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Feb. 8, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:26:28
973 Your next 20 minutes... (a listener conversation)

How to stop putting off your life.

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Okay, the issue fundamentally is that you're having some indecision about your life, the future, and so on, right?
Yeah. And...
When you wake up in the morning, assuming you wake up in the morning, maybe you're living the rockstar lifestyle, I don't know, but is it something that's omnipresent, like you wake up and you feel it like, bam, oh god, my life, the blank canvas, I have no paint.
Yeah, I feel it pretty much all the time.
Right, okay, and what is the feeling?
Like, if you had to describe it.
It's kind of like worry, anxiety, fear, I guess.
I'm not exactly sure.
So is it...
I'm just sort of trying to get into the mindset of where you are with regards to these life decisions.
Is it that you feel like the anxiety of being heavily in debt and not knowing how to pay it?
Is it something like that or is it something different?
It's similar to that, I guess.
I don't know. When I don't know what I'm going to do next, I just kind of feel lost.
I'm not sure exactly how to describe it.
Okay. Is it a feeling like if you've ever, I don't know, you want to take a train and you're stuck in traffic and you feel like anxiety because you don't know if you're going to make the train or the plane?
Is it anything like that?
Sort of, I guess, but a lot worse.
Oh, no, no, I mean, I know it's a lot worse.
This is like the train called the future, right?
Is it a kind of dread?
Yeah, I guess you could describe it like that.
Okay, and I'll keep asking you these questions until we get closer to it, right?
And I know that it's not always the easiest thing in the world to define these feelings, right?
If you're not used to that process.
So, what is the...
When we contemplate our futures, what happens is we have scenarios that arise in our minds, right?
I mean, we're goal-seeking animals, we're animals with imaginations, and what is the disastrous scenario that you have in your mind if you can't figure this out?
I'm not sure.
I usually get quite depressed when I think about it, so probably the worst case would be suicide.
Well, no, I would say that the worst case would not be suicide.
I mean, just logically, right?
Because suicide is something that you would do in order to avoid the worst case, right?
Like, I mean, if someone told me that I'm going to be captured and tortured for 50 years, right?
Yeah. Then the worst thing for me would be that, right?
And suicide would be a way of escaping that, right?
Yeah, I guess...
Just perpetual unhappiness or, you know, not being at all fulfilled or content.
Probably basically just a continuation of what I feel now, pretty much.
Okay, so this is since the issue that you had with your job, you have felt...
Because you were feeling a little more positive before then, and since the incident with your job, you've been feeling less positive, is that right?
Yep. Right, okay.
And what does your life look like from the outside, in the worst-case scenario, when you're 55?
Probably no career, no relationships, just not being at all happy.
I'm not sure that's probably about it.
And what about in 10 years from now?
What do you see the practicalities of your life being?
Where are you living and so on, and how are you surviving in 10 years?
I have no idea.
Well, you must have some idea, otherwise you wouldn't feel dread, right?
Because the dread comes from a forward projection of where you think you're heading or where you're afraid you're heading.
So do you see yourself still living with your mom?
Is it just like today, but you're slightly older?
I definitely won't be living here, but probably everything else would be pretty similar.
I guess the worst, like the dread case would be, you know, still no career, no, you know, not doing a job that I enjoy at all, no relationships, no happiness, that kind of stuff.
And why would you not be living with your mom in 10 years?
There's no way I could last that long.
So that's the worst case scenario, right?
I guess so. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, right?
I mean, but if that's the thing that you simply couldn't stand, then that would be the worst case scenario, right?
Yeah, I guess so. Well, again, not to be annoying, but you're saying maybe.
I mean, we can keep going until we find it.
I agree, but it would be an impossibility of it still being like this in ten years.
Oh no, it's a definite possibility.
I mean, to be honest, right?
It's a definite possibility.
I mean, and you say, well, I just kill myself, right?
But that's not the case.
If you were hit by a bus and you were paralyzed and your mother was taking care of you, right, wouldn't that be kind of the worst-case situation?
Yeah. Because then you couldn't even kill yourself, right?
Yeah. Is there a worst-case situation?
No, I don't think so. Okay, I mean, let's get to the root, right?
I mean, in terms of the...
There is absolutely a plausible, though obviously not likely, situation which could end up with you stuck living with your mom and not able to...
not even able to end your own life, right?
Yeah. So we can call that the worst, and that would go on until your mom died, right?
Yeah. So that would be pretty bad.
Yeah. And is there anything that you could imagine that could be worse?
No, I don't think so.
Yeah, no, I mean, I've had that same thought too.
This is one of the things that I've sort of suggested in private conversations to people who say, oh, my parents are much nicer now.
It's like, well, imagine if you were paralyzed and they were taking care of you.
In other words... That your childhood was replicated again, do you think they would remain as nice after they had complete power over you again?
And then everyone's like, no, not really.
They get it, right.
I was watching a movie, I don't know if you've ever seen it, it's a pretty cheesy romantic comedy called Notting Hill with Hugh Grant.
No, I haven't. It's an interesting film insofar as there's just one scene that I think is really good.
Hugh Grant, as he always does, plays this bumbling guy.
Who's unable to sort of settle down the perennial bachelor and so on.
And he's sitting with his friends in their living room, complaining about his single status.
And he said, you know, like, my greatest fear...
And I guess in the film he's about 30 or 35, something like that.
And in the film he says, you know, my greatest fear is that...
In 30 years, I'm going to be sitting on this couch having exactly the same conversation.
And I think we can all get how terrifying that is.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
Still complaining about being single.
That we're going to live this Groundhog Day over and over again, right?
Same day, over and over.
No progress, no transition, no growth, no shape, no plot, no storyline, no arc in her life, right?
Yeah. Right.
Right. So, we talked a bit in the chat window, but we might as well go over it again here, that you were not raised with the option, or the encouragement, or the possibility even, of making decisions based on your own preferences, right?
Right. Children are born with very strong preferences.
I mean, obviously, there are universal preferences that children have.
They like to eat, they like to sleep when they're tired, they like to play, and that's universal.
I mean, and then there are more specific preferences, like, I don't like peas, I don't like itchy sweaters, and so on.
And one of the things that a tyrannical family structure does is it systematically attacks a child for having preferences.
Right, so when I was a kid, I was six years old, I was sent to boarding school where I lived full-time, and they would do our laundry, of course, right?
