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Jan. 24, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:22:25
965 Mike Tyson: Girl Guide (A listener couple conversation)
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Okay, so why don't you lay it on me.
What's going down?
What's the scene? Colleen, you can start.
Okay, well...
We're both kind of in the defoe process, but at different points, I guess.
And... I think we're having a little bit of trouble whenever we try to discuss it with each other, there being a lot of tension, because there is still a lot of tension, at least with me living at home and trying to get out, because I'm trying to be financially independent and move out and everything, and there's all kinds of problems with that.
And we at least want to be able to talk to each other about it.
And you can't, or it's not working.
It's not terrible, but I feel like every time we try to talk about it, the other person's anxiety about their own situation kind of gets into the conversation.
Right, right. Yeah, particularly mine, whenever she starts to bring it up, my anxiety levels skyrocket, and often I'll even have a panic attack.
And what is the panic attack?
What occurs for you there? It's one of those kind of detached panic attacks where you feel kind of detached from your body and you feel no emotions and you can't think straight and everything seems really kind of far away.
Right. And that, of course, is not particularly relaxing for you, Colleen, right?
Right. Okay.
Okay. Okay. So, Rich, what occurs for you when Colleen brings this stuff up?
What is the feeling that you have about yourself or about your own situation?
I start to think about my parents and I start to get flooded with these thoughts of kind of like a playback reel of all the good times with my parents and a side of me trying to tell me, see, it wasn't all that bad.
I still know rationally that I wasn't raised the way I should have been.
Tell me a little bit more.
How does that then translate to the panic attack situation?
Oh, okay. And then it's all these conflicting feelings.
I feel really sad that it seems inevitable that I'm going to make this DFU choice.
And usually it's a lot of sadness, and it's hard to set that aside and listen to Colleen.
So she picks up on the emotions pretty quick.
Sure. Now, what is it that makes it inevitable for you, or that the thought is inevitable for you, of defooing?
Oh, because, I mean, the more Alice Miller I read, the more I discover about my own past, the more I realize, you know, my parents and I are completely different people, and I really don't enjoy their company at all anymore.
I just get nervous whenever they call, whenever I go and visit.
It's, you know, overall, I just basically don't want to be there.
And to me, it just seems like the best thing for me would be to live my own life, and they love theirs.
And is the issue with your parents that you feel that there's something immoral about them or is it just there's just no real connection?
Well, yeah, I confronted them over the break about me being, you know, anarchist, atheist, all that stuff, and it seemed to go well at first until I started to dig into my childhood and ask them about things that happened in my past, and then they got really defensive.
My mom actually freaked out.
She started yelling and saying, why are you doing this to us on Christmas Eve?
Right, right.
I talked about wanting to go to a therapist and she would, you know, her only response was this kind of angry, like, they'll make you hate us.
Right. And just a lot of fear and they kept saying, we did our best as parents.
We did our best, like, over and over again.
I mean, I kept telling them, just set that aside for a minute, let's talk about my past, but it was almost impossible for them to do that.
And then I asked them about love and morality, and they had no clear definition.
It almost seemed like a very subjectivist definition, which surprised me.
Why did that surprise you?
Because I always figured that they knew.
I guess I expected some sort of concrete answer.
Sorry, have you read either Untruth or UPB? Oh yeah.
So, after that, you still felt that they might have an answer?
I guess. No, I'm just curious.
I'm not saying should or shouldn't. I'm just curious what you're thinking about.
Yeah, for some reason I did. I didn't think that they'd have my answer.
I didn't think they'd have the same basis of morality that I had discovered.
I figured it'd be grounded in religion or something.
But it was just kind of like, we do it because we think it's right.
There wasn't really any basis to it.
And do you think that if they had said that it was based in religion, that that would have been less subjective?
No, I mean, I definitely see that religious morality is subjective, but at least I'd understand where it's all coming from.
But being a moral relativist, I just didn't expect it.
So you expected them to have a more socially structured moral relativism like religion and so on?
Right, right. And they knew that you were an atheist by the time you started asking them about religion, right?
Oh yeah, they've known for about a year now.
I didn't tell them. Somehow they found out and asked me about it, and they were very nervous about asking me about it.
But we didn't really discuss it last year.
We discussed it more this year.
And... I think that, if I understand this, right, this kind of makes sense that they would not talk to you about religion because they knew that you didn't believe, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Right, so you can't...
Like, if somebody says, I have a device which checks the validity of the currency, right?
Right. Then, clearly, somebody with false currency is not going to want to put their currency through that thing, right?
Oh, yeah, I never thought about that.
But does that, I mean, does that sort of make some sense?
Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense now.
Because last year, I'm sure, if they hadn't, or I mean, if this year they hadn't have known I was an atheist, I'm sure now the discussion would have gone a little different.
I mean, we did talk about God and everything, but it wasn't like a religious God.
It was kind of like the way deists view God.
Right, right, right, right.
Okay, so that, you know, it's just to put it in context with your family, it can be really helpful if we sort of understand this process, right?
Right. Right.
Okay. And so the whole ethical thing didn't work out too well.
And what was your primary complaint with regards to your family when you were talking to them?
Or primary couple of complaints?
I mean, I started it off with, you know, I've started to think a lot about myself and why I have so much anxiety.
And I think, I basically told them, I think it comes from my childhood.
And I wanted to know more about my childhood.
And then I did tell them, you know, this hurt me, that hurt me.
And that's when my mom reacted badly.
And what was the this or that that hurt you that you were talking about?
A lot of stuff in the teenage years when my mom and I would battle about my curfew or me being able to stay over the weekend at somebody's house, particularly at my girlfriend's house at the time.
Just things that I didn't see as moral problems, and yet they did, but they couldn't define them.
So they would just...
They never had answers for me, so they would just bully me into accepting their rules.
And why do you think that they didn't want you to stay over at your girlfriend's place when you were a teenager?
Not their story, but the reality.
I think the reality was they didn't want their friends to see them as loose moral parents, quote-unquote.
Right. So, of course, as I talked about in OnTruth, they criticized you for your susceptibility to peer pressure or for having your own desires.
And then, of course, it turned out that their own peer pressure susceptibility was very high, right?
Oh, yeah, exactly.
Right. And how did you feel during the conversation with your parents?
Did you experience the kind of panic or anxiety that you experience when Colleen is talking about her issues?
Oh, yeah. Oh, big time.
I mean, I was a mess.
Very emotional, and then suddenly it all kind of clicked in my head, and then I had a panic attack, and I couldn't quite convey my thoughts to them, and it seemed like they were taking advantage of it, like, see, you know.
You don't even know what you want, right?
Right. Right. And can you tell me what you mean when you said just now, I was a mess?
Crying. I'm not sure what you mean when you say, though, that's a mess, right?
Like, I mean, if you stub your toe and you jump about in pain, would you say, I'm a mess?
No. No, what would you say?
Hurt. Yeah, I was in pain.
But it's not a mess, right?
