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Would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in?
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Then you won't be angry. I will not be angry. Abby someone.
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Abby someone. Abby who? Abby normal.
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This is the Abby Normal Podcast, here to tell you that you're weird and that's normal.
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We ended last episode with a question. Are you feeling self-separate?
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And if you heard that question, did you think about pushing the envelope,
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doing that little bit weird thing, stopping to smell the flowers to access the
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delight of being a human?
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This episode, we're going to discuss a couple more strategies.
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And Dawn's premise is this, we have to do it because self-connected humans can
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envision a better world.
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Yeah. So we're awakened, we're compassionate. We cannot further things that
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harm other people, things that harm ourselves.
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We can't self-betray.
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Music.
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I recommend listening to the prior episode first, just to get the introductory
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premise about self-separation versus connection, and to get to know Dawn a bit more.
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She has three master's degrees, including one in Middle Eastern cultures and
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religions. And up until February of 2024, was also finishing a PhD in embodied validation.
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She's paused her work there to spend more time advocating for Gaza.
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Something that I am so passionate about is leading people from the micro of
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self-connection to the macro of social change.
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So what I mean by that is, how does our relationship with ourselves,
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the way that we self-inhabit, affect the way we are able to enact social change,
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to alleviate systemic oppression, to increase justice and a more equitable world for everybody? buddy.
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We all want that, right? To, as she says, self-inhabit, really know ourselves
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as humans and be able to create a more equitable world.
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I mean, honestly, it's like, I don't think there would be war if we were appropriately self-connected.
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You know, a friend of mine said years ago when I was getting ready to go to
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Baghdad, he said, when Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq, I used to think
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I wish I could send him a box of like newborn ducklings. feelings.
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His feeling in that was just like, he wouldn't have used this language,
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but what is the self-separation that got somebody to this point to be despotic
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and tyrannical and murderous?
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And maybe he just needs some ducklings, some humanity, right?
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Get you back to who you are as an actual human.
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Are newborn ducklings the balm we need? Maybe.
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Even if we think about it critically in a sense of like, okay,
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what if we still had 20 tyrants in the world?
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But there's all these people. So like, for example, what's happening in Gaza.
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Even though the news or whomever will isolate a certain world leader,
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Netanyahu, Biden, there are thousands
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of people in some kind of direct connection to those individuals.
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And I absolutely think that if it wasn't for self-separation,
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they would not be able to be on board with genocide.
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They would not be able to be on board with incredibly dehumanizing anything, right?
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They would not be able to rationalize that in some way, this is for the greater
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good, you know, whatever that good is, money, power.
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Music.
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So we need to be self-connected because it impacts the macro, whether we see it or not.
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You know, and again, it's like with the genocide in Gaza, there are so many
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people that have had to say yes to this happening for it to happen.
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I don't mean like be silent. I mean, literally say yes.
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Literally say, yeah, part of my job is X.
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And I know that that's going to lead to thousands of people dying.
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And I'm going to do that task.
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The axis of all of that is objectification, self-separation,
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dehumanization of oneself.
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That's the only way that can happen. That what I would call like the energetic currency of that thing.
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Yeah. Cognitive dissonance is all part of that as well.
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So all of these people saying yes, where I think an awakened humanity,
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regardless of any political, religious or whatever you would be like,
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I am utterly devastated by what is happening.
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I will not further this.
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Music.
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Of those things where it's like, I don't even know why I have to say it out
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loud. But lately, I find myself having to say the most ridiculous things out loud.
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Like, hey, it's not okay that people are dying.
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Palestinians are not worth less than other people.
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You know, if your theology is racist, it's problematic, you know,
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saying all these things that feel like very obvious sentences,
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nobody should have to articulate.
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So I think that all, it's dependent on that dehumanization, objectification,
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access, the only way things like this happen.
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Because otherwise, our awakened humanity would just, against our conscience, would not participate.
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We would do everything we could do to not participate.
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There's no way we would work for a bomb manufacturer and just be like,
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la, la, la, and drive up and put our code in and be like, here I am working
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on a bomb, figuring out how to kill,
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I'm helping 18,000 people with this one. Literally, it's insane.
