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April 21, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:14:28
1044 Mr Nihilist Part 2

A full frontal FOO krazy-kannon...

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Time Text
Hello. Hi, how's it going?
Hanging in there. So, what's the story?
How are you doing? Well, basically what's been happening is my mother has been calling me for the last...
I would say a good two or three days before she's been basically calling me non-stop, like on the phone.
Because apparently, first my dad called and was telling me that he's thinking of separating from my mother.
And that he was going to actually do a divorce thing.
So what happened was they...
After that, basically, he called and then she kept calling and calling and she hadn't talked to me in like five months.
So I didn't know how to handle that.
So I just wasn't talking to her.
I was waiting so I could talk to somebody else before I started talking to her.
But eventually it just kept escalating and escalating until I had to say something because they just kept calling me.
Well, she just kept calling me, trying to figure out what's going on.
I mean, she hadn't talked to me in five months.
She hadn't been, like, concerned about me for, like, five months.
I mean, she called on, like, holidays or my sister's birthday or something like that.
But it was always this kind of, like, fake call.
So it was like, oh, are you okay?
It's, like, kind of this removed-sounding, I guess, voice.
But, uh... But anyway, she's been calling me like crazy.
Like I wrote in my post, my bike broke down, so that just agitated me and drove me crazy anyway, but...
This whole divorce separation thing and then my dad's calling me and asking me, can I watch my sister?
Because my mother is trying to somehow gain possession or control my sister who's 18 years old, is trying to tell her she can't leave with her father.
Crap like that and they want my sister to come stay with me and I didn't want her to come over for two reasons.
One, I knew that if my dad was gonna watch out for her anyway and that inviting her over To my apartment, not only is it a mess, not a place for her, I just didn't want to bring them to my front door.
And because I didn't want to do that, I don't know, just because I refused, because my dad was acting like it was some, like something was like, like I asked him, is my mom threatening physical violence on my sister or anything like that?
And he was like, no. And I was like, Well, why can't you stay with you?
And he was just like, well, I'm just trying to see what my options are, and if you don't want to, well, that's fine.
And my reasoning behind it was I just didn't want to bring their conflict to my front door and have these people just constantly coming up front.
So I talked to one of the guys from FDR. He doesn't want me to...
I didn't mention his name or anything, but I was talking to him the other night and we were talking a lot about just, I guess, RTRing with family and just not trying to get a general narrative to what you're saying, but to say how you feel and talk about what your feelings are because that's the only verifiable thing that you can actually give.
So I did that.
I tried to do that with my mother and I tried to do that with my And her response to all of that was just...
It was just like, why can't...
She was more or less like, well, why don't you know you're feeling this?
Or it wasn't my intention.
Or, you know, well, I didn't mean to.
And then when I was trying to explain to her that what she was saying was making me feel angry and upset and frustrated...
And she was like, you know, well you're talking funny.
Is your father there? And that just really...
Like her assumption that I heard from my father was that she thought that he was brainwashing all the chill of me and my sister to not talk to her where I really haven't been talking to them about anything.
To make a long story short, so to speak, I basically tried to open, I tried to just state my feelings and told, and then after that didn't seem to work, I guess I snapped because I was just so frustrated.
And I told them like, look, I don't want to talk to you about anything except money or something that has to do with my college education or if there's like a death in the family or there's some kind of threat to somebody's life.
I don't want to be a part of this.
And I didn't tell the other person that I told the other person.
I just told them separately.
And then I just called my sister and gave her all my support and told her that I can be there if she feels like she's seriously in any threat or anything like that.
But it's just... On top of all of this drama that I had, it seemed that I've been also having these crazy, horrible dreams.
The last ones that I was talking about and a new one that I posted in the psychology post and then I just had a third one and in each one of these the theme that started from the first one which was someone doing something to my possessions or stealing something from my possessions I don't know but that's just what's on the top of my mind and I don't know.
I'm just really frustrated and I still don't know what I did was the right thing because I still felt awful after talking to them.
I don't know.
Right. Okay. And you're in college, is that right?
I just, I don't want to ask your age, but I just want to, you're out of the home, you're in your own place, and your dad was saying, your mom, like, we're separating, or trial separation, and your mom should come and stay with you, which would be equivalent to, what, hot needles in your eye?
I mean, psychologically? Oh, no, no, no, my sister, my sister.
Your sister should come and stay with you.
Yeah. And you were concerned that that would bring the whole cavalcade into your house, is that right?
Yeah. The whole circus freak show of all of this stuff, right?
Yeah. Right, okay.
Why would your sister need to come and stay with you?
Why would that be something that would be on the table?
I don't know. My dad was saying that my mom was being forceful with her, saying that she can't go with my dad, but there was no real struggle.
There was no real problem.
My sister wasn't hurt.
Nothing happened.
It's just that my mom was being...
I guess psychologically was straining my sister and she's trying to get into college now and she's having problems because of this stuff that's going on.
And I guess it was just my sister was scared of my mom and just wanted to get away from her.
And I wasn't informed and when I talked to my sister she didn't say that she was...
Physically threatened, she just felt like...
I guess it was just like that mental trap of being around someone who's crazy.
Right, and she wouldn't go and stay with your dad because...
why? Oh no, she was fine with staying...
I mean, she said that she didn't...
I mean, what they did is they basically got two hotel rooms.
My dad's in one and my sister's in another room, so she was fine.
Oh, okay. And she totally explained to my dad why I didn't want it.
He was just... It was just his explanation...
To me, and my sister was just like, she understands why I don't want to do that, because I'm trying to get out of that house and out of that situation and not keep bringing it back in front of me.
I didn't even say anything to her, she just explained it to my dad, which is very perceptive of her.
Okay, so that's off the hot plate right now, but...
I'm trying to get a sense and obviously your parents separating.
There's a lot of stuff that's going on that's really stressful.
I'm trying to figure out what the peak is for you.
Is it your mom's insistence that you talk to her?
I mean I know that there's six million things but if there was a number one thing, what would it be?
Well, since I've already talked to them, it's not as bad, but it was just what it was when I was talking about it before.
The one thing that was driving me crazy, and the one thing that's still driving me crazy, was just my insistent...
My parents insistently calling me at this point, and then...
I guess what was driving the stake in it was constantly them saying how much they love you or whatever.
and they're saying this in a way that just doesn't sound genuine.
I mean, so if I, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, and the last thing I want to do is cut off what you're saying, but I just want to make sure that I get where you are emotionally, because if I understand this right, and I'm trying to sort of get into the situation, and it's not like I haven't been there, but I don't and I'm trying to sort of get into the situation, and it's not like I haven't been there, but I but is it that you've just had like two full cannonballs of crazy shot straight at you?
