Speaker 1: I was sure I wasn't going to be accepted.

Speaker 1: I risked being myself, I actually got accepted, and I let it in.

Speaker 1: It changes all the past files.

Speaker 1: It literally rewrites the past files.

Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody, to Come Here to Me podcast.

Speaker 1: We haven't recorded an episode in a while.

Speaker 1: Thank you for your patience.

Speaker 1: And today, it's me, Figs, and our amazing podcast host, Stephanie.

Speaker 2: Hi.

Speaker 1: Steph.

Speaker 1: Do we call you Stephanie?

Speaker 1: Steph's good.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I never call you Stephanie.

Speaker 1: I don't know why I said it like that.

Speaker 2: It's more formal.

Speaker 2: Gives me authority.

Speaker 1: Exactly.

Speaker 1: I got real formal all of a sudden.

Speaker 1: But yeah, we have a show today where we're going to talk about how to really heal from past wounding.

Speaker 1: What do you really need to do technically?

Speaker 1: And we're going to show you a demonstration of that in my favorite scene in all of TV history that shows how to transform past wounding into a triumph that propels you forward in a positive way for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1: That's what good psychotherapy should be.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're gonna take a look at the Australian show Please Like Me, which ran from 2013 to 2016.

Speaker 1: I feel so old.

Speaker 1: To me, that feels like it stopped playing six months ago.

Speaker 1: But okay, 2013 to 2016.

Speaker 1: Wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 1: That's a long time ago.

Speaker 1: And then also, we want to touch on how this isn't just some weird experiential psychotherapist like me, you know, sharing some woo woo stuff, the actual hard science, the best understanding we have about what emotions are and how to transform your past and your future absolutely backs up exactly what we're talking about.

Speaker 1: So we're going to talk a little bit about one of the leading scientists on human emotion, Lisa Feldman Barrett.

Speaker 1: Part of what makes experiential

Speaker 1: psychotherapy work is like, you know, let's say you come to see whether you're an individual or

Speaker 1: a couple, and you have some thing you're hurting about is not resolved between the two of you,

Speaker 1: that issue is going to be the doorway, right, that content that is so important to you,

Speaker 1: and it is really important that we resolve it, what we need to do is see if we could re inhabit

Speaker 1: fully the present moment of you and or your partner, if it's both of you being hurt.

Speaker 1: So re enter it like it's actually happening.

Speaker 1: Now, I often refer to it as time traveling.

Speaker 1: And we only go at the pace that actually works for you on your own or you and your partner.

Speaker 1: But we're going to try and time travel back to the wounded place, the hurt place, feel all the feelings, but then this time, right now, in the present moment of time, we're going to see if we can transform that hurt into like what I referred to earlier, an actual triumph, we will create the experience that was missing so that your organism can move forward with a completely new healed story.

Speaker 1: And what that does, and again, this is where I love it, that the science backs us up, not only have we transformed this present moment, but now this present moment, just think of it as a computer file, we've just created a new computer file that you now put back into your memory banks, your filing system, that transforms your past memories, and makes them less painful.

Speaker 1: And then all of your new future experiences that you're going to create, are now going to be informed by your mind now has a story that you know what, this particular moment won't work out as bad as I used to think it would.

Speaker 1: And so you're going to be better equipped to meet future moments that are going to look scary, you could get hurt, you'll be better at being able to also turn those future moments into a positive experience for you, and whoever else is involved in that experience with you.

Speaker 2: So let's take a look at how this, you know, fictional scenario really sets up that happening for a character.

Speaker 2: Dad, Arnold's gonna come out to his parents this weekend.

Speaker 2: Oh good on you mate, I'm sure they'll be very happy for you.

Speaker 2: I was thinking maybe, um, you could pretend to be Arnold's dad, and Arnold can tell you that he's gay, and then you can accept him as like a little practice.

Speaker 2: Oh no Josh, I'm not really in the mood.

Speaker 2: Okay, sorry Arnold, my dad he can't even pretend to accept who you are, unacceptable.

Speaker 2: Oh um, that's cool.

Speaker 1: Okay, okay.

Speaker 1: Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2: Um, dad, there's really no other way of saying this, I wanted to let you know that, um, I'm gay.

Speaker 2: Well that's great news, thanks for telling me.

Speaker 2: Maybe on the weekend you can take me to the shops and teach me to dress better.

Speaker 2: Sure thing pal.

Speaker 2: Just a little stereotypy.

