Speaker 1: The body will always move in the direction of healing
Speaker 1: and clarification of its own systems when in the presence
Speaker 1: of the right conditions.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Ralph
Speaker 2: deay La Rosa, an internationally published author of books about meditation, trauma,
Speaker 2: and internal family systems. He's a mentee of Richard Schwartz
Speaker 2: and advanced meditation trainee of Jack Cornfield, and has been
Speaker 2: teaching for over fifteen years. Ralph is also a trauma
Speaker 2: focused psychotherapist in private practice whose work has been featured
Speaker 2: in Tricycle, The Ramdas Fellowship, CNN, New York Post, Refinery
Speaker 2: twenty nine, Women's Health, and GQ.
Speaker 1: Good to be back.
Speaker 3: It's lovely to have you on. You and I have
Speaker 3: talked a lot since we last talked on the podcast,
Speaker 3: and are even teaching a workshop together, so I'm excited
Speaker 3: to have you on and just have some of the
Speaker 3: conversations we've been having and share them with people who
Speaker 3: are listening. So we'll get into all that in a minute,
Speaker 3: but we'll start like we always do with the parable.
Speaker 3: In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their
Speaker 3: grandchild and they say, in life, there's two wolves inside
Speaker 3: of us that are always at battle. What is a
Speaker 3: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 3: and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 3: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and
Speaker 3: they think about it for a second, look up at
Speaker 3: their grandparent and say, well, which one wins? And the
Speaker 3: grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 3: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 3: you in your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our attention is the most valuable commodity on the planet.
Speaker 1: Corporations are spending untold billions on capturing our attention because
Speaker 1: they know that wherever our attention goes, it's like a
Speaker 1: magnifying glass. And what we focus on is what our
Speaker 1: neurology is building and bringing more of into our lives.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, what we feed in our lives is
Speaker 1: what is going to grow and prosper and thrive. And
Speaker 1: we have some choices. We don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: choices with regards to what comes our way much of
Speaker 1: the time, I think, as we all learned through the pandemic, really,
Speaker 1: but we always have a choice where we place our attention,
Speaker 1: the attitude that we choose, and how we relate to things.
Speaker 1: And that's actually quite empowering to realize.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that very basic sort of interpretation, right,
Speaker 3: which is kind of what the parable speaks to so directly,
Speaker 3: you know that our choice is about where we put
Speaker 3: our thoughts, where we put our energy, our actions, they
Speaker 3: all matter. So I thought maybe we would start talking
Speaker 3: a little bit about the role of nature in our
Speaker 3: lives and the role of nature as a healing practice,
Speaker 3: because that's the heart of the workshop that we're going
Speaker 3: to be teaching this summer at Cripalu. And I think
Speaker 3: it would be nice to explain why does that feel
Speaker 3: important to us? Why is that something we wanted to
Speaker 3: do versus any other kind of workshop.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, first of all, there's that powerful moment
Speaker 1: in the Buddhist story right where he's being tempted by
Speaker 1: you know, the personification of evil for lack of a
Speaker 1: better term in Buddhism, the demon Godmara, when the chips
Speaker 1: are really down and Mara throws his last temptation at
Speaker 1: the Buddha, which was really an assault on his worthiness
Speaker 1: and his self esteem and his sense of self love
Speaker 1: and his sense of deserving to awaken the But have
Speaker 1: put his hand on the earth and just said, you know,
Speaker 1: the earth is my witness, I have a right to
Speaker 1: this awakening. He didn't say much more than that. He
Speaker 1: didn't say you know, the earth is a living being,
Speaker 1: et cetera. He just placed one hand on the earth
Speaker 1: and that was enough. The confidence that came from his
Speaker 1: relationship to the earth was enough to overcome this great challenge.
Speaker 1: And I think we saw city folk en mass retreat
Speaker 1: to the woods, to the mountains, to the beaches, in
Speaker 1: so many different parts of the world during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and I think we collectively had this realization that something
Speaker 1: about our connection to nature, which is inherent. We can
Speaker 1: have it even in the city, of course, But Bolster's
Speaker 1: resilience has everything to do with waking up, has everything
Speaker 1: to do with healing our hearts. So for me, I
Speaker 1: had that experience of fleeing the city and going to
Speaker 1: the beaches, going to the mountains, going to the woods,
Speaker 1: and very much felt affirmed by the experiences I was
Speaker 1: having out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had similar experiences. I was reflecting a little
Speaker 3: bit on when did it start for me, me recognizing
Speaker 3: that nature was a key part of my life, And
Speaker 3: I think the fundamental time was It's probably about twenty
Speaker 3: years ago and I was ending my first period of sobriety.
Speaker 3: The wheels were starting to come off the terrain a
Speaker 3: little bit, and I was dating this woman and the
Speaker 3: relationship was very problematic, and she just had to be
Speaker 3: in and out and in and out, which is the
Speaker 3: perfect way to hook most anybody, right the intermittent reinforcement,
Speaker 3: and we were supposed to go to Washington d C
Speaker 3: one weekend and she just called me like two hours
Speaker 3: before we're getting on the plane. She's like, I'm gonna go,
Speaker 3: but I don't want you to go. I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of feeling heartbroken. I was like, you
Speaker 3: know what, I'm not going to sit around here all weekend.
Speaker 3: So I found this place in Hawking Hills and it
Speaker 3: was this little place where you could go and retreat.
Speaker 3: But it was very rustic, but not rustic in like
Speaker 3: you know farmhouse rustic that we see like on Instagram
Speaker 3: all the time. It was rustic like no running water,
Speaker 3: you know, no electricity, but it was yet somehow still
Speaker 3: really nice. And something about that weekend being there something
Speaker 3: in me healed in a way just being in nature,
Speaker 3: Like I didn't have to go, I wasn't talking to anybody,
Speaker 3: I wasn't doing anything except just being there. But there
Speaker 3: was something about that quiet and that natural surrounding that
Speaker 3: I just felt so much better. And it was really
Speaker 3: a turning point for me where I went, oh, I've
Speaker 3: kind of overlooking what's right in front of me all
Speaker 3: these years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so if I can update my answer a
Speaker 1: little bit, yeah, I can share something very similar. So
Speaker 1: about six years ago, I was finishing my first book,
Speaker 1: The Monkeys a Messenger. My career was exploding right in
Speaker 1: front of me in ways that I'd never actually had
Speaker 1: conceived of or even asked for it to. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, I was going through all these profound traumas.