Basically. I mean, they just load it up and like every parental manipulation and guilt trip and control and we love you and we need you and we're desperate and be there for the family and be there for your sister and she needs help and this is fine.
Like every possible hook that they could throw into your system, they've thrown in.
Is that right? Is that fair?
Yeah, yeah.
And that's exhausting, right?
I mean, it's like managing a bunch of rabid monkeys in a barrel, right?
While you're in the barrel going down a hill.
Yeah. Right? I mean, that's a full frontal.
And you've probably not had that with your family for quite some time, right?
Because you've been out.
And of course, when you were a teenager, you spent a lot of time.
But it's probably been since you were actually quite a young kid that you've had the full frontal crazy buckshot to the forehead, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Definitely. And your mom's mental stability, I'm guessing it didn't deteriorate over the last few weeks, right?
No, no, it's been a fairly constant thing.
I've always known that she's been a bit off, or not really a bit off, she's off.
I mean, a lot of times when I try to talk to her, I couldn't tell before, because when I was the only one challenging her, it still felt like, oh, maybe it's just me.
But then when my sister was picking up on it, And when I started talking to other people about this, just to make sure I wasn't nuts, it seemed to make sense that it wasn't me, it was actually her who was just...
The way that she demands that you say something a certain way and the way that she...
It's not like if you're in a conversation and you're like, I hear what you say, but this is my opinion.
Her thing is to say, no, but you're not listening.
And it's like, but I am listening.
I'm just saying that my opinion...
No, no, no, no, no. So, I mean, it's like she's breaking you.
The whole thing is like, I will just keep talking until you agree with me because anything you say other than agreeing with me is not listening.
Right. And if you try to get your own viewpoint across, which may actually not be completely contradictory, it might just be a different take.
Or, like, it may not be, you're totally wrong.
It may just be a different perspective.
If you try to get that across, she would then escalate the anger until you had to give in.
I mean, had to give in, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Is that...
I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth.
I just want to make sure I'm getting a...
No, definitely. Definitely.
And she would raise her voice, even though I... I would tell her that she was...
I would quit screaming at me.
Her thing was I was just raising my voice.
And that always bothered me.
I'm like, so it's okay to raise your voice?
But apparently, if I raise my voice, I'm yelling at her.
And does your mother have any substance abuse problems?
Alcohol or drugs or...
Not that...
In the beginning...
Sorry, prescription medication...
Oh, Prozac. Yeah, she's definitely on that.
She's definitely on Prozac.
And I also know that apparently when I started drinking alcohol, she started drinking alcohol again.
But I don't know if she's an alcoholic or not.
I just know she drinks more than my father does.
But they do this devout Christian thing where they don't...
You know, where they practically never drink unless they go out on something like that.
But she did start drinking a little bit more after she saw that I was doing it regardless.
But she just...
And she drinks wine or something like that.
But I... I don't know.
It was like the Prozac and that.
I don't know. I hate to frame it in this terms, but a lot of the times, the family life that she came from, this is not to excuse any of her actions, but the family life that she came from, My grandmother on her side is just, from what I heard, is very screwed up and I guess somehow that managed to screw her up.
I don't know. Well, I mean, you can say that, but that doesn't bode well for you, right?
If it's like a boulder rolling down a mountain, bounce, bounce, crash, break, right?
Then if you're going to take responsibility, and I know that you are, and obviously that's going to save your damn life, but you can't take more responsibility psychologically than you're willing to give to your mom, if that makes any sense.
Yeah. You didn't sound quite convinced, which is fine.
I'm just curious if you disagreed or didn't get it, which is fine either way.
No, no. I mean, if you just say it again, I'm sorry.
I was just kind of...
Listen, if you think I'm full of crap, you can totally tell me.
I'm not going to take offense.
I mean, this is about... Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I don't mean outside of yourself in a bad way, but you have this third eye where you can look at someone and say, well, they're coming from this place and you have some empathy and some sympathy, if not a great deal of empathy and sympathy for people, right? I mean, having been a victim yourself, this is what either happens is we develop very strong empathy or we get no empathy.
We don't get a whole lot in between.
Yeah. Right?
So, you have sympathy for where your mom came from, and yet at the same time, you're taking responsibility despite the fact that your mom was screwed up.
So, you want to let your mom off the hook to some degree, and I'm not saying that's necessarily a crazy thing to do, but at the same time, you don't want to let yourself off the hook, right?
So, it's a complicated thing, right?
Yeah, yeah. Because you want to take responsibility for yourself, but you also feel sympathy for where your mom came from, right?
Yeah. And as you've probably heard me talk about before, it all boils down to this question of, could she control her behavior, right?
So, was she screaming at you in church?
Oh, no. Not as I was older.
The way they worked in church, it was completely different.
Like, she definitely, like, in church, it was just like, it was more subtle threats that you knew would be amplified the moment you left the church.
No, I understand that.
There's the kick under the table that all these parents do, but it was not something that other people saw, right?
No, no, definitely not.
Right. So she had the capacity to control her behavior if there was a strong enough motive for her to do so, i.e.
there was a priest standing right there, right?
Exactly, yeah. And this, of course, is the real tragedy.
I mean, I feel just a sense of incredible sadness and loss here, because this astounding paradox at the heart of this kind of Just wretched and horrible parenting.
Which is that she could control her behavior and be a nicer person, so to speak, if the incentive was great enough.
It's just that you, as her son, weren't a good enough incentive, right?
Yeah. I mean, that's just weird when you think about it.
Why would some anonymous strangers in a church...
Like, why would you want to treat your son well because of anonymous strangers in a church, but not because of how your son feels when you treat him badly?
I mean, a lot of...
I've been thinking a lot about my relationship with my mom, and, like...
This may sound weird and a little off-topic, but, like...
My mother named me off of a baseball player who happened to be...
She heard the name and thought it was the best.
She thought it was a nice name.
But apparently the player she named me after was one of the most vile, nasty baseball players of all time.
I guess also one of the most racist baseball players of all time.
And... Then on top of that, I asked her about like, this again may sound off topic, but I don't know, it feels like it's on topic to me, but that I wasn't a planned birth, that I was supposedly after they got married, I was an accident or a happy accident or something like that.
Huh. And...
And her father, I guess, convinced her to take care of the kids.
So she stopped her, I guess, going farther than a bachelor's degree in her education or whatever else she wanted to do to take care of me.