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That's the gravity of the situation. But Dawn has hope.
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Many hopes, actually. But the first one is that we can all access our humanity,
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connect better with ourselves, our bodies, our worth, feelings, and beliefs.
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So let's hear more about what that really means and how we can do it,
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starting with emotions.
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Focusing on who you are as a human, what does that mean to you?
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You know, also like in like just, yeah, the realm of my research,
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my PhD specifically, there's a lot around what I call our emotional technology.
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Like what I mean by that is like, what is, you know, the divine imprint that's
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within us for how our emotions work?
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And what does it look like to be awake and engage with those fully,
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healthfully, you know, with awareness, with acceptance? acceptance.
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There's this idea that the more you can feel your sorrow, the more you can feel your joy.
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So when it comes to what is it to be human, I think that's so much part of it
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is our emotional technology, our emotional experience,
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being aware of it ourselves, engaging with it, journeying through it,
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and being able to articulate it with others, being able to be comfortable with
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the vulnerability that is innately part of being human.
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And I think, you know, vulnerability is one of those things where like,
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the more we objectify, the more we kind of stifle our vulnerability.
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So certainly to be embodied in our humanity is also to be in touch with our vulnerability.
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And the rightness...
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By others.
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So I think, you know, a lot of, in particular, American socialization is toward
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this like hyper individualistic view of our lives and view of the world.
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And part of the irony there is, is that we, we actually suffer as a result of
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that view because we're like Like our interpersonal neurobiology is designed to need other people.
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We literally, biologically, emotionally need other people.
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And so when we're trying to deny that, we are missing out on part of our humanity
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and part of what it is to just embody, embody all of it.
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You know, I mean, it's kind of like, I don't know, like if you had a,
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you know, a fridge full of interesting ingredients and you only used five of
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those and it'd be like, I mean, okay, that's something, but you're kind of eating
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the same thing continuously.
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And, you know, and a lot of us do that because of fear, because of fear of the
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unknown, because like we haven't seen it modeled, you know, emotions can feel scary.
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We feel out of control.
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And so it's like, I don't want to use that high curry paste in the door because
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I don't know, you know? Yeah.
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But like like to embody our humanity really is
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to have that like comfortable curiosity with
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all of those things with everything that's in the fridge
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so to speak and you know we all
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engage with it in different ways it doesn't look the same for everybody but
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just that like exhale to be okay with who we are and what we feel and then what
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that means for how we act how do we do that How do we do that?
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Dawn is going to share one example of feeling out of control and pulling out
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of the fridge the same emotion and behavior that we saw modeled for us.
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The mom who's angry at her kid in Target. And this is not with judgment because
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I struggle to stay calm with my kids too.
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So the mom's angry. She in some way feels honestly threatened.
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Her nervous system feels dysregulated.
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She feels fear. She feels unsafe.
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And I know a lot of us are like, how could you feel unsafe? It's a two-year-old.
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So many of us grew up. in environments that did not welcome our emotional expression,
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did not give safety for emotional expression.
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So when we were upset, what was relayed to us was now dominion enters this relationship.
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Someone will make you, by force, stop being upset, stop expressing how you feel.
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Stop crying, stop whatever, right?
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And so many of us did not have the appropriate attunement. we needed in childhood,
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and we still don't have it figured out.
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And so when our kids freak out, flail their arms in a shopping cart,
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we lose it because we're right back there.
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We're a kid again, and we want some kind of retaliation. We want some kind of dominion.
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We want the challenge that has presented itself to end.
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We want the chaos, the craziness to just end because it feels like such a threat
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to our very existence in a way.
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Because I think there's this like seed where we're like, if I'm this upset by
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this thing, something is not quite right with me.
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And if that thing is not quite right with me, then what does that mean about
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my personhood, my ability to lead my life, my ability to accomplish my dreams,
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have great relationships,
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live at peace?
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What does that mean? And so, we get into this fight or flight response.
