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Oct. 7, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:22:35
1170 Empathy and Mothering - Listener Convo
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Time Text
Hello? Oh, hi, it's Steph.
How's it going? I'm all right.
How are you? Not too bad.
Well, I guess since time is short, we should cut straight to the chase.
Sure. So you are sitting on a letter.
I am. And it wasn't, uh...
You know, when I wrote it out, it was just sort of, um...
I don't know, writing itself, it felt like, you know, and it wasn't, uh...
A very consciously thought-out letter, and then when I re-read it, I thought, my, this is kind of long and probably has extra things.
So I offered it up for other folks to help me find things that I could change about it.
And would you mind reading it to me?
I've had a look at it, but just remind me.
Sure. I need to get to that spot.
Sure, no problem. On the board.
Just as you're doing that, is this a letter that is in your mind, at least at the moment, a permanent separation or is it a trial separation?
In my mind, I can't think of any reason it would just be a trial.
Okay, so there's nothing that you expect coming back that is going to change and so on.
Like, that's going to alter what you want to do.
Well, I mean, that's how I feel.
That's how I feel about it consciously.
But, yeah, looking at the letter, it feels like there is quite a bit...
Yeah, I mean, the sense that I got from the letter, and just let me know when you've got it, but the sense that I got was that you wanted them to understand something.
Or, in a sense, to understand why you were doing what you were doing.
Right. Yeah, and that's...
And that's not bad, right?
Obviously, there's no right or wrong in these things.
It's not bad. I just...
I was curious the degree to which you were aware of that.
Yeah, and I was aware of it.
I just... It's tough because I haven't communicated much at all with them in quite a while.
Sorry, just to interrupt, I apologize, but that is communicating a lot, right?
Oh, sure, absolutely, yeah.
It's speaking volumes in silence, for sure.
Right. Okay, I think I have it up now.
Also, I know that...
Nala had expressed an interest in listening in on this.
If she could do that, I would be all right with that.
Oh, sure. I can add her.
Excellent. I have the letter.
Should I just read it now? All right.
It says, Mom and Dad, for a long time now I've been avoiding anxiety concerning our relationship.
I don't feel that we're as close as people who genuinely love one another should be.
It's my long-standing fear of bringing this up that motivates my letter.
I need some time alone to explore my emotions and enrich my life.
I have not been genuinely and fully happy for many years, though I have gone through periods of seeming so.
I want to be truly happy and truly honest and truly capable of love, but I cannot do that with such crushing anxiety and fear weighing me down.
I need some time off from the family.
I need time to myself to explore why I feel this way and to work to make it go away.
I need some time to myself to explore why I feel this way and to work to make it go away to what extent I can forever.
I'm going to start seeing a therapist in order to work In order to work to remove things from my life that are blocking my path to true success and happiness.
If you're adversely affected by my decision in any major way, I suggest you do the same for the sake of your own happiness and for the sake of Tyler's happiness, too.
Tyler is my brother.
This is not a decision I made hastily or take lightly.
To the contrary, this is the hardest thing I've ever done.
So I've made damn sure it's the right decision for me and for my happiness.
I don't expect it to seem like a good decision to you, but please trust that my head is in the right place, and that I'm actually as smart and rational and thoughtful and compassionate as everyone has said all these years.
I want to do great things in life, and I need this time of exploration and healing of whatever old wounds I can find before I can even hope for the chance at greatness.
Please respect my wish to not be contacted.
I can't control what you do, of course, and I'd never want to, But I know that working through this on my own is the only way to be successful.
I know this will be hard on you, but know that this is the best thing for me right now.
I need some time away and will contact you when I feel ready.
Please feel free to drop my cell phone from the family share plan.
I'll do this myself if I have the account authorization.
I barely use it anyway and have other means of communications that serve me just fine.
Please only use those channels of communication with me in the case of extreme emergency.
And then I signed it with my name.
And how do you feel about the letter now?
Reading it back, some of it seems kind of goofy, like I'm...
Sorry, I don't think anything is goofy in the letter, just my opinion.
No, you're right. You're right.
You're right. That's not the right word to use for it.
But I noticed some things that I didn't notice while I was writing it or even until just now reading it out loud here.
In the last...
I mean, notably in the last paragraph, other than the stuff that was mentioned in the replies to the post on the board, I noticed in the last paragraph I say, you know, I know this will be hard on you, but know that it's the best thing for me right now.
now it's like I'm like I like I'm you know cushioning a blow or making it I don't know.
Like asking for permission.
Yeah, I mean, obviously your perceptions are the most important.
I don't get that sense.
I do get that you are treating them with a great deal of sensitivity, which...
Obviously, it's not a crime or not a bad thing, but is it the family belief, as you say, that you are a sensitive and so on person?
Right. That's a pretty well-held belief in the extended family as well.
So, if your family were a boy band, you'd be the sensitive one, right?
Yeah, I'd be the sensitive, crying one.
Right. Okay. Okay.
And... Or the smart one.
Maybe a combination. Right.
Sensitive and smart. And not often separated characteristics.
So... It seems that...
I think there's a kind of cruelty in the letter, to be honest with you.
That's my thought or my impression.
I think...
And that's why I asked you at the beginning what your purpose was with the letter.
I think you're holding out a hope...
Okay. That, as far as I can see, doesn't exist.
Okay. And so there's a cruelty in my...
in which aspect I'm...
Well, just think of it like a divorce.
And again, this could be completely wrong, right?
It could be the complete opposite. It's just my thought, right?
But if you think of it like a divorce, if I'm divorcing my wife and I've just decided, like, we're done, right?
She doesn't want kids and I do.
I already am interested in someone on the side.
I want to move to Australia.
I want to take up mime at the Sorbonne.
I mean, whatever it is, I've decided that the marriage is no good, right?
What's the kindest way...
to tell my wife that?
Just like you've said right now, just that you have, well, that it's not going to work, that it's not going to work, and I'm sorry and goodbye.
Yeah, and I have no interest in making it work, and I have no goal to try and fix it, and I have, like, none of these things have at all any interest for me.
It's painful, right?