And I just feel like...
Perhaps I was either used as some sort of object or I was some symbol of animosity as something for her to attack.
I don't know. I was just trying to reason out these types.
Because, I mean, all this seems so very negative to my origin.
And I'm just trying to feel like we're, you know, perhaps trying to make sense of the way that she treats me.
You know, trying to figure out exactly...
To pinpoint, was this just malevolence from day one?
I mean, was this just a regrettable mistake that just continued to compile over time because you never dealt with the issue of it?
I don't know. Right.
And it is, of course, a great mystery why it is that our parents treat us badly, if they have treated us badly.
Who are we for them, if that makes any sense?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it is a complex mess, and sometimes we never know the answer, right?
Yeah. I can certainly say that in my family, because I know that your primary concern is Steph's family right now.
I know that that's number one.
But I know that in my family, I was sort of like...
My mother's father, if that makes any sense.
That was how the psychodynamic worked.
And my brother, unfortunately, was the stand-in, and he looked quite a lot like my father or our father.
But my brother was a stand-in, and my mother would literally grit her teeth and say, Ooh, he's just like, you know, your father.
And she'd go...
And I mean, man, my mom could hold a grudge like till it grew a beard.
It's just amazing, right?
This would probably be about, I don't know, 10 or 11 years ago was the last time that I saw them together.
My father was over visiting and they came to my house and they were...
My father was in the backyard and my mother was in the kitchen.
And she turned to me and they hadn't seen each other in I don't know how many years.
And they'd been divorced for...
Like 30 years, right?
And she turned to me and my dad had a cold, right?
And she turned to me and she said, you know, that man never listened to me.
He always has a cold.
I bet you it's the same cold that he had when we got divorced.
Right? And she was vehement.
And I was like, what kind of freaky-ass broken record world do you have to be living in where you're still as pissed off 30 years later about a cold?
Yeah. Do you know what I mean?
But it's broken record.
There's no way out of this loop, right?
It's like if you and I had to listen to the same...
A little slice of music for 30 years, we'd be completely mental, right?
Yeah, definitely.
And so these people just stay in this little groove, and they don't take the effort to get out of it, and they can lift themselves out of it for moments when they're in public, and they don't want to get caught and stuff like that.
But who I was to my mother, in a sense, and this may be helpful for you or not, but who I am to my mom, I don't exactly know.
It's some amalgam of who knows what, right?
But I'll say this.
I can tell you for sure that I was never myself to my mom.
I was never me to my mom, if that makes sense.
Yeah. You reach into these people trying to get answers.
You get justifications, excuses, misdirections, fogging, defenses, attacks, upset, anger, crying, tears, joy.
You get anything but the truth, right?
It's this massive kaleidoscopic ride to nowhere.
Yep. And the important thing is not...
And that's just my bullshit opinion, right?
So whatever it means to you is whatever it means to you.
But the important thing is that even if you had the answer as to who you really were to your mom, it wouldn't actually solve the pain of the reality, which is that you weren't who you are to your mom.
If that makes sense.
Yeah, it does. That does.
So, I mean, we talked about...
If I remember rightly, we talked about a dream that you'd had once before, but I just kind of want to figure out where your dad is in all of this.
I mean, and I don't just mean now.
Like, I get a sense now he's like, shit, I'm running, right?
I mean, like, he's rolling, hitting the tarmac, right?
Because he sees this whole thing going off a cliff, right?
Yeah, yeah. So when you were a kid though, and your mom would be like crazy shrieky bat lady, no offense, where would he be in all this?
He was basically, well, it's weird.
She was nice to me when he was around.
She was cruel to me when he wasn't around.
And now that I think about it, that was pretty much the way it operated.
My father, during my younger years, I was normally scared of my dad.
He's like 6'5", really big guy.
And he was in medical school doing his thing when I was first around, but there was always this animosity and anger toward him and me, and I guess he always felt like I was the favorite child or that my mom was giving me more attention.
Later to come to find out that she was using me as a way to get to him.
So I guess in that, he turned, I guess, since I had become the object that she would use to manipulate him with.
To punish him. Is that right?
Like she would show affection to you but not to him?
Well, yeah, that, and she would say things like, well, if you do this, it's not fair to, you know, our son.
If you do this, it's not fair to our son.
You know, like, things that I don't even know about, that I don't even know that apply to me, she would just use them at random.
Um, would use that statement.
And then, I guess, that would make my dad feel guilty, and, you know, I guess he would either comply or, you know, argue or something like that, but...
I just know that from a very young age, there was always this, like, I don't know, he was more or less a person I was very scared of, like a monster, so to speak.
And I vividly remember dreams I had at that age when I had my parents, like, imagining my parents as monsters in my dreams.
Which, you know, was not just your imagination, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And so it was...
So, I mean, he was just always either mad at me or I always remember him being angry with me.
He was very physical with me.
Sorry, you mean...
What do you mean? Well, like, well, when they started spanking me and stuff like that, like, I mean, it was the normal throw you on the bed, pull down your pants, and then, like, just, like, wail at you.
And then after that...
I'm just going to keep interrupting you because you've got a language fence around this, right?
Yeah, yeah. Okay, that shit is not normal.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I don't care if everyone on the block was doing it.
That is not normal.
I mean, it's not close to normal.
It's not close to healthy.
And even the word spanking is just hitting, right?
People use the word spanking because it sounds more innocuous and, oh, it was a little swat along here.
But if your parents are ripping off your pants and beating your bare ass, that is not even close to normal.
Even by the screwed up society standards that we live in with regards to this stuff, even back in the day, that's not normal.
Yeah. And so I just wanted to point that out.
And also, spanking is the parent's word, right?
The child does not experience, and certainly this, you would not experience as spanking, right?
No. To me, it was like beating.
And ironically, the way I processed it was, I don't know, like...
I saw, like, they were, like, at some stage they were trying to get me affiliated with black history, yada yada yada, because of my dad's ideas, but I felt like I was a slave being beaten by my, uh, father.
I mean, that, that was, that was the way that I, I had solved it in my mind, till one day, uh, which was the day that they stopped beating me, was I, I actually fought back, and I started, like, they, they My mom had me down on the bed and I started kicking and flailing and spitting and trying to get them to stop.
She sat on my back, put her hand on my neck, pushed my face into the mattress.
She had to hold me down because I was like 14 and I was strong enough that it took her to hold me down.
And then my father would come back and start hitting me.
And I had to stop fighting because she kept pushing my face into the mattress where I couldn't breathe.
So I had to basically stop.