I mean, because they probably had just closed down the children's laundry the year before.
It was pretty Dickensian, but they put the clothes out, and they were so itchy, it's like they used no conditioner whatsoever.
And I've always had really dry skin, because obviously I'm meant for a warmer climate with lots of sunscreen.
So I'd have dry skin with these incredibly itchy clothes.
And I just remember feeling very uncomfortable with that.
And I knew that I couldn't say to them, my clothes are itchy, can you do something to make them softer?
Because it was like rough, woolly kind of substance, and it was just horrible.
Plus we had these little Lord Fauntleroyd ties and all this kind of gay crap, right?
So it was really not comfortable at all, overall.
And this occurred even in public school.
When I went there later, we had these little ties and so on.
And I just remember very clearly that I knew that I couldn't express a preference.
Like, this stuff makes me itchy.
Can we change it? Because I'm having trouble concentrating in class, right?
Yeah. Does that ring a bell with you in terms of your own childhood, in terms of preferences that you were allowed or not allowed to express?
In some ways, it does.
When I think back, it seems as though I was given the illusion of preferences, but I didn't really have them, if that makes sense.
I was manipulated into...
You know, a small number of options, and then I kind of thought I had choice in those options, but I just kind of wasn't aware of the rest of them.
Sure, well, if you gave me an answer that wasn't sort of yes and sort of no, I think I'd fall out of my chair.
So this is good. This is consistent.
Just kidding. Yes and no.
No, that makes sense. Could you think of an example?
I think I mentioned before, when I was leaving high school, going to university, the kind of options I had in my head is, what am I going to study at university?
It didn't even enter my head that I could possibly want to do something else.
Well, sure, but if we could talk about something early.
Like, what's your very first memory?
I can't really think of any type of preference things when I was young.
None particularly come to mind.
Okay, what's your first memory that does not involve preferences or anything, but just your first memory?
That's a tough one.
It doesn't have to be your chronologically earliest, but just the one that you think of as one of your first or earliest memories.
Actually, one that sticks out, I would have been five or six, I think, is...
I'm not sure why, but it's always stuck me is when I was about that age and my mum said, I love you.
And she was expecting me to say it back like I guess I did previous to that and I didn't and I wasn't sure why.
That's kind of an early memory that's always stuck with me.
And can you think why it has stuck with you?
Probably because I didn't love her, but I wasn't really conscious of it at the time.
Yeah, it's my belief that, I mean, whenever I have had memories that have stuck with me, it has always been for very good reasons.
I used to watch, when I was, I guess, in my teens, I used to watch this old show called M.A.S.H., and at one point Hawkeye and B.J., We're dismantling a gun, a sort of a field gun.
And one of them said, ah, it's humor...
They were making puns or whatever.
He says, ah, it's humor of the highest caliber.
And of all the shows that I watched of MASH, that's the only line that I remember.
And of course, later on in my life, I realized why I remembered it, insofar as there are a lot of people that I knew as a teenager...
And afterwards, in my 20s, who were very, very funny.
I mean, there's just some people who can riff, can make the most amazing jokes, the most amazing associations, and are just really, really funny.
And my brother is one of those.
And there's one or two other friends that I had that I could never keep up with in terms of humor.
I'll just give you an example of how funny my brother is.
We had a client who was short, he had really, really thick brown hair that came up in a buzz cut.
It started like two inches above his eyebrows.
My brother was on a flight with him going to England to demonstrate our software.
And he said, when he came off the flight, he said, yeah, after like five hours in the plane with this guy, I was able to speak fluent Ewok, which I thought was just hilarious, right?
I mean, like, that is such a great joke on so many levels, right?
It's, you know, it's affectionate, it's funny, it plays into the person's physical characteristics and so on.
And so when I was thinking about this MASH episode, Humor of the Highest, this is Humor of the Highest Caliber, the association of...
Humor with aggression that was in that joke, consciously or not, for the writers, stuck with me, right?
Because humor is kind of disarming and distracting from people, right?
And for some very bad people, it can be very funny.
So that kind of association for me was like, don't be fooled by somebody's humor, because humor often comes from a kind of aggression.
And certainly the people who were the funniest when I was a teenager have proven to be the most messed up.
I saw this show when I was like 13 or 14.
I don't think it was a first run or anything, but that's just sort of one example of how a memory had stayed with me, because I understood something at the time, but...
It was not possible for me to pursue that thought, even though I made the connection as a kid.
And I think for you, you say you were five or six when this memory occurs, it's because that tells you all that you need to know about your relationship with your mother, right?
Yeah. Now, you said that this memory was not associated with preference in your mind, right?
Yeah. But it seems to me that it is highly associated with preference in your mind, and in reality.
Yeah, I guess it is, now that I think about it.
Tell me what you mean. Well, my mum, you know, strongly wanted me to reciprocate, and I didn't want to.
And I guess it, you know, felt a bit weird, and she obviously wasn't comfortable with it and didn't make me very comfortable about it.
Sorry, what was weird?
Just the interaction.
I felt confused, I guess.
Kind of disoriented.
I wasn't sure why I didn't want to reciprocate.
But I just knew I didn't, and I didn't.
And then she kind of looked at me and prodded me, saying, you know, don't you love me and stuff like that.
Well, I bet you that you were entirely sure of why you didn't love her.
Even at five. I mean, if you had been asked, in a safe environment where you knew there were never going to be any negative repercussions whatsoever, what would you have said, even at that age, about why you didn't love your mum?
I don't know if it was conscious for me at the time.
I mean, it could have been, but I don't remember it like that.
I remember just Sorry to interrupt, but the reason that I would say that it is conscious, or was conscious, is that you knew that you didn't want to say it, right?
If it were unconscious, you would have said it and truly believed it, but then, after years of therapy, would have found out that you didn't really believe it.
But it was conscious for you that you didn't want to say to your mom, I love you, right?
Right.
And so, if you had been in a safe environment, what would you have said if somebody had said, well, why don't you love your mother?
And not like, why the hell don't you love your mother?
She does everything for you.
But with genuine curiosity, tell me why you didn't want to say that.
I'm really not sure.
So, I'm...
I'm really not sure.
Thank you.
Well, let me tell you why it is that I'm asking you this, and then you can tell me if you think that the theory is at all reasonable or helpful.
Alright. If you had a complete knowledge of your family at the age of five...
your own processing, right?
Yep.
I mean, that's a pretty amazing thing to get and understand when you're that age, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
If you had...