Speaker 2: I didn't like it, nope, I didn't like it, not one bit, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, I did not like it.

Speaker 2: Did I overact?

Speaker 2: No, no I want more.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: I wasn't moved, Claire were you moved?

Speaker 1: I'm sorry I couldn't hear.

Speaker 2: Arnold, maybe you can cast your mind back to when you were in the choir, yes?

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 2: Okay, yes, sing over there, and dad.

Speaker 2: I don't want to sing.

Speaker 2: You can play Arnold's dad's learning tolerance.

Speaker 2: Yes, this, we love this.

Speaker 2: I really don't want to sing.

Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, sorry dad.

Speaker 2: Yeah, Arnold doesn't want to cheer you up, he just doesn't care about your heart.

Speaker 2: I just don't really think that it's your choice, Arnold.

Speaker 2: Just that.

Speaker 2: Party girls don't get hurt, can't feel anything, who will I learn?

Speaker 2: I push it down, I push it down.

Speaker 2: Wow, Arnold, you have a beautiful voice.

Speaker 2: Dad, you idiot, you're playing his dad now, okay?

Speaker 1: It's an awful voice, yuck, yuck voice, come with me.

Speaker 2: All phones blowing up, they're ringing my doorbell.

Speaker 2: I feel the love, I feel the love.

Speaker 2: I think you should put on this hat, yes?

Speaker 2: And then I want you to go in there, being disappointed in Arnold and how he's defying traditional gender roles with this Nazi boy singing.

Speaker 2: Sit, grumpy, and then as the song changes, gradually change your mind.

Speaker 2: Throw them back till I lose count.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier.

Speaker 2: And this is where you should start changing your mind.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna live like tomorrow doesn't exist, like it doesn't exist.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna fly like a bird in the night, feel my tears as they dry.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier.

Speaker 2: Nope, Tom, no dance.

Speaker 1: That's my boy.

Speaker 1: That's my son.

Speaker 2: Dad, I'm not sexually attracted to women.

Speaker 2: I'm proud of you, even though you're gay, because it doesn't matter that you're gay.

Speaker 2: What matters is that you're a good person.

Speaker 1: Nailed it.

Speaker 2: Is that you after sessions?

Speaker 2: Nailed it.

Speaker 1: Nailed it, exactly.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that is, yeah, it is actually, right?

Speaker 1: That's what I'm always trying to see if we can create.

Speaker 1: There's a lot of things they do in that scene, right?

Speaker 1: So let me just say it in general first, and then I don't know if it's good to go through it more slowly, exactly what they did, because almost like every sentence is important.

Speaker 1: There's a purpose to it.

Speaker 1: Hey, figs from the future here.

Speaker 1: We never ended up actually recording where I go through it beat by beat, but I did do it with the therapist on the empathy team, and it was quite a powerful video, if I do say so myself.

Speaker 1: If you want to see it, you can get early access by signing up in the link in the description here or in the show notes for this episode.

Speaker 1: So we know Arnold, right?

Speaker 1: The character that had this experience in his past where his father, you know, was not very accepting of him, and he's, you know, scared to come out to his dad, right?

Speaker 2: I actually looked up a little bit and I saw on the wiki that he had some experience in the past with his father not accepting him with relation to the choir.

Speaker 1: Yeah, the father is definitely, you know, the stereotypical Australian, not all Australian men are like this.

Speaker 1: But you know, there is a stereotype of macho Australian men, you know, sports, you know, like, obviously, I don't fit the Irish stereotype talking about feelings, right?

Speaker 1: So there's obviously not all stereotypes are true, right?

Speaker 1: But so yeah, look, he got he got hurt.

Speaker 1: And it's unimaginable that he could tell his dad because he's experienced not being accepted for who he is on a fundamental level, right?

Speaker 1: So what they were able to do in this scene is create the missing experience of being accepted by his dad, right?

Speaker 1: Here's the thing that is often very hard for me to explain to people, but they did it really well here, right?

Speaker 1: That there's no point in being accepted instantly.

Speaker 1: Because remember, like, you know, they eventually coaxed the dad to, okay, I'll enact for you, like, you share your day and I'll just go, yay, I accept you, right?

Speaker 1: That's great news.

Speaker 1: Thanks for telling me.

Speaker 1: But we're not immersed in the experience.

Speaker 1: They're right when they go, no, no, no, that's not, I didn't feel it, right?

Speaker 1: Like, I wasn't feeling it, right?

Speaker 1: So the first thing we have to do is enter fully that I'm back in the place that I'm not acceptable.