But I mean, that was when they stopped fighting.
I think it just became apparent to them what they were doing.
Because, or something, because I was just, I had to fight.
Like, I couldn't, like, I was just, I felt like, why am I willingly bending over and letting them do this?
This is just too much pain.
I mean, they can ground me.
I mean, that's, like, I was mentally putting these, like, you can ground me.
My friends get grounded all the time.
Why do you have to beat me?
And so, I don't know.
It was just that kind of violence that my, my, uh, But I associate my dad and my mom with that.
But things that I specifically associate with my dad is that when I got older, he would push me.
When he thought I was challenging his authority, he'd get in my face and posture with his chest when I challenged what he said.
It was... I mean, it was almost like this intimidation thing, like masculine gorilla versus little...
You know, it was just like...
Yeah, I get like a very primitive kind of vibe or ape-like imagery out of this, like thumping and this kind of posturing and dancing and thumping and intimidation, you know, like the hair bristling up on the back and stuff like that.
Yeah. And sorry, the reason that I interrupted you there was because, I mean, you can't process this all at once, but you're not processing this too well as yet, which I totally understand, right?
But you said your father was physical with you, but the truth of the matter is, this is assault, right?
Yeah. I mean, it's even worse than beating.
This is assault, and seriously, like, I have no reason to doubt anything that you're saying, but you could have got injured.
You could have been killed, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, if they're pushing your face into a pillow and you're hyperventilating, I mean, you could have blacked out.
They could have sat on your back wrong when your neck was at the wrong angle and cracked something.
I mean, this could have been seriously dangerous, right?
Yeah. Well, you're saying, yeah, like I'm wrong, and I don't, again, I don't want to...
No, no, no, no, no.
...what you're telling me.
No, I definitely agree with that.
It's just...
It's just, when I tell that story, I mean, it's the first time that I've really said that story with sincerity.
Usually when I, well, I guess not sincerity, I don't know what the word for it is.
But you're not telling it like it's a story, like, oh, this crazy thing went down at my house and blah blah blah, right?
Yeah, like I would tell it nonchalantly, and then I would laugh at the end, and then they never did that again, and it's just...
Of course, I think it's hard for you because it's a really, really ugly aspect of a really, really ugly family situation.
But you're saying, well, you know, they seem to stop after that and it's hard to tell why and so on, right?
But when you think about it now, is it hard to see why they stopped doing that after you fought back?
No, no.
Well, why? Why did they stop?
Well, because they realized what they were doing.
No, no. Sorry.
I'm so sorry. I really am.
That's not the case. They didn't suddenly develop a conscience.
Not after 14 years of assaulting a child.
You don't grow a conscience later on in life, right?
True, true. So why did they stop?
That was my best guess.
I'm not sure why they stopped.
It's just very ugly. They felt that they might kill me or something like that?
And they'd get in trouble for that?
No, they... I mean, you know this from the schoolyard, right?
When does the bully stop beating on the kid?
When the kid's knocked out or goes limp or whatever.
No, when the kid starts to fight back.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah. Well, isn't that the case?
That's certainly what I saw in schoolyards.
Well, I mean...
Most of the...
I mean... Sometimes they do stop when you do fight back.
I guess I've never had a situation where they stopped when I fought back, I guess.
Well, no, that's not true.
I've had one situation where they did.
Sorry, who are you talking about?
Oh, one situation where there was a bully and he actually stopped after I fought back.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that's always the best solution, but when you're 14, I mean, you probably weren't a tiny kid, right?
No. You're probably a fairly husky fellow, right?
Yeah. And so you're getting bigger and you're getting faster and you're getting stronger, right?
Yeah. When you're in your teens, right?
Yeah. And they're not.
They're getting older, they're getting weaker, bit by bit, right?
But you're on the winning side of that equation.
It's like, hey, if violence is what's going to be used, you don't necessarily want to be applying it to a 14-year-old who's figured out that he's big enough to fight back, because he's just going to get bigger and stronger, and you're not, right?
Right. So they're like, oh shit, he's on to us.
He's figured it out.
He's hitting back magically.
Look at that. We can stop.
And you know why that's so ugly?
fundamentally.
I hate to say it, but right now I'm having a block, which is weird.
Well, it's not weird.
I mean, you've listened to some of these other conversations I've had with people, right?
Yeah.
Everybody gets to what's affectionately known as the Doh Zone, right?
Where it's just like, we're not allowed to know this stuff.
This is against family propaganda.
Yeah.
And we're just not allowed to know this stuff, right?
Right.
So don't feel dumb.
I mean, you're a very, very smart fellow.
Don't feel dumb at all. This is a pretty core part of your family that you're not supposed to look at.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, the horrible thing about it, and I'm not going to step you through it because, I mean, I know this is a tough area.
I'll just give you the answer as I see it.
Again, this is just my opinion. Let me know what you think.
But the reason that it's so ugly is because they obviously could have stopped at any time.
Yeah. Right?
If they suddenly can wake up one day and say, hey, you know what?
We're not going to assault our kid anymore.
We're not going to assault our son anymore, and they stick to it and they don't do it, shit, they could have done it at any time, right?
Right. Right.
They had the capacity to stop assaulting you any time.
Yeah. But they just had no incentive.
You, your pain, your hurt wasn't an incentive.
Their pain, their hurt, their fear, their holy shit, he's big now.
That was an incentive, right?
Yeah. But not you, not your pain.
No. That's why this story sticks with you and that's why it's so hard to process, right?
Yeah. Again, I don't want to put my thoughts into your head, right?
And your yeah is kind of like, eh, maybe, right?
And that's totally fine, but I just wanted to know where that sits with you when you hear that.
I mean, it makes sense.
I mean, it does make sense.
I just don't understand why I can't see that right now.
I mean, because when I was younger, I can recall...
Realizing that, but right now, I had problems recalling that, and I don't know why that was so difficult to recall that.
When you were younger? When I was younger, I could recall why they stopped.
Why they stopped? Yeah.
I understood why they were stopping.
And what was your, sorry, was it the same understanding that we're talking now, or was it something different?
Yeah, because I started taking martial arts classes and doing other things, and I realized that sooner or later my father was going to have to deal with the fact that I could actually fight back.
And your mom, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and it's like, hey, if, if, and you said, sorry, you said that your dad's huge and you looked up to him and that's what he used to intimidate you.
So it's like, okay, UPB, right?
So if the universal rule is the strongest guy wins, that doesn't serve the older generation when the younger kids grow up and become men, right?
Right. They've got to switch tactics, right?