Yeah. But it's the kindest thing that you can do, because in order to take the Band-Aid off slowly, you end up taking off like a limb, right?
Because if I were to say to my wife, well, let's separate for a little bit, I'll go to therapy, maybe you go to therapy, you know, we'll see where we stand in a month, and all I'm doing is dragging it out, right?
Right. Which is kind of cruel, right?
Right. And I don't mean to say that you have a cruel bone in your body.
I'm not trying to put that down.
I'm just saying that there's a kind of coyness, or maybe, maybe, in the letter?
Right. Yeah, there's a kind of dangling, which is the same thing that happens also while I'm, to whatever degree, I have, you know, Right.
Now, that probably has a lot to do with their desires, right?
I mean, one of the reasons that we separate from families is that we have absorbed their desires to the point where we don't even remember what we want out of the relationship, right?
So, again, I'm not saying that you're being cruel or you're sitting there going, boo-ah-ah, how can I make this as painful as possible?
But if your goal is to exit the family with as little...
As little fuss, I mean, they'll be fuss, right?
But as little fuss as possible, then my strong suggestion, and having coached a bunch of people through this, this again, there's some evidence, but of course the final decision is yours, but if you want to take a little bit of advice, just to write something which says, you know, I'm working on my own issues, I'm going to take an indefinite period of time off from the family, if and when I feel comfortable getting back in touch, I will do so, and then you can, you know, obviously include the technical things of the cell phone and so on, right?
Right. Right. But I think providing reasons is kind of aggressive.
I had a seven year, not quite seven year, and we were long distance for lots of time, but it was a long relationship.
And, you know, when you're done with a relationship, you actually don't need to correct the other person.
Right. You don't need to fix them.
You don't need to change their behavior.
When I was left, when I was done with that, I moved out.
I said, this relationship is not going to work.
I am not going to continue.
There's no chance of us getting back together.
I'm going to move on. Whatever you want to do is fine with me.
And we had some technical stuff, like anybody who extricates themselves.
We had technical stuff to work on.
But I didn't feel the need to say, well, I just don't feel loved, or I feel that there's aggression in the relationship, or I feel that there's selfishness.
I feel like I don't need to correct her because I'm done.
Right. Like when you quit a job, you don't give your boss all this advice, right?
No. Now, I'm simplifying this, and I understand the complexity, but I just kind of wanted to break it down at that level for you.
Yeah, that makes great sense, and I'm trying to think of where the desire to do that came from, and I think it's largely to do with that I haven't brought these ideas up with them.
Right. Now, that's the part that I wanted to talk about, because either this is happening because you really don't care, but you want to soften the blow, or there's a conversation that you still need to have.
Right. And I just, for a very long time now, I have been avoiding that conversation and trying to have the conversation and then avoiding it.
Well, you don't try to have the conversation, right?
Right. I mean, sorry to be annoying, right?
It's like an old acting teacher would say to me, you know, I would sit there, be an emotional singer, I'm trying to cry, and he'd say, he'd put me in front of a chair, and he'd say, try and sit down, right?
You just sit down or you don't, right?
You don't try to sit down, and you don't try to open your mouth and speak the truth, right?
You either do or you don't, right?
Right. Well, and I haven't, and I have...
I've been in conversations where it's really tough.
And it's because I know them well enough to know their reactions to any of it.
Not any of it, not everything.
Right. Sorry to interrupt, but I know that time is relatively pressing.
Yeah. But you're still a little torn.
In fact, probably more than a little torn, right?
Because you don't have to have the conversation with them, right?
You don't. You don't have to do anything, right?
Right. But there are some practical consequences to having or not having that conversation.
So, if...
You have the conversation, you will get a certain kind of emotional understanding.
The defu is not about sending a letter, and it's not about not calling your parents.
What it is about is coming to certainty about the nature of the relationship, or rather, the lack of a relationship.
Now, if you're saying, well, you guys should go to therapy, I'm going to go to therapy, maybe I'll be in touch in a couple of months, what I get from that is that You're avoiding this conversation because you know exactly how it's going to go, but you're avoiding that knowledge of how it's going to go.
Right. You mean avoiding the absolute knowledge by actually having it?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Because it's very painful, right?
It puts us right back in the crib, almost, in terms of family history, right?
Yeah. The last time you probably openly stated your demands to your family, you were probably about two years old, right?
So going back to re-experience, that rejection or that coldness or that hostility is really painful down in the core, right?
Right. Yeah, it absolutely is.
And you don't have to do it, but if you accept, or if you picture it, or if you meditate on it, or if you think about it, or if you do an ecosystem conversation with it, I'm happy to help you with that if that would help, but...
If you get how it's going to go in your gut, you don't actually have to have the conversation, right?
Yeah. I did do, for the first time last night, I did do the meditation.
Oh yeah, how'd that go? You put together?
I mean, I know that's separate, a little bit different, but it was extraordinarily powerful for me.
Like, it was amazingly powerful for me.
Right. I'm very glad.
Yeah, I've never had any success with anything like that before any kind of meditation type stuff or relaxation type stuff before because it, I don't know why, it just feels uncomfortable and I can't get into it.
But last night I did.
I was tired already and I tried it and it had an immense emotional effect.
Well, I think I'm a trusted voice, too, right?
I didn't want to do that stuff earlier, because otherwise it'd freak people out, but I think that I'm a trusted voice, so I think people can relax and not feel, like, self-conscious and kind of weird.
That's a good point, yeah.
So, with this conversation, right, the important thing is just not to avoid the root emotional causes of the DFU. And if you think that there's a chance, as you say in the letter, that if...
Okay, what do you think the odds are they're going to go to therapy if you send this letter?
Very low. Like what?
Like 3%.
Maybe...
Yeah. I mean, that's just a guess.
Okay, sure. Got it. And...
That's not something that...
Like, if you defoo and they go to therapy and they call you and you want to refoo, so what?
You could do that. People get remarried all the time, right?
But with the knowledge that you have right now, the cost-benefit seems to be fairly clear.
That it's painful and difficult for you to be in contact with them.
The odds of them changing are minuscule, to say the least, right?