Speaker 1: Unacceptable.

Speaker 1: And there's no way I will be acceptable.

Speaker 1: So we actually have to create that living, breathing experience of it's happening right now, the pain.

Speaker 1: So, you know, it's no fun as I always talk about that kids book, if our listeners and viewers are familiar with, we're going on a bear hunt.

Speaker 1: We can't go over it.

Speaker 1: We can't go around it.

Speaker 1: We got to go through it, right?

Speaker 1: And so in this instance, the going through it is we're going to firstly go deeply into the pain of I'm unacceptable.

Speaker 1: I'm trying to make it for reals this second, this second, right?

Speaker 1: That I'm fully immersed and I'm unacceptable and there's no way I'll be acceptable, right?

Speaker 1: And so then we actually need the dad to start from a place of I do not accept you.

Speaker 1: It's unimaginable.

Speaker 1: I will accept you.

Speaker 1: And then so what they are able to use by him singing is brilliant, right?

Speaker 1: Because once like he's singing the song, he's back in the choir and not being acceptable.

Speaker 1: Arnold is physically and emotionally completely immersed in the present moment of singing and he has time travel back to the choir.

Speaker 1: He is back in that choir as a child and his father is in the audience, right?

Speaker 1: We're seeing them reenacted in a room, but emotionally inside Arnold is completely back immersed in that experience and he lets himself sing more and more passionately and lets himself be who he is.

Speaker 1: And even though he's risking finding out I'm not acceptable again by my father.

Speaker 1: And then you see the dad make the transition, but not too quickly, right?

Speaker 1: Where I am fully immersed and being the dad that does not accept my son.

Speaker 1: And then I have this feeling inside of me that emerges.

Speaker 1: It's an emergent quality of loving and accepting my son and then sharing it.

Speaker 1: And then Arnold gets to get, this is the key we're always trying to do.

Speaker 1: There was something I didn't get back then.

Speaker 1: I'm back in the pain right now of not having it.

Speaker 1: But oh my word, it looks like I'm about to get what I needed back then right now.

Speaker 1: And can I let it in right now?

Speaker 1: And I don't know if you saw like Arnold is so beautiful.

Speaker 1: Not only did he risk not being accepted again, you know, in those terrifying, you know, his friends, you know, egged him on, goaded him on.

Speaker 1: Like, I don't think it's your choice, right?

Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, there might be slightly gentler ways I might help people get over their Not quite as, you know, emotionally manipulative, yeah.

Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 1: But look, but that's it.

Speaker 1: You do need to help people kindly, gently get over their resistance.

Speaker 1: It's actually often more of an abandonment of people.

Speaker 1: It look, this is where part of the art and the craft is, you know, and hey, listen, this is really enough.

Speaker 1: And like, we're not going to go any further versus, hey, we got to slow down now.

Speaker 1: But I would be abandoning you if we didn't help you sing this song, right?

Speaker 1: Because we're right here approaching this threshold of an experience you really need.

Speaker 1: And even though you're going to resist it, because it's terrifying to feel your deepest pain again of being unaccepted, right?

Speaker 1: And let's think about this as a couple, one member of a couple, probably some, like I'm about to find out I'm not important to my partner again, I'm not really loved or the other member I'm about to discover, no matter what I do, they're going to be disappointed in me.

Speaker 1: And I actually am going to encourage them to enter that extreme pain and risk reaching out to each other to have that missing experience, right?

Speaker 1: That you're here now, I'm important to you now.

Speaker 1: Or I really am enough now, right?

Speaker 1: So it's a gradual process to create these transformational experiences, right?

Speaker 1: But here's the thing, at the very end, this is another piece of the work, Arnold is able to let in, you really are here now in the way you weren't, you being his dad, right?

Speaker 1: I'm able to let in my dad is here now, in the way he wasn't back then.

Speaker 1: So this is the other thing, right?

Speaker 1: We can heal a lot of trauma, a lot of pain, imaginatively, right?

Speaker 1: This is another really big point, right?

Speaker 1: A lot of times people are like, but look, my dad, heaven forbid is dead, or, you know, like, that relationship is over, right?

Speaker 1: Or there's no point in trying to talk to my mother.

Speaker 1: There's just no way, right?

Speaker 1: You know, which a lot of us, like, really, I'm going to go tell my mother about the way I was hurt.

Speaker 1: And she's going to show up and listen.

Speaker 1: She's going to love me.