Speaker 1: My partner walked out on me, my sister died, and
Speaker 1: my personal life was like very very difficult, and my
Speaker 1: professional life was filled with like all this ease and satisfaction,
Speaker 1: and the dichotomy of that was kind of pulling me
Speaker 1: apart and the way I'd never experienced before. And simultaneous
Speaker 1: to that, I noticed, you know, I've become so focused
Speaker 1: on my career and I work from home. I see
Speaker 1: clients in my living room, I'm writing from home, and
Speaker 1: a lot of my life happens from home. And I realized, like,
Speaker 1: I kind of don't go outside as much anymore. What's
Speaker 1: beyond that, you know? Well, like I go outside to
Speaker 1: get on the train and go teach somewhere, or to
Speaker 1: get on a train and go to a restaurant and
Speaker 1: see friends, or get on a train and go to
Speaker 1: an art show or whatever. And simultaneous said that, I
Speaker 1: started asking myself when was the last time like I've
Speaker 1: had play in my life, just like simple, stupid, silly, pointless,
Speaker 1: no real purpose to it other than the thing itself
Speaker 1: kind of fun. And it's like, no, I'm a New Yorker.
Speaker 1: I go to dinner, That's what I do for fun,
Speaker 1: or maybe I go to a rock and roll show.
Speaker 1: But easy, childlike laughter wasn't a part of my life
Speaker 1: anymore either, and I really started to question that. And
Speaker 1: the first time I got taken to a rock climbing studio,
Speaker 1: which was around the same time, I said, oh, here
Speaker 1: it is. This is an adult playground. This is a
Speaker 1: bunch of grown adults hacking like childlike little beings on
Speaker 1: monkey bars, basically just having a blast and pushing themselves.
Speaker 1: And there's no point to this except for the thing itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and everything else in my life was so goal oriented
Speaker 1: and you know, just intentional and everything else, and here's
Speaker 1: this thing that is its own intention. And then that
Speaker 1: eventually took me to an outdoor rock climbing trip in Mexico,
Speaker 1: which really blew my doors off. Climbing in Chiappas and
Speaker 1: being introduced to just a different mode than I had
Speaker 1: grown so accustomed to in New York City. I'll never
Speaker 1: forget the first time I got to the very top
Speaker 1: of a double pitch wall that we climbed, that was
Speaker 1: at the top of this cave and overlooking this town
Speaker 1: of San Cristobal, and just going I'm one of the
Speaker 1: very few people who gets to see this, you know,
Speaker 1: being willing to go off it's cliche, but off the
Speaker 1: beaten path, and being willing to go, you know, down
Speaker 1: these start roads to these not well known places in nature.
Speaker 1: I'm actually getting to experience something special that you only
Speaker 1: get to experience this if you you've done this beautiful
Speaker 1: work to get up here. Something about that was so
Speaker 1: confidence inspiring, just put me back in touch with something
Speaker 1: really essential that I had been missing. I said it before.
Speaker 1: Our connection to nature is inherent, and so we have
Speaker 1: it even in the cities. We're always under the sky.
Speaker 1: But there's this piece around really being open, really being
Speaker 1: in that mindful state of receptivity to the forces of
Speaker 1: nature that it does things for us. It does things
Speaker 1: for us that I can't even describe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as we can hear in the background, you
Speaker 3: are currently back in the city Seattle, I believe.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, living basically on the Bourbon Street of Seattle.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, Tis and talks going by every once
Speaker 1: in a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: One of the things I love about nature is, you know,
Speaker 3: we spend When I say we, I mean you and
Speaker 3: people who study with you, and those of us who
Speaker 3: are sort of in a mindfulness field in some way, right,
Speaker 3: we spend a lot of energy trying to be more present,
Speaker 3: more mindful, more attuned, more attentive. And that's all energy
Speaker 3: well spent. What I have found is that that all
Speaker 3: becomes easier in nature. Nature naturally draws our attention, at
Speaker 3: least does for me and many people in a very
Speaker 3: easy way. I'm not saying that it makes meditation easy.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying that a lot of the qualities that
Speaker 3: we're striving for, I think emerge more readily in me
Speaker 3: when I'm in nature. I mean, I've been trying to
Speaker 3: meditate on and off for twenty years. I struggled. I
Speaker 3: think I would have done much better in today's era,
Speaker 3: where there's teachers all over the place and apps. But
Speaker 3: you know, it's kind of oftened me and you know,
Speaker 3: the bookstore Buddhist kind of guy. But I struggled with
Speaker 3: breath practice. It was just challenging for me, and at
Speaker 3: some juncture I just heard somebody say, just go outside
Speaker 3: and listen, and so I started meditating outdoors every day.
Speaker 3: It was in a park in a city. There were
Speaker 3: city sounds, nature sounds, there was all of it. But
Speaker 3: it was just being there that really unlocked for me
Speaker 3: the joy of meditation that i'd heard people talking about
Speaker 3: that I had rarely touched. And so that's one of
Speaker 3: the things I love about, you know, going to nature,
Speaker 3: is that it just feels like it's easier for me
Speaker 3: to be attentive because there's so many lovely things to
Speaker 3: pull your attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's a piece here around the body. Honestly,
Speaker 1: as you were talking about intention and mindfulness and all
Speaker 1: of these things, right, like, we are so in our heads,
Speaker 1: We're so habituated in our heads. We live in a
Speaker 1: society that compels us to live from the shoulders up,
Speaker 1: and so our assumption when we start talking about intentionality,
Speaker 1: aspiration things like this, is it's mental. We have this
Speaker 1: cognitive approach so often too. Mindfulness, you know, and even
Speaker 1: loving kindness practice is so often presented as like a
Speaker 1: cognitive based thing. And for me, what I noticed that
Speaker 1: correlates with what you're saying about the ease of presence,
Speaker 1: the ease of insight, the ease of disentangling in nature
Speaker 1: is I'm pulled back to my body in nature. It's
Speaker 1: quite automatic. It's just, you know, all the energy that's
Speaker 1: ordinarily concentrated in the behive of the range is naturally
Speaker 1: kind of melt like a candle into that universe that
Speaker 1: exists below our shoulders that is so important and has everything.
Speaker 1: You know, the body is always present, it's our minds
Speaker 1: that are imagining we're in the past of the future.
