't lived at home for 30 years, more than 30 years.
I mean, as long as you conform, and the reason that people do conform is that it's agonizing to become who you are because we're all just raised so badly with so many lies and there are so many lies in the world, manipulative, controlling lies, that it's really hard to become who you are because you have to cross this desert where all of the programming that is laid into us Right?
All of the controlling mechanisms that are laid into us only really or suddenly become apparent to us only when we break out of habit, when we break out of conformity, when we break out of slavery, right?
So what's happening with you at night is that you were saying, I am me, and this is what I want.
And what that has done is provoking all of the psychological landmines and tripwires that were set up by your parents to reel you back in should you ever try to run.
I mean, you got an ankle bracelet, right, so to speak, right, from your parents, and if you try to run, all of these alarms go off, right?
I would definitely say that's accurate.
Because when I think about my parents, it's always that type of feeling where it's...
And that's the way I kind of describe the feeling is sort of I see my stepdad's face telling me, you know, you're naive or you're an idiot or whatever you might choose or something a little...
More smarmy than that.
And that's exactly the feeling I get is don't be you around me.
I don't like you.
I like the Sean that does what I like.
You know, and agrees with me no matter what he thinks.
And, you know, the love robot, as you would probably call it.
Right, that was Mr. C on the board.
But yeah, for sure. I mean, you are the defective love robot, and they're banging you around the head in your mind.
And this is all very real.
This is not something that's like, well, the voices are in your mind, so you should just control them.
It's not that way at all.
This is a form of post-traumatic stress disorder.
This is what happens, right?
People who are in Combat zones, right?
I mean, if some vet comes home who's been in a combat zone for a year or two, if you drop a whole bunch of pans in the kitchen, he's going to piss himself, right?
And you can say to him, dude, you're not in Afghanistan or Iraq anymore.
So just relax.
Chill, right? But it doesn't matter because this is hardwired neurophysiological responses in his body.
So you can't just unplug this stuff, right?
I mean, this is why people don't Confront their parents.
It's not so much that they're terrified of the scene with their parents.
What they get deep down is that they've got to do what you're doing, which is months of confusion and self-doubt and exhaustion.
I mean, this is why people don't want to confront their parents.
It's not the thing in the moment deep down.
It's that they know that there's no big blurb, you know, where you have a big...
A big thing with your parents.
A big fight with your parents. And then you walk out confidently into the future.
It never works that way. I wish it could.
Well, yeah. But, I mean, the wishing is also self-denigrating, right?
Like, there's just no way.
If you've spent your whole life in a wheelchair and you regain the use of your legs, you're not going to, you know, sprint off, right?
I mean, it is painful.
It's tingling. It's exciting.
It's exhausting. I mean, it really is.
It's a reprogramming of...
It's a rewiring of your...
And it takes time.
It's like learning a new language called myself, right?
And at the same time, there are all these other people talking, you know, how tough it is to think or to do math while somebody's yelling numbers into your ear, right?
But that's what it is to gain a sense of your own identity and rational values and so on.
When you break out of the mold, it hurts like hell, and all of the attack dogs within the mind start baying and launching after you.
And if you can identify that, right?
It doesn't mean you're going to sleep well tonight, right?
But it does mean that you have some understanding of what is going on.
Sure. And that's all I'm trying to shoot for at the moment, is that.
Because at least on these nights, I mean...
I'm sure if you remember when you were having so much insomnia, that's part of the problem.
It's like I'm trying to understand those tripwires and landmines they've put in the way.
I'm trying to understand what those things really mean and how much power they have over me.
Frustrated by how much power they have over me.
And they are designed to be frustrating.
They are designed to undermine your sense of self-ownership, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense.
And, of course, they do a great job because it robs your sleep.
I mean, this is the agony that anybody who self-actualizes, who starts making his own decisions based on reasonable principles has to go through.
Now, as far as practical things to do in this sort of understanding, right?
I don't know if this will help you because I don't know the degree to which this is individual, but this certainly helped me.