Speaker 1: And I'm going to let it in.

Speaker 1: And we're going to hug it out.

Speaker 1: Look, for a lot of people, they're making an accurate assessment.

Speaker 1: That's not going to happen.

Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean we can't do that work.

Speaker 1: We can create the imaginal situation that we re-enter the pain, actually provide the experience, and you could let it in now.

Speaker 1: And then here's the beautiful thing.

Speaker 1: This transformational present moment, now it becomes a past experience that goes back into our filing cabinet of all our past memories and literally infects all of the files where I'm never going to be accepted.

Speaker 1: Look at all this data I have that confirms I won't be accepted.

Speaker 1: Well, guess what we just did?

Speaker 1: We just created this huge experience of, oh, my God, I was sure I wasn't going to be accepted.

Speaker 1: I risked being myself.

Speaker 1: I actually got accepted, and I let it in.

Speaker 1: It changes all the past files.

Speaker 1: It literally rewrites the past files.

Speaker 1: I mean, not completely, right?

Speaker 1: But it alters them that they're not as bad.

Speaker 1: And so then, right, now, when we go out into the world, the next moment, and I go to Starbucks, and I go, I really want a Frappuccino with extra whipped cream.

Speaker 1: And I go, I can't ask for that.

Speaker 1: People are going to judge me.

Speaker 1: I can't say it out loud, right?

Speaker 1: I'm now more likely to be able to say, this is a really silly example off the top of my head, right?

Speaker 1: But it's even in small little ways, not big ways, right?

Speaker 1: I could say in Starbucks out loud, I love Frappuccinos with extra whipped cream, which I've never.

Speaker 1: I want to just make a statement here.

Speaker 1: Like, I have never had a Frappuccino.

Speaker 1: I actually don't even know what they are.

Speaker 1: Exactly.

Speaker 1: But I'll have to try.

Speaker 2: Relationship expert, but not a coffee expert.

Speaker 1: Not a Frappuccino.

Speaker 1: Not really.

Speaker 1: No, I'm a kind of Americano.

Speaker 1: One Americano a day.

Speaker 1: And of course, you're getting me right after it.

Speaker 1: But so here's the thing, right?

Speaker 1: We've now this transformational present moment.

Speaker 1: You've changed all your files somewhat in the past.

Speaker 1: We probably have to do something like this a few times.

Speaker 1: It's not just one and done.

Speaker 1: And you're now better able to have happy, connected, accepted, you know, chosen moments in the rest of your life.

Speaker 1: So just like you're right.

Speaker 1: I can't remember the main character's name, right?

Speaker 1: And please like me, right?

Speaker 1: Who says at the end, nailed it.

Speaker 2: The director, as I've been calling him in my head.

Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: The director, right?

Speaker 1: Look, a lot of times my clients don't get it.

Speaker 1: I gotta be honest.

Speaker 1: They don't really get what made the change that they feel so much better inside themselves and with each other because they still are stuck in a story that it's content and it's about what happened in the past and fixing what happened in the past, right?

Speaker 1: How do we change our behavior?

Speaker 1: How do we communicate better?

Speaker 1: They don't get, and that's okay, that what really happened is we effing nailed it in the session.

Speaker 1: We did that scene.

Speaker 1: We did that scene.

Speaker 1: Now, it's fine they don't ever get it, right?

Speaker 1: It's fine that they think, no, like we actually just communicate better, right?

Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1: Like Steph, for me, that's it, right?

Speaker 1: Being the director, creating that emotionally transformational experience, that's why I do the work, right?

Speaker 1: It's just magical, magical to help people.

Speaker 1: You know, to have Arnold have that experience of never being acceptable to having been accepted and loved, I just can't believe I get to do that for a living, right?

Speaker 1: It's amazing.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's fulfilling, like the thing they've been looking for their whole life.

Speaker 2: They carry the message about themselves and their relationship with other people from that initial primary relationship with their caregiver.

Speaker 2: And then sometimes it's not a great message.

Speaker 2: And then you get to, within the context of a relationship, create that missing experience of getting the message that they've been waiting for, prolonging for.

Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1: And that's where like psychotherapy with someone that knows what they're doing.

Speaker 1: And I do need to emphasize that, right?

Speaker 1: That not all psychotherapy is the same.

Speaker 1: Obviously, cognitive behavioral therapy has a place, but it's not a cognitive behavioral therapist would admit freely.

Speaker 1: They're not trying to create transformational present moments, right?

Speaker 1: That's not what they're doing.