Speaker 1: I come back to this again and again that our
Speaker 1: body is really made of the earth. You know, the
Speaker 1: cells of our bodies comprised of the food and the
Speaker 1: nutrients that we take in, which I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's down to like ninety five to ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of what we take in food wise actually comes from
Speaker 1: the earth. But it's it's earth stuff. Our cells are
Speaker 1: made of earth stuff. And so I think that there's
Speaker 1: a correlation there. It's pseudo scientific for me to say that,
Speaker 1: but I think there's a correlation there. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, and much like meditation, in recent years, there is
Speaker 3: a wealth of scientific information that shows us how good
Speaker 3: being in nature really is for us. Right, So it's
Speaker 3: the sort of thing that for me, my experience confirms it,
Speaker 3: you know, and the science really confirms it too, that
Speaker 3: it benefits just even short amounts of time out in
Speaker 3: something resembling nature, even cortisol levels drop, blood pressure drops,
Speaker 3: immune cells get better. I just love when I can
Speaker 3: hear certain things correlated from multiple sources. It always just
Speaker 3: gives me a little more confidence, like, yeah, Okay, this
Speaker 3: feels like it's worth doing.
Speaker 1: It's in the traditions too, or should I say, in
Speaker 1: the traditions, and then the lineages that developed outside of
Speaker 1: the traditions as well, because you know, in Buddhism, and
Speaker 1: certainly in the more Hindu side of Eastern mysticism, in
Speaker 1: Eastern practice as well, we have the traditions that really
Speaker 1: flourished in monastic environments and insttions and what have you.
Speaker 1: We have those traditions, and then we have the yogic traditions,
Speaker 1: which the Buddha was really in so many ways, even
Speaker 1: though he initiated something that became more institutionalized and monastically
Speaker 1: oriented and what have you. You know, there was also
Speaker 1: these Yogis who went and practiced in the wild and
Speaker 1: practiced in the caves and didn't write things down and
Speaker 1: didn't want to be well known and remained rather hidden
Speaker 1: in what have you. We also have those traditions that
Speaker 1: the yogic practices and the mystic practices and what have you.
Speaker 1: I mean, from the east come from. And these are
Speaker 1: all folks who related and relied on nature and living
Speaker 1: in the uncertain circumstances of the wild to support their
Speaker 1: practice and just to bring it to like a more
Speaker 1: contemporary place. If you think about the asanas that you
Speaker 1: would do in just you know, any yoga class. Downward dog,
Speaker 1: pigeon pos and what have you. They're all named after animals.
Speaker 3: I watch my dogs do upward and downward dog every day.
Speaker 3: Cracks me up right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's because it's about returning to this essential nature
Speaker 1: that has something to do with our inherent connection to
Speaker 1: the earth. Yeah, it seems to be synonymous with waking
Speaker 1: on them.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to shift directions a little bit because
Speaker 3: one of the things that you, in my mind, have
Speaker 3: really gone deeply into and teach about a lot is
Speaker 3: internal family systems. So I'm wondering if you could just
Speaker 3: maybe for people who don't know what that is. Just
Speaker 3: give a couple minute definition of what is internal family systems,
Speaker 3: and then I'd like to kind of explore in there
Speaker 3: a little bit and then maybe tie that back to
Speaker 3: some of what we've talked about, like the healing parts
Speaker 3: of nature.
Speaker 1: So it seems to check out that anytime we have
Speaker 1: insights or truths about how the body works, we have
Speaker 1: a parallel insight and truth about how the psyche works.
Speaker 1: Because the two are intertwined. They're not really too there
Speaker 1: in a sense, both one, you know, and two at
Speaker 1: the exact same time. Right, Just like the body is
Speaker 1: comprised of parts. I'm holding up my hand and that's
Speaker 1: a part of my body, but it's still the body itself,
Speaker 1: so it's distinct from the body, and it is the
Speaker 1: body comprised of parts that form a dynamically interwoven system
Speaker 1: that functions very well to make my life happen. That's
Speaker 1: one way of describing the body. And there's a parallel
Speaker 1: truth in the psyche inside. You know, we have one mind,
Speaker 1: we have one personality, we could say, and also within
Speaker 1: that one mind, there are many different working parts of
Speaker 1: that mind, and there's many different sub personalities. This has
Speaker 1: been part of many different psychological lenses for a very
Speaker 1: long time. It hasn't been well accepted until recently because
Speaker 1: it makes it sound like you have multiple personality disorder,
Speaker 1: right to which I would say, well, there does seem
Speaker 1: to be twelve of me in here at times that
Speaker 1: all want different things, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think the part we could drop from
Speaker 3: that is the disorder part, right, Like, it's not a
Speaker 3: dis order that we have these different parts. I mean,
Speaker 3: even the parable of this show is talking to that.
Speaker 3: It's an oversimplification, right, that we have these parts inside
Speaker 3: of us. Right, it's boiling it down to a binary
Speaker 3: which isn't really accurate, but it reflects that angel on
Speaker 3: one shoulder, devil on the other shoulder. You know, I
Speaker 3: want to do this, I want to do that, but
Speaker 3: then another part of me wants to do this, and
Speaker 3: you know, all this roiling around inside of.
Speaker 1: Us exactly exactly. And once we start to see that,
Speaker 1: it opens up some very unique doorways for us. For one,
Speaker 1: we can start to think about the fact that, you know,
Speaker 1: just as the body is this living force, you know, again,
Speaker 1: this part of the body that I call my hand
Speaker 1: is also a living force. It has functions and kind
Speaker 1: of a character, if you will, and means of its
Speaker 1: own that might be distinct from the needs and the
Speaker 1: function and the character of oh they might liver right,
Speaker 1: just like that, the sub personalities inside of us are
Speaker 1: living forces. The mind is alive, We're alive, and so
Speaker 1: everything about us is alive. And internal family systems basically says,
Speaker 1: you know these parts of you inside, parts of you
Speaker 1: that maybe help you to function and wear the right
Speaker 1: mask in the right situations such as work versus being
Speaker 1: with friends. Parts of you that might hold your loneliness,
Speaker 1: your sadness, your traumas, if you will, at bay, so
Speaker 1: that they're not out all the time and you can function.
Speaker 1: Parts of you that step in when you get triggered
Speaker 1: or feel too much vulnerability somehow and you reach for
Speaker 1: something maybe to self medicate, or you get angry or
Speaker 1: you shut down. All of these different parts of you
Speaker 1: actually form an internal family. And just like with an
Speaker 1: external family, isn't it that in our literal families, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody wants the same things to feel heard, to feel
Speaker 1: like they matter, to be loved, fairness, justice, to be appreciated,
Speaker 1: and what have you. And so we have these parts
Speaker 1: of us inside that function very much like an internal
Speaker 1: family in that are we really listening this little thing
Speaker 1: called self love that has become so popular the last decade.