So, I would get this thing where it's like I would feel like I was lost in a frozen wasteland or I was voluntarily marching into a black jungle or off a high cliff or something and everybody was yelling, Steph, don't!
And there was this feeling that I was...
Pulling myself apart or undermining myself or destroying myself.
Because everybody wants you to think that you're not leaping off to fly, but you're leaping off to fall.
Because otherwise, if you leap off to fly, they have to do it.
Everybody wars with growth or with progress, with this imminent disaster scenario.
And we all know this when we talk about...
A state, the society is like, oh, it would be imminent disaster, right?
Disaster would happen in some...
The first route everybody goes.
Yeah, it's the first route, right? If we don't get Ron Paul's...
Disaster! If we don't get Ron Paul...
Like, it's just imminent disaster is the standard mechanism of control.
Imminent disaster is always the standard mechanism of control.
I mean, of those you're exploiting, right?
Not of those you're paying off at the proceeds of those exploitations.
The global warming is, ah, it's imminent disaster!
You know, the movies are terror, you know, the nuclear war.
Imminent disaster. It's this constant sense of imminent disaster.
And I really had to wrestle with that, right?
Because it felt like I was going off into deep space or on a raft trying to cross an ocean based on unvalidated principles while everybody else was yelling about what a great time they were having.
There was no need for me to do this.
I was just punishing myself in some bizarre way and them.
So basically, everybody just spits and throws rocks at you as you push your raft off trying to, you know, because you realize that you're leaving a dead underwater city, but I want to mix the metaphor too much.
But what I felt, what I found helpful in that...
I said to myself something like the following, and maybe it's of use to you.
So, it was more my brother's mind, my brother's voice in my head that I had the most challenge with.
Not so much my mom's, because she's like barking mad or whatever, right?
But my brother is a much more controlled person.
And sadistic kind of personality, and he's very, very adroit and adept with the argument for morality.
And the imminent disaster, right?
Or in the case of the family, right?
In the case of the family, like leaving the family, defooing, people don't talk about the imminent disaster because, frankly, you feel better right away, right?
I mean, you left.
As soon as you say, I'm not going to go to Thanksgiving, don't you feel like, ah, right?
I mean, it's not fun to do, but you don't feel bad right away, right?
You feel better. Yeah.
Well, actually, I would say, because it wasn't just me that didn't spend time with my family.
It was my girlfriend, too.
Her parents were giving her a ton of crap about not spending time over there, too.
And we just decided, well, why don't we send it together and kind of say, screw all that.
And that's what we did.
And actually, it was very enjoyable, which is also part of what's making me say, like, maybe this is the right decision.
Because I don't have to think about uncomfortable conversations with my parents.
I don't have to deal with any of that.
Right. And this, you know, this is a standard technique of control.
When escaping control feels damn good, the imminent disaster has to be escalated and pushed off into the future, right?
And of course, the ultimate disaster. Of this is the concept of hell, right?
So, you know, when you're 14, masturbation feels pretty damn good.
And so they have to say, well, sure, it feels good now.
But boy, oh boy, you know, you're going to burn in hell and, you know, your hands are going to grow like Chewbacca's or whatever, right?
So the imminent disaster has to be escalated and pushed off.
And this is always the case in terms of families, right?
So when you defoo from a bad family, people say, well, sure, it feels good now.
But you just wait. You just wait.
Down the road, when they're old, and they're sick, and they're feeble, and they're dying, you're going to rush to their deathbed in tears, and you're going to look back at all the time, all the great times you could have had with them, if only you'd found the way to communicate and connect with them, and you're going to live the rest of your life in ashes of regret and remorse, and like, the sentence that has passed.
I mean, what they're talking about is literally a kind of hell on earth that you will live your life weeping and rending your garments with regret.
Although it may feel good right now, down the road you're going to look back and miss.
And Dr. Phil does this all the time just by the biases.
You know, I buried my mother and I buried my dad.
You know, when they're gone you can't get them back.
You know, all this kind of stuff.
I mean, it's like, but if I don't like them now, and I'm happy to have them out of my life now, why would that be any different when they're dead?