Right, right. I guess they would call it a mess.
Right. And the reason that I'm pausing on these terms is that you have your parents' experience of the interaction and you have your experience of the interaction.
And your parents will do everything that they can to attempt to substitute their experience for your experience, right?
Yeah, yeah. Right?
Right. So, is either of your parents subject to panic attacks?
Yeah. My mom is, big time.
Sorry, go ahead.
I was asking Colleen if her parents...
No, no, let's just focus on you for a sec.
We'll get to Colleen.
I just sort of wanted to ask you for a sec.
Sorry, Colleen, but I just want to sort of get this part laid out.
Because this is the primary issue, right, Rich, that you're facing, panic attacks when Colleen is talking about her family?
Right. Right. So, your mother is subject to panic attacks, right?
And so the first thing that we would look at, or we will look at, is the question of whether you're experiencing your panic attacks or your mother's.
I don't know. I mean, they feel like mine.
I've had them as long as I can remember.
Right, but let me sort of say why I think it may be possible, at least in the context of your relationship, that you're experiencing your mother's panic attacks, right?
Okay. Because if you could wave a magic wand, right, and be five years past the defu, living in another country, would you feel relieved about having that power?
Oh, yeah. I talk about the fast-forward button all the time.
I'm like, I want a fast-forward button so I can get, you know, past this.
Right. I mean, that's the sense that I got from you talking about it.
So you desperately want to get past this phase, right?
To get past the unpleasantness and difficulties of the defu process, right?
Right. Okay. So, since that is the case, since the defu is good for you, right?
Then it makes no sense, if it's your feeling, it makes no sense for you to have a panic attack about the defu, right?
Right. Yeah, no, yeah, you're absolutely right.
Like, I'll give you an example, right?
Just get a metaphor that I know you got it, but just to sort of layer it in one more.
If you have a prison guard, and you have a prisoner, and the moment that the prisoner goes free, the prison guard gets fired, right?
And then on the date that the prisoner is going to be freed, he is going to start to feel what?
A freedom, I guess, a free feeling, happy, good, yeah.
Now, given that the prison guard is going to lose his job and face poverty, how is the prison guard going to feel?
Bad. Right. Now, because the prison guard is a prison guard, and thus we can assume it's relatively corrupt, how is the prison guard, is he going to take ownership for his own feelings of impending joblessness?
No, he'll blame it on the prisoner escaping.
Exactly, exactly, right?
Or the prisoner, maybe it's not escaping, maybe it's just the end of the term or whatever, right?
But for sure, he is going to blame the prisoner, right?
And how is he going to...
So the more panicky the guard feels, what is he going to do to the prisoner?
Um... I guess...
I'm not sure, try to bring him back or try to make him feel the same way.
Yeah, he's going to try and make the prisoner feel the same way, right?
Yeah. So when we look at the defu situation for you, clearly it's a massive benefit for you, right?
Right. You're getting out of jail, right?
Yeah. Clearly it is not a massive benefit for your parents, right?
I don't know. So when you feel anxiety or fear or dissociation or terror or anger, it can't be that they're your feelings.
And that's why you can't control them.
Right? That's why you can't negotiate with these feelings, right?
They come across you like a truck hitting a garden gnome, right?
It's impossible to try to control them.
Right, because they're not your feelings.
Yeah. So I guess I'm just wondering how I can free myself of those, or I mean at least of their control over me.
I know I'll keep feeling them, but I don't know how can I help Colleen in her process when I can't even help myself.
Well, that's a perfectly valid question.
And Colleen, is there anything you wanted to say at this point?
Um... Not right now.
How about now? Now?
Now. Just like to keep on track.
Right, so the question then is how do we push the feelings back to our parents, right?
Right, yeah. Well, desire and anger are the two counter-weapons that we have for the infection of other people's feelings.
Desire and anger.
A desire to be free and anger at being enslaved.
The reason that you're having such trouble with these feelings is that you're not angry enough.
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely been helpful, both of those feelings in the last week or so, since we last had our problem with this.
When Colleen initially emailed you, I have been feeling a lot more angry, and Colleen and I are going to be moving in together in about two months, and she'll be financially independent of her parents, so that desire has really fueled me quite a bit.
The desire to sort of clean it up.
The desire to get out and be with her, yeah.
Right, right. Because I'm already out.
I've been out of the house for three years now.
Right, right, right.
Okay, so give me your mom, right?
Play your mom for me.
Like, everything that she thinks or claims to think or feel about what it is that you're doing.
Give me the lecture from hell about what you're doing.
And do it. Like, really inhabit it.
Give it to me. I'm trying to think, like...
Oh, you don't have to think. You know this one.
It's carved in your very brain.
Why are you hurting your family?
Why are you going out and...
No, no. Those questions are rhetorical.
Sorry to interrupt. What's underneath that?
Because she's not asking, right?
What's underneath that? Not, why are you hurting, but...
You're hurting us.
You trying to go out on your own and be separate from us is just a slap in the face for everything we ever taught you and the way we brought you up.
We accept your choices, but we still disagree with them.
Uh... Think about what this is going to do to your sisters and your dad.
Oh, your poor dad. He's so hurt that you've moved away.
I don't know.
It scares me to get in her mind.
Jesse, the thing is, you've got to.
Because she's already in your mind, right?
Yeah. But she just seems...
I don't know. She can get so terrifying.
Oh, I understand. I do.
I do, right? But you've got to make this stuff conscious, right?
You've got to have the debate with your mom up front in your mind, right?
But there is no debate.
She's just...
She won't listen to me, so there's no debate.
Well, there is a debate.
There is a debate, just not with your mom in reality, but there is a debate that you need to have with the mom in your mind, right?
Yeah. I just don't know where to take that because for some reason I just get this overwhelming nervousness when I start to do that.
And what is the nervousness?
I don't know.
Trying to understand a crazy person, it's just...
But you do understand her.
You do understand her, right?
I guarantee that.
That doesn't mean that you agree with her.
But you do understand her, right?
I understand she's unmoving on...
She would never understand me wanting to defu.
She would see it as an evil.
I think there's two possibilities.
Either she would see it as a weakness on my part, or that she would see it as...
Oh, I guess it's a weakness either way.
She'd see me as joining some sort of cult, or being too weak to...
Okay, the reason that you're having such trouble with this, and I totally understand and totally sympathize with this, very hard to separate, is that you are giving your mother virtually no credit.
Right? She's not retarded, right?
Right. Like, she can read a newspaper, she can put one foot in front of the other, right?
Yeah. She can do simple arithmetic.
Yes. She's intelligent, right?
Right. Uh, well, I don't think near as intelligent as me, and I've thought that most of my life.
Well, then why are you losing?
Right?
If you say, oh, my mother, she's not that smart, then why are you being beaten up by a girl guide?
Right.
I think she is smart.
Well, she's smart enough to know how to push my buttons and Well, but she's winning, right?
You're the one having the panic attacks.
You're the one who's fighting with your girlfriend, right?