Right.
then you would have less doubt about your ability to decide what you wanted to do with your life, right?
Right.
Because what's happening right now is that you're trying to get yourself to make a decision about what to do with your life, right?
Yeah. That's never going to work.
You can't make a desire in yourself, right?
Yeah. You can't say, by God, I have to know what I'm going to do with my life.
put a lot of pressure on yourself and then have that feeling arise and be permanent in your life, right?
Because you don't want to make a big decision, force yourself to make a big decision and then bomb out of whatever you're doing or end up being miserable and so on, right?
Yeah.
I mean, it's sort of like saying, well, if I chloroform this girl and lock her in my basement, she'll end up loving me.
Because the feelings have to arise spontaneously, right?
Out of sort of mutual pleasure.
You can't sort of make...
And the same thing is true when you look at your life, your shape, your ambition.
I mean, you have to try to remain curious about your impulses, right?
Because if you knew at the age of five what your mom was all about, exactly what your family structure was all about, then...
That's an amazing piece of knowledge to have.
I think that all children have that knowledge.
I think that we're never smarter than when we're five in many ways.
And if you were able to trust and understand the knowledge that you had at five, then you would be more open to letting yourself fall, so to speak.
And letting your instincts, your true self, your gut level, your whatever, catch you, right?
Because right now, you're trying to squeeze a decision about your future like it's out of an empty toothpaste tube, right?
Yeah. If I squeeze hard enough, right?
But if you get that you have all of this amazing knowledge and preferences and impulse and wisdom and perceptiveness and insight and so on within you already...
Then you can stop peddling so hard and let the hill take you down, right?
Yeah. So, given that you knew that your mother was not a lovable person, but you also knew that you could not tell her that, and the fact that you could not tell her that was part of why she was not lovable,
It must mean that you understood an enormous amount about your mother's nature, and thus your father's and so on, when you were merely a couple of years old, right?
Yeah.
So, what was it that you understood about your mom when you were five?
Perhaps that she was a bit of a narcissist, and I was kind of...
She wanted me to kind of fulfill her kind of desire to be seen as a good mother or something like that, but she wasn't particularly interested in what I wanted to do.
Okay, a bit of a narcissist, kind of wanted me to fulfill her desires, not particularly interested in what I wanted to do.
Take those words out, then.
Well, no, I mean, this is very interesting, right?
Because you kind of have an inability to commit to absolutes.
Yeah. I feel like...
And when I say kind of...
Sorry, just kidding. But you see what I mean?
Like, you hedge your statements continually, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So, this of course is a problem insofar as when you say, what is it I want to do with my life?
That's not a kind of, sort of, in a way, statement, right?
Yeah. Like if you say, well, I kind of want to be an elephant trainer.
That doesn't help you, right?
Yeah. So what happens, and sorry, children, again, are born not with kind of preferences, right?
Yeah. I mean, they're born with very strong preferences, both universal and more personal.
So, there's something that occurred, well, and probably not just something, but a whole series of things that occurred when you were a kid to blunt destroy and turn inwards your desires as absolutes and turn them into conditional kind of half-and-half things, right? Yeah.
Now, it can't have been the examples that you were given by your mother.
We'll just talk about your mom, right?
Because when you were five years old, you didn't say to yourself, well, I'm sure it will only be kind of bad if I tell my mother that I don't love her.
Right. Right.
What did you say to yourself about that when you were five?
I said, um...
you know, I can't do it...
at all. Right, that's just, it's gonna be universally terrible, right?
Yeah. So, you were exposed to a lot of, quote, absolute preferences when you were a kid, right?
Yeah. So, it can't be that your parents are total ditherers, and that's where you got it from.
Okay. Does that make sense?
Yeah. So, in your world, what does certainty equal in terms of psychology?
in your world as a kid?
Um, perhaps...
Oh, there it is again.
No, I'm not saying you can't use these words, I'm just saying be conscious of them, right?
Because there are times when they're appropriate, right?
But anyway, sorry, go on.
Yeah. It could be a risk of failure or something like that, like if I commit to something and then it doesn't work out, then it's kind of a bad thing.
Well, I would say that, let's go back to, I mean, you could be right, but I'm looking for something a little bit more direct and something that we have a little bit more evidence for.
So when you were five, was your mother certain that you should love her?
Yes. And was that certainty true or valid or false and invalid?
That was invalid.
Okay, okay. And was it narcissistic or empathetic?
Narcissistic.
And was there violence behind it or compassion?
Um...
Violence, I guess.
Not in the physical sense, but kind of emotionally.
Right, and there was a threat of disapproval or separation from your mother, which is complete violence when you're five, right?
Yeah. Like, if I refuse to feed you, who's living in Australia, I'm obviously not doing anything violent towards you.
However, if I lock you in my basement and I refuse to feed you, then I'm going to kill you, right?
Yeah. Right, so that which is violent as an adult...
Sorry, that which is not violent as an adult may be entirely violent to a child who's dependent, right?
Yeah. So, let's say at least that there was a lot of aggression behind your mother's certain need that you should love her, right?
Yeah. Okay.
So, what does certainty equal in your mind's eye when you're five?
What does it mean to be certain?
Psychologically. To be violent, I guess.
Well, certainty equals narcissistic and brutal entitlement, right?
Yeah. So, can you see why you might have an aversion to certainty as an adult?
Yeah. Why you would want to pepper your statements with qualified this, that and the other, right?
Yeah. Because, frankly, only assholes are certain.
I mean, is that unfair?
True to some extent, I guess.
Yeah. Oh, it depends.
It depends. I'd say for the majority of people that appear to be certain are usually completely wrong, but there are some people that are certain that aren't.
And who are the people who are certain who aren't assholes?
Again, let's say prior to FDR, assuming that we even fall in that category, but go on.
Well, I would have said you prior to FDR. I don't know.
No one I can think of.
I mean, I think that's...
And especially in the realm of relationships and values and interaction, right?
I mean, we're pretty cutting edge with this UPB and RTR stuff and all that, right?
Yeah. So, it is entirely true that there is a...
For most people, there is an inverse relationship between certainty and intelligence, particularly emotional intelligence, right?
So, when you're stupid, you're certain, but you're wrong.
And when you get more intelligent and more empathetic, you become less certain, right?
Yeah. So, for you, as a kid, You were not entitled and narcissistic, right?
