UDSKRIFT 🔗
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Welcome to the Observatory Podcast.
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With your hosts, Scott and LaRae Wright.
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Join us each week as we explore living life from
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the inside out. Welcome back to the Observatory Podcast. Today,
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Rae and I are going to sit down together and
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have some conversations about the code word is trauma, but
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it's not really trauma. We're going to hide it. try
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to lighten that word up a little bit, discuss some
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of the things and experiences we've had in our lives,
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and kind of open up an opportunity for maybe a
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new series to unfold where we're having conversations together on
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a monthly basis. Ray is in the middle of a
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modality called Compassionate Inquiry with Gabor Mate, and she's able to,
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through that experience, really gain some powerful insights about herself
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and our relationship and other things that we're doing together.
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And we've been having some cool experiences lately we're going
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to discuss. So we invite you to sit back, relax,
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and enjoy this conversation on the Observatory Podcast. Welcome back
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to the Observatory Podcast. Ray and I are sitting in
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our home on this beautiful Monday morning starting out the week.
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Yeah, it's a beautiful day.
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The weather's starting to turn.
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Oh, thank goodness.
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Coolness in the evenings finally in early August here. Mid-August,
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I guess it is now. And we returned from a
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trip home.
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Yeah, we took a quick trip north.
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One day up and back to our home is in
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the Bear Lake Valley of Idaho. And we stopped through
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one of our favorite places on the way back in
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Brigham City and got some fresh peaches.
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Yeah, those Utah peaches. This time of year, nothing better.
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It was so good.
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We had peaches and raspberries, which the Bear Lake Valley
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is also famous for raspberries. So we had raspberries and
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peaches this morning.
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I know, with cream. So we're living the large life.
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It was delicious.
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I love this time of year. We're moving out of
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summer and into autumn. And as we traveled up to
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our home, we had the opportunity to spend some time
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with one of my siblings there and also one of
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Ray's siblings. We went to breakfast with her. brother and
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we stayed with my brother who has a home up
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there and, uh, got a chance to visit and talk
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about things that we just talk about, right? Life and
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memories and all of the things. And, uh, it kind
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of led us into, uh, uh, something that we've been
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kind of working on each of us individually in our
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own lives. And that is, uh, things that we've been bringing,
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things that have kind of just shown up from our childhood, right?
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For me, I'm going to just talk about my experience,
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things that I haven't really thought about in years and
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years and years. And I wouldn't call it childhood trauma,
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but that's kind of the word that gets thrown about
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out there, right? Right.
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Well, you know, speaking of seasons, I'd like to look
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at it like it's a season, right? Events that happen
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in our life when we're young, And how we adapt
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to those and how that adaptation creates patterns in our life.
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And at some point it served us.
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Yeah.
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We made it, we gave it meaning. And then it's
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what we have found is now in our life, we're
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revisiting a lot of those patterns. We've become really curious
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about the pattern. And whether or not the pattern, we're
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ready for it not to serve us or it's just
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the question, right? Right. does it serve me or why
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am I this way? And so some of that has
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come up because as we've looked at and kind of
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wanted things to shift in our world, the first step
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is becoming aware of the patterns that we have that
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keep us from those shifts. Right.
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The places we kind of get stuck. Right.
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And without even knowing that we're stuck, right? Yeah.
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Or not even being aware that there's something stuck. Right.
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So it's that awareness and it is like a season,
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you know, and, You become curious about it. So we've
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just had these really beautiful conversations lately because there are
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things that are coming up that's an invitation to see
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it differently. Yeah.
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The metaphor that makes sense to me that I like
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to look at is, you know, we've got this creation
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that we've come up with as humanity called the computer.
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And computers are really just a mirror reflection of who
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we are. It's just information, right? And that's what we are.
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And you put different kinds of software into a computer
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to have it do different kinds of things, and you
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get to determine what all of that is. But as
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human beings, our software gets downloaded and gets put into
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our operating system in the early years of our lives.
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And sometimes we're aware of it, and sometimes we're not
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aware of it. And we talk about it as, quote-unquote,
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like we just mentioned, childhood trauma. But it's also the
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culture of how you grew up, where you grew up,
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what kind of an environment you were in, whether it
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had religion as part of it, what political party was there,
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whether you lived in the city or the country, or
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whether you lived in the desert or the mountains. All
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of those things are kind of the software programs that
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determine our perspective of how we're going to view life
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through that software. program which downloaded in the beginning.
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Right and even within a family you know we both
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come from large families so we'll talk but that we've
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you know we really understand that no one experiences childhood
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the same even though you're all raised by the same
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parents and in the same home everyone's experience is very
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different there's a lot of external factors you know the
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which number of child you are when you come into
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the family the economics of the family, the age of
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the parents, the age of the siblings, the circumstances that's
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happening in that time, your personality, there's just a lot
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of factors that really attribute that no two children raised
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in the same family have the same childhood. And so
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it's not to make anything right or wrong, your experience
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better than my experience. It's just to acknowledge that those
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experiences are different for a reason. And the reason is
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because of you. Right. You're the one that's translating the
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events and the experiences in the family, and you're the
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one that's giving meaning to those. And so that meaning,
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trauma is really, we can have traumatic events, but trauma
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is not the event as much as it is the
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experience or the result of how you dealt with that
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external event.
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Your reaction to it.
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What you made meaning for it and what happened in
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the body. So there can be a lot of somatic
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depth to it and that's where it feels stuck because
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there's a lot of experience and experience is more of
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a somatic, right? That feeling, that feeling is more of
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a somatic experience in your body rather than an intellectual
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experience that you have to process through your feelings or
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through your thinking. You have to process it through your
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feeling and we, we stuff those feelings.
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I think for a lot of years, I don't ever
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remember anything like this being taught to me that it
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was stuck somewhere in my body in a somatic way.
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It was always in my head somewhere. It was stored
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in some back reaches of my brain somewhere, which the
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way the research is being done now, especially you've been
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working with Gabor Mate and the compassionate inquiry work, And
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that's what they're talking about all the time. And you've
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got to not only experience it as the
information that
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they're giving, but actually having experiences of your own of
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feeling it in your body.
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Right, applying it. And it's really opened my eyes to,
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first of all, my understanding of trauma, right? Because I
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kept thinking, well, I don't really have big traumatic events
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in my life, which thank goodness I don't have large
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traumatic events. I have a couple, but not ongoing. But
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I do have a lot of things that I adapted to.
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And everyone has those. That is part of living. No
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one doesn't have them. And so it's just whether or
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not you become curious about them.
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And do you call them traumatic events or not? Because
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your interaction with it is going to say this was
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traumatic or this wasn't traumatic. I mean, you lost your
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mom in that car accident when you were 27 years old.
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Right, and I would call that a big traumatic event.
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Yeah.
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And that is something that I've seen all seven of
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the children and my father, we all process very differently.
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And even though we shared that event, the experience and
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the relationship that each of us have to that event
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have differences and similarities, but they are each of us
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uniquely different as to what we made that mean.
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Do you think that that event... shaped your life differently
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than it would have been subsequent. Does that make sense?
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Oh, I definitely think that it shaped my life differently. I,
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see a lot of things from that event. Well, you've
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got to remember, I had a totally different physical experience
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with it because I was in the car. I was
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tremendously injured. None of the others had that aspect of
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the event. And there were aspects of the emotional side
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of the event that that i missed i didn't attend
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the funeral i didn't have those final goodbyes um so
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there you weren't.
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Aware until a day or two later that your mother
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had actually passed.
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Away about a day later uh or even maybe that
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night um.
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You know mostly due to the fact that you were
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just not even really coherent right.
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Right i you know i was fighting to live i
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kept asking where she was but um But everyone got
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that message right away that she had passed and that
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the accident had happened. But if you look at what
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that meant, okay, that's a defining moment. An event happened,
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and from that day forward, everyone's story changed based on
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how they scripted that event and what it meant for them.
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So I look at my sisters and my brother and
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my father, And all of them were at different places
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in their life.
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Different seasons, right?
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Different seasons. Some had really small children. Some had some
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older and some younger children. And so some were unmarried
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and single. My youngest sister was 19. So there was
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a lot of life events that hadn't started for her.
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A lot of my other sisters were married and had children.
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So all of that background came in and contributed to
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this new event that just happened, and what it was
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going to mean for them. And so when we make meaning,
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that's where the traumatic event is one thing, because that
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is the one thing that is similar for all of us.
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The event, regardless of how you describe it, happened exactly
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the same for all of us. But how we then
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took that event, what we gave meaning to, what we
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fixated on, if you would, then that's where trauma comes
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in because there's a first aspect of trauma is where
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you respond to certain things with real rigidity and you
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don't become flexible. And so all of a sudden you
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program yourself to say, wow, this feels like this. I'm
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never going to feel this way again.
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This was my experience and I'm going to go back
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to this feeling every time I have the memory of it. Right.