Right. Well, it's not really fighting, it's just unable to connect.
Okay. But she's winning in this, right?
Yeah, yeah. So, let's, you know, either she's winning because you're retarded and silly, right?
Which is not true. Right.
Or she's winning because she's very good at what she does, right?
I guess so, I... Yeah, she's very good at making me feel guilty.
Making me feel...
Like, empathizing with her pain.
Oh, right. Using my empathy against me.
Right. Colleen, have you met her?
Is that your experience with her as well?
I've had very limited contact with his mother, so I don't really know that much.
Sure you do. She...
No, seriously. I mean, sorry to be annoying, but absolutely.
You know, we get people within five seconds of meeting them.
Okay. Is she dumb?
No, she's not dumb.
Does she play dumb? She...
I think a little bit.
Okay. What else?
She seems to have this sort of veneer of niceness.
Whenever I talked to her, she didn't really give me her actual view on everything.
she just kind of like, you know, seemed to not want to disagree with me about anything, but just kind of be like, oh, that's an interesting point of view.
and And she just doesn't reveal very much of herself.
Now, if you were to stand at the window when it's raining, point out the window and say it's raining, would she say, it seems so, but I'm not sure?
No. No.
Okay, so she has no problem with certain kinds of absolute statements, right?
No. Right. So, when does she fog?
Like, what is the difference? When she starts giving me sort of, like, indirect or, you know, not real statements about things?
Yeah, what's the difference? Well, whether it's about something, I guess, political or ethical, anything like that, that's Where it starts to...
I don't really know what her true thoughts are about things, I guess.
Well, sure you do. Right.
Like, we have to assume, based on your evidence, that this woman is intelligent enough to have perfectly well mapped out the difference between ethics and facts, right?
Mm-hmm. So she understands...
Right down in her core the difference between its reigning and what is virtue, right?
Right. That's not dumb, right?
Right. She knows exactly when to dematerialize, so to speak, right?
Yeah. So she's a philosopher, or an anti-philosopher, or something like that, right?
Yeah. I don't know.
I mean, when I confront her on things like this, when I talk to her, like, I asked her, what do you define as love?
And she started to get into the whole, well, family love is unconditional.
I'd love you even if you killed someone.
And I looked at her and I said, I wouldn't love you if you killed someone.
And think about it, Mom, would you really love me if I killed someone?
And she says, well, I guess not because you wouldn't be the same person.
If you killed someone, you wouldn't be you.
So that's brilliant, right?
What she's saying is sheer genius.
Right? Yeah, I was surprised that she was able to say that I wouldn't be the same person if I killed someone.
Right. So the first thing you've got to stop doing is underestimating your mother.
She's brilliant. Those answers are brilliant.
Right? Because didn't you get kind of stalled?
Oh, yeah. Like, you're a smart guy with years of exposure to what I think is the greatest philosophy around in the world today, and you got stymied, right?
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so she's brilliant, right?
I guess so. I've never thought of her that way, but I... Well, either that or you're not, right?
Or you're retarded, right?
Because she doesn't study philosophy, right?
No. Well, I mean, she liked Atlas Shrugged, but she didn't really get into the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
She just read it and said, yeah, that was a good book.
Right, so she's not studied philosophy.
You have studied philosophy, and she can stall you in three sentences, right?
Yeah, oh yeah. So, she's good, right?
Yeah, I guess so. I mean, yeah, she is.
See, now you're fogging me, right?
Oh, no, no, no. It makes sense that she must have some intelligence behind that fog that she creates.
Okay, some intelligence.
Go on. I mean, but when it comes down to it, it always comes down to her just bullying me until I can't argue anymore.
It's not like a rational argument anymore.
It's just like, oh, for me, for your dad.
Yeah, it works. You're the rational philosopher, and the bullying works, right?
Yeah. So, that's brilliant, right?
It's like getting the feminist to rub your feet.
On a first date, no less.
Right? While calling her a little woman.
That's brilliant, right? I'm not saying it's virtuous.
I'm just saying it's brilliant, right?
I associate... I mean, I associate intelligence with virtue, but I guess that's still my objective.
Oh, God, don't do that. Don't do that.
Dear God, right?
I mean, by far the smartest people...
The people who... As I say in the books, right?
The people who know virtue the best are those who are the most corrupt...
They're the ones who really...
All the virtuous people in the world say, well, I don't know what the power of virtue is.
And all the evil people just say, fine, you keep talking about that.
We'll actually use virtue to control the world.
And I tell you, you can't be bigger than your greatest enemy.
Because your greatest enemy is the one who's beaten you, right?
So if your mother is small, you're smaller.
If your mother is stupid, you're stupider.
Right? Whereas if you understand the size and power of your mother's formidable intelligence and capacity to manipulate, it's okay to be beaten up by Mike Tyson, right?
Yeah. And having respect for our enemies is a fundamental aspect of self-esteem, right?
I don't understand that.
Well, if your mother is an intellectual lightweight, and she beats you, that means that your own self-esteem must be very low.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I get it.
I don't think I'm a strong guy if I say the person who beats me up is a girl guide, right?
Right. I don't have any respect for my strength, right?
Right. So having respect for the size and power of our enemies is foundational to healthy self-respect.
Because otherwise it's incomprehensible, isn't it?
How could I be beaten? There must be something wrong with me.
So the solution to this is to get inside of, I mean, not literally like talk to her about this, but get inside her head and beat her at her own, not at her own game, but beat her at the arguments?
Or say what I want to say?
I'm not sure. Well, first of all, let's just make sure that we've understood that respecting the size and power of your mother is very important.
Yeah, I understand. Right, because you said I'm much more intelligent than she is, and I get it and she doesn't, and she's not interested in philosophy, but I am, and all this kind of stuff, right?
Right. But she's taken you down with one hand tied behind her back, right?
Yeah, yeah. Right, so as long as you feel that she's not strong, you don't have to get stronger, right?
Right. If you already feel that you're superior to her, like if I already feel like I can take the Boy Scout and that's my only...
I don't train then, right?
Whereas if I think I'm going up against Mike Tyson, I'm going to train like crazy, right?
Oh, okay, yeah. But if I think I'm going up against some Boy Scout, I'm not going to train, right?
But if the Boy Scout turns out to be Mike Tyson, I'm going to get creamed, right?
Mm-hmm. I definitely understand now.
So she is huge and powerful.
She's like one of these many-armed Hindu goddesses with the sword and a severed head.
You've got to get the size and power of this woman, particularly because she's your mother, right?
And she's really, really good at these debates.
She knows exactly what to say, when to say it.
She knows which positions to take.
She is a master manipulator.
She is Mike Tyson.
But she looks like a girl guide.
That's the danger, right? Like, hey, I can take her.
Where the hell did that come from, right?
Yeah, that's what it feels like every time.
Right, and that's what Colleen was saying, right?
That she comes across this way, but she's actually quite another way, right?
Yes. Right, she looks like a jellyfish.