Because you weren't pounding the table demanding that your mother do this, that, and the other, right?
Right. Because you knew you would have been wholly screwed up by her if you had tried that, right?
Yeah. So you also knew that she had a universal absolute called you owe me love, even though I am not lovable, which meant that other people should serve her needs, right?
Right. Yeah.
But you were not allowed to have the same rule, right?
Yeah. So you also knew that there was hypocrisy, and with hypocrisy always comes brutality, particularly moral hypocrisy.
Right. So, one of the things that has really driven me, just by the by, in this conversation as a whole, what it is that I'm trying to do, Is that I got entirely and thoroughly sick and tired.
This was the whole impetus behind UPB. I got entirely and thoroughly sick and tired of only idiots being certain.
And one of the things that I hope to be remembered for is to say, is giving to people who are intelligent the capacity to be certain about reality, about ethics, about the non-existence of God, about exploitation and relationships, that we can actually be certain, that we can be both very intelligent and certain, right?
Because intelligence so often leads to doubt, right?
Yeah. I got sort of sick and tired of all the assholes on the planet knowing exactly what was right and being certain about what was right while being totally wrong.
Yeah. So, I would imagine, to some degree, And your mother is not right intellectually, right?
She is right in her own mind based on her emotional drives, right?
Her emotional needs, her emotional impetus or stimuli.
Yeah. Right? You owed her love, not because of any objective quality on her part, but you, quote, owed her love.
Why? Because she needed it.
She wanted it. Yeah.
So, what does desire equal?
In your world as a kid.
Selfishness. Yeah, exploitation, particularly of the innocent and dependent and the children, right?
Yeah. So certainty equals exploitive, narcissistic, brutal error, and emotional need or instinct or drive or desire equals selfish, brutal, emotional exploitation, right?
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
So you would not view, I would imagine, rationally, instinctual drives for feelings as particularly beneficial?
Um, I'm not sure.
I think even just kind of a few years ago, I was kind of much more in touch with that kind of stuff and much more certain about things.
About when you were going through your prior career phase?
Yeah, like when I was at uni and I decided to start a business and do that full-time, I just kind of woke up one morning and did it.
I wasn't really worried about it then.
And things like that, for me it seems it's been the last couple of years where that's completely gone, but before that I was at least much better at it.
And why did you want your own business?
I just felt like something I wanted to do, I guess.
I was doing it kind of part-time on the side, and I was enjoying it more than uni, so one day I woke up and I thought, no, I don't want to go to uni anymore, and I just kind of did it like that.
Okay, and what kind of person were you when you had that kind of success and money?
I guess I was kind of split down the middle at half successful and happy and half unsuccessful and miserable.
tool.
In terms of kind of the professional and career side, I was very happy about that, but I guess in terms of relationships and the emotional side, I was the opposite.
And what were you happy about in terms of your professional success?
I was enjoying what I was doing, I was making a lot of money, that type of stuff.
Okay, and what was making a lot of money?
I mean, what did you do with the money?
What did you spend it on? Just enjoying life, pretty much.
I guess I didn't particularly save a lot of it.
I spent it on good food, good wine, going out, that kind of stuff.
And did you spend money on other people, or did you mostly spend it on yourself, or how did that work?
Yeah, sure. I went out with friends and stuff like that, and, you know, since they were at uni, and the stereotypical poor uni student, I would do that to some degree.
And was it reciprocated in other ways?
And, sorry, what I mean by that is, let's say that you took a bunch of friends out for dinner and you spent a couple of hundred dollars or more...
Did they reciprocate in other ways, by cooking you meals, or was it not so mutual?
No, they didn't reciprocate like that, I guess.
I suppose the rest of the friendships were pretty much equal.
I'm sorry, so your university friends didn't reciprocate as much, but there were other friendships that you had with people who weren't in university where things were more equal?
Oh no, I meant it was kind of more equal apart from that stuff, but I didn't really see it as...
I guess I didn't see it as something that had to be reciprocated, it was just I had a bit more money, so...
Well, you had a lot more money, right?
Yeah. I mean, it wasn't all the time or anything.
No, I understand. I'm not saying that you're out buying friends or anything, right?
I'm just trying to understand the framework of this, right?
And did your friends, were they appreciative of what it is that you were doing?
Um... I'm not sure.
I think there was perhaps a little bit of embarrassment around it for them a bit.
One of my friends in particular, it's quite a bit kind of like that with money.
That's how his mother is, so he's kind of embarrassed about accepting anything like that.
I guess...
I don't know.
I guess I was probably joked about a bit that I was doing it easy and things like that.
Sorry, what does doing it easy mean?
Like, well, they were kind of studying hard at uni, and I was...
I guess what appeared to them was making a lot of money for probably not doing much, from what they saw anyway, so...
Okay, and if you were to look at this, and I'm not trying to fish, I'm just trying to understand, but if you were to look at this with really, really as much honesty as you could muster, do you think that you were a likable person in the way that you would understand it now when you were making do you think that you were a likable person in the way that you would understand it now
I'm not sure.
I don't think the money particularly changed me in any way.
But, I mean, I've never...
I guess, looking at it empirically, I've never had, you know, a wide circle of friends or anything.
So, going by that, probably no.
But, you know, I still don't now.
So, you know, it's the same.
Well, because when you had this sort of...
When you bombed out of your career, right, through this depression...
Yeah. There's sort of one of two possibilities in general, right, when these kinds of things occur.
Either it's because your career was really good for you, but you were self-sabotaging, right?
Yeah.
Or that your career was not really good for you, and you were trying to save yourself.
My own experience was that, because as you know, like with my business, I was sort of flying high, sold the business, and blah, blah, blah, and I was sort of flying high, sold the business, and blah, blah, blah, and then I And I thought for quite some time that I was self-sabotaging because I could not handle success.
Right? Yeah.
But it turns out that the truth was entirely the opposite.
That the success was bad for me.
Objectively, and not because of the money or anything, but because of the methodology and the people that I was around.
And it wasn't so much what I was doing, but definitely was the people I was around that were problematic, to say the least.
So, when I had my bombing out of my career situation, it was because my career was toxic.
Or I was toxic in my career, so to speak.
And so... It's sort of like there's this involuntary thing.
When you touch a hot stove, medically or neurologically, you don't even feel the heat before your hand snatches back.
The sensation goes straight to your spine and back to your hand before you even feel it consciously.
And the same thing with the autoimmune system.