Speaker 1: And then look, even people that would call themselves experiential psychotherapists.

Speaker 1: Look, it's a craft, right?

Speaker 1: Like, you know, just like you could be a filmmaker, but there's only one Steven Spielberg.

Speaker 1: There's only one Martin Scorsese, right?

Speaker 1: There's only one Jane Campion, right?

Speaker 1: Like, they're just people that they're the best at their craft, right?

Speaker 1: Myself and Teal and hopefully most of the members of the empathy team are going to be craftspeople forever, right?

Speaker 1: We're not technicians, right?

Speaker 1: If you come to see us, if you do psychotherapy or coaching with us, we're going to try and help you create these emotionally transformational experiences, not just teach you how to communicate better, right?

Speaker 1: Not just give you skills, because this is the most powerful way that you can end up having a better life with the least amount of suffering.

Speaker 1: Okay, so let's say an individual comes.

Speaker 1: How do we do this with an individual, right?

Speaker 1: Let's say an individual like is heartbroken from a past relationship or trauma from their childhood, right?

Speaker 1: Whatever it is, right?

Speaker 1: So obviously, the first thing is you just have to create safety in the relationship with the therapist.

Speaker 1: We'll just say me for now, right?

Speaker 1: So it's simple, right?

Speaker 1: So if I'm the therapist, we've got to create safety that I'm the kind of person that you could just feel safe talking to.

Speaker 1: So this is really important.

Speaker 1: For some people, that's going to be like, I got to access my inner Northern California hippie and have the big hippie eyes.

Speaker 1: And for other people, it's going to be I could totally go for a pint with that guy in a pub.

Speaker 1: So you have to be able to have a lot of flexibility, right, with each person that you be able to meet who they are right now, their character, who they are in the world, right?

Speaker 1: Before you try and take someone like one of the ways I explain this is like, you got to be able to have a few different conversations.

Speaker 1: The first conversation is you have to be able to have a conversation in a cafe or a pub, right?

Speaker 1: That someone, their character strategy, their personality would feel comfortable talking to you.

Speaker 1: Then if you win that, if you're like, yeah, I'm down, like you passed the, I'd have a beer with you or a coffee with you, then we can have a conversation inside the doors of a cathedral, the main church, right?

Speaker 1: And I'm not religious, but just, you know, the way like you walk into certain types of architecture and you lower your voice and it becomes, oh, this is actually quite, quite important, right?

Speaker 1: You just don't, people don't have frivolous conversations inside the cathedral.

Speaker 1: Each word is important, right?

Speaker 1: Then now let's say I earned the right that you're down with talking to me inside the main room of a cathedral.

Speaker 1: But then there's another room off the back, right?

Speaker 1: Right above the altar.

Speaker 1: And in the back, the Vespary, I think it's called, right?

Speaker 1: Where like now we could go back there and back there is where we're going to have a ceremony.

Speaker 1: And that's what they just did, right?

Speaker 1: For a ceremony, we leave our everyday consciousness.

Speaker 1: We enter this realm of the imaginal and emotional that there's a huge consequence, right?

Speaker 1: I could die.

Speaker 1: I could not be accepted again.

Speaker 1: I could feel my worst pain.

Speaker 1: And I'm going to risk going in there with a guide, right?

Speaker 1: Shaman figs, right?

Speaker 1: That's what I'm doing in these moments, right?

Speaker 1: And we're going to see, could we use this moment that we're deep inside a ceremonial process to get this big transformation?

Speaker 1: And then we come out the other side, a whole new person, literally a new person.

Speaker 1: I can do that and be that person for the individual.

Speaker 1: And then with a couple, the beauty is I'm just trying to create and craft the experience so that it's not me that is going to be the loving presence.

Speaker 1: I'm actually just trying to craft the experience.

Speaker 1: So they will be that for each other.

Speaker 2: I wanted to get a little bit more into the missing experience piece in terms of can you explain like why that matters?

Speaker 2: And that sort of gets into the research that you mentioned from Lisa Feldman Barrett.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So the way all human beings meet the present moment in all circumstances is our brain is making an assessment of what is true right now.

Speaker 1: Your brain is telling you a story about what is true right now based on how it has experienced moments similar to this in the past.

Speaker 1: So a lot of people are fine with understanding that that's true for very traumatic moments, but that's true for all moments, right?

Speaker 1: Like my favorite simple definition of trauma is traumas anytime the past merges with the present.

Speaker 1: But look, that's always what's happening.