And then they've got to use guilt and manipulation and all of this other kind of emotional crap because a simple pounding doesn't work.
And they also want to distract the kid from the rule, which is strongest wins.
It's like, hey, I'm stronger than you guys now.
And if strongest wins, I can beat you down when you don't agree with me, right?
Right, right.
And they're like, oh shit, well, we don't want to reap what we've sowed, so let's switch tactics now and let's start doing guilt and manipulation and control and bullying and God and this and that, right?
Right, right.
I mean, it's the same as...
Some guy comes up to you in an alley and he's like, you know, give me your wallet.
He's got a gun and he's all tough and he's pushing you around and so on.
And then you grab the gun from him and suddenly his story totally changes, right?
He's like, hey, hey, I'm so sorry, you know, all the respect.
He cries. He's, oh, please don't hurt me, right?
Right, right. Well, that's just a maneuver, right?
He doesn't suddenly gain empathy for you.
It's just that you have the gun now.
And if he gets the gun back, the same shit's going to happen again.
Exactly. I mean, it's that street level, if that makes any sense.
Yeah. It does.
It's... I just don't...
It's just so, I guess it's just, in a way, I guess, somehow it's difficult to keep processing.
I just, I don't know, my thing is I keep trying to figure out What the formula is for why this continues to happen and why I can't seem to work my way through it.
I feel like if I had a better understanding of all the aspects, it would make more sense to me.
I can give you something.
I mean, obviously, if you can get to a therapist, that's essential.
But I'll give you something that I think will give you some clarity if you've got another few minutes.
Oh, yeah, definitely. All right.
This is a little game we call Follow the Benefit.
I don't know if you've heard of this game that we play.
Yes, no? No, no, I haven't heard it.
Alright, so, Follow the Benefit is this.
If you discover the truth about your parents, and I'm going to go out on a total limb here, this is just theoretical land, so take it for what it's worth, but let's say that they're just an evil bunch of sociopathic bullies.
Yeah. As a theory, right?
And, I mean, that's not an outlandish theory, but let's just say for the moment that it's proven, and we believe it, and so on, that your parents are just evil, manipulative, sociopathic bastards, right?
Yeah. Your unconscious and your dreams seem to believe that, right, based on what we've read, we've talked about.
And I'm not saying this is true, true, true, but let's just go with this for a thesis right now, right?
Okay. Well, is it to your parents' benefit that you discover that truth?
No. Why?
Because they can't continue to abuse me if I understand the truth.
Yeah, I mean, they can't continue to exploit you.
They can't continue to get that flash of power that all nasty bastard parents get from manipulating and controlling their children.
They can't get money from you when they get old, and they can't get you to come over and wipe their asses when they get decrepit.
It's like game over, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And they're still in the church, right?
Oh yeah, yeah.
Right. How does it look when you just don't show up for any of this stuff anymore?
It humiliates them socially, right?
So they lose money when they're old, care, attention, they lose the respect of their peers, they'll be whispers, they'll lose social standing, nobody will understand.
What about their extended family if you don't show up for Christmas?
They're shot, right?
Yeah, well, not our extended family.
Apparently, it's so screwed up.
We're starting slowly to disconnect.
There's even more weird crap going on there.
I don't talk to anybody, really.
There's only one aunt somewhere in LA that I've talked to a couple times, but I don't talk to my grandparents.
Yeah, no, this is a whole...
DNA bag of crazy.
I can certainly accept that.
But even if we just look in the...
They've got to have friends. They've got to have people at the church.
They've got people who are going to notice if you take the vanish, right?
Exactly, yeah. And they're probably not that old, right?
No, no, no.
So they got decades of having to explain stuff, having to make stuff up, having to redirect people, having to make up stories, having to pretend that, oh, we just saw him but he's not able to come.
Like you put them in a really horrible position if you figure out the truth, right?
Exactly, yeah.
Now, the truth, if they are these crazy-ass bastard parents, then it totally serves you.
I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying it's without hiccups or bumps or horrors, but it totally serves you to figure out that you're being exploited by these nasty parents, right?
Right. So, you said you feel torn, you feel this, you feel good, you feel bad, you want to get away, but you feel guilt and this and that, right?
Yeah. You got a hole and your unconscious is going nuts and you're having bad dreams and you're torn up all over the place, right?
Yeah. And my way of framing this, again, amateur guy on the web, so whatever works for you, take it for what it's worth.
But my way of working with this, if I were in your shoes, and I have been, is this.
I'm not torn.
I'm not torn.
That doesn't mean I don't have any ambivalence or contradictory feelings or anything like that, but I want to know the truth.
Other people around me don't want to know the truth.
And when you have been a beaten and assaulted child for almost 15 years, there's a whole lot of people, even outside your parents, who just don't want to know about it because they didn't do anything about it, right? Right. So, again, forget the extended family.
This would be people of the church.
They don't want to know.
They don't want to know that your parents were abusive and crazy.
Yeah. Because they didn't do anything about it.
Yeah. They just want you to get back in that little box and show up on Sunday in your shiny suit, smiling and singing, right?
Yeah, yeah, basically.
Yeah. So there's this, and we could go on and on about this, but you're certainly smart enough to get all of this, right?
There's this whole ecosystem, this social, religious, familial ecosystem, and this is going to include your dad at work or your mom, wherever she's going, where people say, how are your kids?
It's like, I know, my son hasn't talked to me in five years.
They don't want to say that, right?
Right, right.
So there's this whole ecosystem.
Of people out there, which just, it's like rings in a pond, you know, they just keep radiating out and radiating out.
Of people who want you, if you don't mind me putting it bluntly, to shut the hell up and not do anything about it, right?
Yeah, yeah.
It benefits you to know the truth and that is what's happening with your unconscious and with your bad dreams and with your...
And I think you just did some amazing footwork there to keep your sister out of your house, which is most fundamentally about keeping your mom out of your house, right?
Exactly. Yeah, so I mean you should be incredibly proud.
That was like some seriously cool footwork to be able to achieve that.
I know that comes at a cost.
I know it's like you fall down like you've been in the ring for five rounds after that, right?
Right. Right. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. I understand that.
But you've got to do this big peel and you've got to first of all draw the line very clearly and say there's two agendas here.
And obviously there's more than two.
We're just going to simplify it for the moment.
There are two agendas here.
There are people who desperately don't want me to get to the truth because the truth makes them look Really bad.
To themselves. They don't care about you or whatever, but to themselves, right?
Yeah. So they'll do just about anything.