We have defenses against corruption that we're not even conscious of.
That was what was occurring for me.
It was not the most graceful exit, but it definitely got me out of that situation.
I don't want to graft my own experiences onto you, but you have some sort of explanation within your mind as to why you bombed out of your career.
That explanation is very likely one of the two.
Your career was good for you, but you couldn't handle it, and so you self-destructed Or that your career was bad for you and you were trying to save yourself?
The way I... I've experienced, I guess, is I always had a notion that if I sought that out, sought out career and money, that other things would follow, like relationship stuff and all that kind of thing.
I think I saw it as a way to build value in myself.
Because I guess I didn't feel particularly good about myself.
And I guess the notion I had even all through high school would be, you know, if I'm successful in that area, then the other areas would follow.
You mean if you had a lot of money, you'd be able to date more?
I'm just trying to break it down to what that means in reality.
Yeah, dating, friends, just general happiness, I guess.
Sorry to interrupt, but I just want to make sure I follow these thoughts.
So your belief was that if you had more money or more sort of outward or material success, that you would be more popular.
I'm not sure if it was popular that I was thinking more.
More confident, I think, I would have thought, because I wasn't particularly confident in the social arena, so I thought doing that would somehow build value for myself and I'd have more confidence.
So you would feel that you would have more backup to any kind of self-esteem?
Like, I have self-esteem because, look, I have money and I'm successful.
Yeah. Right.
Now, your father has had a fair degree of material success in his life, right?
I mean, his career was pretty good, right?
Yeah. And would you say that your father has self-esteem?
No, not at all.
No, of course, right? So, I mean, it would seem odd to me, I mean, just looking at it from the surface, that you would have, of your own accord, based on your empirical evidence, the empirical evidence of your childhood and teenage years, that you would have an idea or a thought that material success brings confidence and happiness,
right? Because you have an example of a man who raised you, who had material success and social success to some degree, Right.
I'm not sure if I consciously realized that when I was growing up, though, because, as you know, I kind of idolized him when I was growing up.
Well, sure, absolutely, but all that means is that you can't remember, at least right at the moment, the part of your childhood where you had the same experience with your dad as you just talked about with your mom, right?
Yeah.
And it also means that a parent should not be idolized, right?
When we idolize a parent, it's because we feel that if we do not idolize that parent, they will not pay any attention to us.
All right.
Right, I mean, if you feel secure in your bond with your parent, then you do not need to worship them, right?
Yeah.
right Like a guy who brings his wife home flowers every single day and constantly tells her how beautiful she is.
And it's like, this is a guy who's insecure, right?
Who feels that if he doesn't keep feeding his wife's ego, she's going to leave him, right?
Yeah. So, the worship of your father is not an indication of love, but rather a lack thereof, or a feeling of insecurity in the bond, right?
Right. I mean, the guy who shows up at 6 o'clock in the morning and works 80 hours a week...
He's obviously not the guy who's the most secure in his career, right?
Yeah, I guess so.
I never really thought of it like that, but yeah, that does make sense.
Right, so, and what did you worship your father for?
Like, what were the traits or the characteristics that you worshipped?
Or would say to others that you worshipped about him?
He was smart, his career success...
You know, he always seemed to have interesting stories and that kind of thing.
I guess because I didn't see him too much, whenever he kind of was home, it was kind of a pretty good time.
So, yeah, that kind of thing.
Okay, so your father had obviously some charm, some social ease, and he had material success, and all of the things that you were heading down towards in your early 20s, right?
Yeah. And where did that leave him in terms of, and you say, okay, well, I want to do the same things that my father did in order to get a good relationship, right?
Yeah, it doesn't make much sense.
Well, it does, but we haven't gotten to how it makes sense yet, but...
I mean, if we look at the fact that you were heading down the same road as your father, can we understand that your bombing out of your career might have been you diving out of a car that was heading off a cliff, right? Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Because your dad ended up with your mom.
Yeah. Right?
Yeah. So the things that you were trying to emulate in your dad would have just led you down to your dad's marriage.
In other words, to a replication of your own childhood, but in perpetuity.
Yeah, well, that's scary to think about.
I like that. Yeah, I mean, that's the worst-case scenario.
Not that you were victimized, but that you create a situation which re-victimizes children, right?
Because, I mean, you kind of rolled out of a car going at pretty good speed and you got pretty badly broken up in the process, right?
Yeah. So, it's kind of hard to understand that unless you see that it's going over a cliff, right?
Because if it's going over a cliff, you're like, whew!
But if it's not, you're like, what the fuck did I do that for?
Right? Yeah.
Because if...
I mean, you might want to listen to this bit in RTR again, that bit where I talk about my experience in the bar.
But if you were heading down a road where you were substituting material success for personal worth or virtue or integrity, then you would not, I guarantee you, you would not have attracted into your life a woman of virtue and integrity.
Right, yep. Does that make sense?
Why not? Because I wouldn't have it myself.
Right, and she would see the desperation that comes from saying, I don't like myself, but I have this stuff.
Yeah. Right? I mean, the only kind of person, the only kind of woman that attracts is...
An exploitive, low-quality, entitled, narcissistic, demanding woman, right?
Yeah. You didn't want that, right?
No.
Right.
So, the question then is, why would this seem like a sensible course of action to you?
Thank you.
Thank you.
And to answer that, we simply need to look at the person in your family to whom this seemed like a very sensible course of action for himself.
Oops, I gave it away. And so, who is that?
My dad. Yeah, this is your dad's script.
This is your dad's mythology.
This is your dad's story. Get enough success, son, and the girls will come running, right?
Yeah. So, you're in a car driven by your father in your early 20s, right?
That's heading straight off a cliff.
Yeah. So, wouldn't you bail out?
Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.
I've seen you go off this cliff for 30 years.
I'm not... No, 20 years.
Like, I'm not going off again, right?
I know where this car road leads because I was born in this car and so if and this is all just theory right I mean, you can mull it over, but if it is the case that you were heading off a cliff and you rolled out, then I think it would cause you to have much more respect For your own instincts, right?
But if you feel like some Al-Qaeda terrorist self-destroying lunatic is somehow locked in your ribcage, right?
Then you're going to be freaked out about yourself, right?
Yeah. I hated so much, this insomnia.
I hated it so much.
Because it was incomprehensible to me.
In hindsight, it was the best thing that could ever have happened to me.
Ever. Yeah.