I mean, just at a practical level, right?
Like, if a guy punches me in the mouth every day when I walk to work or whatever...
Then, if he dies, I'm not getting punched in the mouth, right?
I mean, am I going to miss him when he's dead?
If I move away to get away from the guy who punches me in the mouth, and I'm very happy to not be punched in the mouth every day, then when that guy dies, am I suddenly going to say, gee, you know, all these years I could have gotten continued to be punched in the mouth and didn't, and I really regret that?
Well, of course not, right? Yeah, I suppose the argument against that would probably be something like, well, your family is different.
That's always the standard argument I find with Many people, it's just, oh, but that's your dad.
Oh, but that's your mom.
And just like, well, that's really nice because that's a biological connection, but what does that mean?
Yeah, of course. I mean, yes, this is the null zone, right?
I don't know if you've read the UPB book, but they just throw the family into the null zone.
I'm actually really good. Where up is down and black is white and nothing makes any sense.
It's like, well, yes, it's evil, but if you put a costume on them, and a green costume, it becomes good.
Yes, it is evil to beat a child, but if you put the label father on, it becomes virtuous.
It's just a null zone concept where anything can be manipulated for the sake of anxiety reduction.
So, it's important to recognize that this is just a massive shitload of propaganda, right?
So, I mean, every step of human advance, whether it is social or personal, is always met with the imminent disaster scenario, right?
That, yes, you may have all the reasons in the world for doing it, but if you did it, by God, it would be a complete and total disaster, right?
Noam Chomsky even does this with anarcho-capitalism, right?
And it's always not true.
It's always not true. The separation of church and state was decried by the Roman Catholic Churches, bringing on the end times and that everybody was going to hell and there would be a war in the streets and massive disaster.
And then, of course, society got a whole lot better.
And whenever they privatize this, that, or the other, oh, it's going to be a disaster, you know, just catastrophe is the automatic response to people when they're made anxious by growth and change.
So, what actually worked for me in this situation, the sort of little speech that I gave to myself, was this.
Well, life is short.
Life is It's really short.
Now, life is long enough that you want to pace yourself.
It's a bit of a marathon in some ways, right?
So you don't want to live this totally hedonistic life and, you know, wash up at 30 being an office temp or something.
But life is pretty short, right?
So the way that I really helped beat back these demons of propaganda and insecurity undermining and catastrophizing is to say, look, I've made my decision.
I've made my decision.
If it's a bad decision, then I will have to live with the consequences.
But I can't make a decision and then immediately start worrying that it's the wrong decision.
Especially when I've gone through thoughts and reasons and I've tried talking to my family.
Life is short, so I've made my decision.
For me it was like, I've made my decision.
Not seeing my mom, not seeing my dad, not seeing my brother.
Maybe that's a really bad decision.
Maybe. Just maybe.
It sure feels good.
But maybe it feels good like candy on Halloween.
Tomorrow you're sick, right?
So I'm making a decision with the best available information that I have right now, and empirically, it's working out pretty well.
I have good moral reasons, I have good psychological reasons, and I am having a good experience of the decision that I have made.
And now, if I've made the wrong decision, they're not dying tomorrow.
Your parents aren't 95, right?
They're not dying tomorrow. Let's say you give yourself six months, right?
Say the decision is logically sound, it's morally sound, it's psychologically sound, philosophically sound.
My experience of it is a very good decision.
That's all the criteria anybody ever gets, right?
There's no foreknowledge, there's no certainty, right?
You just make the best decisions that you can with the best tools that you have and you monitor your own experience to find out if that is a good decision.
So there's no criteria that I can think of, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, that could have made this decision better.
Right? You thought about it.
You talked to me about it.
You talked to lots of other people about it.
You read about it. You tried to connect with your family.
It just was a miserable experience.
I mean, you have tried in a very responsible way everything that you could reasonably try to make this situation work, right?
Well, that's possibly part of my insomnia, is I'm not sure.