Right. Because even if they went for therapy, you know, if you say, well, there's a 3% chance going to therapy, what are the odds they're actually going to stick with it and succeed over 6 or 12 months or 18 months?
Right, exactly. Yeah.
Also, quite low.
Right, so we're talking about a 3% chance of a 3% chance, which is statistically, you know, you'll get killed by being stung by a bee first, right?
Right. Right.
So if, I mean, the DFU letter has to be based, in my opinion, on a real emotionally grounded reality.
So if you don't feel that there's any statistically significant chance of them turning this relationship around, and I mean, I'm sure you're right, and you've heard my 10 to 1 argument, right?
Right. So there would have to be like, what, two, three hundred years of perfect behavior before you turn this relationship around, even not counting the first impression problem.
So, but I think that if you understand that, and if you work through that emotional despair, and sadness, and loss, and rejection, and...
I mean, it's a terribly sad thing to have to go through this process.
Yeah. It's really heartbreaking.
It is, and it's a slow process for me, at least.
No, everyone. It's slow for everyone.
Well... I'm glad to hear that because it feels wrenchingly slow.
I've been avoiding action in so many areas of my life because of this.
I'm almost certain.
Everything always ends up pointing back to this same avoidance, but there are so many There's so many other things that point back this way, too.
And it's... Yeah, it's really hard.
It is. I mean, and it took me, I've got to think, at least five years.
And I was in therapy for three hours a week.
Christina separated four or five years ago.
She gets a call from her uncle.
It still causes her upset.
I mean, it's slow and never permanent.
We can never be the people as if we've never defood, right?
I mean, we hope to take the best of that.
So it is slow, and none of what I'm saying is a criticism at all.
If this is the right thing for you to do, and I'm sure that it is, then you need to be immensely praised and admired and respected for the courage of what it is that you're doing, particularly given, as you say, your sensitivity and your obvious emotional intelligence.
But I really felt from that letter that it was almost like a last-ditch Wake up people letter.
Yes. Yes.
That is...
Yeah. And if you have that feeling...
I'm sorry, go ahead.
I think it's because I haven't had the conversation with them about how I... You know, my experience of the relationship.
And then RTR with them.
Right, right. Because I haven't.
Because I haven't come to them and said...
I think real honesty is a value.
I think real love is a value based on virtue.
I haven't brought it up with them.
I don't think it's something...
I don't expect it to be something that they get to understand.
It's just... When I avoid it, I tell myself that they simply won't be interested, so there's no point.
Right. That's not true.
No. Yeah.
And that's probably why you're still in this There's Hope thing, right?
I can guarantee you that the moment that you bring this up to your parents, they will get it.
Right to the core of their souls, because everyone does.
Everyone does. And the reason you're avoiding it is not because you don't think that they'll get it, because you know damn well they will completely get it.
Right? Maybe not consciously, maybe not with the sophistication of people who are psychologically self-aware, but they'll get it, right?
Right. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, because otherwise there'd be no anxiety, right?
No, you're exactly right.
There's Yeah.
I mean, if I go up and speak Mandarin to someone who doesn't speak Mandarin, they won't get what I'm saying, but I won't be terribly afraid of that conversation, right?
Right. Yeah.
No, that makes total sense.
And I've understood that before.
It's amazing the extent to which I'm able to instantly identify the exact same defense in somebody else.
And then that same defense is working on me for months at a time.
And I don't even recognize that it's the same.
Like from hearing previous conversations or something like this through FDR. And look, the reason that I think this is so important is that if you disengage Without that foundational understanding, that emotional understanding of what you're doing, inevitably, you will simply find parent substitutes, or they will find you.
Yeah. I mean, this exorcism has to go all the way to the basement, right?
Otherwise, the ghosts come back, right?
No, that's... Yeah, you're totally right.
I mean, if, for instance, you have a defense called, they just don't understand...
Then you will be susceptible in the future to people who feign ignorance.
Right. So what is it that you think will occur emotionally for your parents if you were to bring This topic up.
And my suggestion would be, because you talked a lot about, you know, well, I value love and I value honesty and so on, right?
That is not the conversation.
Sorry to be even more annoying.
That's not the conversation.
What is the conversation? The conversation is the conversation is the reason I don't answer when you call is because I don't want to talk to you and I haven't Wanted to for a long time.
And I think it's because of...
And I feel an immense amount of anxiety.
And I have for a very long time.
And just to express that I want to talk about that.
Right. And so what is it that you would say after that?
Let's assume they don't interrupt.
Of course they will, and they'll explain it away, and they'll minimize.
But let's say they don't. What is it that you want to say?
And... Well, I would say that I can't be...
You know, I'm not exactly certain of what...
The reason is that I feel that anxiety, but I have felt it for a long time.
And... And, well, no, see, because now I want to go into theories.
Yes, I totally get that, right?
I totally get it.
You're like, let me read you these sections from RTR, and then I'll play you a podcast, and then I'll draw you a diagram, and I remember this cognitive thing that Christina did in Miami, which I can download, and right?
You want to go into professor, right?
I want to say, right, I want to say...
And I want to give a list of reasons I feel the anxiety, which is, you know...
You want evidence, right?
Like your courtroom. But it's not a courtroom conversation.
It's not a conviction. Right.
Because you say, and you're entirely right to say so, you value honesty, right?
What is your fundamental issue emotionally with your family?
Let me know if you want any help, because I know you're going to look for when I was eight and then when I was 10 and write...
My fundamental...
Well, I mean, I want to say the stated problem I've had with them so much lately is that I'm not...
Well, it's not the fundamental emotional issue.
What's the fundamental emotional reality of your experience with your family?
One of, like, being...
I can't think of the emotion, the words that go with it.
Do you want to hear any...
I mean, I can give you a...
I'm sorry? One of enslavement.
Yeah, that's not a feeling.
I mean, I appreciate that that's very intellectual, right?
Do you want me to give you two seconds of what I said to my family?
Yes. And this is not a template.
This was my experience, but this is sort of what I'm talking about, and you can tell me if it resonates with you at all.
Okay. I sat down with them and I said, my heart is broken.
My heart is broken.
I don't experience love from this family.
I don't experience respect.