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So like, oh, this feels really painful too. have someone pass.
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And now every time I talk about dying or death,
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I'm going to remember this moment and how bad it feels,
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for example. Or like, you know, seeing a cop car
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or however anyone heard, I don't think this was the situation,
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but perhaps a cop came to the door. That didn't
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happen for us. But now whenever I see a cop
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car coming, I'm going to have that memory. I'm going
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to feel that memory. So The first aspect of trauma
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is when something happens and you interpret it and you
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create this rigidity and you start to frame your experience
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in a really programmed way that constricts you. And then
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the second aspect of trauma is when what you're feeling
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is so big and it feels too much. And so
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you disconnect from that. You're like, I can't feel this.
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This feeling is going to consume me. And so because
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I can't feel this, I'm just going to disconnect from
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this feeling and ignore it.
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I'm going to put it back here in the back somewhere.
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Or stuff it deep. And so what that does is
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that starts to teach you not to trust your feelings,
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not to trust your gut instinct. And so feelings get suppressed,
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and that's the second aspect of trauma. And then the
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third aspect of trauma is what any event can shape
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your worldview. And we were hit by a lumber truck.
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So maybe my worldview is now, lumber trucks are dangerous.
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Every time you see a lumber truck, you get triggered. Right.
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That's a danger. I can't pass that truck. That truck
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is unreliable in the way it drives. So I'm using
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that as an extreme measure. But you start to frame
246
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your world in a different way. And some of the aspects,
247
00:14:35.710 --> 00:14:40.129
like after losing your mother very young, your worldview could
248
00:14:40.190 --> 00:14:43.129
be I'm really jealous of everyone who has a mother.
249
00:14:44.710 --> 00:14:48.730
So no one knows how you start to frame your world,
250
00:14:48.830
--> 00:14:51.190
but you start to have this aspect of the world,
251
00:14:51.950 --> 00:14:55.509
your worldview, that is now different because of the event.
252
00:14:55.840 --> 00:14:57.929
But you're choosing all of that. Do you see how?
253
00:14:58.399 --> 00:15:04.820
So trauma is this response that you create. And because
254
00:15:04.840 --> 00:15:07.960
you have created it, it forces you to live in
255
00:15:07.980 --> 00:15:12.090
the past because you've now created that as an anchor
256
00:15:12.149 --> 00:15:20.429
inside of you. And so Gabor likes to say that
257
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we're prisoners of our past. And because of that, the
258
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fourth aspect of trauma is that it is impossible to
259
00:15:30.720 --> 00:15:34.179
be in the present world because the present world is
260
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too dangerous.
261
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:38.279
That's a story you're telling yourself because of whatever....
262
00:15:40.019 --> 00:15:42.980
Experience you've had right because something could come that I'm
263
00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:47.820
unprepared for and so and so we choose to live
264
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in our past where we've created now all these conditions
265
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and we've adapted and that adaptation is really the invitation
266
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to start saying what from your childhood because everyone had
267
00:16:01.230 --> 00:16:04.950
it it starts in childhood when we were young and
268
00:16:05.669 --> 00:16:08.700
we had to adapt in order to live in our
269
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circumstances and in, in the world, because we come in
270
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as these, you know, unadapted beings, very connected to source. And,
271
00:16:18.809 --> 00:16:20.889
and we have a lot of curiosity and freedom and
272
00:16:21.470 --> 00:16:25.230
to live in earth school. We, it is part of
273
00:16:25.250 --> 00:16:29.190
the human process to start making adaptations. And so then
274
00:16:29.230 --> 00:16:32.970
we go through life and at some point, and what
275
00:16:33.049 --> 00:16:36.090
we're seeing is that that, that point is happening for
276
00:16:36.129 --> 00:16:40.200
younger people. We're in our 60s and it's happening for us.
277
00:16:40.779 --> 00:16:43.210
But we see people that it's happening in their late 20s,
278
00:16:43.240 --> 00:16:47.409
early 30s. And the world is shifting. People are becoming curious.
279
00:16:47.669 --> 00:16:50.190
And then there are other people who are not becoming
280
00:16:50.230 --> 00:16:56.429
curious at all. It is very fearful to question some
281
00:16:56.450 --> 00:16:59.830
of their deeply held beliefs. Because when you make an adaptation,
282
00:17:00.289 --> 00:17:05.130
you create a belief. And if that belief is not true...
283
00:17:05.349 --> 00:17:08.170
or I don't become curious about it and question the belief,
284
00:17:08.789 --> 00:17:09.549
what does that mean?
285
00:17:09.569 --> 00:17:16.230
Yeah. I'm going to ask you a question. This is
286
00:17:16.250 --> 00:17:19.690
going to be maybe vulnerable. It's not something we've talked
287
00:17:19.730 --> 00:17:22.029
about ahead of time, but I'm just going to point
288
00:17:22.089 --> 00:17:24.470
something out to you. And I've pointed it out before,
289
00:17:24.549 --> 00:17:27.430
but just based on the conversation that we're talking about
290
00:17:27.470 --> 00:17:31.579
right now. So, and I think you already know this,
291
00:17:31.599 --> 00:17:33.720
and you'll willingly admit that you're not a very good
292
00:17:34.250 --> 00:17:36.450
passenger in the passenger seat.
293
00:17:36.549 --> 00:17:38.430
Oh no, I'm terrible. I'm terrible.
294
00:17:38.829 --> 00:17:44.190
And when we're driving somewhere and anything feels even a
295
00:17:44.730 --> 00:17:48.700
little bit unsafe to you, you react. And I notice
296
00:17:48.740 --> 00:17:53.279
how you react. I mean, you grab the door, you
297
00:17:53.319 --> 00:17:57.940
have a reaction that's beyond what it would be had
298
00:17:57.980 --> 00:18:01.210
you not... Do you attribute it to the accident or
299
00:18:01.230 --> 00:18:03.289
do you what do you attribute that to?
300
00:18:03.369 --> 00:18:05.970
Yes, definitely. I attribute to the accident, like when we're
301
00:18:05.990 --> 00:18:10.289
following and I suddenly see, um, cars in front of
302
00:18:10.349 --> 00:18:12.670
us putting on their brakes and we're still zooming ahead
303
00:18:13.390 --> 00:18:16.329
and we're not starting to slow down. I have a
304
00:18:16.710 --> 00:18:21.950
real reaction to that because just frozen in my mind
305
00:18:22.910 --> 00:18:27.910
is us on the road, nothing ahead of us. They're,
306
00:18:28.089 --> 00:18:30.750
they're not being anything in front of us. And then
307
00:18:30.930 --> 00:18:35.440
in the, in a nanosecond, the grill of that semi
308
00:18:35.559 --> 00:18:38.259
in front of us and us crashing. So I have
309
00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:39.299
this sense that.
310
00:18:39.319 --> 00:18:41.640
That moment in time is frozen and it's in your body.
311
00:18:41.660 --> 00:18:43.849
It's totally in my body. It is stuck in there.
312
00:18:43.980 --> 00:18:51.069
And I know that seconds cannot be managed. And so
313
00:18:51.730 --> 00:18:54.490
when we're driving fast and I can see the taillights
314
00:18:54.609 --> 00:18:57.930
starting to be hit, I want us to be more
315
00:18:58.650 --> 00:19:00.950
responsive to slowing down because.
316
00:19:02.619 --> 00:19:05.779
I have a story that says you cannot anticipate between
317
00:19:05.839 --> 00:19:09.400
here and a second from here the danger that could happen.
318
00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:12.200
And you feel like you're out of control because you're
319
00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:12.880
not driving.
320
00:19:13.099 --> 00:19:15.740
I feel like I could be hurt. I feel unsafe.
321
00:19:17.319 --> 00:19:19.500
And I've said that to you. I've said, you know,
322
00:19:19.700 --> 00:19:23.519
I know that this is something that you don't feel.
323
00:19:23.539 --> 00:19:27.019
I know this is something totally that I feel. And
324
00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:30.559
I've said to you, please just be sensitive to the
325
00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:36.089
way I feel, because my feeling is more irrational. Pushing
326
00:19:36.109 --> 00:19:42.049
the boundary isn't gonna repair me. Pushing the boundary and saying, see,
327
00:19:42.069 --> 00:19:46.730
we didn't crash, it re-traumatizes me. It actually re-traumatizes me.
328
00:19:47.410 --> 00:19:50.180
And it makes me wanna ride in the backseat. know,
329
00:19:50.279 --> 00:19:52.420
or it makes me want to drive, or it makes
330
00:19:52.480 --> 00:19:55.220
me not want to go when I'm not the driver.
331
00:19:55.819 --> 00:19:58.940
So I have all those interactions that is going to
332
00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:02.500
come into play and keep me safe. And so, you know,
333
00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:06.119
that's where as a loving partner, you have become sensitive,
334
00:20:06.619 --> 00:20:10.380
more sensitive to My reaction, and while it's not the
335
00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:15.349
way you would drive, you see and you get cued
336
00:20:15.430 --> 00:20:19.190
to slowing down sooner. Yeah. And sometimes you forget it.