Speaker 1: Your brain determines what you do now based on a combination of what's somatically actually happening, what's the signals the body is sending right now, this moment of the brain mixed with and when did I experience this in the past?

Speaker 1: And that determines what you do, right?

Speaker 1: That story that the body and brain are creating, right?

Speaker 1: As if they're two separate things.

Speaker 1: They're not quite right.

Speaker 1: But do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1: But that's why we still have that.

Speaker 2: Your organism.

Speaker 1: It's hard not to think of your organism.

Speaker 1: That is what is going to determine what you tell yourself, what the story is you're telling yourself is happening right now and how you have to respond, right?

Speaker 1: So let's say every time, you know, someone says, will you go for lunch with me?

Speaker 1: And you go, no, I won't go for lunch with you, right?

Speaker 1: Chances are, right?

Speaker 1: Just using this again, a silly example.

Speaker 1: There are some files back there in the past where you were invited for lunch and you went and no one showed up and you start at the restaurant, right?

Speaker 1: And so now someone invites you for lunch and your body starts sending, you know, these signals, right?

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: You know, activates and then your brain goes through the files of the past.

Speaker 1: Oh, I know what happens when I'm invited to lunch.

Speaker 1: I get hurt and I get, I'm standing outside in the rain and I'm the only one that showed up.

Speaker 1: No, I won't go for lunch with you.

Speaker 2: I think the thing people miss is that you're not going to be conscious of when that is happening.

Speaker 2: Like, you know, sometimes when, oh, this is like a triggering thing, but this is happening constantly, like every moment of every day, your memories are informing the way that you perceive and interact with the world.

Speaker 1: Absolutely.

Speaker 1: All the time.

Speaker 1: All the time.

Speaker 1: But look, it's easiest to study this and transform it on the big ones.

Speaker 1: Weirdly, right?

Speaker 1: On the really big ones, right?

Speaker 1: Like, you know, like, let's say, you know, let's use this silly example, right?

Speaker 1: Let's say that person came into my office, right?

Speaker 1: That is like, look, every time someone comes, asks me to go for lunch, I jumped down their throat.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: I'm like, what's going on?

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Let's say they just I'm losing a lot of friends because all they have to do is ask me for lunch and like I shout at them, right?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Like I'm like, how dare you ask me for lunch?

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Well, that's great.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: So now maybe they could be curious about, okay, so being asked for lunch is obviously a prompt from the present moment that is activating your body into thinking something bad is going to happen.

Speaker 1: And then your cognitive part of your brain goes back through the files.

Speaker 1: What are the experiences?

Speaker 1: And even if you're not conscious of it, like I get hurt when I risk going for lunch.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: So that's great.

Speaker 1: Let's imagine just even putting that together.

Speaker 1: So at least now you actually make sense.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Like there's the first thing, right?

Speaker 1: Like, look, it totally makes sense.

Speaker 1: And now someone asks you for lunch.

Speaker 1: It reminds you where you got hurt.

Speaker 1: There's actually and then we'd have to, again, the way we do it, we're not going to try and get rid of being hurt.

Speaker 1: We do it is we actually are going to accept.

Speaker 1: Of course it would hurt.

Speaker 1: You got left out in the rain when you showed up for lunch and no one was there.

Speaker 1: We'd actually grieve and hurt now the way we couldn't grieve and hurt then because that's what almost a missing experience.

Speaker 1: You see that it's OK to hurt.

Speaker 1: And it's OK to be sad about you.

Speaker 1: No one was there when you went for lunch.

Speaker 1: I get it.

Speaker 1: It makes sense.

Speaker 1: That really hurts your feelings.

Speaker 1: Could there any way you could risk trying again now, now that your feelings of being hurt and it's scary to go for lunch are valid feelings.

Speaker 1: Right now, as your therapist, I can't actually go for lunch with you.

Speaker 1: But we could creatively find that missing experience where I invite you for lunch and you dare to say yes.

Speaker 1: And it totally makes sense that it's scary because you got hurt before.

Speaker 1: We could show up for therapy with sandwiches.

Speaker 1: Each of us a little bit.

Speaker 2: But yeah, but as I understand it, you have to kind of do what this character in Please Like Me did, where it's like poking the bear a bit like you're trying to stoke the pain part before you can actually have the rewarding part.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it was interesting you used the word poke.

Speaker 1: One of the things we say in emotionally focused therapy a lot is we press on the pain.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: We press.

Speaker 1: So in fact, I like this gesture.