And that was why so much that the two next steps, I think that was the podcast that was, that's why I felt like it kind of sparked some anxiety in me, is do I have unfinished business?
In the other sense, is...
Because part of me has been thinking that what I need to do with my parents is to, what my idea was, or I might still do this, is to set up a Skype conversation with each one of them individually and have an important talk with them.
And it would be, because, like, remember the time that I engaged them when I was in San Francisco, is I didn't really have a plan to it.
I sort of just went with it.
I winged it.
And I certainly think that my approach wasn't exactly the best, but I really tried and they weren't curious.
I know that. And I know my stepdad does exactly what he used to do.
I know that, which is usually just brutalize you until you shut up.
But I guess I'm kind of stuck in this area where I'm just like, well, should I? Because what I've been thinking is writing down exactly what I want to talk to them about and really having a straight plan and asking them, will you please let me talk and tell you these things and, you know, give it to them completely straight like that?
Or is that just throwing myself in a snake pit?
You know, that's something bugging me.
And that's usually, you know, what I go to, what I would, last week especially, was going to bed with that type of thought.
That thought that makes it so it snowballs into this Anxiety-ridden sleep where you don't get much.
But what is it that you...
Well, first of all, why haven't you done?
I'm not saying you should, but I just want to sort of understand why you...
Oh, no. It's fear and anxiety.
It's definitely fear.
I view that ultimate...
My world's going to destruct if I do that.
That's the fear. The fear, the...
That when I do bring these things up, that I'm going to have a lot of trouble keeping control of myself.
I'm going to lose control, which is vulnerability.
I'm losing control.
Sorry, I'm not sure.
I know that it's unpleasant, but I'm not sure how losing control of yourself is a bad thing, right?
Because let's just say that you do, right?
That you lose control and you yell and you scream at them, you burst into tears, your headache spins all the way around, like whatever, right?
Let's say that that does happen.
Haven't you learned something important?
Absolutely. I learned...
I guess if I use the snake pit analogy, is I learned that the snakes bite.
I learned that the snakes are poisonous and that I know I should avoid future snake pits.
Right. I mean, totally.
Does that make any sense? What you've learned is that you can't be around your parents without losing control.
Yeah. Now, you can set up a standard which says, well, I'd be a better person If I could be around my parents and not lose control, right?
Which is sort of the – this is the ideal that we have.
I'm going to rise above it.
I'm going to take the high road.
I'm going to not let it affect me and I'm going to, you know, drown them in serenity and good things until they change or something.
It's some sort of fantasy that says I should be able to be in touch with them and not lose control, right?
Is that an ideal that you have?
Yeah. Are you asking whether I think that I can change them?
No. Is it an ideal that you have that it would be better or it would be good if you were able to talk to them and not lose control?
Yeah. I would think, I mean, if I had a friend that I lost control, if they knew how to push my buttons good enough to make me lose control, then I certainly wouldn't want to associate with them.
Sorry, I just missed that.
I thought you said it was a good thing if you could not lose control around your parents.
Yeah, well, that's what I'm trying to say.
I don't want to lose control.
I'd like to have the strength or feel like I have the strength to be rational, and I guess I... Almost to say the right thing.
Sorry, I just...
To do the right thing.
To do the right thing. I want to do the right thing.
Right, so you've used two arguments here, one of which is semi-moral and the other one is explicitly moral in terms of seeing your parents and feeling good about that interaction, right?
So the seemingly moral argument is I'd like to be strong enough to be with them or to see them and not lose control.
Okay. We've got to stop you right there and tell you that your strength is not dependent upon your interaction with your parents.
Because that is actually weakness, right?
If I say that strength is dependent upon my interaction with someone else, then strength is not yours.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
I can see that. It's like saying, strength is being able to put my hand in a fire and not feel pain.
That's not strength. Yeah.
That's psychotic dissociation, right?
Yes. I can see that.
If you say that strength, sorry to interrupt, if you say that strength is defined to some degree As the ability to spend time with people who abused you for many, many years and not feel upset, then that is not a rational definition of strength.