I feel like I'm just around.
I feel like I'm entertaining.
I feel... I feel sad.
I feel bitter.
I feel angry.
I feel lost. I feel like I'm here and I'm a million miles away at the same time.
I hate that feeling.
Yeah. I feel so lonely in this family.
I feel afraid.
I feel like...
I have to watch what I say.
I feel like I can't be who I am.
I feel like I got a sensor.
I feel nervous.
I feel a lot of anger about stuff in the past, about stuff in the present.
I feel afraid to bring it up.
I feel like I'm walking on eggshells all the time.
I feel this incredible desire, this need to run away.
I feel unbelievable fear at the moment.
My hands are shaking.
I feel like I'm going to be sick when I bring up things that are real for me.
I feel like this family is going to go up like Hiroshima.
And I have not felt connected to this family that I can ever remember.
I have not felt secure within this family ever that I can remember.
I don't feel relaxed or peaceful around this family.
I feel jumpy.
I feel nervous. I feel insecure.
I feel anxious when I'm around this family.
When the phone rings and it's you or you or you, My heart drops, but that's my actual experience.
When one of you tries to contact me, I feel a kind of dread of things like Christmas and Thanksgiving and birthdays.
I feel like I have to gear up or suit up armor or put on a happy face.
It's surreal.
It's unreal. What happens to me when I'm around family events?
I feel like I'm in some sort of weird play or theater drama.
So, I mean, obviously that was just part of it, but that's the kind of stuff where I was really talking about, and I wasn't blaming, and I wasn't providing evidence, and I wasn't accusing, and I wasn't perfect with it, because you can't be, right?
Sometimes I'd say, I feel, you know, like I'm just going to get attacked, which is not a feeling or whatever, but that's as close as I can remember the conversation that I had, which was very much, this is my actual experience and emotional reality within this family.
Right. And a really good portion of that resonates with me, too.
Except where with your family, there's the fears built in from attack.
With my family, there is, like we're around holidays, there's an immense boredom rather than, you know, rather than Eggshells, but I suppose that the boredom is the avoidance of the eggshells.
Well, if you point out the boredom, what happens?
Right, right.
You're going to get attacked, right?
Yeah, right, or just ignored.
You know, told, well, if you're bored, go do something interesting, you know.
Well, but then you could say, well, why is it that I'm around my family and I'm bored?
That doesn't seem right. Ah, right.
Why should I have to go outside my family to get spiritual nourishment?
Now, of course, my speech didn't go like that.
I mean, it did, but it took a long time because I kept getting interrupted or people would get up to go out the room or they'd...
whatever, right? Mm-hmm.
Oh, I'm thirsty. They'd try and head it off.
They'd come back and try and change the topic, right?
Mm-hmm. You'd never get that speech.
That's only in the movies, right?
Right. I'm certainly not trying to tell you how to do it.
Please, I hope you understand that.
I'm just saying that if you lecture or if you go abstract or if you provide evidence, then what you're doing is setting up a debate.
This conversation is not a debate.
Because you can't debate someone into caring for you.
All you can do is make your reality as clear to them as humanly possible through real honesty, openness, vulnerability.
And either it's going to connect with something or it's not.
But the moment you start bringing up facts or evidence or abstract arguments or theory, then it becomes a debate and the connection is lost.
Because no one can...
If I said, this family constantly rejects me, and therefore I feel lonely, what are they going to say?
They're going to think of times when they didn't reject you.
Right! They're going to say, oh, look at all this support, and I this, and I read your books, and I came to your plays, and of course...
That doesn't help, right?
Right. Right. But if I say I feel incredibly lonely here in this environment, and I don't provide a single explanation or justification for that, because I don't need to justify my feelings.
We only need to justify our feelings if we don't think they're valid, right?
Or we feel like we need to prove to people that our feelings are real.
If we know that our feelings are real, We don't need to provide evidence, right?
I don't need to say to my wife, I love you because...
And I give her a big list, right?
I mean, I can do that if I feel like it, but I can just say, I love you so much.
And I don't need to.
I don't even need in my head to say, must someone feeling of love think of good things she has done, right?
Right, because it's an emotion, right?
It's a strong feeling. I know it's real.
I understand myself.
I understand her. It's valid.
It's not something I need to...
Yeah, absolutely.
The emotional stuff has been a lot of work for me.
I mean, it's all...
You know, it's buried there, like we were saying before about my sensitivity and all that.
I mean, it exists in there, but over the last...
Several years before coming across FDR, I had worked, or Egghead Jason had worked himself to the surface and, you know, intellectual, you know.
Debates and everything.
And I have no doubt that you're excellent at that.
Your language skills are fantastic.
You're obviously very intelligent.
But let me ask you this, because I know you've got to go, but let me ask you this last question.
And whatever it is you have to do, I mean, I would postpone it unless you're currently on fire, but now that you know what I mean by the real honesty of that conversation, what is it that you want to say to your parents?
Not what I have in the letter.
there.
Yeah, yeah, that was all, I mean, that was like a solicitor's letter.
I mean, I appreciate that, and I respect what you're doing hugely.
I hope you don't take the marking the wrong way, because I wrote 10 million worse letters in my life.
but what is it that you really, and this doesn't have to go in a letter, this doesn't ever have to happen in reality, but imagine if your parents are in the room, what is it that you want to say about your experience within the family?
Right.
So, so, in this family, I don't feel like I've I've I don't feel like I've I've See, I'm coming up with reasons again.
Yeah, what is the feeling? What is the feeling?
What do you feel around these people?
I know, it's hard. It's hard.
It's all there, I guarantee you.
It's all there, but it's hard because we've got these defenses called debate and intellectualize and lecture and theory, right?
Right. And the words for emotions are covered up by those, you know, the reasons for the emotions.
Um... Invisible.
Okay. Sorry, go on.
Um... I feel...
Invisible is not quite a feeling, though it's definitely in the right direction.
What does that lead to? Loneliness.
So, the I feel lonely is one thing, right?
So, yeah.
I feel lonely and depressed.
Depressed is a clinical description.
What is the feeling? Sadness is the feeling.
I feel a huge sadness.