She's a great white shark, right?
Mm-hmm. So you've got to see beyond that outside shell and recognize also that helplessness is a very powerful manipulation technique.
Helplessness and incomprehension are incredibly powerful control mechanisms from parents.
So Christina's parents, all they do is they say, just tell us what we did wrong, we don't know.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
We're helpless. We don't know.
We're sorry. Whatever we did, we're sorry.
The power is all in you.
Just tell us what to do.
We'll do it. We're sorry.
It's brilliant. That's how good they are.
They have grade 6 education.
Makes me think of that scene in Star Wars where the guy says it's a trap.
Yeah, it's a trap, right. It's a trap.
It's a trap. Right?
And your mother says, what did we do?
We were doing our best.
Can't you see that? Right.
I don't know what I did wrong.
Your offense is incomprehensible to me, right?
Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Right. Right, because what if she says, yeah, I can understand why you'd be pissed.
Never heard that and I doubt I never ever would.
But you see, she knows exactly what not to say and exactly what to say.
It's brilliant.
What does it mean if she says, I can understand why you'd be pissed, and I can understand that we told you we knew what right and wrong was, and we lied to you?
That we used your desire for virtue to bully, control, and humiliate you?
Yeah, that's the part that's really been getting me angry lately.
She knows exactly to never say that, right?
which means she knows exactly what it means.
I guess I don't give her enough credit, because I would have never thought that.
And she's trained you to not give her much credit, right?
I think she's even told me that she thinks I'm smarter than her.
Oh, it's brilliant. Yeah, it's brilliant.
You're smarter than me. I'm a simple person.
I'm a God-fearing Christian.
I don't think about these things too much.
Atlas Shrugged was an interesting book, but I wouldn't say that I understood any of the philosophy.
She portrays herself as a girl guide, right?
Yeah. Then you wander into the ring.
Bam! Right? Where did that sledgehammer fist come from?
And then this little girl guide is leaning over you saying, what happened?
Yeah.
How can I... How can I increase my self-esteem?
I mean, what can I do to get myself out of these traps she's laid for me?
Well, I can't tell you that until you play your mom for me.
Ugh, man. You think that if you get inside your mom's head that you're going to get infected, right?
I guess. It kind of scares me to think about getting inside her head.
Yeah, well, you're already infected, right?
Yeah. It's already owning you, right?
Yes. So, you've got nothing to lose, right?
Right. And knowledge will always help us, right?
Right. Yes.
And empathizing with your mom's lack of empathy and control of you will only help get you angry and get you free of these webs, right?
Doesn't it feel like there are these invisible webs that you turn around and it's like, now I can't move my leg and what the hell's the matter?
And it's just like ash slowly settling on you that turns into a kind of lead, right?
Like it's not a clear fight.
It's debilitating. Yeah, it's just baffling and confusing and you spun around and then you're upside down and you can't ever get a fix on what she's saying and you just feel outmaneuvered and outdone.
Isn't it sort of like that?
Oh yeah, yeah. Right.
She's very slippery with that kind of stuff.
Right, but there are a couple of basic principles that she's operating on.
There's no point me telling you, right?
Because you know what they are.
You don't want to get in her head because you feel like that's unclean or something like that.
But we can be strong enough to look into the face of this, right?
And we have to be, if we want to be free of it.
So, what does your mom say about your defu?
What is her rage saying?
How dare you leave us How dare you not be there in our old age?
How dare you not be there with grandchildren for us?
How dare you not be part of the family?
It's basically blasphemy to think that you could ever break yourself from the family.
You're wrong. And you'll find out you're wrong.
And by the time you find out you're wrong, it'll be too late because you'll already have hurt us.
And then what would you do without us?
Right, right. I just hate that shit.
I just hate...
Well, why do you hate it?
What's the flaw? What's wrong with it?
Because a mother...
If there's some sort of unconditional love there, if she really does believe in these things that she says that...
She should be happy that I'm being independent and figuring out things on my own and not afraid to let me go out on my own and figure things out.
It just makes me mad.
If she thinks she raised me right, then she should trust that I'm going to make something of myself.
But what makes you think that she actually thinks she raised you right?
Nothing other than the constant, we did the best we could.
I mean, I guess there's no real evidence that she raised me right, but she's sure to tell me over and over and over.
Okay, okay. So, what's the flaw here, right?
What makes this not believable?
What makes this manipulation rather than honesty?
Because... She's contradicting herself by saying that I can't make it on my own.
Why is that contradiction?
Because if I'm making these decisions on my own, she's basically admitting that she failed.
Which decisions on your own, and how did she fail?
Decisions to break loose from the family, to do my own thing, whatever way I want to do it.
But you're not breaking loose from the family and doing your own thing, are you?
I mean, you fucking hate them, right?
I'm already out.
I ran as fast as I could.
As soon as I met Colleen, I was 2,000 miles across the country.
Right. You're not just off doing your own thing and breaking free.
That's healthy, right? And it's not that what you're doing is not healthy, right?
But you chew your own arm off to get out of this family, right?
Yeah, I mean, I see no benefit in it for myself.
Okay, see, here's where you're getting kind of foggy, right?
I see no benefit for yourself.
That's not an accurate statement.
I mean, there is no benefit for me.
That's not an accurate statement either.
Well, Colleen, why is that not an accurate statement?
Because it's detrimental.
Yeah, like saying, well, if I get my legs sawn off, that's not beneficial to me.
Oh, so you're saying that, you know, I chew my arm off to get out of that family, but I'm seeing me chewing an arm off I chew my arm off to get out of that family, but I'm seeing me chewing an arm off is something No. You hate and fear your family.
Continued exposure to your family would be catastrophically destructive to you.
It would continue to provoke self-hatred, self-doubt, low self-esteem, conflicts with your girlfriend, conflicts at work.
It's toxic, right?
Yes. And you say, it's not beneficial for me to stay there.
Which means that if you stay there, it's neutral.
You don't get paid, you don't get punched.
I didn't even realize the way I was phrasing that to make it sound like the alternative is neutral.
Well, but that's what you said, right?
I'm not trying to sort of pick, but this language is very, very important.
Right. Right?
You're sort of like in a burning building, right?
And saying, well, it's not beneficial for me to stay in this burning building.
Do you see how that would sound kind of crazed, right?
Yeah. Like kind of dissociated from the reality of the fact that the building is burning.
Right. Does that make sense?
Yes, yes. Right?
So you desperately want to get out of this family and you say, well, there's no particular benefit for me staying there.
And that's what I mean when I say you're not angry enough.
Because if there was no particular benefit to you staying there, then it would be kind of a neutral decision, right?
In which case, in a neutral decision, why not make the decision that benefits other people, right?
Like if it's six of one, half a dozen of the other for you, but your parents will be much happier if you stay, then you should stay, right?
Especially when the one that's benefiting is one who I actually really, really love and could benefit a lot from.
Sorry, I didn't understand that last part.
I'm just talking about...