Speaker 1: We press now lovingly.

Speaker 1: Not again.

Speaker 1: It's really important.

Speaker 1: It doesn't may not sound lovingly.

Speaker 1: Again, imagine someone comes in and they say, if any more people ask me for lunch, I'm going to eat them.

Speaker 1: That's who I'll eat for lunch.

Speaker 1: Their own personhood.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Whatever.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Like, I'd be like, yeah, that totally makes sense.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: When people ask you for lunch, they don't get how painful it is for you when you get stood up.

Speaker 1: Even just that that reframe I added in, it's painful.

Speaker 1: I just I pressed even that as a tiny press on the pain.

Speaker 2: Kind of like a doctor trying to find out pressing your stomach to see, does it hurt over here?

Speaker 1: Exactly.

Speaker 1: But here's where we go a little further is, yeah, look, I'm I'm going to validate the reaction.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Let's eat them together.

Speaker 1: Let's cook them.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: But so I'm going to validate the reactivity so they will leave me alone.

Speaker 1: They'll trust me.

Speaker 1: Think of them as a separate person.

Speaker 1: Who are these people that think I have time off in the middle of the day?

Speaker 1: I'll be like, yeah, don't they know how busy you are?

Speaker 1: What are they like kept housewives?

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: You know, I'll just validate them whatever way I can do it.

Speaker 1: So I'm going to have to make sure that one knows I'm a friend.

Speaker 1: And then I'm going to use the fact that I'm friends with that one as an opportunity to go.

Speaker 1: But I probably really hurts when you're invited for lunch and no one shows up.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: And then I'm going to keep doing that.

Speaker 1: I'm going to keep trying to come back to and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Just keep bringing them back subtly, creatively.

Speaker 1: And it hurts.

Speaker 1: And then, of course, can you feel that hurt right now?

Speaker 1: Would it be OK for a minute if the one that's preparing like a recipe for cooking your friends would actually leave us alone?

Speaker 1: And I could only talk to the one that actually really hurts when I do say yes.

Speaker 1: And they don't show up.

Speaker 1: And so now I'll have succeeded in.

Speaker 1: So now let's just be an immersed and it hurts.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: And then we can accept and validate that one.

Speaker 1: You don't have to protect yourself, but keep saying no to lunch.

Speaker 1: We could actually just hurt because it does hurt.

Speaker 1: And if we get deeply into it, deep, deep, deep down into it, they're just in the hurt and grieving.

Speaker 1: Then we can craft the missing experience, which is off the top of my head.

Speaker 1: Would you go for lunch with me?

Speaker 1: Like what if the next therapy session?

Speaker 1: And what if even right now you and I share a sandwich, get something to eat, go grab a banana?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So that sort of experience is somebody asking them for lunch and then they have to do the vulnerable thing of accepting it.

Speaker 2: And then they get their sort of reward of like everyone shows up and is there to like actually accept me.

Speaker 1: And then they let it they let it in.

Speaker 1: But every step of that is really difficult.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: But yeah, we need to get them deeply embedded in the I'm scary to accept lunch because I hurt, be in the hurt.

Speaker 1: Someone then, you know, risk offering, well, could we have lunch now?

Speaker 1: Well, and then no, no, no, I couldn't.

Speaker 1: I couldn't.

Speaker 1: Like it has to be has to feel real like it's happening right now.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Like another way I would say is like we've instead of actually taking acid or you're tripping, we actually it feels like we're totally immersed back in that experience.

Speaker 1: I'll get really hurt if I say yes.

Speaker 1: And we're not like don't even ask me for lunch.

Speaker 1: That part is remember, we we negated that part by accepting them so much that we got to talk to the hurt part like on their own.

Speaker 1: And then whether it's I, the therapist asked, would you have lunch or we could actually help the person as, hey, if I say yes to lunch, will you promise you'll show up?

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Really vulnerable thing to ask.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: What is the missing experience?

Speaker 1: Because it really hurts when you're not there.

Speaker 1: And to put down the person like, oh, my God, I really get it.

Speaker 1: Of course, that hurts.

Speaker 1: I am definitely there.

Speaker 1: I'm going to be there.

Speaker 1: Will you have lunch with me right now?

Speaker 1: What's it like to hear that?

Speaker 1: Let it in.

Speaker 1: So now that person hopefully do that once or a few times, the next time a friend asked them for lunch, they go, you know, I'd actually really like to go for lunch with you.