Now, I can feel your body tensing up when you're talking about that.
Am I wrong? Yeah, I'm moving to lay down, actually.
Okay, good, good. And I'm not trying to give you any kind of emotional catharsis.
I just want you to get the feelings that you're not talking about in the letter.
So you can do whatever you want with them, right?
But just to be aware of them and just try and keep your breathing relaxed.
Try and keep your body relaxed because you're closing up like a fist.
I can feel that because this is the defense.
And that's good because that means that we're on the right path, right?
Right. And think of how old are you?
27. Okay, 27.
So you've got more than a quarter of a century with these people, right?
Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
It's hard to work through the past a lot for me because there's so much of it I don't remember yet.
Right. But you're not trying to remember what happened.
You're trying to get to what you feel.
That's how you'll get to what happened.
Right, and I think that's what happened with the meditation too, was really helpful for that.
But, back out.
And now picture them, really picture them in the room, because that will help.
Picture them in the room, and the quarter century you spent with these people, and the resulting feelings that are right down in your core.
Keep your body relaxed, keep your breathing slow.
And even. I feel a crushing anxiety about talking about things that are really important to me and have been for,
you know, a long time. Like a, yeah, a crushing anxiety, silencing anxiety.
And sorry to interrupt, where does that anxiety show up in your body?
Is it your belly? Is it your chest?
I was just going to say, yeah, it ties up my, um, it ties my guts up in knots and, um, and it tightens up the back of my throat.
Um, you know, like, to stop me from talking.
Um, And this is going to sound weird, but just go with me for a second.
If that tension in the back of your throat could speak, what would it say?
The tension itself?
Yeah, the closing.
It would say, shut up.
Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.
Do not talk about this.
Okay, so we know that that closing of the throat comes from your parents, right?
Yes. Yes, absolutely.
Okay. So try and keep that relaxed.
Try and keep your neck relaxed. Try and keep breathing even.
Try and loosen your throat. And keep talking about what else you feel about being in this family.
Okay.
I feel...
See, and I can't... and I can't...
Thinking of the emotions is very hard.
I can think of the reasons ahead of them.
Well, do you feel the emotions but can't express them or do you not feel the emotions?
I mean, I know they're there.
When I think about... I just have intellectual words for the emotional reasons.
Well, let me just say them, and maybe we can unbury the...
Sorry, just before...
I'm going to block that, and sorry to be totally annoying.
Tell me, because the intellectual stuff will lead you away from the body, which is where the feelings are.
Where are the feelings showing up, right?
So you had one sadness or a tension, a don't speak, which closed up your throat.
You had a tension in your gut, he said, a sickening kind of anxiety in your gut.
Where else is your body manifesting emotion?
I mean, that was it at that moment, but you're right.
Escaped to the intellectual stuff and it went away.
But I'm having a hard time accessing the emotions without the reasons hitting my brain first.
Right. And the reasons are landmines planted on the path to yourself by your parents, because when the reasons come up, they can be debated, whereas the true feelings can't.
I wrote in my novel, I said, 19 times out of 20, the life of the mind arises from the grave of the heart.
Right. So just try and figure out, and you don't have to do this with me now, you can do this anytime, I'm happy to keep going, but try and figure out where it is in your body that the feelings are showing up, or the tension, or where the muscles are contracting, or where you feel different than normal.
Okay. I'm definitely getting it Tension in my jaw, like a clenching.
And I don't know, I don't even know what muscles they are, but they feel like they're inside my face, kind of under and behind my eyes.
Right, right. Squeezing up, kind of getting in that, I don't know.
So we've already got see no evil, hear no evil.
Sorry, we've already got see no evil, speak no evil, I'm waiting for your ears to drop off.
That's probably going to be the next symptom, right?
It's sort of that tensing up before the tears come, sort of, in the face and behind the eyes thing.
It's not really a tension, but it's in the same way that the throat and the jaw is.
And are you able to work on trying to relax that, to close your eyes, take those deep breaths?
And you can even massage the corner of your jaw where it meets your neck to try and loosen those muscles.
Yeah, I've done that. And I don't know if it was about, you know, through talking about them, that it went away.
But yes, every time I just try to...
Close my eyes and consider my emotional experience, I guess I could.
Well, the reason that you're, again, this is my theory, but the reason that your emotions went away, Jason, is because you pictured, you worked on yourself and you lost the image of your parents in the room, right?
Now, if you try this juggling act, which is helpful, try to relax your body, feel your feelings, and imagine that your parents are sitting by your bed or in the room.
Okay.
Just keep working on them sitting there.
And you relaxing and you feeling with them in the room.
Thank you.
Okay.
And how does that feel?
I'm annoyed.
Sure, okay. Irritated?
Yeah, go on.
I am annoyed and irritated.
And why?
Do you know why?
Amen.
Thank you.
What's the thought that comes before the irritation?
Well, they're just sitting there.
And what do you want them to do, right, ideally?
if you're feeling sad what would you want them to do?
What is your heart yearn for when you're feeling sad and your parents are in the room?
Go on. A hug?
Right. Some eye contact?
Kisses on the forehead, a hug, and your mom or your dad sitting there and saying, Jason, tell me more about what you feel.
I'm sorry that you're sad.
Tell me what's happening for you.
Gentleness, kindness, openness, concern, empathy, right?
To be held by your parents and not to have them fall away like rickety Old trees that you lean on and they fall over.
Right. And to be able to cry or to be able to be angry or to be able to laugh until you cried and have people join in with that feeling, to be part of that feeling for you in a safe and secure way, right?
Right. I'm feeling a wrenching sadness right now.
Okay, go on. Tell me more about that.
I do want to know. And I'm really sorry for all of this, but tell me what you're feeling.
I'm crying right now.
Because what you're describing didn't...
It didn't happen when it needed to.
I don't think it ever happened when it didn't need to either, right?
No, it happened when...
No, it did.
It happened when...
Oh, not the emotional experience in that way, but it happened when they wanted it.
The sense that I get, and this is just me trying my psychic helmet, so I apologize if I'm way off, but the sense that I get, Jason, is that...