I mean, if I were to get out, the benefit is not just...
Even if it was neutral, the benefit of getting out is not just because I'm benefiting somebody else.
It's benefiting me too because I'm benefiting somebody who I really care about and love.
You mean if you get out, you're benefiting Colleen?
Yes, yes. Okay. I've got to get you to retrace your steps there again just so you can see how embedded this is.
Colleen, why was that not a particularly accurate statement?
You there?
Yeah, I'm there.
Yeah.
Do you want him to repeat it?
Yes. Oh, I'll repeat it just because...
Yeah, please, because I might have...
You said that if I do get out, it's beneficial to Colleen.
Yeah, but I also said, but in effect, that's beneficial to me.
Well, that's true, but...
That's not going to be enough of a motivation, because that's going to feel selfish to you, right?
Screw my parents, I'm going to make my girlfriend happy, right?
That's not going to give you the strength to take down Mike Tyson, because it's ambiguous, right?
My happiness, your happiness, I'm choosing my happiness.
Well, of course, there are times when we choose other people's happiness over our own, right?
And that's valid and that's healthy, right?
So if our baby's crying and it's the third feeding that night, right?
Then we get up and feed the baby, right?
So if you say, well, I'll...
Sorry, go ahead. I'm just still confused as what my language suggested.
Well, I know this is a tough one, so I'll just pop the answer out and you can let me know if it makes any sense or if I'm just farting up wind.
If you say, well, it benefits Colleen if I'm not with my family, I don't think that's a particularly true statement, because it doesn't recognize that if you are with your family, it's hell for Colleen.
Oh. Because you're fucked up, right?
You're unavailable.
You can't help her. Right.
No, I know. Right?
It's horrible for her when you're with your family or when your family's in your head, right?
You bring a kind of toxicity She even said I acted different when we visited them last spring Totally. Totally.
And she doesn't appreciate the panic attacks, and she doesn't appreciate you not being there for her when she's trying to...
And it's not blame, right? It's just a fact, right?
She doesn't appreciate it when you're not there for her because you're going through your defu freakout, right?
Right. Right, so it's incredibly destructive to your relationship, and it's incredibly destructive to Colleen for you to even think of being around your foo, right?
Right. And that's a little bit more than, well, it benefits her if I'm not around, right?
And initially that fear, I mean that knowing that Colleen was being affected by me not being able to make a decision about my family felt like a lot of pressure on me to make a decision without...
Fully feeling that anger that I should feel towards them.
Right, right, right. And just to finish up, if I say, well, if I don't set fire to Colleen, that's beneficial to her, right?
That would be an odd way of putting it, right?
Yeah. If I don't punch Colleen in the face, that's beneficial to her.
Right. That is an odd way to put it.
And this, of course, seems perfectly normal to you, right?
I mean, just from the outside, it's easier to see, as it always is, right?
Now, the second thing that I would say about this is that the decision to leave your family has already been made.
Yeah, it sure feels...
I mean, in my heart of hearts, it's like...
There's nothing to fight. There's nothing to fight here.
There's nothing to fight.
There's no position to take.
There's no proof.
You don't have to.
Your mother's trying to lure you into, prove to me that we were bad, right?
Because you're debating whether your parents were bad, right?
Thank you.
Yeah. But...
That's mad.
With all due respect, right?
And sympathy. But that's completely insane.
And it benefits you, not at all.
All it does is it throws you into a tailspin of uncertainty and confusion and dissociation.
You have these debates all the time in your mind, right?
It's constant. This debate will never end.
Should I? Shouldn't I? Was it right?
Was it wrong? Should I try this approach?
What if I tried that approach? She had a good point here, but now I have a point there.
Doesn't this go on for you continually?
Yeah. Stop it.
No, because you're trying to sail a ship that sank ten fucking years ago.
Twenty. You were done with your parents when you were five, or four, or three, or two.
This is something we just have to accept.
It's not something we need to debate.
It's not something we need to convince about other people.
We certainly don't need to convince our abusers, right?
Yeah. Like the woman, to use an extreme example, the woman who gets raped does not need to convince her rapist that he did something wrong.
That would be self-abusive, right?
Yes. No, I really want you to pause on that, right?
I'm having a problem here, though, because you suggested that we confront our parents, and that's the reason.
I mean, not confront them, but ask them questions and see how they respond, and that's what I went back home, and I did.
Right, but you're not listening to them.
I agree. Look, I mean, I don't mean to say, go north, go south, right?
I mean, I'm trying to give you that, right?
But what I'm saying is that your mother gave you all the information that you need for closure.
Right? She didn't accept anything you were saying.
She rejected, argued, debated, and you walked out of there feeling worse than when you went in, right?
Right. Initially I felt exhilarated that I was actually able to be honest with my parents and that feeling of exhilaration kind of fooled me.
Sure, because you were honest and then afterwards it didn't solve the problem, right?
No, we didn't talk about it at all after that.
Wait, wait, wait. Why did you talk to them again?
Well, because I was still out there.
I was still at their house spending Christmas there.
But why didn't you leave? I'm not saying you should have, right?
I'm just asking. I mean, I guess I could have, ultimately, if I really wanted to, I could have gotten a taxi down to the airport.
Like, if you could have left without any negative consequences, would you have?
Yeah. Right.
Those are the feelings that you need to track.
Those are the feelings that you need to experience, right?
Right. Because if I go to people who abused me when I was a kid and say, you abused me and I was unhappy, and they tell me that I'm wrong and they diminish me and they fog me and they won't admit to anything and they blame me and they claim that they're the ones who were hurt and so on, right? Then it's like, well, I guess I know what this is all about, right?
There's nothing else that I need to know.
Yeah, I mean...
It took me a few days of processing, but I really did feel like I figured out a lot about, you know, that I'd never be able to get them to admit that they did anything wrong.
And how does that make you feel?
Pissed. Disillusioned.
Okay. So, they will never ever admit that they did anything wrong.
They will never ever validate what happened to you.
They will continue to exploit you and play the victim.
Right? They will continue to use you in the way that they used you when you were a child.
And there's no possibility of any other behavior on their part.
The evidence points towards that, yes.
Well, if you say that if there's counter-evidence, I'm more than happy to hear it.
Oh, I mean, she did the whole thing.
Well, you know, I'm going to be selfless here and sit down, and we're really going to try to figure this out, and I guess that's the fog that I'm still trying to fight.
Well, but you see, you're trying to think your way through this, right?
God bless you, you're a thinker, right?
But it's not working, right?
No, it's not working.
Certainty is not an intellectual process.
Closure is not an intellectual process.
Certainty... is not philosophical.
Certainty is emotional.
It doesn't mean it's irrational or anything like that.
But certainty is, how did I feel when I came out of that interaction?
How do I feel when I think about what my parents did?
Not, what are the arguments, and what did I say, and what did they say, and what could I have responded with better, and then there's this approach, but then there's UPB, and on truth, forget all of that.
How did you feel after this?