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And we don't know what to do, and so we just wanna shut it down by force.
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We just wanna shut it down by dominion.
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So with reflection, we can probably see that fear and control are not the only
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things that we can pull out of the fridge.
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Can we be curious about what else might be available in the depths of the door?
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I actually think there is so much more that we haven't experienced,
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we haven't tapped into individually,
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collectively, in terms of how we can navigate dysregulation,
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how we can navigate fear, how we can navigate feeling under attack.
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And we have to learn attunement.
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And in order to learn attunement, we have to learn self-connection.
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So there's a lot of work to be done and it feels intimidating.
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But here's the thing, and I deeply, deeply, deeply believe this.
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We have, in our interpersonal neurobiology, we have a capability for attunement.
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Like, that's really our optimal response pattern.
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It's in there. We just have to kind of rest into it and we have to rethink the
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way we perceive relationships and rule through force.
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Also, this relates with yourself because a lot of us relate with ourselves in
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the same way where we're like trying to control ourselves through force,
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where we're trying to stuff our feelings through force.
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It's actually not what we're meant for we're
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meant for this beautiful peaceful self-connection and other connection there's
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a twinkle in my eye because there's a huge invitation right now it's an invitation
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to rethink relationships with self with others and to dare to dream what our ideal is,
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not what our historical patterns are,
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not what our upbringing taught us.
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But if we can get into a clear place to really connect with what would be the
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bigger dream, how would we like to respond when threatened?
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Music.
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We're designed to feel our feelings, share them, and meet other people within them.
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We need to have comfortable curiosity with what's in the fridge,
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being okay with how we are and what we feel and how we act.
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This sounds good, but I have concerns.
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Well, I'm just wondering about perceived or real risk involved in this.
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Because you said like that there's way more benefits
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right and feeling and expressing your emotions versus
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suppressing them but I think about we're all
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in this system together so if I make myself vulnerable I'm putting potentially
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putting myself at risk within that system right so I don't know what do you
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think like it feels like it would take a lot of bravery for lack of a better word.
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Yeah i mean i think it does take a lot of bravery but i also think i mean we
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all have times that we're going to be in survival mode and vulnerability is
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going to look different in survival mode,
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moreover you know vulnerability a mature vulnerability is always going to be
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an embodied and boundary vulnerability it doesn't mean that we're just like
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i don't know what you know walking targets for every whatever,
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it means that our vulnerability is rightly housed,
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rightly protected, rightly thought of.
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I mean, it's like we all know there are certain people that you wouldn't say certain things to.
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And I'm not saying that we should just say everything to everyone.
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I don't think that's mature vulnerability.
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I think the mature vulnerability is being aware of your own integrity situationally and then,
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you know, moving in that, knowing that choices made in integrity,
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some will come with bonuses and some will come with pains.
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Yeah. And that that's a vulnerability.
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But that's a risk in favor of not betraying oneself.
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Yeah. You know, and I think a lot of that's also just, you know,
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with embodiment, following one's intuition, you know, one's intuition knows so much.
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So it's like, Like, yeah, like the example of what you would say to somebody
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that you wouldn't say to somebody else.
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You know, I can have some brazen idea, but like, I'm not going to,
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I don't even want to give an example because.
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There's lots of things you don't want to walk in and do. Exactly.
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But you know what I mean? Like, like I would have an opinion,
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but I would still be wisely when you share it.
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Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that is part of embodiment because that's part of what
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I would call self-integrity,
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which is like one of my favorite guidance for life songs is Kenny Rogers, the gambler.
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So you have to know when to fold them, know when to hold them,
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know when to walk away, know when to run, right?
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You don't count your blessings while you're sitting at the table.
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So it's that, right? It's like the discernment part of it.
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It's about knowing timing. You know what I mean? It's not just about the action.
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It's about the timing of the actions.
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We're such precious humans, all of us.
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And when we're aware of our preciousness, we don't want to overexpose ourselves
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to the wrong kinds of vulnerability.
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You know? Because we are aware that we are precious. So it's not like we're
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just, yeah, being vulnerable, just outlandishly, but like we know that we're precious.