When I wrote the first draft of A God of Atheists, before I had to cut a whole bunch of stuff out, there was a scene with Alice as a baby.
And Alice was reaching for her mother.
Alice was reaching for Greta.
And I wrote in it, I said, a baby will reach so hard for its mother that its soul will actually fall out of itself if the mother is not there.
And I get a sense, or what I feel, is that you have a lot of heartbreaking experience reaching for contact.
Right? Through ghosts, through portraits, through emptiness.
Yeah. That's absolutely true.
And that's a dizzying and dangerous experience for a child when we reach out to the point where we almost fall out of ourselves and feel like we have out-of-body experiences and can't get back in.
We have to manage that.
We have to pull back from those needs for connection, for visibility, for empathy, right?
Right. And when you reach for your, just try this in your mind's eye, when you reach, you know, with trembling hands and a tear-stained face and you reach for your mother, What is the expression on her face?
It's pained.
Go ahead.
Like, um...
I don't know, like pain, like eyebrow furrowed and like she's feeling hurt.
Okay.
Okay, so she's got a child who's reaching for context.
Sorry? Like she's feeling hurt.
Oh, go ahead. I was going to make a story about it.
Go ahead. Right. So she's got a child who's reaching for her.
A child who is sad, who is angry, who is hurt, who is...
Emotionally charged.
She has a child who's reaching for her and she feels...
What does she feel when you reach for her?
when you want to get that comfort and that empathy and that sympathy and that love?
I, hmm.
You know this one.
I was... I know. I almost told you I didn't.
Yeah, yeah. I know.
I know. She doesn't want you to know, but you know this is one of the things that is the earliest and most terrible things that you know.
Well, what jumped into my head right away that I fought down was imposed upon.
And why did you fight that down?
Because I felt like it was a pat answer that would be acceptable in the context of And did you feel that, so you felt that it was a false answer, is that right?
Well, part of me did.
The part that caught it down.
Okay, maybe it's not.
Again, first impulses are usually good to go with, right?
Right, that's why I brought it up.
And now, you're laughing a little, right?
Yeah. Now, this is a tragedy though, right?
I mean, a child who's reaching out for comfort from a parent.
If you become a father, when you become a father, and your child is heartbroken and reaches for you, tears running down his face, and wants comfort more than he wants air.
That's what we need as children.
We need comfort, we need connection, we need love more than we need air.
What will you do? I'll show concern.
I'll ask what's wrong.
I'll reach back. Sorry, say that last part again.
I'll reach back.
Reach back?
What do you mean?
What? Sorry, you said reach back, I'm just not sure what you mean.
If a child is reaching out to me for contact, I would reach back.
Now, you realize there's two ways that works, right?
Because reaching back also means reaching back through time, right?
Okay, sure. Which comes out of the meditation, I think.
Yeah. Right, so you will envelop that child with love and with compassion and with curiosity.
And there will be times when you're a parent, when you're a father, when your child will not know that he is sad.
But he will be.
Right. Right?
And what will you do in that situation?
Ask questions.
To see why he seems to be acting differently.
And you'll know it because you will feel sad and you will say, I feel sad but you don't seem sad.
Right. What happened with your day and you'll find it, right?
Right. And so, sorry, you're, as you say, reaching back, reaching down, enveloping, comforting, loving, being curious about helping the child to stay in touch with the instincts and the feelings that we're all born with.
The ethical guides and reality processors called the instincts and the feelings.
Compare your sympathy and empathy with a child who is reaching out for you.
Like a drowning man reaches for a log with what your mother did, which was what?
Almost the opposite.
Which was what? So you reach out for her, you're crying, you're upset.
She would try to get me to stop crying as soon as possible.
And how would she do that? With noises and shush.
Like, there, there, shit's not so bad.
There, there, there. Now, come on.
Dry your tears. Yeah, it's fine.
It's fine, right. So you'd get a little bit of there, there.
Would you then get to Snappy Town?
or what happened if you kept crying or weren't comforted by these things?
It feels like a lot to access...
The last time I cried...
for comfort, wanting comfort from my mom.
It would, yes, we would find snappy tone eventually.
It would take a while, but it's there.
And then, and then whatever, you know.
Abandonment, sort of.
Right, so if you refused to be comforted, she would put you down, or you'd be like, come on, stop milking it, or now it's too much, right?
Get a grip. Right.
So for her, tears that you had were kind of like, it was kind of like burping a baby, right?
You'd pat its back until it burped, and then you'd be fine, right?
Right, now we're done with that, right.
Right, right. And you were aware of that disconnect, right?
Oh, yeah. Like, you felt her saying, oh, there, there, there, but it didn't, right?
It didn't connect with you.
Right, right. It's not comforting if the problems aren't addressed.
Right, and you feel that you can't have the feeling, express the feeling, and have the feeling wash over you and subside like a wave.
What happens is you can have the feeling for a little bit, But then you have to start dialing it down, self-managing, repressing, right?
Otherwise, you're going to get to snappy town, right?
Right, and then nothing's resolved, and...
Yeah.
And it's the same problem, can just come back up the next time it feels like it.
So, at the beginning of the convo, I said that the reason the conversation is so hard is you're going back.
to this place, right?
Right. Because you are expressing sadness or anxiety or anger or whatever it's going to be with your mother, which you have not done for decades, right? Decades, yeah. And you will re-experience that coldness, that management, that mechanical padding, right?
Yeah. The sound of concern.
Right. Which is even more, if she just pushed you away, it would have been easier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, the opposite of concern for a child is not pushing that child away.
The opposite of concern is pretending to care.
Right, because then I would have just gone someplace else for comfort instead.
Right. Until I found it.
Right, or you would have learned very strong self-soothing skills, right?
Right. The most fucked up people in the world are the people who had The rollercoaster parents.
The I love you, I hate you parents.
I care and I don't care.
I pretend to care, right?
The ones who just mess with your head that way.
I don't mean that you're the most fucked up person in the world, because I'm not putting your parents into this category.
I'm just saying that in this particular instance, the contradictory behavior is more disorienting for a child than consistently bad behavior.
Yeah, yeah.
And that shows through in me to this day.