They'll pull out any trick to keep you from the truth, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So when you say, well, I feel guilty, and that's their work, right?
It doesn't serve you to feel guilty for pursuing the truth, because you're not out to get anyone.
You just have to get the truth, right?
Exactly. Kind of get a piece of my sanity back.
Yeah. Well, that's important to recognize that you're in a hot pursuit of the truth and other people have all of these motives to keep you away from it using whatever emotional tricks they can.
And if you recognize that, then when you feel torn, you'll say, okay, the part of me that wants the truth is me and the other part of me that doesn't want the truth is just somebody else's bullshit that they put into me.
Yeah. Does that...
Yeah, it makes sense.
It's just sometimes, I guess, it's hard for me to identify it when it happens.
Totally. This is not a magic pill.
There are no magic pills. This is just hard slog, right?
This is just hard work.
There's no magic pills here. But if you have a framework, then it makes a little bit more sense, right?
Yeah, definitely.
I use this metaphor occasionally, this counterfeit detection machine, right?
Yeah. Like, if you're...
If you're a store owner and somebody's passing you bad bills, right, and then you say to everyone, hey, I'm getting this counterfeit detection machine, what's the guy who's passing you bad bills going to say if you say I'm thinking of getting one?
He's just going to be like, no.
Eh, you don't need those.
They're a rip-off. There's no bad bills floating around, or if they are, it's all over.
It's moved out of town.
You don't need that. Here, I'm going to show you some tricks.
I'm going to save you some money because I'm all about helping you, right?
You don't need that counterfeit detection machine and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Exactly, yeah. So, you want the counterfeit detection machine because you don't want to get ripped off, but he sure as hell is going to use every emotional trick in the book to get you to not buy it, right?
Exactly. And then if you buy it and you catch him in the act of passing you a counterfeit bill, what's he going to say?
Oh, it's not my bill.
Yeah, I don't know where they got this from.
Oh my god. You and me, brother, we both got ripped off.
Oh, that's terrible. Let's go together and find this guy and he'll just pick some guy.
He'll pull any kind of shit to keep you with the truth, right?
Exactly. Well, this is where you're screwed, I'm afraid.
Because, I'm sorry, but I mean, this you know, right?
Yeah. Philosophy is the counterfeit detection machine, right?
Yeah. And once you begin to shine it around, you see a whole lot of people passing bad bills, right?
Yeah. We love you.
We care about you.
Be there for us. We were there for you.
All this manipulation, right?
Yeah, she would run down the list of things she would like, I brought you food while you were in college, I brought you all this...
Like, what? Like, okay, so if you don't bring me food in college, that was you being bad?
So if I starve, then, you know...
Well, you know, how about the assault?
How about the continual assaults when I was a helpless child?
How many times do I have to get beaten up to have it balanced by you bringing me a frickin' pizza?
Exactly, exactly.
But this is the thing, right?
They're trying to create this illusory obligation in you, right?
Yeah. The books are free, did I mention?
Do you know that? Oh, yeah, yeah.
No, I've got all three.
I've read On Truth, I'm still reading UPB, and I've read 73 pages of RTR. This conflict with my girlfriend somehow...
Got me stifled.
I'm stuck in UPB at application and I think I am...
I can't remember.
It's just page 73 somewhere in RTR. I can't remember.
I mean, if I were you, the UPB stuff, I think...
I mean, I love it. I mean, I think it's great stuff, but that's a little bit like...
You got to get out of the jungle before you plan your vacation, so to speak, right?
I would switch to RTR and I will also send you a link to a podcast series that I just finished.
It's in a section, but it's in a donator section that's higher, but I'll give it to you because this is so important for you.
It's a six part series on ambivalence, which is kind of what you're facing right now, right?
right?
Like you're torn between lots of different feelings. - Yeah. - Okay, I'll send you the links to those and listen to those because, I mean, you have this hunger for the truth within you, but you have, you are, I think as yet, and this is, you're still doing a hell of a lot better than I was in your situation, but you as yet are still only dimly seeing the forces that are arrayed against you getting to the truth about your family, about yourself, about your history, and about your future, right?
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
Now, what we've talked about here, has that been helpful?
Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about before we wrap it up?
It's been helpful and it's definitely got to talk about some issues that have definitely helped clearing a lot of things in my mind.
I'm definitely going to switch to reading RTR and try to step through this.
have to RTR with your parents, right?
RTR is totally an option.
The first RTR is with you, right?
Why do I feel and be curious about it rather than trying to control it, right?
Because if you try to control the storms that are raging within you, they'll just blow you over in your sleep, right?
Which is what you've been experiencing with these dreams, right?
Yeah.
And I mean, the only reason why I did try to RTR with my folks was because mentally for me, I had just reached a point where I just couldn't keep receiving these phone calls And I was like, I didn't know how else to talk to them except for trying to use RTR in order to shield myself from feeling like they were gutting me with guilt and other ways of tearing what I was saying.
You know, fiasco of, you know, different motives and trying to plot one against the other, and I just, I didn't want to be in there, so I, my only defense was using, I guess, RTR as a kind of shield in order to try to get my point across that I didn't want to be culled.
Oh yeah, no, and I'm not saying, I mean, I think you did a magnificent job with what you did with the RTR. I think it was just the right time to do it, and I think you did a fantastic, sounds like you did a fantastic job.
I'm just saying that RTR is totally optional, right?
I mean, UPP is not, because it's logic and reality, but the RTR stuff, a lot of people say, oh, I've read RTR, I'm going to go on RTR with all these abusive people, and that would not be the best idea.
If you're certain, if you're uncertain or totally torn as you were, then it sounds like it's a good thing that you did.
But I just, you know, keep that flexible and open.
It's one of the more optional aspects of what we talk about.
Okay, okay. All right.
Yeah, I do appreciate you taking the time because I know it's late.
I do appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about this.
It's definitely been something that's been harping on me and still doing with the frustration.
But I do appreciate you taking the time to talk to me because I know you're kind of busy and stuff like that.
So I do appreciate it.
And this is what I do.
It's no problem.
I don't want to start another big thing, but there is something that I'm getting a sense of that your feelings are not strong.
Or is it that you're not feeling strong?
Because just in the way that you're talking, it's a little bit matter-of-fact.
And I just want to make sure that if there's something that's occurring for you emotionally, that we're not ignoring it or bypassing it for the sake of theory.
I just...
I mean, the only thing that I'm feeling right now is just this kind of...
I don't know, this kind of weakness and out-of-control feeling.
Just this...
I guess...