337
00:20:19.210 --> 00:20:24.559
Because I'm not always 100% present with that in my mind.
338
00:20:24.670 --> 00:20:26.859
Right. But as soon as I grip the side of
339
00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:29.819
the door or the dashboard, you start to slow down.
340
00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:35.059
And so it's just there. And perhaps through more work,
341
00:20:35.099 --> 00:20:38.750
I could let that go. But that is a really
342
00:20:39.970 --> 00:20:44.630
event that I've adapted to. And the adaptation is start
343
00:20:44.650 --> 00:20:49.329
slowing down sooner. Start controlling the moment before the moment
344
00:20:49.730 --> 00:20:52.910
cannot be controlled. Because I lived through a moment that
345
00:20:52.950 --> 00:20:56.210
could not be controlled. And the cost was significant.
346
00:20:56.369 --> 00:21:03.569
Sure. And I have compassion for that. And... You know,
347
00:21:04.049 --> 00:21:06.430
I do try and make the best effort that I can,
348
00:21:06.470 --> 00:21:09.349
but there are times that I forget. And it also
349
00:21:09.470 --> 00:21:13.910
is a little bit traumatizing to me because of my
350
00:21:14.069 --> 00:21:18.720
own old story, my own software programming, which is, you know,
351
00:21:18.799 --> 00:21:22.380
I'm the youngest. And so being the youngest, my voice,
352
00:21:23.259 --> 00:21:26.980
this is, again, my perspective, my voice seemed to have
353
00:21:27.079 --> 00:21:33.569
less significance, less importance than other voices have. The event
354
00:21:33.609 --> 00:21:36.690
in my life, your car accident, the event in my
355
00:21:36.730 --> 00:21:39.509
life that changed everything was when my family went from
356
00:21:40.609 --> 00:21:45.700
four boys, my brothers, Jeff, Glenn, and Steve and I,
357
00:21:46.589 --> 00:21:49.130
me being six years younger than the next oldest to me.
358
00:21:50.900 --> 00:21:54.079
In 1967, when I was six years old, my uncle,
359
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:57.720
my father's brother, passed away. And then his family of
360
00:21:57.779 --> 00:22:02.130
four children came into our family. two boys, two girls.
361
00:22:02.190 --> 00:22:04.849
So we went from four to eight overnight. Me being
362
00:22:04.869 --> 00:22:11.099
the youngest, I had all the attention. And, uh, I
363
00:22:11.119 --> 00:22:12.859
wouldn't say all the attention, but I had a good
364
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:16.019
amount of attention, uh, being the youngest. I was, I
365
00:22:16.059 --> 00:22:20.579
was spoiled. I was, uh, uh, an attention hog. Uh,
366
00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:26.160
I enjoyed the attention. And then that shifted in 1967
367
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:30.579
when I was six, that shifted significantly, uh, Looking back
368
00:22:30.700 --> 00:22:33.500
on it, I see that. Going through it at the time,
369
00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:38.000
it was showing up for me. I can feel it
370
00:22:38.039 --> 00:22:40.000
in my body, and I can remember some of the
371
00:22:40.019 --> 00:22:43.349
memories of some of the things that I experienced. But
372
00:22:45.470 --> 00:22:50.950
I didn't really look at it as trauma in my life, quote, unquote,
373
00:22:51.750 --> 00:22:58.059
until I've started trying to just allow things to come up.
374
00:22:58.339 --> 00:23:01.940
Right. Right. And so if you think about that experience,
375
00:23:02.259 --> 00:23:05.619
we're in a car and we're driving and I start
376
00:23:05.640 --> 00:23:09.400
to see the taillights. So that triggers my response, my
377
00:23:09.460 --> 00:23:14.259
trauma response. And I want us to slow down, which
378
00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:17.380
then triggers your response that I'm not in control.
379
00:23:17.420 --> 00:23:18.400
I'm not a good enough driver.
380
00:23:18.460 --> 00:23:24.720
I'm not right. So then if we weren't loving and kind,
381
00:23:25.259 --> 00:23:28.180
what would happen is that we would push to see
382
00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:29.180
whose trauma wins.
383
00:23:30.430 --> 00:23:34.890
And I think initially in our experiences together, we did
384
00:23:34.930 --> 00:23:35.390
some of that.
385
00:23:35.690 --> 00:23:39.450
Right. But then what happens is when you lean into
386
00:23:39.490 --> 00:23:43.519
that and you start to really understand the mirror, then
387
00:23:43.539 --> 00:23:48.059
it starts to shift. And as you slow down, and
388
00:23:49.500 --> 00:23:54.180
I thank you for doing that, and I am very
389
00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:59.150
receptive to now I feel safe again. it reinforces your value,
390
00:23:59.170 --> 00:24:04.269
that you're driving well. And it reinforces that I don't
391
00:24:04.309 --> 00:24:08.309
have to remind you that danger is ahead. So it
392
00:24:08.410 --> 00:24:13.029
starts to slowly repair both of our traumatic experiences when
393
00:24:13.089 --> 00:24:16.410
we can show up with each other and both be
394
00:24:16.470 --> 00:24:21.720
responsive to each other. Because then you naturally start slowing down.
395
00:24:22.740 --> 00:24:26.710
I say thank you and feel much safer. I don't
396
00:24:26.750 --> 00:24:29.089
feel like I have to prompt you anymore because you're
397
00:24:29.130 --> 00:24:32.309
naturally doing it. And you feel in control and that
398
00:24:32.349 --> 00:24:35.569
you're valued and you're a safe driver. And so that
399
00:24:35.650 --> 00:24:40.359
is where we can move beyond our traumatic experiences. And
400
00:24:40.690 --> 00:24:45.019
they can actually shift. And it suddenly can be an
401
00:24:45.059 --> 00:24:49.539
experience that we've moved beyond the traumatic experiences if we
402
00:24:49.579 --> 00:24:51.869
stay locked in those experiences. It's going to be the
403
00:24:51.930 --> 00:24:54.529
same experience. It's going to be like Groundhog Day every
404
00:24:54.569 --> 00:24:57.130
time we get in the car. You're going to drive
405
00:24:57.170 --> 00:24:59.630
too fast. I'm going to ask you please to slow down.
406
00:24:59.710 --> 00:25:04.130
I feel unsafe. You're going to say, that's crazy. I'm
407
00:25:04.170 --> 00:25:08.069
in control. You're totally safe. And neither of us heal.
408
00:25:08.769 --> 00:25:11.970
And in fact, our relationship gets strained. Yeah.
409
00:25:13.130 --> 00:25:17.190
Well, you know what? To quote my brother Paul, who
410
00:25:17.369 --> 00:25:22.079
is quoting Rain Man, I'm an excellent driver. I really
411
00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:25.099
am an excellent driver. I've been in one accident in
412
00:25:25.140 --> 00:25:28.539
my lifetime. And that accident was because I was driving
413
00:25:28.599 --> 00:25:33.519
down the road and someone let someone through to get
414
00:25:34.140 --> 00:25:36.609
onto State Street. And they pulled right in front of me,
415
00:25:36.650 --> 00:25:38.509
didn't see me, and I hit him. Right.
416
00:25:38.930 --> 00:25:41.009
But it isn't... You know, that's the part that is
417
00:25:41.029 --> 00:25:44.190
just really fascinating. It's not about you being an excellent driver.
418
00:25:44.210 --> 00:25:44.910
Oh, I know. I know.
419
00:25:44.970 --> 00:25:46.230
It's about me feeling safe.
420
00:25:47.210 --> 00:25:49.690
And that's the point. But what that brings up in
421
00:25:49.730 --> 00:25:53.130
me is I... I'm going to just freely admit that
422
00:25:53.150 --> 00:25:57.970
I'm an excellent driver, and that's not being arrogant. I'm
423
00:25:58.029 --> 00:26:05.059
a super safe, defensive-type driver. I'm watching out for other people. Now,
424
00:26:05.299 --> 00:26:09.319
if I see traffic slowing down on the, say it's
425
00:26:09.339 --> 00:26:11.359
a double lane and on
the right side, if I
426
00:26:11.400 --> 00:26:14.160
see traffic slowing down, I slow down, even though I
427
00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:16.819
might have a straight path through, because I'm watching for
428
00:26:16.859 --> 00:26:19.269
someone to pull out in front of me. And that's
429
00:26:19.660 --> 00:26:22.470
what that accident and experience brought up for me. I'm
430
00:26:22.930 --> 00:26:26.509
super careful in that situation. And it's not to say
431
00:26:26.549 --> 00:26:29.069
that things don't just happen. I mean, you guys had
432
00:26:29.210 --> 00:26:33.009
no fault of your own when the lumber truck shifted.