Speaker 1: Are we expressing love to these sub personalities inside right,
Speaker 1: such as the inner critic or the inner child? You know,
Speaker 1: when was the last time we actually listened to that
Speaker 1: part of us and tried to first? I guess see
Speaker 1: that we have a relationship. I can hate my inner critic,
Speaker 1: That's one kind of relationship. I can ignore my inner critic,
Speaker 1: that's another kind of relationship. I could also stop and
Speaker 1: listen and say, what's going on here? Why is this
Speaker 1: part of me like that? And what are they trying
Speaker 1: to accomplish? And does that part of me actually enjoy
Speaker 1: being that way or is it exhausting. We can enter
Speaker 1: into those kinds of conversations with ourselves, and when we
Speaker 1: do it from a place of compassion, which by the way,
Speaker 1: I think in a sense the earth really helps us
Speaker 1: to tap into in a natural way, And we could
Speaker 1: even say, you know, the earth holds a certain level
Speaker 1: of that compassionate, wakeful energy for us when we do
Speaker 1: this kind of self inquiry, when we enter into an
Speaker 1: internal engagement with these parts of ourselves from a place
Speaker 1: of compassion. What we find is that change starts to
Speaker 1: happen on its own rather easily, that the way these
Speaker 1: certain aspects of our personalities just naturally start to grow
Speaker 1: and evolve and start to give us flashes of insight
Speaker 1: and what have you in a manner that is often
Speaker 1: really surprising. And so that's just kind of a breakdown
Speaker 1: on ifs, and you know, there's a lot more to it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stages of healing that that process
Speaker 1: can bring one to. But what we find over and
Speaker 1: over again is that healing is actually possible, that permanent
Speaker 1: healing is actually possible, that transformation isn't actually so extraordinary.
Speaker 1: It's special, it's meaningful, don't get me wrong. But awakening
Speaker 1: is actually our birthright, and it's staring us right in
Speaker 1: the face.
Speaker 4: Hey everyone, this is Jinny. One of my absolute favorite
Speaker 4: things is when we hear from listeners of the show,
Speaker 4: and something we hear quite often is that one of
Speaker 4: the biggest obstacles to feeding the Good Wolf is remembering.
Speaker 4: Because life is busy and we get caught up in
Speaker 4: routines and we're all on autopilots so much at the time,
Speaker 4: so to help with that. We've started sending a couple
Speaker 4: of text messages after each episode is released to listeners
Speaker 4: who sign up for them, and it's something we're offering
Speaker 4: for free. A listener wrote us and said, the message
Speaker 4: has caused me to pause, even if just for a moment,
Speaker 4: and help me to remember important bits of wisdom, bringing
Speaker 4: them to the forefront of my mind. Remembering is the
Speaker 4: hardest part, and the text messages are super helpful. So
Speaker 4: if you'd like to hear from us a few times
Speaker 4: a week via text, go to one ufeed dot net
Speaker 4: slash text and sign up for free.
Speaker 3: What you just said there really resonated with me, which
Speaker 3: was just that call it what you want, healing, transformation, awakening,
Speaker 3: that these things are very much possible. And I think
Speaker 3: that's such an important message. The world's very different than
Speaker 3: it was. Oh God, how long ago was I a
Speaker 3: heroin addict, Like back in nineteen ninety four, nineteen ninety five, Right,
Speaker 3: the world is a very different place. We're exposed to
Speaker 3: so much more than we ever were. But there was
Speaker 3: a phase there where I just thought, once an addict,
Speaker 3: always an addict, Right. That was a phrase that used
Speaker 3: to go around, you know, and that was a dark
Speaker 3: place to be. And it often seems when we are
Speaker 3: in the depths of whatever it is, addiction, trauma, whatever
Speaker 3: it is, that like you said that healing is for
Speaker 3: other people, or we can't do it. We've tried and
Speaker 3: it hasn't worked. And I just think that message over
Speaker 3: and over again of like, as they would say in AA,
Speaker 3: keep coming back. And I don't mean keep coming back
Speaker 3: to AA. I mean keep coming back to your own
Speaker 3: growth and healing and all that, because it is possible.
Speaker 3: And I just love how ordinary you make it sound,
Speaker 3: not that it's not deeply special, but it's not for
Speaker 3: people who are quote unquote different than us are special.
Speaker 3: It's for everybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, to come back to the somatic lens in
Speaker 1: the body. If you think about it, the body doesn't
Speaker 1: hold on to things it doesn't need to hold on to,
Speaker 1: it doesn't want to. It doesn't hold on to illness.
Speaker 1: It wants to heal. It doesn't hold on to toxins.
Speaker 1: It naturally wants to detoxify. The body will always move
Speaker 1: in the direction of healing and clarification of its own
Speaker 1: systems when in the presence of the right conditions, that
Speaker 1: last piece is really important when in the presence of
Speaker 1: right conditions. Right, so, in the presence of further toxicity
Speaker 1: or things that perpetuate illness, you know, or bad nutrition
Speaker 1: for example, it's going to move in that direction. But
Speaker 1: place the body, you know, in alcoholizing environment, in a
Speaker 1: place where the proper nutrients and proper care is being
Speaker 1: administered and what have you, where the relaxation response can
Speaker 1: be triggered, and what have you. It naturally, in a
Speaker 1: parasympathetic state goes into tissue repair, detoxification, all of these things.
Speaker 1: The body, which I would say is related to the
Speaker 1: foundation of our very being, naturally wants to heal and
Speaker 1: naturally moves in the direction of healing on its own.
Speaker 1: And I mean this also comes back to the Earth
Speaker 1: and Nature conversation. It's like we're putting the body in
Speaker 1: the presence of these conditions that are very conducive to
Speaker 1: everything we aspire for on this path.
Speaker 3: Really, I love what you just said there, because I
Speaker 3: often hear that the body naturally moves towards healing. The
Speaker 3: psyche or the soul, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 3: naturally moves towards healing. And I hear that, and I go, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: kind of sort of maybe, you know, but I can
Speaker 3: think of lots of cases where it just it doesn't
Speaker 3: appear to be moving that way. But the qualification you
Speaker 3: added there sort of brings it all home, which is
Speaker 3: under the right conditions, you know, you can't expect a
Speaker 3: psyche that is continually reinjured to be healing itself, right.
Speaker 3: It might be trying, but it's not going to be successful.