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So that's all par for the course of like how we are self-led.
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Okay, so we're going to be self-led, brave, and listen to our intuition.
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Another component of being self-connected is reflecting on our beliefs.
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So much of the trajectory, you know, things that you and I are talking about, about,
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our experiences growing up and like, you know, at least my language would be
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like an outside pressure to self-separate, squelch the way that you actually
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feel, squelch what you actually think.
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Think and then like to me it's honestly like
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pretending pretend play along with these
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other ideas that we're trying to coerce people
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and participating in for the sake of power and for the sake of control like
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i think that's you know that's part of the honest take too is that i think so
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many systems are not intellectually honest about why they want people to believe
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something they will present that it's like oh this is like the most moral okay
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like if it's a certain church They're like,
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believe X because that's the most moral thing to believe.
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I honestly think that a whole lot of the time, that is not the subconscious motivation.
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The subconscious motivation is about power and control.
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It doesn't matter what that unit of belief is.
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It's about if we can all be pressured to believe this, then we create this thing
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that has more power and control.
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And if people are willing to give up their own intuition, their own self-connection,
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if they're willing to squish what they know is wrong and just do stuff for the
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sake of some moral good, then we increase our control.
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Yeah, so many systems depend on objectification.
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Yes, systems depend on women to be quiet and go with the flow.
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They depend on worshipers to agree with moral absolutes.
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Governments depend on citizens to trust them and continue within the structure and status quo.
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I think self-betrayal is a big part of all of this, the way that so many of
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us of us are socialized to betray ourselves and to be taught that not only should we do it,
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but it is better to do it.
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It is more moral to do it or more religious or whatever your framework is like, no, like.
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There's this teaching that to be a good person, you stuff the way you feel about
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something, and you serve this greater, quote unquote, good.
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Of course, the idea being if you have to stuff how you feel,
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what is that greater good?
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Like, you know, it just kind of, the whole thing is like Swiss cheese,
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if a greater good requires everybody else to self betray in order to perpetuate it, you know?
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So if we know that the system always has these ulterior unspoken motives,
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How can we ensure we're self-connected to our beliefs?
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I think the path is generally the same, but maybe in different order for different people.
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I mean, some of it's just the initial self-reflection of why do I believe what I believe?
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Where is it coming from? Like, somebody can think they believe something,
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but if it's like, okay, so like I experience this sometimes because people ask
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me questions about things and they'll think like, oh, I I know a lot about X,
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but I can feel the energy in them.
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And this is not meant to sound judgmental, but I can feel the energy in them
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where they are prepared to, in one way, accept 51% my opinion and 49% their opinion.
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And by opinion, I don't even just mean what we think of as a cognitive opinion,
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but it's actually the opinion of our bodies, of our experience.
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We talk about data as in it's just on paper, but data is in our bodies.
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It's everywhere, right? But it's also in our bodies. So if someone in some sense
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is like outsourcing their belief about something to someone else,
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that's something that needs to be looked at.
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Are we outsourcing our beliefs? In Dawn's example, she can tell if someone is
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going to believe her over themselves.
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And like I said, I can often feel the energy of it in a conversation.
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And I can feel like, I honestly don't want that.
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There's lots of people who maybe they're experts in whatever.
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And they do want that partly because we've built power around a disavowal of
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our humanity and then outsourcing it to people in charge.
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But I don't want that. I want everyone in an embodied way, owning what they think.
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I mean, there's so much to say about all of this, but a lot of it comes from,
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the philosopher Descartes and this whole idea of like physical stuff has more
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value than spiritual stuff. Right.
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So we can get in this idea of like, I'm going to approach this,
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you know, leader, story figure, expert person.
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And they're going to now almost like the, the belief is like a,
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it's a unit, it's a book or it's a, whatever it is. And you just receive that thing from that person.
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That's not really the way belief works. That's not really the way even real opinion works.