Contradictory behavior seems to bother me a lot more than almost everyone I know.
So I'm glad that part stuck.
And this is the stuff that, with the letter that you wrote at the beginning, you're not getting to.
And that's my major concern for you in the future, if that makes sense.
Yeah, absolutely. Because if this stuff is still there, this hunger for connection is still there, then you have a big button which people can push to get you to do stuff, right?
Right. You have this big, you know, it's like you already have a hook in your cheek like you're a fish and it's going up and there's a fishing rod and people just have to pick up the fishing rod and they've caught you, right?
If you've got this kind of hunger, right?
Right. How do you feel?
I know that we kind of pushed the envelope a little there and I just wanted to check in and how you feel about what we talked about.
I feel less confused and less defensive about it.
My initial reaction to some of the replies on the board I felt like I had done something wrong.
And of course, that's not the case, but that was my emotional experience of it right away at first when I was reading the replies.
And this conversation right here has helped me make a lot more sense of where that came from.
You mean that feeling of having done something wrong with the letter or whatever?
Right. That feeling of, oh, I don't have any idea what I'm doing here, and everybody knows.
Yeah, look, I mean, the community is still learning about empathy, and it's one of the toughest lessons, right?
So, I mean, that's why I thought a conversation would be helpful.
And it cuts to the core, right?
Whenever you ask for empathy, either explicitly or implicitly, right, as you did with your mother, and this is not to generate sympathy for her, just so you understand, she obviously did not experience empathy when she was a child, right?
And it causes her pain, if she would actually provide it, she would then be aware of what was missing, right?
For her. Yeah.
Yeah. And, yeah.
Yeah. And I have, in thinking about that before, I have noticed it for sure, yeah.
You mean her capacity for empathy?
Right, why her empathy works the way it does, and, you know, what it must have been like to be her as a kid.
Right, and that this is, this is, This is neurobiology, right?
The brain is not, I mean, there is, you know, neuroplasticity, right?
That we can teach ourselves new things.
Empathy seems to be one of the harder ones, as far as that goes, right?
Now you have it, because you could empathize with yourself.
You could empathize with yourself in the meditation that you did last night.
You could empathize with this idea of a child.
And you instantly also did empathize with what it was like to be emotional with your parents in the room, which is irritation, right?
Which is their irritation, you understand, it's not yours, right?
Emotion makes them uncomfortable.
Well, that's interesting.
Because in my head it was my irritation with them.
No, and I'm sorry to be annoying, and I could be wrong, as I could be wrong about everything, but this is what my gut tells me, which again, might just be Indian food, but we'll go for it, right?
But when you, Jason, when you're reaching for someone, and they're cold towards you, we feel our hearts get broken.
Particularly when they're primary caregivers, it's agony, right?
Oh, yeah. No, what I was thinking of actually at that point when I said irritation was me laying there in the room and then just sitting.
Yes, but you wouldn't feel irritation after a couple of decades of not getting your emotional needs met by these people.
That's pain. That's anger.
That's intense, right?
Right. It was too small.
You know, a shark bit my leg off and it really ticked me off, right?
Right. No, and you know, now that I think about it, it might just, or it not might, but the other thought that occurred to me before I said irritation was I remember another time very recently when I was actually laying in a bed.
I had a terrible infection a few months ago and got put in the hospital where I live, and my parents decided against my wishes to come up and Sit in my hospital room and stare at me all day, and it was really irritating, that, you know, on the surface.
Right, right, but I bet you that deep down, I'm sorry, but I bet you that deep down it was completely heartbreaking.
Well, it's heartbreaking that I felt irritation, for sure.
I should, you know, I mean, yeah.
But you know that the emotions which other people do not express, we feel double, right?
Right. And so, I bet that your parents didn't like being put in this position.
It was like, well, we have to go because we're good parents, but, you know, I don't want to comfort him.
I don't know how to do it. It makes me feel weird.
Right. Right?
Somebody who's sitting there Against your wishes, right?
I mean, as I mentioned on the show, when we moved into our house, we specifically told Christina's parents, don't come by the first day.
They're finishing the house.
We have movers coming.
We've got people coming to install X, Y, and Z. It's going to be a madhouse.
And we just knew they were going to be high maintenance, right?
Yeah. And they showed up.
And Christina's dad sweep in the front porch, which is full of concrete.
With the front door open, the wind blows all the concrete into the house.
All the concrete dust into the house.
On our beautiful new hardwood and our wet paint, right?
And, you know, then he wanted to put a table together, and we said no.
And so he starts putting the table together, and he's in the way of people, and they have to walk around him, and they drop something, and, like, just fuck!
Unhelpful, damn it. Right, like, stop fucking helping me!
Right? Right.
But he felt irritated, and so he did all this stuff, which made us irritated.
Yeah. Yeah. So, if you feel irritation around your parents, my first suggestion would be that it's their irritation.
Okay. That does make a lot of sense.
And the reason I say that as well is it conforms with your mother tightly patting, going there, there, there, right?
She's irritated. And it's a short fuse before, okay, enough.
Right, right.
And I don't know if it's...
Well, I do know.
I'm sure it's probably gotten in the way that in recent times when I've tried to remember, you know, reconnect with that emotional part of my life back then, that I quickly come to the conclusion that I have a hard time accessing those memories, and so I just switch over to my brother, who's 10 years younger than me, and try to see how they treated him.
Because it would be very similar to the way I was treated, and I don't know if that almost definitely gets in the way, absolutely gets in the way of me feeling it.
It's good evidence, but it's not going to be enough to connect you, right?
Right. And that's probably been getting in the way.
Yes, yes, for sure.
That's what I've been doing quite a lot of.
Right, because you're going to look for evidence, right?
Right. Which is to say that the truth of my experience is somewhere outside me, right?
Right. It's not.
You have, God help you, right?
You have these feelings that are thundering over the horizon coming to save you, right?
Whether you fucking like it or not, right?
I mean, they're doing that, right?
The Miko system is like, oh, us?
Right? Yeah.
I must, because I was...
I was...
Just...
Yes. I was shaking at the end of that meditation last night.
Yeah, now you have activated.
You know, they always have these things in mythology, right?