Speaker 3: The body is not going to be able to heal
Speaker 3: itself if it is exposed to this or that. And
Speaker 3: so I really love that framing because it does point
Speaker 3: out there is a natural inclination towards healing, and we
Speaker 3: have to be very conscious of the soil in which
Speaker 3: you know, we're planting those seeds. To use an overused analogy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean it's the imperative of compassionate presence
Speaker 1: in terms of the psyche and psychological healing, healing, trauma
Speaker 1: and what have you. Compassionate presence is absolutely necessary, absolutely essential.
Speaker 1: There's no substitute for it in this world, in this society.
Speaker 1: You know that is just barely waking up to the
Speaker 1: reality of trauma, for example, and to so many other things.
Speaker 1: Getting compassionate presence in the right moments as well. It
Speaker 1: can be incredibly challenging. I can say a quick thing
Speaker 1: if you like, about neurobiology of tauma and how healing
Speaker 1: experiences work.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 1: Trauma's defined loosely kind of umbrella definition is any adverse
Speaker 1: experience we have where our defense systems are mobilized and
Speaker 1: then rendered useless. So you put in an adverse situation
Speaker 1: which fight flight gets triggered. All those intense neurochemicals are
Speaker 1: pumping and they have nowhere to go. And basically what
Speaker 1: we call trauma is a process that got started and
Speaker 1: didn't get a chance to complete itself. And the body
Speaker 1: again naturally wants to complete that process, but it gets stuck.
Speaker 1: Very much like records skipping. The record itself is designed
Speaker 1: for the song to move forward. The record player itself
Speaker 1: is trying to move the song forward, but something went
Speaker 1: wrong with the record, and so outside intervention is needed
Speaker 1: to get to the end of the song. And so
Speaker 1: when we have a traumatic experience, basically all these neurochemicals
Speaker 1: get consolidated into the body because not so much of
Speaker 1: what happened, but because the voice we didn't get to have,
Speaker 1: because what we didn't get to express because of the
Speaker 1: support we didn't receive because of the community we didn't have,
Speaker 1: because of the process that wasn't offered to us, or
Speaker 1: the awareness that wasn't offered to us, or whatever it
Speaker 1: was that we needed to complete the process. You know.
Speaker 1: So if you think to common traumatic experiences, you know,
Speaker 1: somebody didn't come to save us. Somebody didn't come in
Speaker 1: and speak up for us. Somebody didn't ask us what
Speaker 1: it was like later, Compassionate presence wasn't introduced into the situation,
Speaker 1: and that's what's really supposed to happen, and that's what
Speaker 1: causes the record to skip for us. But anytime we're triggered,
Speaker 1: anytime we're put in a situation where our woundedness comes
Speaker 1: out of vulnerability, comes out of reactivity, comes out those
Speaker 1: neurochemicals are alive and active in the system again. And
Speaker 1: there's what's called a window of reconsolidation. The experience that
Speaker 1: consolidated into the nervous system all of a sudden has
Speaker 1: a window where it's about to be reconsolidated. And what
Speaker 1: happens during that window really matters. If compassionate presence giving
Speaker 1: somebody a voice, giving somebody support, actually listening and affirming
Speaker 1: to somebody rather than giving advice and trying to fix
Speaker 1: things like this happen during the moment where that wound
Speaker 1: is exposed again, window of reconsolidation is open. Then when
Speaker 1: those neurochemicals reconsolidate into the body, they're going to have
Speaker 1: a different and more powerful influence intertwined with them. It's
Speaker 1: so bringing it back to the earth piece or the
Speaker 1: meditation piece. I mean, this is certainly the function of
Speaker 1: psychotherapy and why therapy works as well. We're opening up
Speaker 1: tender things in a compassionate space. There's a reason why
Speaker 1: when your heartbroken or feeling a little lost, going for
Speaker 1: a hike and taking your woundedness out to the woods
Speaker 1: often seems like just the thing to do.
Speaker 3: Because the earth, you're saying, that nature is that compassionate
Speaker 3: presence in its way. Yeah, I think that's what you're saying, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I'm an old school punk kid. I
Speaker 1: don't like sounding so corny and cliche. This isn't upfront
Speaker 1: to you know, my former identities in so many ways.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm gonna say it, you know, and the
Speaker 1: buddhas set it, and Richard Schwartz, my mentor, says it,
Speaker 1: you know, that the earth has this natural compassionate presence
Speaker 1: to it that sort of holds The Buddhist said, the
Speaker 1: earth has Buddha nature itself and expresses Buddha nature in
Speaker 1: so many different ways that a tree has it, animals
Speaker 1: have it, et cetera, you know, And so for me
Speaker 1: at the spiritual level, this accounts for some of the
Speaker 1: experiences we are naturally inclined to have in nature, without question,
Speaker 1: without analysis, even without trying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and I think if that phrase, you know,
Speaker 3: nature has you know, natural compassion is the other punk
Speaker 3: rockers in the audience who are cringing, right, you and
Speaker 3: I both share the same thing. I think we can
Speaker 3: just sort of look at the very least the sort
Speaker 3: of open, welcoming sense of nature and the complete sort
Speaker 3: of lack of judgment. Right, there's something about it that
Speaker 3: defies words. And I was thinking about this before we talked,
Speaker 3: and I was like, you know, we can talk about
Speaker 3: nature a lot, but it's the practice, it's being in
Speaker 3: it that matters. It's sort of the old phrase like
Speaker 3: writing about music is like dancing about architecture, right, saying
Speaker 3: like it doesn't quite get it. The same thing when
Speaker 3: we talk about what being in nature is like, is
Speaker 3: not the same thing as being in nature, you know,
Speaker 3: and feeling that, but there is something that most people report,
Speaker 3: I feel better.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I may not know the words for it, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure what to call it or why,
Speaker 3: but I feel better out here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean there's also a piece here around participating
Speaker 1: with nature as well. We're starting to pick up on
Speaker 1: this of practices like forest bathing that are very popular
Speaker 1: and people doing outdoor retreats and what have you. Because
Speaker 1: I was sitting in the Hole National Rainforest up here
Speaker 1: in Washington two summers ago, and I just spent like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like three hours under this tree that
Speaker 1: had this beautiful moss just draping down off of its
Speaker 1: branches and overlooking this river, and I was just sort
Speaker 1: of watching people as they walked by and recognizing how
Speaker 1: easy it is to just be a tourist in nature,
Speaker 1: right Like it's like a trip to a museum or
Speaker 1: Disneyland or something like, oh look at that, Oh there's
Speaker 1: a bird. Oh, and very little like stopping and really
Speaker 1: taking something in, really drinking it in, you know. And
Speaker 1: then there's always the hikers with the backpack speakers on that.