433
00:26:33.029 --> 00:26:36.109
They braked to avoid someone, and it shifted them into
434
00:26:36.150 --> 00:26:38.730
your lane, and then the accident happened. It was no
435
00:26:38.829 --> 00:26:42.029
one's fault, but it is an event.
436
00:26:42.589 --> 00:26:44.049
Right, and you and I have had an event where
437
00:26:44.089 --> 00:26:45.049
we both almost died.
438
00:26:45.069 --> 00:26:46.009
I was going to mention that.
439
00:26:46.069 --> 00:26:53.099
So, you know, it's not so much... The event. It's just...
440
00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:56.640
I know, as a passenger in the car, that there
441
00:26:56.900 --> 00:26:59.660
are moments where the moment from where I'm at right
442
00:26:59.700 --> 00:27:04.000
now to the next moment is unsafe. And that can
443
00:27:04.059 --> 00:27:06.680
happen whether you're the most excellent driver.
444
00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:06.880
In the world.
445
00:27:07.180 --> 00:27:10.650
There's been a contest and you've won. It can be
446
00:27:11.150 --> 00:27:14.549
when you're driving or a sister's driving. My sisters all
447
00:27:14.609 --> 00:27:17.410
complain about it. It's not just your experience with me.
448
00:27:18.130 --> 00:27:19.049
It's anyone.
449
00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:20.839
anyone you're writing.
450
00:27:20.640 --> 00:27:23.660
That i'm writing with and in fact i will i
451
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:27.190
will purposely say i'm not writing in front because i
452
00:27:27.230 --> 00:27:30.509
know as a front passenger my experience is very different
453
00:27:30.569 --> 00:27:33.869
than a back passenger and so i know that about
454
00:27:33.910 --> 00:27:39.759
myself and i i actively take precautions to not re-traumatize
455
00:27:39.799 --> 00:27:43.500
myself because it is painful it is painful.
456
00:27:43.650 --> 00:27:45.410
Well, I'm not going to name any names, but I
457
00:27:45.450 --> 00:27:47.519
know some people that you have ridden with that are
458
00:27:47.799 --> 00:27:49.000
not excellent drivers.
459
00:27:49.539 --> 00:27:51.460
Well, and again, it doesn't matter about the driving.
460
00:27:51.500 --> 00:27:55.200
It's dramatic for me, too. But what I do want
461
00:27:55.220 --> 00:27:57.700
to mention is that experience that we had. We were
462
00:27:57.720 --> 00:28:02.109
coming back from Arizona, and there was a semi in
463
00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:05.509
front of me. We were driving through the reservation lands
464
00:28:05.809 --> 00:28:11.819
just kind of north of Cameron, headed towards Page. And
465
00:28:11.859 --> 00:28:16.599
those roads are super windy and hilly. They're not level.
466
00:28:17.339 --> 00:28:21.119
And I was trying to pass this semi in front
467
00:28:21.140 --> 00:28:23.960
of us. So I gunned it, went around him. And
468
00:28:24.019 --> 00:28:25.789
as soon as I gunned it, went around him, it
469
00:28:25.980 --> 00:28:29.269
looked to me like everything was clear. But I didn't
470
00:28:29.349 --> 00:28:31.230
realize that there was a dip in the road. And
471
00:28:31.529 --> 00:28:35.190
as I hit the gas, a car came up out
472
00:28:35.210 --> 00:28:37.309
of that dip in the road that I didn't even
473
00:28:37.369 --> 00:28:40.150
realize was there. And it was too late really to
474
00:28:40.210 --> 00:28:45.960
do anything. And I instinctively, I don't know how it
475
00:28:46.019 --> 00:28:49.420
even happened. Rather than, I didn't feel like there was
476
00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:51.380
time for me to slow down and get back behind
477
00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:55.400
him because we were almost past him. I thought about
478
00:28:55.509 --> 00:28:58.230
just gunning it and getting past him. And instead, I
479
00:28:58.289 --> 00:29:01.490
pulled on the left side of the road.
480
00:29:01.710 --> 00:29:04.769
You went even further left into the kind of like
481
00:29:04.789 --> 00:29:05.250
the ditch.
482
00:29:05.269 --> 00:29:06.190
The edge of the road.
483
00:29:06.210 --> 00:29:06.930
The edge of the road.
484
00:29:06.970 --> 00:29:09.829
It was still pavement. I wasn't like driving in the gravel.
485
00:29:10.619 --> 00:29:13.559
And then that car passed between us and the semi.
486
00:29:14.299 --> 00:29:16.200
And then at that point, again, I didn't feel like
487
00:29:16.339 --> 00:29:18.259
I had time to get back behind the semi. So
488
00:29:18.299 --> 00:29:20.359
I just gunned it and got in front of him
489
00:29:20.420 --> 00:29:24.259
and passed him. And both of us were super traumatized
490
00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:26.910
by the event. And as soon as there was a
491
00:29:26.940 --> 00:29:29.809
pullout about a mile ahead, I pulled over. And as
492
00:29:29.869 --> 00:29:32.619
I pulled over, I mean, every car that was behind
493
00:29:32.619 --> 00:29:35.769
us had seen what happened. And they were all honking
494
00:29:35.769 --> 00:29:38.990
and waving their middle fingers out the window. You know,
495
00:29:39.049 --> 00:29:42.490
I had totally made a mistake. Almost could have injured
496
00:29:42.730 --> 00:29:45.440
us severely, could have injured the people coming severely.
497
00:29:45.460 --> 00:29:49.140
Yeah, I'm sure the car coming was very traumatized.
498
00:29:48.579 --> 00:29:49.400
About the event.
499
00:29:49.640 --> 00:29:50.299
And we don't even know.
500
00:29:50.740 --> 00:29:51.430
No idea who it was.
501
00:29:51.440 --> 00:29:53.720
Neither one of us had an experience of seeing how
502
00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:56.140
many people were in that car because, I mean, I
503
00:29:56.200 --> 00:29:59.630
screamed and then braced for... braced to be.
504
00:29:59.559 --> 00:30:01.440
Hit you thought it was going to be the the
505
00:30:01.500 --> 00:30:02.259
event again.
506
00:30:02.079 --> 00:30:06.240
Yeah i screamed and just braced to be hit um but.
507
00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:08.400
Let me let me continue for just a second because
508
00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:11.140
what happened after that we pulled the car over it
509
00:30:12.740 --> 00:30:16.690
gave me a significant amount of compassion in that moment
510
00:30:17.430 --> 00:30:20.549
more compassion than i had had before about your experience
511
00:30:20.589 --> 00:30:24.910
because it was a close call super close call and
512
00:30:25.309 --> 00:30:27.460
i remember that we got out of the car and
513
00:30:27.500 --> 00:30:30.740
we were both in tears And we just embraced and
514
00:30:31.359 --> 00:30:33.519
were in total gratitude. I really don't know how we
515
00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:39.019
avoided the accident. It was super, super difficult and traumatizing.
516
00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:40.579
I remember telling my kids about it when I got
517
00:30:40.619 --> 00:30:44.529
home and they were all kind of re-traumatized by just
518
00:30:44.650 --> 00:30:48.170
sharing the experience with them because it was significant to me.
519
00:30:49.309 --> 00:30:52.789
And from that point moving forward, it has come back
520
00:30:52.890 --> 00:30:57.400
to me as when I'm, when I'm feeling like you're,
521
00:30:57.519 --> 00:31:00.579
when I'm going back to my own little, uh, youngest
522
00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:04.720
child syndrome of I'm an excellent driver or, you know,
523
00:31:04.740 --> 00:31:07.339
why are you judging me or I am a good
524
00:31:07.380 --> 00:31:10.279
driver or any of that stuff because of the way
525
00:31:10.319 --> 00:31:13.400
you're responding to something that I'm doing. Um, I just
526
00:31:14.420 --> 00:31:17.109
try and quiet my mind down and say, you know, this,
527
00:31:17.329 --> 00:31:20.990
this is what she's feeling and it's from this experience
528
00:31:21.029 --> 00:31:21.869
that you've had in your life.
529
00:31:21.930 --> 00:31:27.289
Right. And that's where, you know, um, working with Gabor
530
00:31:27.309 --> 00:31:33.930
Mate and Compassionate Inquiry, you realize that these responses, these adaptations,
531
00:31:34.430 --> 00:31:37.049
have nothing to do with you. I mean, as much
532
00:31:37.109 --> 00:31:39.009
as you would like it to mean that my response
533
00:31:39.069 --> 00:31:42.130
is being a criticism of you, my response is being
534
00:31:42.150 --> 00:31:44.049
a response to my experience.
535
00:31:44.069 --> 00:31:44.650
Yes, absolutely.
536
00:31:45.049 --> 00:31:46.490
And so that's where.
537
00:31:46.509 --> 00:31:48.470
It took me time to realize that, though.