Speaker 1: But I'm scared to say yes, because, like, I got hurt before about lunch.

Speaker 1: And you actually mean so much to me that if I said yes and you don't show up, it's going to be awful.

Speaker 1: Now, hopefully they're a good friend and they go, my God, of course, I would never not show up.

Speaker 1: But that's even if that seems a bit dramatic, that's that's dramatically better than you like lunch, lunch, jumping down the throat of your friends.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Now, by the way, like you said, most people don't know they're doing this because it's going to make logical sense to the person that they jump down other people's throats when they invite them for lunch.

Speaker 1: So let's let's take this out of a silly example.

Speaker 1: Let's say you have been hurt around not being prioritized both as a kid and in relationship.

Speaker 1: And then your spouse comes home two hours late from work.

Speaker 1: You're waiting in the dark when they come home, carving a knife, sharpening it.

Speaker 1: Well, I see you decided to show up.

Speaker 1: Now you're going to think, listen, clearly their behavior is wrong.

Speaker 1: Just present moment.

Speaker 1: They said they'd be home.

Speaker 1: They were late.

Speaker 1: It makes completely logical sense that I am absolutely pissed at them because of what they did.

Speaker 1: And of course, I'd be sharpening my knife or poking pins in the voodoo doll of them that I created.

Speaker 1: You're going to think like you're just this is just sound present moment experience I'm having in response.

Speaker 1: But look, let's just say everything we just talked about.

Speaker 1: Hey, listen, the past has merged with the present, right?

Speaker 1: Your body just activated.

Speaker 1: It got really threatened.

Speaker 1: See, I don't matter again.

Speaker 1: It's calling on all the old files that are multiplying the amount of pain, right?

Speaker 1: I mean, and now what you think is just a logical response to the present moment is you're actually responding to not only this present moment, but this present moment has been multiplied by all your past experiences.

Speaker 1: And so now your spouse, heaven help them, just comes in after saving babies at the local tragedy that unfolded.

Speaker 1: And you're, you know, and of course, they have their own their own like stuff, too.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: But so that's the idea, right?

Speaker 1: Really, what works is we got to like find what is this place that you're hurting?

Speaker 1: Can we feel it?

Speaker 1: Could we love and accept that part of you?

Speaker 1: And could we deeply enter that place experientially so it feels real right now and then give you the love that you needed back then right now?

Speaker 1: So we change all the past files in your memory banks.

Speaker 1: We change how your body reacts in a present moment in the future also so that you're better able to have those missing experiences that you long for next time and with your partner the next time they come home late or whatever it is.

Speaker 2: So what is something you would like the audience to sort of take away from this episode apart from the context of like therapy, but within the context of relationships and understanding themselves and understanding how people work?

Speaker 1: It's much easier than you think to turn things around in your life, both when you have past experience that were very hard for you for you on your own as an individual, right?

Speaker 1: Whether that's what your family of origin or your peers as a kid or in your relationship, if you can find someone who can actually help facilitate, guide you through these transformational experiences and the process of getting into them and transforming present moment so that it changes all your memories of the past and changes what's possible for you in the future.

Speaker 1: It's just amazing what a difference it can make, right?

Speaker 1: And it's very different what people expect will make things better.

Speaker 1: So I would just highly encourage people to risk doing the work, right?

Speaker 1: Because, I mean, look, it changed my life, right?

Speaker 1: Just to be clear, I don't just help other people do this.

Speaker 1: I was the client and did all of this experiential work myself in both personally and in relationship for years and years and years before I ever started facilitating these experiences for others, right?

Speaker 1: I got to work with masters, masters as the client before I dared to sit in the role of the facilitator of these experiences, right?

Speaker 1: Like I think I've mentioned in a previous episode, it was unimaginable I could ever do what these people did, right?

Speaker 1: Like creating where people are back in their childhood wounding and I'm actually, you know, getting the love that they needed, right?

Speaker 1: And just profound getting to do that for myself and witness other people do it in real life, living moments of time.

Speaker 1: So the real message is, I promise you, you can heal.

Speaker 1: Things can get better.

Speaker 1: Definitely.

Speaker 2: That's a great way to end the episode, I think.

Speaker 1: Well, thank you for listening, watching and what else?

Speaker 1: I mean, just, you know, we're here.

Speaker 1: That's it.

Speaker 1: That's our pitch.

Speaker 1: That's the pitch we have.

Speaker 1: We're here.

Speaker 2: Here we are.

Speaker 1: Empathywithanion.com

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