Speaker 1: I mean, see there's a punk rock judgmental part of
Speaker 1: me popping out, but.
Speaker 3: You're not alone.
Speaker 1: But it's just the obliteration of presence in us is
Speaker 1: such a strong habit actually slowed down and be receptive
Speaker 1: in nature. There's a lot of things that I think
Speaker 1: happen for us automatically, but just too actually open and
Speaker 1: shift into mindful presence. Mindful receptivity is a gift because
Speaker 1: again I'm going to argue that there is a natural
Speaker 1: healing force, that there's a compassionate presence waiting there for
Speaker 1: us when we open. It's like our parts inside that
Speaker 1: hold things that hold stresses and experiences and what have.
Speaker 1: You get to receive it in a deeper, clearer kind
Speaker 1: of way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my inner punk rocker objects to the phrase forest bathing.
Speaker 3: Ever since I heard, I was like, oh, goh god,
Speaker 3: this is terrible. You know, I often joke like I
Speaker 3: was doing sort of parts work. It's not as evolved
Speaker 3: as parts work is today, but this is you know,
Speaker 3: twenty years ago, and it was it was called inner
Speaker 3: child work.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Oh god, did I hate that phrase. I mean, it
Speaker 3: just caused me to cringe, But I couldn't deny the
Speaker 3: power of what was happening when I engaged in it
Speaker 3: meaningfully and worked with those parts and allowed those parts
Speaker 3: to have their say and understand why and what and how. Again,
Speaker 3: the phrasing can be difficult, but it shouldn't ideally turn
Speaker 3: us away from the power of these practices.
Speaker 1: It's true. And I mean, let's face it, like so
Speaker 1: many things that have goodness and value to them that
Speaker 1: we'd be wise to bring into our lives and become
Speaker 1: so cliche and watered down. And you know, Instagram has
Speaker 1: basically turned us all into commercials so that they can
Speaker 1: hide the real commercials in between the fake commercials that
Speaker 1: we're doing for them. Like that's basically what's happened with
Speaker 1: social media. And you know, so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: powerful concepts and practices and what have you that I've
Speaker 1: really had the wind taken out of them. Yeah, by
Speaker 1: this phenomenon that we're all experiencing together and at the
Speaker 1: same time, I don't know, like Ramdas was onto something,
Speaker 1: you know, some of these folks who are really onto something.
Speaker 1: And thankfully we have parts. So I can have my
Speaker 1: black flag self and I can have my all right,
Speaker 1: I can utter the word force Basink not a podcast
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I want to circle back to trauma for
Speaker 3: a second, because we have become a much more trauma
Speaker 3: informed society. It is another word that is starting to
Speaker 3: creep near mindfulness in its ubiquity. And I think that
Speaker 3: in my mind, there's no question that becoming a more
Speaker 3: trauma informed society is a really good thing, right, because
Speaker 3: people experience trauma at the same time. You know, what
Speaker 3: you're talking about is a natural process. Something causes our
Speaker 3: fight or flight thing to come up, and that process
Speaker 3: gets interrupted, right, So there's two ways to work with that, right.
Speaker 3: One would be to say, Okay, we give the process
Speaker 3: the chance to finish, whether that be at the time
Speaker 3: or we have to go back later and do it.
Speaker 3: Another way to work with that is to not have
Speaker 3: the fight or flight be getting kicked off as regularly.
Speaker 3: And so one of the things I worry about is
Speaker 3: is we talk about trauma, and we continue to talk
Speaker 3: about psychology, and we talk about safe spaces and we
Speaker 3: talk about all sorts of different things. Is there's that
Speaker 3: debate of is that making us more fragile in a
Speaker 3: way that we are responding to things that perhaps in
Speaker 3: a different culture we wouldn't have responded to that. Our
Speaker 3: fight or flight is coming up in ways that it
Speaker 3: might not need to, and I think I want to
Speaker 3: be really careful with that. You know, suddenly you're starting
Speaker 3: to define what experiences are appropriate for people or what
Speaker 3: responses are appropriate. And I don't want to get into
Speaker 3: that because I don't understand other people's lives well enough
Speaker 3: to do that. But I think about it, and I
Speaker 3: wonder about and we hear the word trauma used all
Speaker 3: the time for things that at first glance don't appear traumatizing,
Speaker 3: and I'm just kind of curious what you think about that,
Speaker 3: because you're much closer to this space in your day
Speaker 3: to day life than I am.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean thank you for the sensitivity that
Speaker 1: you showed, especially towards the end there, because a big
Speaker 1: factor in all of this that you were definitely acknowledging
Speaker 1: is the subjectivity that what's traumatizing to one person might
Speaker 1: not be for the other person. And there's a complex
Speaker 1: network of factors and variables in somebody's lives that contribute
Speaker 1: to that. This is heavily researched things, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of answers out there with regards to that why
Speaker 1: one person might be shook by something and another person
Speaker 1: might say a challenge is an opportunity. I'm going to
Speaker 1: grow from this. Right, You're very right, because so many
Speaker 1: of the mental health conversations that I'm so grateful we're having.
Speaker 1: This is definitely the golden age of mental health and
Speaker 1: trauma awareness. But they're happening on these ninety second videos
Speaker 1: on TikTok where we don't get so much of the
Speaker 1: nuance and people are reading less books with that, which
Speaker 1: is necessarily the place that you're going to get more
Speaker 1: nuance and life workshops and online courses and what have you.
Speaker 1: So something that doesn't get talked about enough is that
Speaker 1: traumatic experience doesn't have to become traumatic stress, and traumatic
Speaker 1: stress doesn't have to become PTSD. That a traumatic experience
Speaker 1: we can, in the moment that is happening, if we're
Speaker 1: resourced enough, work with it in such a way that
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to we mitigate its opportunity to become
Speaker 1: traumatic stress and then go to become that skipping record,
Speaker 1: and again its compassionate presence, it's compassionate relationship to what's
Speaker 1: going on in the moment that it's happening. That makes
Speaker 1: all the difference and helps us complete this process. I'll
Speaker 1: give you a personal example without going Tomi. I had
Speaker 1: a really devastating experience on Saturday night, absolutely crushed me heartbroken.
Speaker 1: On Sunday, I was very much in that heartbreak, and
Speaker 1: I did a few things that I just know to
Speaker 1: do now. One, I let myself feel it. I just said, oh,
Speaker 1: well it's here. I can either prolong this or I
Speaker 1: can let it just kind of carve into me, and
Speaker 1: so I let myself feel it. Two. I texted just
Speaker 1: about everybody I knew who could be a compassionate support
Speaker 1: for me, and whether that conversation stayed on text or
Speaker 1: became a phone call. There was a few phone calls,
Speaker 1: but I connected to a lot of different friends who
Speaker 1: had a lot of positive feedback were able to just listen.