Yeah, when you put it that way, I can see that.
And this is what I mean when I say, that's your parents' definition.
Because that definition does not serve you at all, but it sure as hell serves your parents.
Yeah, definitely.
And that general belief would keep bad people in my life.
Well, let me just go back, and I apologize if you did get this, but I just, I mean, I agree, but if you didn't get this, I just want to go over it again, and if you did get it, I apologize in advance.
Why is it that that belief would serve your parents?
Belief in what exactly do you mean?
It's strong, and it's virtuous, and it's good, and it's whatever, right?
It's better to not be hurt by your parents.
Because if someone can control me by saying, oh, it doesn't...
It's kind of like putting a leash on a dog and yanking at it, and then training the dog to say, to not feel the pain.
It allows me to better control the dog.
That is certainly true. That is certainly true.
But also, it gives them a great argument as to why they were not bad parents.
So look, we're able to have this calm and rational discussion.
You're not getting that upset.
How bad could we have been?
That's right.
It erases the past almost completely.
Yeah, and it gets it off the radar.
It gives them comfort.
It allows them to tell themselves, hey, we must have done something right.
We must have been good parents. Look, he's sitting here.
He's talking. He's not that upset.
He's not that mad.
And, of course, if you're not that upset and not that mad...
Being around your parents, then your emotional desire to flee them diminishes considerably.
And they want to keep you around, right?
Yeah. It's important to there.
As a justification of their own history, as a punching bag, as a whatever, right?
As someone to feel in control of.
So, the argument that it's strong not to feel bad around abusive people serves only abusive people.
In other words, it strengthens abusive people.
The definition of strong is true, just not for you and at your expense.
Yeah. I can see that.
And that's what I mean when I say that it is a fight between your parents' needs and your independence.
It is a fight between being a slave to your parents, which they have programmed you to become, and being an independent man.
With his own thoughts and ideas.
Because here was an example, and no disrespect intended because you're a smart and great fellow, but here's an example where you have come up with it.
You have a definition of what is strong that is entirely your parents, at your expense.
Yeah, and it contradicts what I really would consider strong.
Vulnerability is strength.
Vulnerability is strength.
Not having this Zen, dissociated, psychotic state of mind where people can punch at you emotionally and you don't feel bad.
I mean, that's just crazy.
And I understand you're not crazy, right?
But I mean, that's a crazy ideal, right?
And so you kind of come up with it because you're not crazy.
Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.
And I would say that's identifying one of the landmines in a way.
And there are more. There are lots more. And society tells you this as well, right?
I don't know about you, I mostly hid the fact that I defood for quite some time.
Because people would just take the side of my parents or my brother.
I lost friendships over people who would take the side of my brother.
Even people who'd been screwed by him in business took the side of my brother because of their own anxiety, right?
In which case it's like, okay, so you can't connect with me at all, right?
I'm just around to manage your anxiety with, so I'm not going to pretend we have a relationship.
It's not that easy, but...
That was the essential conversation.
Yeah.
I couldn't imagine that would be easy.
And when I'm talking about closure, and this is something I'm still sort of working on, the best way to communicate it.
But when I'm talking about closure, it doesn't involve your parents.
It doesn't involve more conversations with your parents.
Obviously, if that works for you or whatever, great.
But there's no have to, right?
The whole point is that you don't have any obligations.
You don't have any unchosen positive obligations.
You are not obligated to call them.
You are not obligated to not call them.
You are not obligated to do anything.
You don't have to get out of bed in the morning.
Everything that you do is a choice, right?
So you're sitting there saying, well, the decision matrix is closing around me like a Venus flytrap around a fly, right?
It's like, I've got to do something and time's ticking out, right?
But you've got to take that time pressure.
You don't have to, but there's no reason for that time pressure to be on, right?
That's sort of what I was saying earlier about life is short.
I'm going to make this decision.
And what I'm always concerned about is when people defoo, they stop the process.
It's like, whew, I've defooed, therefore I'm done with my parents.
Not so. You know that, and I know that.