I mean, I usually compare my physical emotions to an artistically kind of narrative or, I guess...
Picture in my mind.
I would compare my emotions now about feeling like I'm hanging off the side of a cliff and there's violent winds coming across and I'm this little frail guy hanging off the side wearing like these red clothes and there's like a two million foot drop hanging out below me and I'm like not wanting to let go and I don't know.
I guess if that makes any sense.
Yeah, no, it totally makes sense.
It totally makes sense. And what feelings did that evoke in you?
Because that's an image that's a very powerful image, and I think I get that.
But what is that feeling?
Or what is the feeling that's associated with that, that you're experiencing?
Sadness and...
I guess a kind of...
I don't know if there's a feeling of sadness and a helplessness, I guess you could say.
Yeah, I mean, from that image, I get mostly just live in terror.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that would be a more accurate way of stating it, yeah.
And how's your physicality?
Are your shoulders tense?
Are your neck tense? Do you feel tense?
Do you feel sort of your muscles tensed up in general?
Or are you feeling physically fairly relaxed?
Because that would be a situation where your muscles would be incredibly tense, right?
Yeah, it's a bit tense.
It's more kind of, I don't know, for me it's more weak and shaky, like trembling almost.
Right. Well, look, I mean, you're undergoing a genuine assault.
I mean, from people who are highly skilled and highly manipulative and cruel.
I mean, you just simply can't assault your children and be a kind and...
It doesn't mean you can't make mistakes with your kids or yell at them and then you apologize, but that's some pretty sadistic stuff that you went through, right?
And this is just not people who are going to be able to flip and be human again, right?
Yeah, yeah. And it's a real...
I mean, they're just pulling out every conceivable trick in the old emotional bag, right?
To try and get you back into the fold to...
Because they don't... Frankly, they don't seem to have that much to offer you.
So the only thing they can offer you is what I call negative economics.
They'll not inflict a negative if you obey them.
And it's like, well, but if I'm not around, I don't get that negative anyway, right?
So they realize that they're kind of losing control.
And so they're redoubling their efforts.
And I think that the...
The storms that you're experiencing are somewhat to do with the present, but I would also, if I were you, sit and write down what you can remember about your early history, because I bet you this happened then too.
Yeah, more than likely.
Definitely. Okay, and the last thing I'd suggest is, you know, physical relaxation, breathing, deep breathing exercise, try and keep your body relaxed and so on, because if you tense up, it's going to be really hard to feel, and it's your feelings that are going to get you through this, because they know how to beat these guys.
Okay. Okay.
I'll give that a shot.
How are you feeling now?
Just a little better.
I mean...
A little bit better.
I'll probably just...
Later on I'll probably just...
Lay down and try to calm down.
I guess I'm still a bit shook up by it.
Being able to talk to people on FDR and being able to talk to you helps.
I feel like I have a lot of, including talking with my girlfriend, it just doesn't seem like other people process it.
I don't know. It's, I guess, scary in a way that I'm the only one that's just having to deal with that.
Right. I mean, I don't want to depth charge or try and depth charge any feelings out of you.
It's just that it seems like you're a bit disconnected from your emotional processing.
And that may be perfectly healthy right now.
I don't think that, you know, if people get emotional, that's necessarily the right thing because you are going through a lot of stress and storms right now.
So your emotions might be a little bit like fight or flight batten down the hatches.
But... Just keep an eye on that.
Don't let that become permanent, if that makes sense.
Yeah, definitely. Make sure that you try and stay in touch with your gut instincts and physical relaxation, slow and deep breathing, all of that kind of stuff will just remind body that you're not perpetually in a fight.
Yeah. True, true.
Yeah. I'll definitely try and do that.
Because you sound sad.
Yeah, I just...
It...
I'm very used to my defenses.
It's just... I try hard to...
It's very difficult for me to put them down.
It's almost like...
You know, a toddler trying to rip open a steel vault.
I mean, it's very hard to rip them...
Just to put them down.
It's extremely difficult.
And I do try...
But I've noticed that in relationships that I've been having, it's like...
I feel like I'm releasing my...
I feel like I'm being open, but I'm still having difficulty trying to be more open.
It's like... I don't know.
It's almost like I don't know how.
It's weird. Right.
Well, RTR will help with that.
I don't know. Did you listen to...
Yesterday's, I guess, by now.
Not the 20th, but I guess the 13th, the Sunday show?
I don't recall.
I think I might have.
Did you listen to the guy talk about why he was a vegan or why he might be a vegan?
Yes, yes, yes.
I do remember that. I do remember that.
I do remember that. Yeah.
I mean, he had a very emotional reaction to that, right?
And you can't reproduce that or make that happen or anything like that, but...
That kind of vulnerability, there's real strength in that, right?
And that, I think, is something to keep reminding yourself of, right?
Yeah. I can feel that way, but I'm just so used to sheltering myself, it's hard for me to just let that go.
Right. No, I understand that.
I understand that for sure.
And, you know, those defenses are healthy and they're good, right?
I mean, they got you through. You got through to where you are now.
So those defenses are healthy.
Those defenses aren't our enemies.
They're actually good for us.
And they're probably a little bit more, well, quite a lot more active now that you're going through this particular transition.
But I guess I'm just...
I don't get a sense of emotional...
I think that you got some stuff intellectually here, but I never got a sense that it really connected with you emotionally, if that makes sense.
Yeah. It's hard for me to...
I do a lot of things on that blanket.
I do that a lot.
I mean... It's weird.
I always live in this kind of, I guess, armored shell of...
And I don't really come out and, like, actually...
Or feel like I know how to come out sometimes.
And actually, you know, emotionally show my feelings.
Yeah. Even sometimes when they're genuine, which is kind of funny because I feel like a lot of times that other people's feelings are fake, but for me, I feel like I want to show my emotions, but it's like I can't.
I don't know. No, I understand.
But is it that you feel the emotions, but you don't know how to express them?
Like, just talking at the moment, because we talked about some pretty serious stuff, obviously, in this call.
Is it that you don't feel the emotions, and you're just processing it intellectually, which is totally fine.
I mean, you have to have that first.
Or is it that you feel the emotions, but you don't know how to express them?
I think it's more like...
I feel them, and...
I don't think it's not that I don't know how, it's that I won't let myself go there.
It's like, I feel them and then immediately, like, no, you don't do that.
And you just go right back into, like, shield mode, and then, like, later on, when you're, like, quiet in a room all by yourself, your emotions go off.
But other than that, it's hard to do that.