Speaker 1: And then I rode the waves as the feelings came
Speaker 1: up throughout the day. And then three, I turned to
Speaker 1: my creative practice and I turned on garage band and
Speaker 1: I picked up a guitar and I channeled some of
Speaker 1: those feelings into this meaning making practice that I have
Speaker 1: in my life. I made meaning out of it. I
Speaker 1: wrote songs about it, and I walked away from the
Speaker 1: day with something to show for. I had these recordings
Speaker 1: that I made that day, and I did the same
Speaker 1: part because I was like, well, I have to be
Speaker 1: a trauma therapist by Monday. Right now I don't have
Speaker 1: that capacity, and so I can just retreat for a
Speaker 1: day and really be with this experience I had last night,
Speaker 1: and lo and behold. By Monday, I was good enough,
Speaker 1: you know, still hardpoken, but good enough to hold space
Speaker 1: for people. I had therapy and I really got to
Speaker 1: work through some things. And here we are on Thursday,
Speaker 1: and I'm relatively back to normal with some more processing
Speaker 1: to do. But what could have spiraled into a deeply
Speaker 1: traumatizing experience became the impetus for connection and creativity. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I think there's
Speaker 3: a couple of things as you were talking that sort
Speaker 3: of came to mind for me there, and one was
Speaker 3: you neither indulged nor repressed what was happening. You sort
Speaker 3: of allowed it and gave it that as we're saying,
Speaker 3: compassionate presence, and allowed other people to enter that space.
Speaker 3: And it makes me think about we used to use
Speaker 3: this phrase an AA called you know, keeping your side
Speaker 3: of the street clean, right, and it was largely talking
Speaker 3: about our own behavior. However, I think it applies across
Speaker 3: our psyche, right that when we are dealing with what
Speaker 3: comes up, as it comes up up, then the accumulation
Speaker 3: doesn't build up, right. And you know, for me, when
Speaker 3: I hit recovery, there was such an accumulation of psychic
Speaker 3: injury that had been both caused to me and I
Speaker 3: had caused to myself, right, I mean they co created
Speaker 3: this mess, you know. But over time, as I you know,
Speaker 3: to use a software development terms, I reduced the backlog, right.
Speaker 3: I was more able to when a situation happened, experience
Speaker 3: it in a more present moment me kind of way
Speaker 3: instead of it being what's actually happening and all this backlog,
Speaker 3: you know, all this stuff coming at the same time.
Speaker 3: And I think what you just showed there is exactly
Speaker 3: how to do that, how to remain somewhat current with
Speaker 3: what's happening, so that you know your heart's broken, it's tender,
Speaker 3: but it's gonna heal and you're going to be on
Speaker 3: the other side of it and it's not going to
Speaker 3: be this thing that you carry around for the next decade.
Speaker 1: This is the function of meditation practice. This is a
Speaker 1: function of the self help and even pop psychology lenses
Speaker 1: we hold. This is the function of the dharma. This
Speaker 1: is a function of view. Very Buddhist word, but you
Speaker 1: know what your view of what your life is and
Speaker 1: what have you. This is part of the function of
Speaker 1: all of that. It's the part of the function of
Speaker 1: doing internal process such as with parts work, but there's
Speaker 1: many other processes as well as it. A gender is
Speaker 1: that sense of trust. So you just said it. I
Speaker 1: want to highlight it, trusting that there is another side
Speaker 1: to this. I can get to that other side of this.
Speaker 1: Things are messed up now, but I can return to
Speaker 1: being okay later. Our society teaches us two modes of
Speaker 1: relating to intense emotions. The most popular mode is repression.
Speaker 1: Stuff it down, not today, And I'm a fan of
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a deep practitioner in that art.
Speaker 1: You know, it'd be really wonderful if it worked. It
Speaker 1: would definitely be my go to if it, you know,
Speaker 1: wasn't cancerous. But and then the other which used to
Speaker 1: be my favorite, was expression, right, just get it out,
Speaker 1: just offload it, scream yell, cry, what have you. Which
Speaker 1: there's some wisdom to that too. The way I used
Speaker 1: to practice it was not so good, you know, literal
Speaker 1: recovering coffee table flipper here actually actually flipped a coffee
Speaker 1: table at one point. But there's a third option that
Speaker 1: we're not shown so much, which is learning how to
Speaker 1: hold our experience. Just be with it, Just bring compassionate
Speaker 1: space to it, just allow it, just render it, let
Speaker 1: it take you for a moment. Just be with it,
Speaker 1: be in it. And to me, that third option is
Speaker 1: actually the most powerful. There's times when the other two
Speaker 1: options are definitely the skillful thing to do, but the
Speaker 1: third option opens the doorway inside to relationship into all
Speaker 1: kinds of resilience, bolstering factors in our lives.
Speaker 3: You talked to earlier about a window of reconsolidation. There's
Speaker 3: another window idea that shows up in psychology, which is
Speaker 3: a window of tolerance. Talk to me about the window
Speaker 3: of tolerance. A. What is it? And B what things
Speaker 3: are we able to do when we're in it? And
Speaker 3: what things are we not able to do when we're
Speaker 3: not in it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Because the experience you just described is the experience of
Speaker 3: somebody whose window of tolerance is broad enough to hold
Speaker 3: the experience right, and depending on I think the nature
Speaker 3: of the experience, the intensity of it, and what our
Speaker 3: window of tolerance actually the size of it right. Very often, Well,
Speaker 3: I'm talking too much, you talk about the window of tolerance,
Speaker 3: So I'm going to go explain the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, first week of COVID nineteen lockdowns happened in
Speaker 1: this country, and I hop on a call with my
Speaker 1: therapist at the time and ask how she was doing
Speaker 1: with everything, and she goes, ah, it's the value of
Speaker 1: being a traumatized child, you know, like I grew up
Speaker 1: in a chaotic environment. I know how to do this
Speaker 1: one now. And you know, of course things got more
Speaker 1: intense with the pandemic. But it's just another example of
Speaker 1: somebody with a broad open window of tolerance, which I
Speaker 1: think Thomas survivors naturally tend to have. We're used to
Speaker 1: handling so much. Get some healing work in there, and
Speaker 1: it's even more to the point. So window of tolerance
Speaker 1: is basically we can think of it as our capacity
Speaker 1: for putting up with shit, right, frustration, decision making stressors,
Speaker 1: having to hold back how we really feel so that
Speaker 1: we can function in the middle of a situation, these
Speaker 1: sorts of things, being able to tolerate difficult experiences, difficult emotions,
Speaker 1: difficult thoughts, streams, worries about the future, and what have you.