They delve too deep into the ground and they activate this beast because of their hunger for, you know, the Moria thing or whatever, right?
They always have this in mythology.
It's true. We knock and we sort of walk up to this door called the true self, right?
And we sort of knock on the door and we, huh, I think I hear something.
And then the whole fucking thing comes off its inches, right?
Six million things come pouring out, right?
Right. And it's scary because we feel out of control.
I'm sorry? And it's loud and it's bright.
It's loud and it's bright and it's scary and it's exhilarating and it is called authenticity, right?
And you have this and, you know, all hail to you who kept These passions and these feelings through a desert of non-empathy as a kid.
So you're working and you're digging and it's going to erupt and it's going to take you with it, which is a fantastic and exhilarating thing.
The true self does not arrive like a postage.
It arrives like a hurricane.
So I think that's good.
The last thing that I wanted to mention, though, Is that, to me, there's one thing that's really absent from your letter.
Really absent. And I'll ask you, and we don't have to get into it because it's just something to mull over.
Why is there, Jason, no letter to your brother?
Right.
And...
And I need to work through that because it's because I...
It's because I hold out hope of communicating with him.
Right. Why is there no letter to your brother?
I mean, why is it that if you hold that hope of communicating with him, which I think is fantastic, and I think you absolutely should hold that hope out, why are you not communicating with him about this?
Well, I wouldn't in that letter, because I don't want to...
To tell my brother that I... Okay, look, I understand.
I agree with you. I completely agree with you not in that letter.
But what's the plan? I was going to shoot him a message when I put their letter in the mail.
A message? What do you mean? Like an email?
Yeah. Oh, dude.
Oh, dude. An email is not going to do it.
An email is fine for a dear John letter to the parents.
But if you want to maintain this connection with your brother, which I think would be fantastic, right?
I mean, if you can help get him out or help get him connected, that would be great.
But why not at least a call, if not a face-to-face?
Right. I mean, is he thousands of miles away?
No. So?
I mean, he lives with them.
Yeah, yeah, but so what? I mean, hold off on the letter to your parents.
I would say talk to your brother.
Right. Don't talk to him about defooing.
Don't talk to him about FDR. God's sake, don't talk to him about theory or evidence.
Just talk to him about what you feel.
And watch your history and experience.
And you care for him, right?
I get a strong sense that you really care about him.
Yeah. Well, microwave him, brother.
Microwave him with your passion and your feeling and your care for him.
Yeah. Speak your heart to him as deeply and as richly as you can.
Right. Right. Because if you send a letter to your parents and a message to him, your parents are going to grab a hold of his mind and pour all their mythology into his ear, right?
Right, and they've already got all kinds of ports opened up on it.
Oh, absolutely, and it's going to be a tough battle for sure, but...
I mean, I think that you, if I understand my feelings about your feelings, then it would be agony for you to think of escaping and leaving him behind.
If there was anything you could do.
It absolutely would.
At this point.
I think at any point.
I mean, if you were both in a car that went off a pier, you wouldn't like, "Hey, I'm out," right?
Oh, no. No, not at all.
I just don't...
I mean, I can't know how he'll react to emotional honesty.
No, you can't, but it is the best chance.
Sorry, you can at least control how honest and open you are and have it be part of the plan, right?
Right, right. Right, and that's just an essential.
And even if it's just planting a seed, right?
Maybe he'll, like, roll his eyes and go, like, in the way that only 17-year-olds can do, right?
And maybe...
But it will be there, right?
The honesty that we bring into people's lives, it sits there, right?
In a sense, their whole mythology begins to orbit that authentic moment, right?
Right, right. Definitely.
And this, I'm afraid, is what it means to be heroic.
Right? This is the kind of courage, this is the kind of dedication to truth and to honesty and to virtue and connectedness.
This is what it means, as far as I've ever been able to figure it out, this is what it means to be heroic.
To will the world to start turning around the truth is an act of mad presumption.
But I don't know any other way to help the world.
Yeah.
Boy, I bet you wish you'd never donated to PK status now, huh?
It's like, maybe he would have left me alone if I hadn't donated.
Oh, I... Yeah.
And... Yeah.
And I very specifically, I think, I know for sure, on occasions in the past, I very specifically avoided talking with you about things that I was talking with other people about.
Right, right. I mean, I know that.
I've been listening for almost a year now.
Just about. And you're doing fantastically.
I mean, I always hate to say that to people because it sounds like I'm, I don't know, handing out favors or spotty favors or something.
But seriously, man, you're doing incredibly well.
I mean, the work you did in this call, the work that you're doing in your personal life, the communication that you have on the board, you're doing fantastically.
I mean, you should take a bow and be incredibly proud of yourself.
This is really hard stuff, and you are just doing amazingly.
Thank you. I'd like to make it...
Consistently fantastic. Hell, I would too, right?
I mean, I would too.
I can't claim that either, but, you know, let's at least be proud of, you know, if we've got a thousand miles to climb, let's at least be proud of the 10,000 we climbed in a year, right?
Yeah. I suppose it is that last 10,000 that's The hardest, anyway.
Now, I said what I wanted to say.
My suggestion, I know you've got an appointment.
I would still suggest take the 12 minutes, do the meditation one more time, because you do have even more of an access to your feelings, if I get you correctly.
Yeah. I've heard of people who are doing the meditation regularly, and it's working quite well, so I might just start doing that as well.
Yeah, I mean, what I mean by that is do it, like, right now.
Oh, I see. Yeah, unfortunately, that's not the case at all.
I've... I absolutely got to go to work.
Okay, go, go. And I'm sorry for keeping you so long.
I really do appreciate it.
No, that's fine. That's fine. It's extra time, so...
Okay. It's overtime, so they won't be mad at me or anything, but I do not have the time for that, unfortunately.
No problem. Well, I'll let you go then, but do the meditation before you go to bed tonight if you can.
Certainly. Yeah, absolutely. I will do that.
Well, thanks, man. And fantastic work.
And I really do appreciate you digging in this way.
I appreciate the trust. And I'm hoping it was good for you, too.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much.
All right, man. I'll talk to you soon.
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