So, what that says to me, or at least the way that I worked on it, and this was as a result of therapy and of the thoughts that I put into it since, that if I was able to stop, like if a part of me was able to stop sleeping, Because I was doing something that was fundamentally toxic and unhealthy and self-destructive.
If I was actually... Like, if that's how deep and powerful my instincts go, then I'd better stop listening to them.
Because they also refused to compromise.
compromise.
They didn't just let me sleep when I quit my job.
I didn't just let me, like I had to go through the whole thing, defooing, breaking up with my relationship, breaking up with most of my friends.
I had to go through the whole goddamn gamut.
And then they're like, okay, now we can sleep.
Bang.
Next day, right?
So once you get the amount of wisdom and integrity that is in your deepest instincts, then you can stop being afraid of self-sabotage and start harnessing them for your benefit, if that makes sense.
Thank you.
It does, but...
I guess the decisions that led me into that situation, I thought that I was following my instincts there as well.
Sure, absolutely. And even more recently, with the job I got, I felt really ready and like this was the right thing to do, and it turned out that it wasn't.
Right. So I have a problem trusting my instincts now.
I have been thinking for a few months about going back to university as kind of the next major step in my life, but now I think, you know, is that a good decision or not?
Because I don't feel like I can trust myself.
Right, right, of course.
I mean, I fully understand that.
It's a little bit like playing bumper cars blindfolded, figuring out what is the true instincts versus what is the not true instincts or the false feelings.
And the way to work with that is just empirically, right?
Which is to say, well, I thought that the feelings about me wanting a job were the right feelings, but as it turned out, they weren't, right?
Yeah. Because, I mean, you didn't even last a day, right?
Yeah. And so that's just empirical information to work with, right?
I thought this road was not going to lead off a cliff, but it did, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And in many ways, the job that you took was very similar to the career that you bombed out of in your 20s, right?
Yeah. So, it's like, basically you said, okay, I rolled out of the car because I couldn't handle the road that the car was going on, which was going to lead to Shangri-La, so now what, I'm going to get up, dust myself off, I'm going to get back in that car and take the same road, right?
Yeah. And then you bombed out of it again, right?
Yeah.
So what that means is the road leads off a cliff.
Yeah.
And you could say, well, objectively maybe it does, but for you, for sure, the road leads off a cliff, right?
Other people can take that road, and God help you, you're one of the people that the planet has picked out to be wiser or more perceptive than the rest of humanity, and it totally sucks at times, but that's just another fact you have to work with, right?
Other people can take that road, but you can't, right?
And I would say that it's for better reasons that you can't.
Yeah. And that's why I was sort of saying in the chat window that you need to start making little decisions and building things up, right?
Be more tentative, right?
Because you're still trying to make big decisions, like, should I go to university?
I want this career in computers and so on, right?
Yeah. But you need to, I think, make smaller decisions and see how they feel, right?
And look at yourself as somebody who's learning how to walk, right?
You don't just say, well, first thing I do is join the Olympic running team, right?
Yeah. Because the way that you regain confidence in yourself is you just make little decisions, right?
I mean, I was sort of working with this, like, after I bombed out of my career and my relationships and my family and friendships and love affairs and so on, that I said, okay, well, what do I want to do for the next 20 minutes?
And I kind of genuinely didn't know.
Yeah, I know that feeling.
And that's okay, right?
But we need to recognize that we don't know what we want to do.
This is, again, back to the...
You don't make up answers, right?
The fact is, you don't know what you want to do with your next 20 minutes.
And until you know what you want to do with your next 20 minutes, there's not much point planning your next 20 years, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
because they're going to get thrown in jail when they get caught, right?
They have to go to the Underground Railroad, so they can't be seen, right?
That's why you don't see drug lords on the stock exchange, right?
Yeah.
So that's why I'm sort of saying, I mean, if you stare at the next 20 years when you don't know about the next 20 minutes, you're just going to continue to provoke feelings of failure and inability in yourself, right?
Whereas if you accept that you know what you're supposed to be doing with your life, down to the last detail, but you just don't have access to it yet because it's not safe in your environment yet.
And also because you have a belief that you've got to force yourself to do stuff and make yourself do stuff and so on.
And willpower in life means nothing.
And willpower never lasts, right?
What lasts is curiosity and openness with yourself.
So you say, I don't know what I want to do with my life right now, but I have the knowledge in me, Because your fear is like, if I don't know what I want to do with my life consciously, then I'm just going to sit here and pick my nose for the next 60 years, right?
Yeah. Right.
Well, if you accept that when you were five, you knew everything there was to know about your family, and you accept that you have a huge amount of innate knowledge and wisdom built into yourself, then you don't have to worry about not knowing what you want to do with your life, but just start to be curious about what you want to do for the next 20 minutes and get that muscle unpacked and working.
Yeah. You know, it's small steps, right?
Yeah. Would you say that it could be hindering me somewhat just being in this environment, like living in the same house as my mother?
Could that be bringing up kind of emotional stuff from my childhood that could be hindering my decision-making process in some way?
Well, what do you think? Well, I think it probably is, but I'm not really sure of anything anymore.
Well, I can guarantee you that you're sure of this one.
I mean, you may not be sure of where you want to be in 20 years, but I guarantee you that you're sure of this one, right?
So how do you feel when your mother walks into the room?
Terrible. Well, that's all you need to know.
Alright, yeah. Do you remember this RTR book that I wrote?
Yeah. Right, the one that you said you weren't sure if it was going to have any real impact for you?
Yeah. Oh no, it did have a lot of impact.
No, but what I mean is, I mean, that's all you need to know.
How do you feel when your mother walks into the room?
Terrible. So is that helping you or not?
Yeah, a lot. And that's what I mean when I say you can trust your instincts, right?
You don't need to ask me whether or not hanging with your mom is a good thing, because you already know based on your feelings, right?
Yeah. And that's what I mean when I say you can get certainty through your instincts, but you've just got to start listening to them, right?
Yeah. Because they tell you over and over again, you don't ever feel really happy when your mom walks into the room, right?
No. Never. Not once.
Ever. Right? No.
So you have complete certainty about this.
There's no doubt. Yeah.
There's no mixed signals.
It's not kind of, sort of, perhaps.
It's, bam, absolute, right?
Yeah. You always feel like shit when she walks into the room.
You always feel anxious and nervous and upset and scared and angry and all that, right?
Yeah. Right.