538
00:31:49.089 --> 00:31:52.470
But that's where the work really lies, because I think
539
00:31:52.569 --> 00:31:56.980
that is... As humans, that is our natural response. Life
540
00:31:57.200 --> 00:32:03.309
is a defensive game. And we are constantly seeking, unconsciously,
541
00:32:03.910 --> 00:32:08.869
validation of our experience. So if we're constantly seeking that
542
00:32:08.910 --> 00:32:11.950
validation of our experience, and I told myself when I
543
00:32:12.019 --> 00:32:16.279
was six years old, eight years old, five years old,
544
00:32:17.019 --> 00:32:22.640
that the world is unsafe, then I I am validating
545
00:32:22.839 --> 00:32:27.289
every moment and every day that experience subconsciously. And so
546
00:32:27.329 --> 00:32:32.250
compassionate inquiry prompts you to just be really curious to
547
00:32:32.289 --> 00:32:36.049
the first time you felt an emotion, the first time
548
00:32:36.089 --> 00:32:41.180
you felt an experience and return to that because that's where,
549
00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:46.200
however you made that mean. And imagine you're six years old.
550
00:32:46.220 --> 00:32:50.279
There's no way six, five, seven, There's no way you
551
00:32:50.319 --> 00:32:57.509
could in that moment at that age make meaning other
552
00:32:57.549 --> 00:33:02.009
than meaning that helped you adapt to survive in that
553
00:33:02.089 --> 00:33:05.630
moment as a five-year-old. So you're not making the meaning
554
00:33:05.829 --> 00:33:09.640
as a 25-year-old, a 30-year-old, a 40-year-old. You're making it
555
00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:13.680
mean with your little five years of experience. And then
556
00:33:14.019 --> 00:33:16.539
that is shaping and framing the rest of your life.
557
00:33:17.140 --> 00:33:20.380
Now the car accident happened when I was 27. So
558
00:33:20.940 --> 00:33:24.779
that is an experience that from 27 on to now,
559
00:33:25.019 --> 00:33:27.779
you know, I'm going to be 67 this year. So
560
00:33:28.480 --> 00:33:34.180
for 40 years I, I have revalidated that experience every
561
00:33:34.200 --> 00:33:37.829
time I'm in a car. But the ones when I'm
562
00:33:37.869 --> 00:33:42.670
a lot younger, you know, revalidating those experiences can be
563
00:33:43.369 --> 00:33:46.839
because the accident was such a traumatic event that I'm
564
00:33:46.920 --> 00:33:49.240
so aware of that. I have a lot of consciousness
565
00:33:49.400 --> 00:33:52.529
about that. But the events that happened when I was younger,
566
00:33:52.549 --> 00:33:56.049
I don't have a lot of consciousness about. For example,
567
00:33:56.470 --> 00:33:59.930
the other day, as I'm going through this training, one
568
00:33:59.950 --> 00:34:03.109
of the aspects of the training is to work with
569
00:34:03.410 --> 00:34:08.590
someone who's already trained and is a compassionate inquiry therapist facilitator.
570
00:34:09.630 --> 00:34:13.349
And as I was working, the way every
experience, every
571
00:34:13.409 --> 00:34:17.460
session starts is you state an intention. And I've been
572
00:34:17.539 --> 00:34:20.320
really working on wanting to find more joy in my
573
00:34:20.380 --> 00:34:23.940
life and to feel the presence of joy in my
574
00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:27.860
life more frequently, more readily, you know, just be able
575
00:34:27.900 --> 00:34:29.679
to pull and draw upon it. And it doesn't mean
576
00:34:29.719 --> 00:34:32.739
that my life is sad. It's not. But I want,
577
00:34:33.199 --> 00:34:37.219
I just have this innate knowing that I could feel
578
00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:40.449
more joy every day. Like I could feel that just
579
00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:44.829
my heart full of joy every day if I understood
580
00:34:44.909 --> 00:34:48.449
why I don't. And so as we started that session,
581
00:34:50.030 --> 00:34:53.530
you know, and we were talking about joy, the question
582
00:34:53.570 --> 00:34:59.800
came up, you know, what limits you? And I said,
583
00:34:59.840 --> 00:35:02.199
you know, I put a lot of expectations on myself.
584
00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:07.239
You know, I, and then the question is like, well,
585
00:35:07.260 --> 00:35:09.900
how do you do that? And I'm like, you know,
586
00:35:10.139 --> 00:35:13.900
I kind of live by a to-do list. Now, am
587
00:35:14.019 --> 00:35:18.679
I thinking that there's anything traumatic in this? Anything bad
588
00:35:18.719 --> 00:35:22.619
about this other than my constant to-do list? And the
589
00:35:22.659 --> 00:35:26.099
question was, you know, took me to when did you,
590
00:35:26.500 --> 00:35:29.340
do you recall when you first had a to-do list
591
00:35:29.400 --> 00:35:32.860
or when you first made the to-do list very important?
592
00:35:33.079 --> 00:35:34.449
When did the software get downloaded?
593
00:35:34.469 --> 00:35:38.449
When did the, when did I create that meaning to
594
00:35:38.469 --> 00:35:44.480
a list? And it's, fascinating how compassionate inquiry works because
595
00:35:44.519 --> 00:35:48.400
it creates such safety. There's nothing right or wrong. It's
596
00:35:48.440 --> 00:35:52.599
just this beautiful curiosity that takes you deeper into yourself
597
00:35:53.019 --> 00:35:56.099
to ask those questions for me, for Loray, not for
598
00:35:56.139 --> 00:36:00.480
anyone else, but just for me. And suddenly I saw
599
00:36:00.539 --> 00:36:04.380
myself as a very young child and my to-do list
600
00:36:04.420 --> 00:36:10.860
was my summer chore chart. And, um, where as I
601
00:36:11.019 --> 00:36:15.159
would do my chores, I would get stars on my
602
00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:18.139
to-do list. So I was rewarded. I would get the
603
00:36:18.179 --> 00:36:22.150
attention of my mother. She had seven small children, so
604
00:36:22.190 --> 00:36:26.269
her attention was divided. There was no way anyone got
605
00:36:26.289 --> 00:36:27.949
it all the time because there were seven of us
606
00:36:28.030 --> 00:36:32.829
and my father, so eight. But I would get her attention,
607
00:36:34.329 --> 00:36:36.380
and she would be very happy that I had finished
608
00:36:36.409 --> 00:36:39.820
my chores. I also knew that there was no play
609
00:36:40.010 --> 00:36:40.949
until chores were done.
610
00:36:41.340 --> 00:36:42.010
You'd get a star.
611
00:36:43.010 --> 00:36:46.469
And I did get stars. But so there's like all
612
00:36:46.530 --> 00:36:51.269
these things that I'm seeing attached to, wow, a really
613
00:36:51.369 --> 00:36:57.849
young experience of a list. And it doesn't, you know, again,
614
00:36:57.969 --> 00:37:01.469
it's not meant to criticize anything about the list. You know,
615
00:37:01.510 --> 00:37:04.769
some sisters may have a really beautiful experience with the list.
616
00:37:06.130 --> 00:37:09.860
And I... Definitely, it worked for me. It gave me
617
00:37:12.619 --> 00:37:15.000
what I just said. It gave me structure. It gave
618
00:37:15.059 --> 00:37:19.710
me discipline. It gave me reward. Goal setting. Right. All
619
00:37:19.750 --> 00:37:23.550
those stars, all that. So I definitely, there were things
620
00:37:23.630 --> 00:37:26.789
that worked for me as a young child that are
621
00:37:26.809 --> 00:37:31.820
not working for me now at 66. The chart, the
622
00:37:31.880 --> 00:37:35.679
list has become a prisoner. So now in my life,
623
00:37:35.800 --> 00:37:39.679
I get to revisit that And I get to choose again.
624
00:37:39.699 --> 00:37:41.079
You're just curious, right?
625
00:37:41.139 --> 00:37:43.679
Right. I'm just curious. I'm not blaming the list. I'm
626
00:37:43.699 --> 00:37:45.059
not saying I should never have had it.
627
00:37:45.059 --> 00:37:46.300
It's not your mom's fault.
628
00:37:46.340 --> 00:37:49.349
It's not my mom's fault, my siblings. And it served
629
00:37:49.389 --> 00:37:52.750
its purpose. It gave meaning and brought something to my life.
630
00:37:53.469 --> 00:37:56.309
But now I am somewhat of a prisoner of the list.
631
00:37:56.469 --> 00:37:59.130
In fact, I told you that there are times I
632
00:37:59.150 --> 00:38:01.320
will put things on the list that weren't on there,
633
00:38:01.570 --> 00:38:03.119
but that I've done them just so I could take
634
00:38:03.159 --> 00:38:05.619
them off. Mm-hmm. So that I could feel that sense
635
00:38:05.679 --> 00:38:06.239
of reward.