Initially exhilarated, but as it wore on, as I started, I actually wrote down everything that happened when this argument happened, and as I was writing it, I felt Really just nervous and tired and just like nothing had been resolved and that it was all for not.
Even though I was writing down all these things that I thought maybe had been productive, I felt just...
I felt bad, I guess.
You felt bad? Okay. If your parents...
If your phone rings, the call display, and it's your mom, what do you feel?
Oh, nervous. Every time.
Right. Right.
That's certainty.
Forget arguments. I won't even pick up.
Sorry? I won't even pick up most of the time when I see you.
So that's all you need to know.
That's the only proof you need.
There's no syllogism.
There's no argument. There's no debate.
There's no philosophy. There's no hidden cameras.
Right? That's all you need to know.
How do you feel? How old are you?
How do you feel after a quarter century when your mom phones you?
It's all you need to know.
How do you feel when Colleen phones you?
Good answer. But that's the difference.
That's all you need. You don't need any philosophy.
You don't need any philosophy whatsoever.
Because your feelings are telling you everything you need to know.
The Ayn Rand in me sure doesn't like hearing that.
I know you're right. Well, you can keep having these debates, right?
I mean, and you can see whether it's going to work for you or not.
I mean, don't take my word for it, right?
I'm asking you to take your feelings, right?
Trust your feelings. These feelings.
Like, you don't know how your kidney works, right?
But it works. I don't even know where my spleen is, but I assume it's doing its spleeny thing and something useful for me, right?
Right. So, we've got a whole bunch of shit that works in our bodies and in our minds, and we don't even know what any of it means, right?
Right. But your feelings, after a quarter century, there is going to be nothing new in your relationship with your parents.
Nothing. Because if they turned around tomorrow and were the best people on the planet, you would be even more angry at them.
There's no possibility of redemption anymore.
Does that make sense?
Or do you understand what I mean when I say that?
Yeah, I'm trying to think of what would happen if for some reason they just suddenly...
Your mom calls you up. Sorry to interrupt.
Your mom calls you up and she says, Oh my God, it totally hit me.
I'm going to see a therapist.
I've been listening to this podcast that this crazy canuck has some useful things to say.
And I'm so sorry.
And she's moved and she's this and she's that.
I guarantee you that would leave you stone cold and even more irritated.
I guess I can't imagine her doing that, but for her to make that leap suddenly when she probably could have her entire life, it would piss me off.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
For sure. It's like, if Colleen is choking, right, and then she, like, God, sorry for the stupid story, but if Colleen is choking in a restaurant, and then she dies, right, because nobody helped, and then someone else starts choking, and someone leaps up and does an expert Heimlich maneuver, are you going to applaud the Heimlich maneuver they just did, or be angry that they didn't help before?
Oh. I'm serious.
Like, if you could do the goddamn Heimlich maneuver, why didn't you do it when Colleen was choking?
Yeah. Right?
That's us with our parents and our childhoods.
If they suddenly become wonderful people as adults, it's like, why weren't you this if you had this possibility, this capacity?
Why didn't you do it when it would have been some damn use to me?
That's what I mean when I say there's no, after the age of four, there's no possibility of redemption with parents.
Maybe even three, I don't know, but...
But there's none.
Yeah. So your feelings are the way out of this maze, right?
This intellectual maze. Because this maze is your mother's.
This is the last ditch of It sure feels that way because the last communication I had with her was about two weeks ago and she emailed me and asked me or she said she was sending me a book on how to deal with anxiety attacks.
It was like an anxiety attack workbook or something.
And it made me angry because it made me, like, she's not even, she doesn't even think, consider that it could be her.
Oh, she does!
Stop underestimating her!
No. Seriously, dude!
I mean, I know that I'm asking you to turn on a dime, so I'm sorry.
I don't mean to be frustrated or yell at you, but...
God, she totally knows!
I guess I was about to say, I guess she's afraid that I know she knows, and so she's using this to further fog me.
Yeah! Hey, I really care about the fact that I cut your leg off, so I'm going to send you a book on how to dance with a crutch.
Because it's supposed to fuck you up, right?
Yeah. And it did!
Yeah, it did. Right.
So how about getting the people out of your life who fuck you up?
Because there will be no interaction with your mother that doesn't screw you up and then screw up your relationship with Colleen.
Right. Right?
And there's nothing that you need to debate.
There's intellectual maze of, well, she's got this point and she's got that point and they were from a different generation.
They did the best they could. They don't have access to the same resources.
Forget all of that. That is your mother's labyrinth that she creates to keep you baffled and confused under her control and gets her to continue to evade what she did and what she is continuing to do.
Yes. All you need to say is, how do I feel when the call display lights up and it's Mommenstein?
Not good! Well, that's all you need to know.
There's nothing else that you need to say, debate, argue, whatever.
And you've seen me do this on the board, right?
People debate, debate, debate.
It's like, fuck it. I just don't like you anymore.
I don't care what your arguments are.
I'm going to trust myself enough to know that I'm not reacting defensively.
And after 25 years, you have the right to trust yourself with regards to your parents, whether you like them or don't.
And the reason that we get into all of these abstract, cloudy debates about this, that, and the other, and the reason our parents draw us in there, is because you can negotiate and you can debate with all of this crap all you want.
But you can't negotiate with your feelings, right?
And that's why feelings bring certainty.
Because you can't say, when the phone rings, it's your mom, you can't say, I want to feel good and have that happen, right?
Thank you.
Yeah. No, I know.
I know I can't. You can't. I could pay you a million dollars to feel good when your mom phones.
Can you do it? No.
Right. So do you see what I mean when I say feelings bring certainty?
Yeah. But I could pay you hell.
I wouldn't have to pay you anything to have intellectual debates with your mom.
Because you can do that, but you can't negotiate with your feelings.
Once you accept your feelings, you get certainty.
You get self-trust. And self-trust is saying, okay, I'm going to follow my feelings and trust my feelings are true.
And if they're not, I'll make amends, right?
If I turn out to ban somebody and I misunderstood something, then I will apologize.
Right? Yeah. So I'm going to follow my feelings.
I'm going to act on my feelings.
If it turns out that I'm wrong, I apologize.
But I'm not going to sit there and be paralyzed with regards to my feelings on the off chance that they may be wrong at some point, somehow, somewhere.
Because then all I've got left is intellectual debate, which turns me into a fog monkey.
Right? Well, I'm really feeling right now like something sprung alive in me.
I mean, I'm feeling just...
feeling strong and angry and...
I want to do something about this.
Right, and that's your feeling, saying...
Praise God! He's listening!
Yeah, that's what it feels like.
Something inside of me saying, whoa, he's listening.
Yeah. So, you know, your feelings will become less intrusive and you won't get panic attacks when you trust your feelings.
You get the panic attacks because you're frightened of your feelings and you want to intellectually analyze things.
Right? Yeah. Accept your feelings.
They're here to help you.
They're not sent by Satan.
They are the better angels of our nature.
and they can't be manipulated.