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And so rather than outsourcing
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it being aware of our bodies and our own opinions our
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own beliefs so that you know it's like if there's something i knew absolutely
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nothing about like underwater octopi or something like i can talk to somebody
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about it but i can remain in my body and processing what they're saying and
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i can still have the new belief be at least 51 my own own.
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I know it's weird to say 51%, but my point is slightly more my own in a felt
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way than the other person's, even if it's about something random,
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because it's about my own ability to think for myself.
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So I have this other phrase, self-housed. So to be housed in yourself,
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to be self-inhabited is another thing that I talk about.
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So that it's like your internal world is matching in your external world and
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you are home to yourself.
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So in that exchange, one, it removes some of the threat that somebody else knows
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something that I quote unquote don't know, because it's like,
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I'm secure in myself and that's fine.
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And also I know that I can think through something.
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And again, I'm not just talking about the normal traditional data,
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but I can think through it, feel through it, and I can journey through a process
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of thinking and have a level of ownership, regardless of how much I understand underwater occupied.
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Music.
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Safely be self-housed. Your body will tell you what you believe.
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It will tell you what your data is. And then you can own your beliefs.
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This is feeling like philosophical. You know, to the question of like,
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how do we, how do we be self-connected? How do we not have self-separation?
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It's about being reflective on our beliefs, on our ownership of our beliefs,
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including our, like literally our physical embodied ownership.
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How do you feel about the beliefs.
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Not just like, do you have a little checkbox in your brain? But how do you feel about it?
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We were talking about pink earlier, the color pink. How do I feel about pink?
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Remove all of the other things. How do I feel about it? Can I follow that?
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And I think that root of feeling and being led by feeling is actually one of
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the most important parts of being self-connected, It's being able to feel and know what you feel,
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know what you like and you don't like. And in some sense, why?
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I mean, not like you need to like write a treatise on it, but like in some way, you know?
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Yeah. Yeah. So there's that. I think like getting curious about,
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you know, what you think,
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getting curious about why you think what you think and,
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you know, just holding belief so much more
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like with an open in hand um because
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there's just so little that is there's so little that we decide as an opinion
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and it forever remains that exact opinion yeah you know so it's like partly
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even just what is our opinion on opinions what is our opinion on facts what
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is our opinion on data you know um,
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and on like what i would say like revelation you know like just like the ever-expanding
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maturity of like, you better be taking your opinions because like,
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that's part of what it is to be human and be honest, you know? Yeah.
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Music.
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Over on her Instagram, Dawn shared a bit about what happens when we're presented
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with information that contradicts our beliefs.
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And I think if we're trying to understand our opinion on opinions and holding
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them loosely, this information is helpful. Here it is.
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In learning theory, there's something called a disorienting dilemma,
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which is essentially when you are presented with new information that contradicts
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old information or in an old paradigm, okay?
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So, for example, if you had some kind of authority figure, let's say a principal
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at the high school that you went to, and that person was discovered to have
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been doing some kind of harm, you have a disorienting dilemma.
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You need to consider, am I going to take in this new information,
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take in this new paradigm, this new understanding of this principal, pole?
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Or am I so uncomfortable with the level of safety, and I'm talking about mostly psychological safety,
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can I release the former safety,
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the perceived safety, in favor of acknowledging the reality that is happening
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and in favor of, in some way, being part of contributing toward,
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a healthier, more honest world.
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So those are some thoughts about cognitive dissonance and this idea of a disorienting dilemma.
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We're being presented with this on a global level. And while it's easy to think
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that these principles are exclusive to these global issues and the genocide in Gaza.
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The basis of cognitive dissonance, the basis of disorienting dilemmas applies to anything.
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So if you're a human, then these are things we need to figure out how to travel
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through, how to have enough self-safety to where we can go from one paradigm to another,
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one idea of the world to another, and still feel safe enough because of ourselves
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selves to navigate this comfort of the new idea and of the new reality.
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This is actually vital to our personal survival, our personal thriving.
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And I hope it's an invitation for all of us to really reconsider self-safety,
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to reconsider what the cost is of cognitive dissonance,
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what the cost is of denial,
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avoidance, and so on.