So you just gotta listen to your feelings, right?
And act on them. Yeah.
I mean, I can tell you that you're absolutely certain about one thing that you want to do in the next 20 minutes.
What's that?
Well, what happens if your mom walks into the room?
*sniff* Yeah, she's out at the moment, so that's alright.
Alright, but if she came home suddenly, and we were on this call, what would you feel?
I'm anxious and angry and like my space has been violated.
Right, right, right.
And that's not something you want to feel, right?
No. So, in the next 20 minutes, I can guarantee you that you want to start exploring alternate living arrangements.
Yeah. Yeah. If you listen to your feelings, right?
If you don't, then you can do nothing, right?
Or you can stew, or you can look on the board, or whatever.
But if you actually listen to your feelings, your feelings will say, get the fuck out, right?
Yeah. This is toxic, right?
This is like a burning building. Yeah.
So I can guarantee that your feelings are telling you exactly what you need to do over the next 20 minutes if you listen to them.
And this is a bit of a tar pit, right, my friend?
I mean, you have to will this part, right?
You have to say to yourself, look, I may not be the world's greatest human being right now, but I can tell you this, I am definitely worth not feeling anxious and terrified and scared and angry and violated, right?
I am definitely, like, I may not be the happiest guy in the world, but I definitely deserve not to be tortured, right?
Yeah. That's just the first step.
That's just beginning to reach your way out of the tar pit or the quicksand, right?
I don't know if I want to go to university or start my own business or become a clown or a juggler or learn how to make unicycles, but I do know that I don't want to feel like shit at home anymore.
Yeah. Does that make sense?
Yeah. You can't plan for your future when you've got to get out of a burning building, right?
Because your future is get out of the burning building, right?
Yeah. I mean, if you're trying to claw your way out of a burning building and the fireman won't help you because he says, but I don't know if you want to go to university or not, what would you say?
Who cares about that?
Right!
The building's on fire!
So if you're hanging around a woman who you knew...
Almost 20 years ago was only going to exploit and harm you, right?
I mean, you've had 18 years of not listening to these instincts, right?
Mostly because you couldn't, right?
But now you can. And what do you feel now?
Kind of...
A bit relieved, I guess.
At least, that's been made very clear to me.
And I didn't make it clear to you, right?
Because your feelings are doing that, right?
Yeah. I'm not saying...
This is about self-trust. I'm not saying you've got to move out.
Your feelings are saying, we hate it here, right?
Yeah. And you can reject your feelings and stay, but you see, who's driving your car if you stay?
Yeah. Who?
My mom. Right.
Take the fucking wheel.
It's your life. You're not here to just run other people's scripts.
You're not here to be a bit player in other people's narcissistic mythologies.
You owe them nothing.
You don't want to be running your dad's agenda with money, professional success.
You don't want to be running your mom's agenda Which is to keep you crippled and dependent.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah.
Because that fulfills her need.
Right?
Yeah.
And when we fulfill other people's narcissistic mythologies, we're barely alive anyway.
And it certainly is true that your
mother will resist you moving out, and it certainly is true that she will try to make you feel like crap for leaving and abandoning her, and you're not ready, and I'm here to help, and what if this happens, and what if you get depressed again, and I'm not here...
She'll put all of this anxiety and all this crap into your ear, right?
Yeah. I don't even need to know her, right?
And you can. You can totally stay.
You can sit here for another 20 years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. It won't be a mystery.
Like, okay, well, there's this bad, corrupt, nasty woman who raised me, and in order to serve a bad, nasty, corrupt human being, I'm going to give up my entire life and future in order to serve the needs of somebody I despise and have despised since I was a toddler.
In this short, wonderful, beautiful life that beautiful life that I have, with all the gifts and potentials that I possess, I am going to squander them in the service of corruption.
corruption in order to keep a bad person from feeling bad.
Because if this doesn't feel like a burning building to you, it's because you're not feeling things deeply enough yet.
Because it is, in your heart of hearts.
You know it. Yeah, no, it does.
It feels terrible. Right.
Right. It was my main motivator behind getting a job in the first place, was to get out of here.
Well, yeah, but see, the thing is, if you get out of here without knowledge, you'll end up reproducing here elsewhere, right?
What do you mean by that?
Well, what I mean is that if you leave without a full understanding of why you're leaving, Then you will be drawn to reproduce the situation with your mom in the future, through a roommate, through a girlfriend, through a job situation, through whatever, right? Okay, yeah.
That's the Simon the Boxer thing, right?
Because you don't say, well, if the building is burning...
The moment that a fireman comes in and carries me out or I catch the eye of someone on the sidewalk, then I will leave, right?
Yeah. You say, I'm getting out of here.
I don't care if I've got to chew my way through a brick wall.
Right? Yeah.
So it's not like, well, if I get a job and once I get a job and this and that, then I'll whatever, whatever, right?
Yeah. Then it's like, I'm out of here in two weeks.
I'm out of here in two weeks.
A week. Tomorrow.
And I guarantee you that will galvanize you.
I guarantee you that you'll get a job that you can keep when you do that, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
to suddenly make you feel happy for your mom coming home.
Right.
And how are you feeling now?
Yeah.
I feel exhausted, actually.
I feel good.
I feel kind of relieved.
Right. Right.
Well, I mean, the important thing to remember is that you want to get out.
Your mom wants you to stay, right?
So when you start to feel exhausted, that's your mom, right?
I mean, this is why you don't know what to do, because you're not in control of the wheel yet, right?
You don't know where you want to go because you're still in the backseat, letting other people drive, right?
Yeah. So there's not much...
And they want to go over a cliff, right?
Or rather want to send you over.
There's not much point having willpower when you don't have the wheel, right?
Yeah.
So what's the next step for you?
Try to relax and really kind of figure out exactly what I'm feeling.
I guess would be the immediate step, but I'm gonna have to disagree with you there, and this is gonna be a tough habit, because you're an analytical machine, right?
Okay. You know what you're feeling with regards to your living situation already, right?
Yeah, yeah. Right.
So the way that we stop fighting ourselves is we start listening to ourselves.
So if you feel that your environment is unbearable and toxic, what is your next step?
I'll start looking for another job, I think.
No. Because that's what you did last time, right?
And it didn't work. Okay.
I'm not sure then.
Well, if you're in a burning building, what do you do?
Oh, get out. Right.
I can't really get out of this situation without a job, though.