636
00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:07.360
Accomplishment.
637
00:38:07.440 --> 00:38:14.380
Accomplishment. And so now my relationship with the list, I
638
00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:16.760
get to choose to make it differently. I get to
639
00:38:16.860 --> 00:38:23.130
say I can play before the list. I get gold
640
00:38:23.190 --> 00:38:26.429
stars for things that are not on the list. I
641
00:38:26.449 --> 00:38:28.730
get gold stars for just waking up in the morning
642
00:38:29.030 --> 00:38:32.090
and choosing for the first two hours to have nothing
643
00:38:32.190 --> 00:38:36.449
to do. what if I
rewarded myself for that? I
644
00:38:36.489 --> 00:38:39.659
would then gravitate to that, right? And so it's just
645
00:38:39.719 --> 00:38:45.559
this bigger question about something that I gave meaning to
646
00:38:46.739 --> 00:38:49.900
that has kept, that served me for, you know, that
647
00:38:50.019 --> 00:38:54.639
adaptation definitely served a purpose, but is now limiting me
648
00:38:55.840 --> 00:39:00.230
in experiencing life differently. And I'm ready for that difference.
649
00:39:01.010 --> 00:39:04.510
I don't need the structure. I don't, need the list.
650
00:39:04.710 --> 00:39:09.269
The list is now keeps me a prisoner. And so
651
00:39:09.349 --> 00:39:13.960
it's just this really beautiful way to have compassion for yourself,
652
00:39:14.679 --> 00:39:19.000
to have that inquiry, that curiosity to say, you know,
653
00:39:19.480 --> 00:39:24.030
what am I, what am I doing? And to understand that,
654
00:39:24.849 --> 00:39:26.829
you know, when I see someone else around me that
655
00:39:26.889 --> 00:39:30.639
is maybe driven by a list, asking them a question about, well,
656
00:39:30.679 --> 00:39:34.099
what would happen? What does the list give you? And
657
00:39:34.139 --> 00:39:36.400
what would happen if the list wasn't in your life?
658
00:39:37.570 --> 00:39:40.710
What freedom would that give you? So it's just a
659
00:39:40.750 --> 00:39:45.869
really interesting aspect to revisit and become curious about your
660
00:39:45.929 --> 00:39:50.710
life and create more freedom in your life from these
661
00:39:50.889 --> 00:39:58.639
traumatic things, this trauma. Again, I always associated trauma with
662
00:39:58.860 --> 00:40:02.860
big events, traumatic events. But there's these little traumas, little
663
00:40:02.900 --> 00:40:06.400
T's they call them, that really shaped and defined our
664
00:40:06.460 --> 00:40:10.380
life and created a pattern in your life that perhaps
665
00:40:10.420 --> 00:40:14.179
doesn't serve you or that limits you. And what could
666
00:40:14.219 --> 00:40:16.659
happen in your life if that limitation was removed?
667
00:40:18.320 --> 00:40:20.579
And I think it's important to note that You know,
668
00:40:21.219 --> 00:40:25.000
it's not never too late to notice those things and
669
00:40:25.199 --> 00:40:27.849
allow them to dissipate. It's not like you'll never make
670
00:40:27.889 --> 00:40:31.170
another list in your life. But it is that your
671
00:40:31.190 --> 00:40:33.230
relationship with the list changes.
672
00:40:33.590 --> 00:40:35.889
Right. Well, we found that I have to make a
673
00:40:35.889 --> 00:40:38.340
list because I forget things. Yeah. So when we're going
674
00:40:38.380 --> 00:40:39.860
to Costco, I have to make a list.
675
00:40:39.940 --> 00:40:42.159
Me too. If you don't make me a list, something's
676
00:40:42.179 --> 00:40:42.800
going to get missed.
677
00:40:42.900 --> 00:40:44.300
Or we get there and we're like, now what did
678
00:40:44.340 -->
00:40:47.539
we need? So again, there are reasons for a list
679
00:40:47.659 --> 00:40:51.460
to serve me still. Sure. But when it comes to
680
00:40:51.539 --> 00:40:54.940
me having a relationship to my day.
681
00:40:54.960 --> 00:40:56.380
To feel safe.
682
00:40:56.980 --> 00:41:00.760
To feel safe or to feel valued. That's probably the
683
00:41:00.780 --> 00:41:06.130
bigger issue is I don't tell myself that I earned
684
00:41:06.210 --> 00:41:09.710
the value of that day unless I accomplished X, Y.
685
00:41:09.730 --> 00:41:11.750
And Z. Enough things on the list.
686
00:41:12.289 --> 00:41:16.960
When in fact, nothing during the day. Perhaps the day
687
00:41:17.019 --> 00:41:21.090
was just set in contemplation. Perhaps the day was just,
688
00:41:21.570 --> 00:41:23.230
you know, this morning I'm going to go out and
689
00:41:23.250 --> 00:41:25.550
I'm going to just spend the morning with my roses.
690
00:41:26.489 --> 00:41:29.210
I'm going to gently clip the leaves. I'm going to
691
00:41:29.329 --> 00:41:31.929
think about them. I'm going to talk to them. I'm
692
00:41:31.969 --> 00:41:34.610
just going to think about the reciprocity that I have
693
00:41:34.679 --> 00:41:37.760
with my flowers. You know, those are kind of things
694
00:41:37.780 --> 00:41:40.340
that I never did. They would never have hit my list.
695
00:41:40.519 --> 00:41:45.380
In fact, there was not time for that. So that
696
00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:48.449
sort of thing was not even... on my radar as
697
00:41:48.510 --> 00:41:51.880
an experience for me to have. And now I find
698
00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:56.380
a lot of joy in that. So it's, I think
699
00:41:56.559 --> 00:41:59.139
it's a prompt. I think it's a prompt for all
700
00:41:59.159 --> 00:42:02.460
of us to just become really curious about our own lives,
701
00:42:03.360 --> 00:42:07.860
about some of those things that, uh, you know, keep
702
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:12.500
us rigid, keep our edges sharp. You know, how can
703
00:42:12.539 --> 00:42:17.360
we soften our edges? How can our relationship with ourselves
704
00:42:17.460 --> 00:42:22.360
first and foremost be more gentle? Because when we show
705
00:42:22.440 --> 00:42:24.639
up being gentle for ourselves, we're going to be gentle
706
00:42:24.659 --> 00:42:28.400
for others. When we show up curious about ourselves, we're
707
00:42:28.420 --> 00:42:31.639
going to be curious for others. When we have less
708
00:42:31.949 --> 00:42:35.929
right and wrong about ourselves and the way we walk
709
00:42:35.969 --> 00:42:38.070
in the world, we're going to have less right and
710
00:42:38.110 --> 00:42:41.170
wrong about the way others walk in the world. And
711
00:42:41.230 --> 00:42:44.969
all of that contributes to just a healthier relationship relationship
712
00:42:45.530 --> 00:42:48.280
as a human being with ourselves and with every other
713
00:42:48.320 --> 00:42:49.980
human being that crosses our path.
714
00:42:51.380 --> 00:42:57.519
It does. That's beautiful. So the purpose of this message today,
715
00:42:57.539 --> 00:43:00.380
I think is just for each person who's hearing it
716
00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:04.619
to contemplate that in your life. What are the, like
717
00:43:04.719 --> 00:43:06.639
in your relationship for the first part that we talked
718
00:43:06.679 --> 00:43:09.059
about in your relationship with others, be it your spouse,
719
00:43:09.099 --> 00:43:12.820
your siblings or parent or whoever it is that, um,
720
00:43:14.199 --> 00:43:16.579
what are some of the responses they may have that
721
00:43:16.679 --> 00:43:19.360
you have no idea why they respond the way they respond.
722
00:43:20.019 --> 00:43:23.269
I just have some curiosity and compassion with that and
723
00:43:23.309 --> 00:43:26.449
some open, hopefully dialogue about it where you can both
724
00:43:26.530 --> 00:43:30.309
process that and not have a judgment around it or
725
00:43:30.349 --> 00:43:33.110
holding it in a, in a place of negativity. Just
726
00:43:33.130 --> 00:43:36.659
be curious, allow that to be explored a bit.