And that doesn't mean now I have to go back and re-engage with my parents.
When you're done with war, war is not over.
You're done with war, war is not done with you.
So if you're a soldier on the front for two years, you come home, you don't just say, and I'm not saying you, but in general, you don't just say, well, that's it, I'm done.
I'm fine, right? You say, okay, now the work begins of recovery.
Now that I'm out, I couldn't recover while I was in the war, now I'm out of the war.
I've got to do my PTSD work.
I've got to, you know, see a therapist and so on.
And my concern is that people say, whew, I'm out of the war.
That's it. Great. I'm done.
No, that's not how it works, unfortunately, because, you know, there's a lot of experience and our brains get grooved and grooves are good, right?
Because when we get good grooves, they stay that way.
But what I would say is take the pressure off yourself.
You can just give yourself a window.
Give yourself a window. Is it three months?
Is it six months? Is it a year?
Whatever it is. And you say, I've made this decision.
I'm going to work at gathering myself together, at getting myself and my integrity intact, at really becoming who I am.
Of getting these voices, these exploitive voices and dealing with them, and we can talk about that another time, but give yourself a window and say three months, six months, whatever, right?
And if at the end of that time I find that I really miss my parents, then I will go groveling back and I will beg for their forgiveness and I will send them roses every day and I will apologize, apologize, apologize until they understand that I'm truly sorry and I did a really bad thing to them.
Because you have that freedom, if they love you, right?
Sorry, if I am a crazy cult leader and I'm just messing everybody up because I had a bad family life, whatever it is that people say, right?
If I am a crazy cult leader and, you know, I've got some bizarre hypnotic power, I've got these invisible spellings of constellations of obey me and the freckles on my forehead or something, right?
If I am this crazy cult leader and you got sucked into something dangerous and unhealthy despite the fact that it feels good and has good reasons behind it, then you go and pursue that, right?
And you continue to work at it and continue to separate these voices and figure out what is right and what is good for you and so on.
And give yourself a window and say, I'm going to take this permission time to do this for myself.
And if I'm wrong, then if my parents really love me, then they will forgive me.
Sure. Yeah, that's true.
I was actually talking to Greg about this a little while.
And it was just like, certain artificial boundaries, and that's why I think all the holidays is kind of stressful in certain ways, because there's so many artificial boundaries.
And what I mean by is, you know, there's, like, my birthday is around Christmas, so I mean, on my birthday, you contact your parents.
On Christmas, you contact your parents.
Thanksgiving, you contact your parents.
It's all these things that were happening in the past that now I'm just like, I don't want to.
And even talking to Greg, I mean, I told him, like, oh, my birthday is showing up soon, and I don't know what to do.
And he's all, well, why the artificial boundary?
And I knew that rationally, but it's almost like I felt like I didn't know that emotionally.
I did not understand, even though it's so obvious, it's just that I didn't understand that, you know, it's that voice in your head that says you should Do these things.
That's wrong. It's me who makes that choice.
It's you who makes that choice. And you know they say in movies, right?
Whoever commits a crime or there's political corruption, they always say, follow the money.
Well, here, if you want to figure out where the voices are and whether they're yours or not, you say, follow the benefit.
If I believe this voice, who does it benefit?
So if your parents were bad to you, And you doubt not seeing them.
Who does that benefit? Of course, right?
That benefits them. If you feel certainty, and they don't love you, and they really were bad for you, all the things that you've gone over and over again, right?
If you don't see them and they were bad to you, then who does that benefit?
Yeah. If I don't see them, then definitely that's my benefit.
So this, you know, follow the benefit is a great tool for figuring out what is solid ground and what is a landmine.
Yeah, I just wrote that down.
And if you can't sleep, just say, okay, well, I've got these two arguments, right?
Get a legal pad or whatever, put something down the middle and say, okay, the argument is I should go and see my family.
Well, of course, if you are in a crazy cult and you need to get out, then going to see your family is a very good thing, right?
They're going to help you and so on, right?