Yeah, that's something that's...
It's a totally different view.
I'm not used to it, I think, because...
I think objectivism actually set me back quite a bit there, because it really tells you that feelings follow actions.
Like, if you're being virtuous, you should feel good.
I guess that's what we're saying here.
I don't know. I'm fogging it up already.
Yeah, I mean, and this is going to look...
Colleen, you're going to have to watch his back, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So when you feel like you're falling into the black hole limbo of intellectual confusion, what are you going to say to him?
What are you feeling?
Yeah. And a little gentle smack upside the head is not bad.
It's like a little reboot for the boyfriend.
That's not too bad, right?
But it's like, Colleen, you've got to watch his back.
When you feel confused, because when you were just talking there, I'm like, what?
I was too. There's a bug monkey in my brain, right?
So you've just got to watch his back.
When you start to get confused or he's biting his nails going in six million different directions at once, just say, hey, what are you feeling?
And he may not know, and it may take me, you know, when this happened, what did you feel?
When did this feeling start, right?
Just go back to the root.
Because your feelings will give you a perfect, perfect guide.
You can dance across a mind field with your eyes closed, with your feelings.
And I know that, I mean, you know me, I was an objectivist for many years, and I have a huge amount of respect for the rational capacities of the mind, right?
But we are also instinctual creatures.
Right? And we need to respect that aspect of ourselves.
Because it does so much of the heavy lifting for us that we can't do any other way.
That we just need to harness that, right?
I mean, it's like you're pulling a big bag of rocks and there's a big tractor beside you, right?
And you're like, well, no, I'm not going to use the tractor, right?
Use the tractor, right?
Just sit in comfort. Use the tractor.
Let your emotions do the walking.
Do the heavy lifting. I'm going to try to focus more on that.
I really... I mean...
I just keep muddling myself with all this intellectual stuff, so I need to...
But that's your mom too, right?
That's your mom. This part of the genius, right?
If she can get you... It's the old thing, right?
You know that statement I've used before.
I say, if they can get you to ask the wrong questions, they don't care about the answers, right?
Right. And if your mom can get you to ask the question, how can I prove that they were bad...
Then she doesn't care what answer you come up with.
If she can get you to avoid the question, how do I feel, her work is done.
And I kept asking her that, and she...
She acted like I was giving her some sort of psychobabble, like, why are you asking me why I feel this is bizarre?
Right. The plus side is that you still have genuine feelings, which your mother does not.
The only feelings that your mother has is whack-a-mole with control, right?
Fear and control and anger, it's all manipulation, right?
It's all a house of mirrors. You still have your genuine feelings.
You've got to protect those and respect them.
Listen to them and they'll grow and they'll become stronger and they'll really help you.
That's the reason I'm in therapy now.
I'm trying to get in touch with those emotions, trying to bring them out more.
Well, no, no. They're in touch.
You're in touch with them already.
Because that's why I said, like, if you'd have said, I have no idea what I feel when my mom calls, right?
Right? You're in touch with your feelings, right?
Yeah. You just don't want to act on them.
You don't want to trust them. But you're in touch with them.
Yeah. Is there anything else?
Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say, I guess it's time to trust my feelings for once and see what happens.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
And sorry, Colleen, I know that we didn't get to what I was sort of going to say, but it seemed to me that this was the core issue.
Was that useful for you as well? Yes.
Excellent. So one of you is succinct.
Actually, one of us is succinct.
What am I saying? Okay, was there anything else that you wanted to talk about at the moment?
I mean, I think you've got some reasonable stuff to start chewing through, but was there anything else you wanted to talk about just now?
I'm good. How about you, Colleen?
Yeah, I think that's fine.
That's fine. It sounds like you have something else you want to talk about, but we can do it another time if you're busy.
It seems a little bit.
Oh, um...
Hold on one sec.
Yeah, I guess maybe I wanted to get to what exactly we can do when this starts happening when we have these kind of conversations with each other.
You mean when he's, like, Man on the Moon guy?
Yeah. Fog monkey.
Well, what I would suggest is that...
You guys weren't at the RTR thing, but when that's out...
I don't mean to be a Joe sales guy, but when that's out, pick up a copy of the audio at least.
Yeah, I mean, this...
The problem, Colleen, when he's disconnected from himself, you cannot reconnect him, right?
It's not like a plug, right?
You just say, okay, well, this is unplugged.
Let's plug him in, right?
Right. And it's a very difficult situation for you because you're feeling something very strong that you want to be heard, right?
But he's gone fog muggy on you, and so you then have to help him, right?
Right. When you're the one who has the problem, right?
Right. But at least that never breeds any kind of resentment.
Right. I'm sorry, does it?
No. Right, so that does, right?
That makes you feel resentful. Because it's like, I came in with a problem, and now I'm comforting you.
Yeah, and we've discussed that part of it.
Right, right, right, right.
I can tell you how to plug him in without having to manage him, if you like.
Okay. Okay. Five dollars.
No, I'm kidding. All right.
The way that you do it, Colleen, is you say, I feel X. It's not your fault.
I'm not saying you caused it, but I feel X, right?
So if you're talking and he's like giving you that thousand-yard fog monkey stare, right?
And you just know he's disconnected, right?
And you would then feel what?
Or it's not so much disconnected as it is like...
Well, just for an example, the other night when I said, you know, I just feel like I want to defune now.
Like, I just want to do it right now.
And he was kind of like, it was all of a sudden jumping in like, oh, how would you be able to do this?
How would you be able to do that? You know, it seemed like it was meant to kind of confuse me, almost.
Sure. And then I guess you guys started debating about whether these things were possible or not.
Yes. Yeah, see, that's a bad idea.
Right. Right? Because what you're doing is you're saying, well, he's actually concerned about the logistics, which is not true at all, and you know it's not true, right?
Right. Right, so what you say is not, well, but I can do this, that, the other, right?
Because then you're debating at the level of form, not content, right?
The content is he's just feeling anxious, right?
So, first of all, Rich, stop doing that.
But secondly, what you say is, when you tell me that there's all this, that and the other that I can't do, I feel annoyed.
Right? I'm not saying you're doing it because I'm a bad person or maybe you're totally right, but my feeling is that I'm annoyed, right?
Because then what you do is you refuse to get drawn into debating the surface of things and you actually go to the core.
The way that you reconnect him to his emotions is you continue to tell him what you're feeling.
Right. You know what? I think she...
I mean, she did that and what the result was is I actually was like...
I broke down. I was a mess.
I say that again. I was crying.
And I started crying really bad and I couldn't stop and I was like just...
I couldn't even come out of it.
And how did that make you feel?
I was scared because she...
Sorry, I meant Colleen.
Oh, sorry, sorry. No, my mistake.
Sorry, Colleen. How did that make you feel when he was crying, sobbing?
Actually, I just...
I mean, how did that really make you feel?
I felt a little irritated, actually.
Right, right. And so what do you do?
I didn't really do anything.
What should you do?