727
00:43:37.019 --> 00:43:39.340
Before we sign off, I think another big one, you know,
728
00:43:40.610 --> 00:43:42.639
that was less about me, but just more about how
729
00:43:42.679 --> 00:43:46.260
my experience had changed, you know, being married to you
730
00:43:46.280 --> 00:43:51.119
and you being the baby of a large family and
731
00:43:51.159 --> 00:43:54.440
just having you share with me and point out like
732
00:43:54.500 --> 00:43:57.900
how your experiences were different or how sometimes you felt
733
00:43:58.360 --> 00:44:01.719
as the baby, given what the experience was, made me
734
00:44:02.039 --> 00:44:07.380
become really curious about my youngest sister and her experience
735
00:44:07.579 --> 00:44:12.719
in our family. And, just becoming curious about her experience
736
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:16.599
and one, my role in it. So as you talked
737
00:44:16.639 --> 00:44:19.960
about your brothers, I became really curious about, well, what
738
00:44:20.019 --> 00:44:24.320
is my role in my youngest sister's life? Now, I
739
00:44:24.360 --> 00:44:27.070
could ask that question in all of my sister's lives
740
00:44:28.159 --> 00:44:31.650
and my brother's because we played a role in everyone's,
741
00:44:31.690 --> 00:44:35.530
but given that you're the youngest, it was prompted mostly
742
00:44:35.590 --> 00:44:40.519
about the youngest in my family. And having that experience
743
00:44:40.559 --> 00:44:43.679
and just those conversations with you where you allowed that
744
00:44:43.739 --> 00:44:49.019
vulnerability and that conversation and prompted my curiosity, I started
745
00:44:49.079 --> 00:44:55.110
to see ways that I had not imposed, and maybe
746
00:44:55.170 --> 00:45:01.829
in some ways had imposed, but how my experience to
747
00:45:01.889 --> 00:45:08.889
her as the youngest contributed to some self-beliefs that she
held.
748
00:45:10.230 --> 00:45:18.159
And that's been challenging for me to understand and to
749
00:45:18.219 --> 00:45:24.079
be curious enough about to change. And now it's change
750
00:45:24.119 --> 00:45:27.500
that's not only me, but it's change that impacts her.
751
00:45:28.480 --> 00:45:32.139
And really being honest with her about what I see
752
00:45:33.179 --> 00:45:36.449
and saying, it must have been hard to be the
753
00:45:36.489 --> 00:45:40.780
youngest of these seven. And it's been fascinating because she
754
00:45:40.840 --> 00:45:44.469
says a lot of things that you say. You know,
755
00:45:45.050 --> 00:45:51.789
my voice wasn't heard. Sometimes my voice didn't count. And
756
00:45:51.849 --> 00:45:58.130
so it is a similarity of the youngest one in
757
00:45:58.170 --> 00:46:01.750
a large family. And so when we can understand that
758
00:46:02.130 --> 00:46:05.989
and just, again, allow it to be a different relationship
759
00:46:06.289 --> 00:46:09.250
and allow that now we're all Almost all of my siblings.
760
00:46:10.449 --> 00:46:13.909
She'll turn 59 this year. My oldest sister who passed
761
00:46:13.949 --> 00:46:17.789
away would have been 73. So now, you know, so
762
00:46:17.829 --> 00:46:23.639
my second sister is 71. So imagine the range from
763
00:46:23.639 --> 00:46:28.260
71 to 59. We're all adults now. No one has
764
00:46:28.300 --> 00:46:30.860
to play those childhood roles.
765
00:46:31.460 --> 00:46:35.349
You're all older adults with children and grandchildren.
766
00:46:35.650 --> 00:46:36.210
But guess what?
767
00:46:38.329 --> 00:46:40.030
Those roles are still active. They are.
768
00:46:40.849 --> 00:46:44.090
You know, we get together and those roles are still active.
769
00:46:44.949 --> 00:46:49.800
And imagine if all of us very intentionally started to
770
00:46:50.400 --> 00:46:51.599
let go of those roles.
771
00:46:51.619 --> 00:46:52.599
Let go of the roles.
772
00:46:53.460 --> 00:46:56.659
And just gave ourselves freedom to say, wow, I want
773
00:46:56.679 --> 00:47:00.539
a different relationship with you other than where you are
774
00:47:00.559 --> 00:47:04.010
in the family. You know, you being the youngest and
775
00:47:04.250 --> 00:47:08.409
annoying me or you being the youngest and needing to
776
00:47:08.610 --> 00:47:12.550
have this true or that true, whatever all those circumstances are,
777
00:47:13.170 --> 00:47:17.650
every family has them. And not only the youngest, but
778
00:47:17.690 --> 00:47:21.210
the oldest, the next baby, the middle, the number four.
779
00:47:21.769 --> 00:47:28.320
If we all just allowed those roles to soften and
780
00:47:28.360 --> 00:47:31.099
to look at them and say, here's what I would
781
00:47:31.139 --> 00:47:33.139
need from all of you to let go of a
782
00:47:33.199 --> 00:47:37.300
role that limits me. I think that would be a
783
00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:40.579
really healing process for a family to embark upon. But
784
00:47:40.619 --> 00:47:43.139
it takes every single one of you to be aware
785
00:47:43.159 --> 00:47:48.489
and willing, curious, and wanting to step into that space
786
00:47:48.690 --> 00:47:52.909
because so you, you will be challenged that this, I
787
00:47:52.949 --> 00:47:57.219
will promise you will be challenged about the beliefs that
788
00:47:57.280 --> 00:48:00.980
you hold, that you don't even know where beliefs that
789
00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:04.800
started as you were all these young children growing up together.
790
00:48:05.980 --> 00:48:10.559
And don't, don't not explore that because of your preconceived
791
00:48:10.619 --> 00:48:15.030
ideas of where the relationship sits with your siblings. Explore it.
792
00:48:15.539 --> 00:48:19.260
Be, find, find a way to create a safe space
793
00:48:19.320 --> 00:48:22.179
for everyone to go there. Cause safety. And that's the
794
00:48:22.219 --> 00:48:27.059
other thing, um, that Gabor Mate's training has taught is
795
00:48:27.139 --> 00:48:31.380
that no one can go to those places unless they
796
00:48:31.400 --> 00:48:31.880
feel safe.
797
00:48:33.119 --> 00:48:36.969
I think you and I both learned this yesterday. Um,
798
00:48:37.550 --> 00:48:40.590
as we were talking to my brother Jeff and you
799
00:48:40.610 --> 00:48:43.869
were talking with your brother Rick, well, we were both
800
00:48:43.929 --> 00:48:47.250
visiting with them. And I felt like we were making
801
00:48:47.289 --> 00:48:54.550
some real connection with both of them. And the reason
802
00:48:54.590 --> 00:48:58.190
that the connection was deeper than it normally is is
803
00:48:58.239 --> 00:49:02.059
because it was one-on-one. And it wasn't the dynamic of
804
00:49:02.099 --> 00:49:04.739
the whole family wasn't there because usually we're at family reunions.
805
00:49:04.820 --> 00:49:08.130
And so all the brothers are there. And so the
806
00:49:08.170 --> 00:49:11.650
dynamic of all of the brothers together, it's like everything
807
00:49:11.789 --> 00:49:14.369
falls into that dynamic. As soon as you get together,
808
00:49:14.429 --> 00:49:15.369
you're in that dynamic.
809
00:49:15.429 --> 00:49:16.809
You return to that family system.
810
00:49:16.829 --> 00:49:19.469
The oldest and on down to the youngest.
811
00:49:19.550 --> 00:49:20.880
You return. to that family system.
812
00:49:20.900 --> 00:49:22.579
The pecking order. It's just like when I go and
813
00:49:22.599 --> 00:49:24.960
look at my chicken coop every night, they're in the
814
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:30.530
same order every night. That's how they live. They're lined
815
00:49:30.610 --> 00:49:31.510
up in the same.
816
00:49:31.360 --> 00:49:33.750
Order every night. That's the pattern until it breaks.
817
00:49:33.949 --> 00:49:34.809
How does that happen?
818
00:49:35.010 --> 00:49:35.269
Right.
819
00:49:35.849 --> 00:49:39.940
So it's no different than that. But so as you
820
00:49:40.099 --> 00:49:42.579
decide if you're going
to explore this with siblings or not,
821
00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:46.800
I would recommend exploring it individually, one on one.
822
00:49:47.159 --> 00:49:51.489
Right. And allowing that. It's also, you know, we had
823
00:49:51.510 --> 00:49:55.030
a wedding recently in our family and my youngest sister
824
00:49:55.070 --> 00:49:58.090
was in town with all her children. And she shared
825
00:49:58.110 --> 00:50:00.070
with me a really funny story. She said that they
826
00:50:00.090 --> 00:50:02.889
were playing a game and it wasn't while they were
827
00:50:02.909 --> 00:50:05.190
in town playing the game. They had actually been somewhere
828
00:50:05.230 --> 00:50:06.789
else playing the game, but she shared it with me
829
00:50:06.829 --> 00:50:09.190
while they were here. And she said one of the
830
00:50:09.210 --> 00:50:14.989
questions that came up was, how hard was your childhood?
831
00:50:15.210 --> 00:50:18.489
How strict, not hard, how strict was your childhood on
832
00:50:18.530 --> 00:50:24.980
a scale from 1 to 10? And her oldest child said, 10.
833
00:50:25.159 --> 00:50:31.300
By all means, 10. And the middle child said 5.