Well, sure you can. Sure you can.
You absolutely can.
Because you can get a job as a waiter, you can get a job as a busboy, you can get a job anywhere doing anything.
Right, you can move out and then get a job in a day or two, right?
Yeah. And from there, you can stabilize yourself and then you can start looking for something that is higher in the food chain, right?
But without your nervous system getting constantly messed up by your mom, right?
Yeah. Because you're like, well, I'm going to keep drinking this poison until I feel stronger, right?
Yeah.
Well, that doesn't work that way, right?
You gotta stop drinking the poison in order to feel stronger.
Thank you.
And every time your mom's around and you feel these emotions, then it's another drip of poison into your veins, right?
So you're not going to get strong until you turn off the drip, right?
Yeah.
Because if you say, well, my leaving my home is dependent upon me getting a job, then your future is in somebody else's hands, right?
It's just somebody else taking the wheel.
I guess so, but practically speaking, I think it's true.
I don't think I can move out without a job.
I don't have the money or anything to do it.
And you have nobody that you can sit on their couch for a couple of days?
Not anywhere near I live.
No, I don't actually. And you have somebody where you don't live that you can sit on their couch for a couple of days.
Possibly. It's a while away.
I mean, I'd need a plane ticket to get there.
There's no one anywhere around here.
You can hitchhike, you can take a bus, you can sign up for people who will share driving with you in exchange for gas money, which you could ask your friend to wire you.
What I'm saying is, if you really get that it's a burning building, then you can get out.
Okay. Do you see what I mean?
Yeah. I mean, if somebody paid you $10 million to move out in two days, you could do it.
Even if you couldn't spend any of the money for a year, you'd find a way, right?
Yeah.
That's all I'm saying.
Alright, yeah.
And if your feelings were so strong about your living arrangement that you absolutely could not conceivably stand it for another day, then you would find a way, right?
I guess I would.
Well, you're an intelligent fellow.
You're resourceful.
even if you had to go and live with someone Yeah.
Yeah. Even if you had to wire your uncle and say, lend me a couple of grand, whatever, you would find a way, right?
Yeah. I mean, if your mom died tomorrow, with no insurance money, you wouldn't just sit in the house till you starve to death, right?
No. Right?
You'd find a way, right? Yeah.
That's all I'm saying. Alright, yeah, that does put it into some perspective.
Sure. Sure, and that's what I mean by taking the wheel, right?
Just saying, hey, I gotta move out.
I'm not gonna let myself experience for one minute more the gruesome nightmare of this flat, this apartment, this environment.
Yeah. Because life is short, Sure, and every day that you stay there, you're getting weaker, not stronger.
And your parents aren't going to make you do it.
Your mom's certainly not gonna push you out, right?
Yeah. I mean, if you were my kid, I'd have pushed you out already, but she's not gonna do that, because she's needy, right?
Yeah.
Your dad's not going to do it because he wants you there with your mom.
And it sucks that nobody's going to help you do this thing that you need to do.
I mean, maybe your uncle, maybe your friends, whatever, right?
It sucks. And I, you know, all that do sympathy in the world, absolutely.
But it is your life, right?
Yeah.
And you will look, I promise you, you will look back on it in a couple of months and say, I can't believe I left it so long.
I can't believe I didn't listen to what my feelings were yelling in my ear every time my mom was around.
I can't believe I left it.
I'm going to go to the next one.
And it's scary, right? I mean, it's scary to think of those steps, right?
Yeah. Sure, I understand.
And you don't have to take any of them, right?
I mean, maybe I'm completely talking out of my armpit, right?
It's your decision, right?
It's just that you should know the parameters, right?
Yeah. So you're fairly sure you wish you'd never found this site for now?
Let's go back to talking about DROs.
That's where real freedom lies. I don't know about property rights.
I'm not entirely sure. No, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found the site, actually.
Ah, you probably would have just made it up yourself, invented it yourself, right?
I'm just giving you some shortcuts, right?
Now, I'm afraid that I must leave, and I'm sorry, and I know that you've got still some stuff to mull over, right?
But this is not a decision you need to will.
These are just feelings you need to feel, right?
Just do what I did in that sauna long ago, as I talk about in the book.
Just lie back and let that dread, let that fear of your mother, let that distaste of your environment, let that all just rise.
Let it happen to you. Let it inform you.
Let it motivate you.
Yeah. I mean, if you can will away food poisoning, you just keep eating the same bad food, right?
But just let yourself feel it all.
Yeah. They're here to help you.
Your feelings of fear and anger and disgust at your environment, they're here to help you, right?
They're here to spur you on, to motivate you.
Yeah. So let them do their job.
Yeah. He's been waiting a while, I guess.
I believe he has. I believe he has, right?
It's like, door's open. Let's go!
Door's finally unlocked.
Let's go! It's not a decision you have to make.
It's just a feeling you have to experience, right?
The feeling will give you the certainty.
The feeling will give you the direction.
The feeling will give you your future.
The feelings will give you your life.
This is not a strain to think.
This is a relax to experience.
A relax to feel exercise.
Yeah. You don't need to...
You overheat your brain, right?
You don't need to think this one through.
You just got to feel it.
Yeah.
So, can you do me a favor?
We'll stop talking now, but just sit there and close your eyes.
Try to relax your body.
Try to breathe slowly and deeply.
Picture your mom coming into the room.
Don't fight those feelings. Let those feelings come to you.
Let those feelings, like all of the history that you've had with her, everything that you felt from when you were a toddler, just let those feelings wash over you.
They are trying to help you.
And then just let me know what happens from there.
Okay. Thank you.
I can't tell you how appreciative I am of this.
Look, it's my pleasure. I appreciate your courage and honesty in staying in this.
And the prescription is unpleasant, right?
They're sitting there feeling all these feelings, but it is through that that you will learn to differentiate between other people driving and you driving and your feelings and other people's desires and so on.
So give that a shot, like right now.
Close your eyes and breathe and let yourself feel what it feels like when your mom's lock.
Key is in the lock, right?
And just let those feelings.
Don't interrupt them. Don't fight them.
Don't explain them. Don't withdraw from them.
Just let them... I'll wash over you, right?
Because that's your route out.
Yeah. And you'll let me know how it goes?
I will. Okay, well I'll shut up now because I said too much.
So give me a shout when you're done with that process and let me know what happened, okay?
Okay. Thanks again.
Thank you very much.
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