What should I do? Tell him that I felt irritated at him crying, but I didn't really know if that was, you know...
Exactly the right way I should feel, but that's the way I was feeling.
Right. Because you can say, with some sensitivity to the fact that he's bawling his eyes out, but you can say, look, this might make me the coldest and meanest bitch on the planet.
Maybe I should be Oprah hugging you to death right now.
Maybe this makes me the coldest, meanest, nastiest girlfriend on the planet, but I've got to tell you, your crying is really irritating me.
And I don't know why... Because you don't, right?
You don't know why.
But I'm really irritated by this, right?
It's not to say you don't have to stop crying.
Because our feelings aren't commandments for other people, right?
So he's allowed to cry and you're allowed to be irritated.
Mm-hmm. And you don't know why he's crying.
He doesn't know why he's crying.
Maybe I didn't publish a podcast that day.
That would make sense to me.
Right? But he doesn't know why he's crying.
And you don't know why you're irritated.
So you say, I'm irritated.
I don't know why. Maybe this makes me a totally mean person.
But I'm irritated. I don't know why.
And then you follow that.
Try and understand it. Talk about it with each other.
Right? Because what happens right now is that one of you gets emotional and the other person's got to sort of stand there like their needs totally unmet, right?
But it's okay for you both to be emotional at the same time, right?
Right. But as long as you continue to tell him what you're feeling without blaming him, without putting it on his shoulders, without trying to control his behavior, as long as you continue to tell him what you're feeling, that's how you reconnect him.
And you'll hear this when you hear the couple of role plays that we did in Miami.
You'll hear this, right?
where it's impossible to remain non-empathetic to somebody who's empathetic with herself.
If you want him to empathize with himself, you have to relentlessly empathize with yourself and tell him what you're feeling.
Thank you.
Can you explain a little...
Well, I could show you.
We can take another few minutes if you'd like and I could sort of show you what I mean if you wanted to sort of play Rich and I could play you.
Okay. Alright, so I'm going to get everything wrong here and I apologize for that in advance, right?
So I'm Colleen and I'm like, man, I just woke up this morning wanting to rip this family off my chest like yesterday's hair, right?
Like I just want to break free.
I want to get out.
I want to run. I want to sprint.
I just want to blow it all off and move on with my life.
Well, how would you do that?
How do you think you could get that done?
I mean, do you really think that's the best thing to do right now?
Okay, um... Let's just, when you say that to me, Rich, I feel a little bit irritated.
I don't know why, I don't know why, but I feel like it's, suddenly I feel like, I feel a kind of doubt, I feel a kind of uncertainty, and I also feel, not saying you're not listening to me, but I feel like I'm not hurt, right?
Does that make any sense to you?
Like, what did you feel when I said, bam, I want to blow my family right out of the water?
Well, I felt really anxious.
Okay, and why do you think you felt anxious?
Because I think it brings up the question of my own family and me.
Right. Now, when you say that, I feel, and this may make me the meanest girlfriend on the planet, I feel a little more irritated.
Can you think why?
Because I'm changing the subject to myself?
Right, right. Like, I have this very strong feeling, which is new for me.
Like, I'm just ready to blow this shit out of the water, right?
And then it's like, oh, but what about this and this?
And you feel anxious and all that.
And I understand. Like, I sympathize.
I mean, you've got a difficult situation with your family, right?
But it feels, it feels, I'm not saying it's true, it feels a little bit like a hijack.
Does that make any sense? Yes.
Okay, so let's put your family aside for the moment, right?
Just for the moment, right?
And let's talk about my feelings, right?
And we'll get to your feelings, and I'm not sort of trying to eclipse them or whatever, right?
But I get first dibs.
Like, you know, the guy who plants the flag on the island first?
He gets first dibs, right?
So let's do me, and then we'll sort of do you, right?
Does that make sense?
Yes. I mean, that would make me happier, because I'll tell you, I mean, we could do you first, but I'm going to feel resentful, and I don't think I'd be very good at doing that, if that makes sense.
Right. And I really do want to focus on your family issues, right?
But I want to sort of process what I came to the conversation with first, because then what I can do is really focus my attention on you, whereas if we just sort of go to you right now, I'm going to feel like...
Fine! Fine, we'll do your thing and then we'll get back to my thing, right?
Right. Does that make sense?
Yes. And now, sorry, just to break out of the roleplay, that's to some degree an example of just saying, this is what I feel and it's not your fault and I'm not saying it's true, but this is how I feel and is that a way of helping you to get more of what you want?
Yeah. Yeah. And did you understand that it's impossible to fight me on that, right?
And the reason that I say that is, when I talk about how I feel, no one can tell me that I don't feel it, right?
Like, if Rich is having a panic attack, nobody can tell him he's not having a panic attack, right?
Right. Now, if somebody says, I think you're having a panic attack because it's raining...
As soon as you put a conclusion in, then people can fight you, right?
Right. But if you just say, this is what I feel, I'm not saying it's true or valid.
Nobody can argue, right?
And so, when I was playing you and you were playing me, there was no way that he could argue with that, right?
Yeah. I think where I go wrong sometimes is when I... I try to guess at why he's feeling a way and say, I think you're feeling this way because of this.
Yeah, and you can only talk about what you feel and ask the other person what they do.
That's the only valid thing that you can do because you don't know, right?
And even if you know for sure, it's not important that you know, right?
It's important that he knows.
Right. Did that help to sort of give you another way of approaching it?
Yeah, definitely. Sorry, let me just finish this last point.
Did you see that when I said, as you, I feel irritated at this, what did you feel?
That you, as him, were able to say, I felt anxious, right?
Right. And the reason that he was able to say it when, quote, you were saying it is because we get other people to empathize with themselves by empathizing with ourselves.
When we're honest about what we feel and don't blame the other person, the other person will immediately become honest about what they feel.
Assuming they're not crazy parents or whatever, right?
Right. Sorry, what you were saying?
I was just going to say when you guys were doing that roleplay, I mean, I saw that situation going a lot better than the situation that happened.
I mean, I don't see myself completely breaking down if it had to happen that way.
Right, right. Well, I mean, part of the reason that you broke down was because of the pain of the interaction, reminding you of the pain of the past, right?
So if you change the interaction, you change everything that follows.
Right. Well, this has all been really helpful stuff.
I appreciate it.
Oh, you're welcome.
Look, I mean, you've got a Mike Tyson on your hands, right?
So, it's no disgrace to have been beaten up, right?
And so, let me sort of compile this and send this to you guys.
Have a listen. Personally, I would be a huge fan of releasing this as a podcast, but it's up to you.
Let me know. I think that there's so many people going through this kind of stuff right now that it would be, but...
I'm fine with it. How about you, Colleen?
Yeah. Oh, you guys are heroes!
Okay, but I'll send it to you anyway.
Would you mind having a listen to it just before I go ahead and release it?
Yes. Okay, thanks so much.
I will post it in a few minutes on the Skype chat window.
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