834
00:50:31.300 --> 00:50:34.039
And the youngest one said 3. And when the youngest
835
00:50:34.179 --> 00:50:38.110
one said 3, the oldest one said, What world did
836
00:50:38.150 --> 00:50:42.469
you grow up in? Right? But that question is true.
837
00:50:42.550 --> 00:50:42.929
Oh, it is.
838
00:50:43.210 --> 00:50:46.590
What world did you grow up in? Because she grew
839
00:50:46.670 --> 00:50:50.179
up in a very different world, even though it was
840
00:50:50.199 --> 00:50:54.739
the same house, the same siblings, the same parents, than
841
00:50:54.780 --> 00:50:57.800
the oldest one did. And the age gap is not
842
00:50:57.840 --> 00:51:02.949
that great between them. You know, there may be, let's see,
843
00:51:03.659 --> 00:51:07.670
three and a half years, because, you know, Him and
844
00:51:07.690 --> 00:51:09.809
the middle child, I think there's two years between them.
845
00:51:10.369 --> 00:51:13.670
And then there's like, you know, 15 months between the
846
00:51:13.690 --> 00:51:17.139
middle and the baby. So the three of them were
847
00:51:17.179 --> 00:51:22.179
pretty close together growing up. But how significant. And that's
848
00:51:22.239 --> 00:51:26.840
the significance of the dynamics changing between first parents, first
849
00:51:26.880 --> 00:51:30.019
time parents to an older child. And then parents who
850
00:51:30.239 --> 00:51:33.210
are now with the youngest child. And a lot had
851
00:51:33.250 --> 00:51:36.889
happened in their lives, right? You know, economics had changed.
852
00:51:37.260 --> 00:51:41.980
Geographics had changed. Just a lot of circumstances. And the
853
00:51:42.019 --> 00:51:45.260
family laughed. You know, they saw a lot of humor
854
00:51:45.340 --> 00:51:49.519
in it, which was fun. But it's also, then that
855
00:51:49.599 --> 00:51:54.119
humor can actually prompt a question that, wow, this is
856
00:51:54.199 --> 00:51:57.760
just a fun example. But how could our worldviews be
857
00:51:57.820 --> 00:52:02.300
very different? And our expectations with one another be very different?
858
00:52:02.960 --> 00:52:06.940
Because this was something... That was planted at a very
859
00:52:06.980 --> 00:52:07.400
young age.
860
00:52:07.599 --> 00:52:16.849
Definitely. I have loved this conversation. And I think we'll
861
00:52:16.889 --> 00:52:19.550
feel into this, but I think probably at least once
862
00:52:19.610 --> 00:52:22.710
a month we're going to do a conversation with the
863
00:52:22.750 --> 00:52:24.610
two of us. And there's some things I'd like to
864
00:52:24.670 --> 00:52:27.750
continue this conversation about, but we don't want to extend
865
00:52:27.789 --> 00:52:30.530
it too much. So the next time we get together,
866
00:52:30.590 --> 00:52:32.170
what I would like to do is delve a little
867
00:52:32.190 --> 00:52:34.940
bit more into this. the realizations I've been having. And
868
00:52:34.960 --> 00:52:36.619
I'm going to sit with it between now and then,
869
00:52:37.460 --> 00:52:41.650
go a little bit deeper in my daily practices and
870
00:52:41.690 --> 00:52:47.090
rituals and contemplations about some of these realizations that I've
871
00:52:47.110 --> 00:52:50.949
been having of being the youngest, the experiences that I've had,
872
00:52:51.010 --> 00:52:53.949
the interactions with siblings and some of those things that,
873
00:52:54.969 --> 00:52:59.219
you know, yours was, your biggest traumatic event was the
874
00:52:59.949 --> 00:53:04.110
car accident. My biggest traumatic event, I think, that's coming
875
00:53:04.150 --> 00:53:06.210
up for me right now was when my uncle died,
876
00:53:06.250 --> 00:53:09.110
as I mentioned. So I'd like to delve more into
877
00:53:09.150 --> 00:53:12.929
that and the relationship with siblings and a lot of
878
00:53:12.989 --> 00:53:15.710
that different stuff as we continue to do it. And
879
00:53:15.730 --> 00:53:18.889
hopefully what this can mean to you, as I said before,
880
00:53:19.090 --> 00:53:24.480
is just in your relationships, be curious and allow yourself
881
00:53:24.559 --> 00:53:27.880
to be present with those things and have some one-on-one
882
00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:32.820
interactions and discussions to help shed some light where maybe
883
00:53:35.230 --> 00:53:37.469
You might be holding things in a negative space, but
884
00:53:37.750 --> 00:53:42.550
they can be transformed into something positive of the light
885
00:53:42.639 --> 00:53:44.679
and not having to be right or wrong, but it
886
00:53:44.719 --> 00:53:48.079
can be transformed and deepen your relationships more. That's the
887
00:53:48.139 --> 00:53:48.739
entire point.
888
00:53:49.079 --> 00:53:52.820
I love that. I think it's perfect because I'll be
889
00:53:52.860 --> 00:53:56.730
going through this compassionate inquiry training. I started in May,
890
00:53:57.349 --> 00:53:58.650
so it goes for a year. So it's going to
891
00:53:58.690 --> 00:54:01.570
take us back. It's going to take us through the next,
892
00:54:02.170 --> 00:54:05.309
you know, eight months or so back to May. And
893
00:54:05.989 --> 00:54:07.809
it can just be a journey that we take everyone on.
894
00:54:07.929 --> 00:54:10.429
And as you become curious about it, you know, I
895
00:54:10.510 --> 00:54:15.179
really encourage you to, you know, reach out and follow, um,
896
00:54:16.619 --> 00:54:20.840
Gabor Mate on, uh, social media, what he says, and
897
00:54:20.900 --> 00:54:25.860
look to see where there's a compassionate inquiry therapist in
898
00:54:26.760 --> 00:54:29.659
where you live. Um, we're in a, you know, we're
899
00:54:29.719 --> 00:54:34.900
in a cohort and, um, it's surprising to me and
900
00:54:34.980 --> 00:54:38.429
also very rewarding to see that it is a very
901
00:54:38.650 --> 00:54:42.809
active cohort that is very international. It's, you know, the
902
00:54:42.929 --> 00:54:47.190
U S presence is very small. There's relative, yeah. Relative
903
00:54:47.250 --> 00:54:49.690
to the size of the cohort. It is, it is
904
00:54:49.769 --> 00:54:54.090
truly the largest international kind of experience that I have
905
00:54:54.130 --> 00:54:54.610
been having.
906
00:54:54.989 --> 00:55:00.030
So you're getting to see multiculturally how people are interacting
907
00:55:00.340 --> 00:55:03.949
and As you always state, you're getting to see how
908
00:55:04.170 --> 00:55:04.949
similar we are.
909
00:55:05.150 --> 00:55:06.889
Yes, it's really beautiful.
910
00:55:07.010 --> 00:55:07.710
No matter where they're from.
911
00:55:07.750 --> 00:55:09.550
We're more similar than we are different.
912
00:55:09.570 --> 00:55:13.099
Whether they're from India or Canada.
913
00:55:13.119 --> 00:55:20.960
Dubai, Canada, France, England, Sweden. It's just Mexico. It's beautiful.
914
00:55:21.059 --> 00:55:24.880
It's just really a beautiful community that I'm in.
915
00:55:25.519 --> 00:55:28.199
Well, may the world get smaller through this experience.
916
00:55:28.260 --> 00:55:28.559
Yes.
917
00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:32.469
Awesome. All right, so I guess that's it for today.
918
00:55:32.489 --> 00:55:33.570
Do you feel complete?
919
00:55:33.750 --> 00:55:34.489
I feel complete.
920
00:55:34.510 --> 00:55:38.010
I do too. All right then. Until next time. Bye.
921
00:55:40.210 --> 00:55:44.849
If you're enjoying the Observatory Podcast, please consider subscribing, sharing us,
922
00:55:45.409 --> 00:55:48.010
and if you have time to write a review about
923
00:55:48.050 --> 00:55:50.280
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924
00:55:50.300 --> 00:55:53.400
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925
00:55:53.440 --> 00:55:55.860
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926
00:55:55.960 --> 00:55:58.480
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927
00:55:58.860 --> 00:56:02.840
and we can help ripple out this energy that's emanating
928
00:56:02.860 --> 00:56:05.559
in the world today. There's been so much separation, and
929
00:56:05.599 --> 00:56:08.500
we want to find a way to create conversations where
930
00:56:08.539 --> 00:56:12.320
we can come together, not divide so much as we
931
00:56:12.360 --> 00:56:16.469
have been, to learn to come together in unity. Thank you.
932
00:56:20.449 --> 00:56:22.929
You've been listening to The Observatory Podcast.
933
00:56:23.329 --> 00:56:26.530
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934
00:56:26.769 --> 00:56:28.230
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