You know, I know that it seems counterintuitive, and I'm not sure that I would necessarily do this with your parents, though it certainly would not kill you, but, yeah, stop doing that.
There you go. That's my advice.
You know what you're doing? Do the opposite.
Ask that for help. But no, I mean, seriously, open your heart up to people, right?
I mean, it's the only way that you're going to find trustworthy people.
If you keep hiding, then you'll have to keep scary people around you to justify that.
So just open your heart up as much as you can to people.
And yeah, you'll get it stomped on from time to time, but you'll just learn to stay away from those people very quickly.
Whereas if you stay shielded...
You just won't have that freedom.
And you won't get those people in your life who really treasure that kind of intimacy.
And that's... I mean, you don't need a long-term project right now because you're getting through the storm.
But just do the opposite of what you're doing as far as that goes.
And be vulnerable with people.
And yeah, people will reject you and people will, you know, scorn you and people will laugh at you.
But that's fine.
Just get those... You don't want those people around anyway, right?
Yeah, it just... When I have those feelings, I get...
I don't know.
It just reminds me so much of what happens in the past.
And then I just go and...
I don't know.
I guess when I was young, I always felt like showing your emotions was a sign of weakness or something.
Well, it was, because you're raised by cruel people.
It's like you're strapped into the torture chair.
You don't say, hey, it really hurts when you do that, because that's exactly what he wants to do, right?
So you aren't vulnerable that way.
But this is the clinching argument, and you'll get this intellectually for sure, and maybe it'll sink down to the emotional level.
But here's the thing, right?
Obviously, I'm not a scary guy as far as this stuff goes, right?
The emotional stuff, I've never...
I've never been mocking or aggressive or negative to any way that I can recall with anyone who's expressed real feelings to me.
So it is true that in the past your family would attack you for emotionality and that makes it harder to do it in the present.
I mean, I totally get that and so on.
But here's the thing. You want to treat people fairly and justly in the future, right?
Yeah. And so if you make people in the future, in a sense, suffer because of what your parents did in the past, then you're actually like your parents to that degree, right?
Yeah. Because they made you suffer for stuff that happened in their past unjustly, right?
Yeah. So if you withhold openness and honesty and emotional vulnerability from people who have justly deserved it, I don't mean me because I'm just a guy you talk to once or twice on the internet, but...
If you withhold who you are from people who have justly earned it through being open and trustworthy themselves, then in a sense you're punishing them for what your parents did, which is unjust.
And your parents punished you because of what their parents did.
That's how the cycle continues.
And I'm not saying that you withholding yourself is the same as what your parents did in immoral terms, but I'm just talking about in terms of not inflicting the past on the future.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's... You sound woefully under-convinced.
It's just, it's...
But again, but with more feeling, would you like a different accent?
I could just... Maybe a little Pakistani, blend them, if that would help.
It's... It's just...
Okay, let me try it again. Can I tell you a big pile of stinking dung?
Well, I don't know.
I want to be polite, but not really.
It's... It's just...
I don't know.
Right now, it just feels like my body's locked up and I physically...
Like, I'm trying, but it's just...
My body just seems to be...
Like, my neck is tense.
Like, my throat is tight.
It's just... I don't know.
It's just so hard for me to feel things like that.
Okay, try this for me.
There's no tricks.
I'm not trying to bullshit you or anything, but just try this.
Are you sitting or something like that?
Yeah. Okay, so just close your eyes and just try to do that slow breathing thing.
This is like standard stuff around biofeedback, physical relaxation.
Because your body's tense because you're literally in your mind.
You're not kidding. You're dreaming this every night.
You're in violent situations.
You've got this image of clinging to a cliff.
Your body Is jazz to the max, right?
Yeah. So just try like a slow breathing thing and try as best you can to sort of send your brain through your body and relax the muscles.
And you could do this for like those tapes that do this kind of stuff for you.
And it sounds totally fruity, but, you know, it's well worth giving it a shot if you're having real difficulty relaxing.
But just try this right now.
Just like relax your muscles as best you can.
Try and relax your throat.
You know, try and breathe more deeply and in a more relaxed frame of mind and just work to try and relax your body as much as you can because that was not allowed when you were a kid, right?
So that's what I mean by sort of doing the opposite when you were a kid, obviously with this violence, these assaults, the screamings, these manipulations, that you just got tense and rigid the whole time.
So just try doing the opposite physically, and that can have a great deal of effect on the emotions, right?
So just try that sort of more deep and relaxed kind of breathing and that physical kind of relaxation as best you can to just loosen the muscles, loosen the throat, loosen...
Just imagine the tendons going limp, you know, like ropes that have just been broken, just...
Tendons going limp, muscles turning to goo and nothing and oil and your breathing slowing and your heart rate slowing and your forearms relaxing and your legs relaxing and the whole thing just totally let your body become defenseless and often it can happen that the emotions will follow or maybe you just feel more tense.
There's lots of different ways that it can go.
But it's that level of physical relaxation that will help you I think be more fluid with your emotions if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does.
It does. I mean, I've done some meditation with stuff like that before.
But yeah, I guess I never connected to my emotions.
It was just to calm me down from being overly excited to the point where it just...
I get so, I guess, rage-filled.
It's hard for me to think or think clearly, and I just start...
Yeah, I mean, the meditation stuff is about emptying your mind, which I don't...
I think it's that helpful. It's like saying, empty your bladder.
And for me, it does often end up being my bladder.
But we don't have to get into that right now.
But yeah, I mean, I think it's just about being relaxed and open and receptive to what is occurring within you.
And I mean, this didn't give you any particular connections, no problem, there's no right or wrong as far as this goes, but I would really work towards physical relaxation and see what comes up for you emotionally, and it probably will be quite strong because there's a lot of tension and pressure that's built up, but you just want to try, if your body gets the cues to relax, your emotions will generally come out more easily, if it makes sense.
Yeah, because if I'm tense all the time, then it's just going to continue to suppress them and keep me locked away.
Yes, sure. Because your unconscious will take the cues from the physical rigidity and say, okay, well, it's not safe, right?
Like, I'm not going to whistle when I'm in the lion's den, so to speak.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
All right. Well, listen, I'll send you a copy of this.
Have a listen and let me know what you think.
Good stuff. I really do feel for you.
This is a really, really tough situation, but, I mean, to your credit, it just sounds like you're handling it very, very well.
And, you know, throw UPB overboard for a while and go with the RTR stuff if you can or have the chance, and I'll send you the links to this ambivalent series.
Okay. All right?
Okay. All right. Thanks for the chat.
Definitely. Thank you. I appreciate it.
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