But then you just bring the facts to bear and you say, okay, well, if my family is so concerned with my health and well-being, why have they never taken any interest in that, in fact, have opposed it since I was a little kid, right?
So you just keep going back to the facts.
And this is the Socratic self-examination.
This is the discarding of the alien voices, of the controlling voices.
I mean, this is a bit of a foreshadow because there's a podcast series that's coming up.
This is the state. This is religion.
This is the cult of culture.
It's all these little voices that are just cajoling and bullying and nagging and so on.
That is the state.
The state is just an effect of all of that self-management, of that self-control.
But you just have to keep approaching it with the evidence.
Say, okay, well, I've got these two opposing ideas, and that's perfectly healthy.
We never want to just have one, because that's monomania.
But you say, okay, well, there's this perspective and then there's this perspective, right?
It's like, well, people say, well, I miss them when they're dead.
Well, how do I verify that?
How do I verify that?
Well, I could talk to people, I guess, or I could say, well, what logical sense does it make if I don't want to see someone when they're alive and I'm happier without them in my life?
When they're dead, they don't suddenly gain some magical value and now I want to see them that they're dead.
That would just be perverse, right?
So there's just ways to examine these so that you can start to carve off and isolate and challenge these voices that have been put in you.
To trip you up whenever you try to run.
Yeah. Was there something that wasn't very clear in like 183 and some of the others that are talking about in the more recent Ron Paul podcast?
No, it's just around this question of I've noticed that some of the people who've defood have not received the relief that they want, right?
And so I'm just circling back to look at what may have been under-communicated on my part or if there's a way to speed up this process wherein people can get more certainty and happiness and flourish in a post-Defoo world without feeling this gravity well of the defooing pulling the back all the time, right? So it's just a refinement, right?
It doesn't mean you go back. So I forgot to finish this metaphor.
I just forgot to finish this metaphor.
Sorry, I'm going to finish that off really quickly, which is that You know, if you've been in Iraq for two years and you come home, the solution to your anxiety about being in a peaceful situation is not to go back to Iraq, right?
And the solution to feeling anxiety about defooing, absent significantly different behavior on the part of your parents, which just yet remains a theoretical construct, The solution to defooing is not to refoo.
The solution to anxiety, distress, and maybe I didn't finish.
The solution to that is not to refoo.
Maybe it is, but from a procedural standpoint, the solution is not to refoo.
But the solution is to just separate and differentiate and comb apart these different perspectives so that you can really figure out which is yours.
And I'm at the stage of just getting my distance from them, not just physically or anything, but also emotionally, in order so I can re-evaluate my stance with them, and of course with myself, which is most important.
Though I have to say about...
For me, I can't say I speak for everybody else, but 183 and the most recent Ron Paul one, for me personally, I get it, I think.
I think I do, at least.
I get it, that these thoughts that keep us in the family is exactly the reason we have the state and exactly the reason religion has so much power.
For me, personally, but maybe there's something...
No, I think from that standpoint, you get it, you know, probably the top 1% of people who get it.
So, no, that's not...
The new series that's coming up is a little bit different.
But, no, you get that, and, you know, 150%.
So I don't think there's any...
I'm not sort of holding back any secrets as far as that goes.
Oh, no, no, sure. I was just saying, so it's not an extension of that.
Okay. Alright, cool.
It should be good. It's part three of the conversation, right?
The first part was theoretical, the second part was freeing yourself, and the third part is freeing others.
We'll get into that soon.
Alright, cool. Well, this is really helpful to me, and I think the big takeaway from it is for those landmines that are in the way of whatever desire that I have, but in this case, Particularly with my parents, is reevaluating each one of these landmines and saying, if I believe this, who does it benefit?
I think that was very helpful to me.
I'd be happy to ship this off to you.
You can have a listen. Obviously, there's lots of people going through similar things.
If you would be comfortable with releasing it, I would be very happy.
But have a listen to it and let me know what you think.
Sure. All right. Cool. You're welcome.
Take care. Thanks so much and have a great night.
Sleep well. Okay.
Bye. I'll try. Thanks.
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