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Because if you can observe that with a global issue, you can also observe it in your own life.
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And these are skills that we desperately need to get better at.
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So consider this an invitation to sit with your cognitive dissonance,
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go through the disorienting dilemma, and come out the other side as a clear,
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more honest, more free version of yourself and human who can contribute to the
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world from a clearer place.
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From a place that's more aware of your own power and your own ability to navigate difficult things.
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Music.
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Okay, so we covered a couple ways to be more self-connected,
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exploring and owning our feelings and our beliefs.
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If that's the micro, let's return to the macro.
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What Dawn is seeing right now are the macro consequences of self-separation. Thank you.
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A lot of what I see right now with the genocide in Gaza happening is people rationalizing it.
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And part of the way that I would say they access that view.
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So what I mean is the way that they can have that view, like think,
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OK, this is just something that has happened.
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You know, it's a bummer. It's what it is, is because of dehumanization,
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their own objectification, their own self-separation.
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And what it means about what we let go of, like the way we've let go of what's
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possible for a fuller humanity, you know, and how we're okay to settle for,
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oh, there's just going to be war. There's just going to be genocide.
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There's just going to be fighting of different forms because it's,
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you know, I don't think people say this explicitly, but I do think that non-human
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ways of thinking is like, we can't be compassionate.
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We can't afford to be compassionate And people won't say that,
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but that's really what's happened, you know, energetically.
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And then with that, seeing people feel like, you know, their voices don't matter.
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They can't make a difference.
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And it really all runs the same equation in my mind of like,
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you don't feel really connected to your own humanity and power.
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You know so that's like the micro and then the
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macro is like this grand humanization that's
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happening and this is what it could be like the opposite is we're living in
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this awakened self-connected way where first of all it's like we know that it's
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appropriate to be affected by others.
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We know that it's appropriate to have compassion for others.
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We know that that is what is right, that that's like the beginning of what is right.
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We cannot further things that harm other people, things that harm ourselves.
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We can't self-betray.
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Music.
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Dawn's vision is people who feel safe enough to be affected,
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to get angry, grieve, and fight injustice.
424
00:32:57,424 -->
00:33:01,024
She says that is the embodied expression of their humanity.
425
00:33:05,164 -->
00:33:09,984
As someone sometimes inclined toward apathy, I really appreciate Dawn contributing
426
00:33:09,984 -->
00:33:12,004
different ideas to the conversation,
427
00:33:12,424 -->
00:33:17,044
describing beyond geopolitics, why the horrors in Gaza are happening,
428
00:33:17,184 -->
00:33:21,704
and possible reasons for how folks are reacting or not reacting to it.
429
00:33:24,804 -->
00:33:29,444
This episode is intended to be part of several that are focused loosely on our bodies.
430
00:33:29,644 -->
00:33:33,904
I hope there are many possible takeaways for you, but what I heard is simply
431
00:33:33,904 -->
00:33:36,044
that connecting to my body is important.
432
00:33:36,924 -->
00:33:42,144
Yes, to be my full human self, and also to be able to feel things in my body,
433
00:33:42,144 -->
00:33:44,144
and to respect what it's telling me.
434
00:33:44,644 -->
00:33:49,904
Plus, of course, to not objectify myself and others, to find value not only
435
00:33:49,904 -->
00:33:54,524
in what this body can do, because it and I are valuable just being.
436
00:33:57,544 -->
00:34:01,524
If you're interested in learning more, you can find her at Dawn Bolchandani.
437
00:34:01,724 -->
00:34:03,344
She posted this recently.
438
00:34:04,304 -->
00:34:11,364
Working on my audio series called 30 Days to More Self-Connection.
439
00:34:11,364 -->
00:34:17,144
And it will be available sometime the next couple of weeks. So watch for it.
440
00:34:18,684 -->
00:34:22,024
So it sounds like her self-connection program is coming soon.
441
00:34:22,804 -->
00:34:29,044
I hope we can dare to dream of the world we want for ourselves and all these precious humans.
442
00:34:29,680 -->
00:34:46,116
Music.