Speaker 1: We have currently a finite window of what we can
Speaker 1: hold before we basically either collapse into chaos or rigidity. Right,
Speaker 1: we either act out self medicate, freak out or rigidity.
Speaker 1: We start making rules, we start saying never again in
Speaker 1: all kinds of different ways, shutting down, dissociating. But that window,
Speaker 1: it's finite in this moment how much we can hold,
Speaker 1: but it can grow and it convolve over time, and
Speaker 1: everything that we do that asks any level of discipline
Speaker 1: of us is going to help us to expand that window,
Speaker 1: so long as it's not too much, and it's we're
Speaker 1: not outside the edges of that window, right, the perimeters
Speaker 1: the boundaries of that window, or what we would call
Speaker 1: it growth edge. And so it's like this very able
Speaker 1: bodied example. But it's like working out. I see Instagram
Speaker 1: videos of you on your peloton these days, Eric, and
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, a good strength training workout or
Speaker 1: a good cardio workout will take you right up to
Speaker 1: here edge and it's going to injure you a little bit.
Speaker 1: You're going to be sore afterwards, you're going to be
Speaker 1: dehydrated afterwards, you're going to need to put some nutrition
Speaker 1: in your body and what have you. And then you
Speaker 1: get stronger as a result of working right at that edge.
Speaker 1: It works the same way psychologically, if we relate to experiences,
Speaker 1: if we go on a silent meditation retreat, for example,
Speaker 1: if we engage in psychotherapy regularly, if we push ourselves
Speaker 1: you know, maybe academically, or there's so many ways in
Speaker 1: which we can work with the mind and go to
Speaker 1: the very edges of what we think we can handle.
Speaker 1: And then almost like a workout too, if you meet
Speaker 1: with that edge, a really good thing to do is
Speaker 1: to slow down for a moment, back off, take a break,
Speaker 1: drink some water, and then return working at that edge.
Speaker 1: And then you know, if you work at that edge
Speaker 1: and you know how to bring compassion and softness and
Speaker 1: some balancing factors in, you find that that edge can
Speaker 1: Expand I.
Speaker 3: Want to talk a little bit about two practices. You've
Speaker 3: mentioned them both a lot, and you actually do both
Speaker 3: of them, both as a practitioner and as a teacher,
Speaker 3: and they are therapy and they air meditation. And I've
Speaker 3: heard you say before that meditation can do the same
Speaker 3: thing therapy does, just in a different way, and sometimes
Speaker 3: it's more powerful, sometimes it's less powerful. And I'm just
Speaker 3: curious how you think about the relationship between those two things,
Speaker 3: kind of talk a little bit more about how they interact,
Speaker 3: compliment or how to choose which might be the better
Speaker 3: choice for you at a certain time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I teach people how
Speaker 1: to use internal family systems in meditation. That's kind of
Speaker 1: become my niche these days, and there's not a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of people doing this right now. And it boils
Speaker 1: down to this again, the simple reality of the window
Speaker 1: of consolidation and reconsolidation and the imperative of compassionate presence
Speaker 1: entering when that window is open. And we have a
Speaker 1: lot of research now around and how we can receive
Speaker 1: compassionate presence from the outside. And it does a certain
Speaker 1: thing to the body, It does a certain thing to
Speaker 1: the brain, it does a certain thing to our wiring,
Speaker 1: and we can also receive it from the inside and
Speaker 1: it does the same things to the brain and the body.
Speaker 1: When we receive it from within this little thing called
Speaker 1: self compassion, self love. So in the therapy room, I
Speaker 1: am that compassionate presence. I'm holding that compassionate presence for folks,
Speaker 1: and hopefully it's a space in which the boundaries of
Speaker 1: that space fuel solid enough, the energy expressed in that
Speaker 1: space feels loving and accepting enough that people have that
Speaker 1: basic sense of trust they can bring some tender things forward.
Speaker 1: And I personally, having been to hell and back several times,
Speaker 1: in various neighborhoods of hell and back several times, I
Speaker 1: feel like when people really start opening up like the
Speaker 1: most shadowy stuff, I'm like, ah, this is my old neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I know how to be here with you. I know
Speaker 1: how to walk through this with you, and I know
Speaker 1: how to get us both back home, all in forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. But you know, I know how to get
Speaker 1: us back and sealed up and you balanced and regulated
Speaker 1: so that you can go on from your day having
Speaker 1: had this healing experience. And then you know, the same
Speaker 1: thing can really happen for people in meditation practice, because
Speaker 1: what I'm expressing, what I'm holding internally as I'm in
Speaker 1: that therapeutic process with people, is something in ifs we
Speaker 1: would call self energy in but it's home, it's called
Speaker 1: bodod nature. All kinds of traditions have different names for
Speaker 1: this essential open hearted state that is inherent to us all.
Speaker 1: And if I have it, and I can feel that
Speaker 1: open hearted state even with my sadness or my loneliness,
Speaker 1: with the heartbreak I experienced that I spoke of earlier,
Speaker 1: I could have that heartbreak. I could hold that heartbreak,
Speaker 1: and I could reach back into the heart and bring
Speaker 1: forward some love and sympathy and compassion, some openness friendliness
Speaker 1: to that heartbroken state. That's the exact same thing that
Speaker 1: happens in the therapy room, and people can absolutely learn
Speaker 1: how to do that for themselves. In many cases, you
Speaker 1: need the therapy and to have that internal experience as
Speaker 1: an accouterment to the therapy. But I've had people in
Speaker 1: my courses who have been able to become adept at
Speaker 1: having open heartedness towards their own suffering in myriad different
Speaker 1: ways and have been able to do the full process.
Speaker 1: There's three stages of healing in ifs that increase in
Speaker 1: their level of subtlety and complexity, and that the third stage,
Speaker 1: which is called unburdening or sometimes final healing or permanent
Speaker 1: healing isn't often taught too much publicly, certainly, you know,
Speaker 1: only described in books with the caveat of like do
Speaker 1: not try this at home. And I've seen people be
Speaker 1: able to use meditation even for the unburdening processes that
Speaker 1: are in ifs, where we're releasing the stored energy of
Speaker 1: what happened into the elements and then replacing it, integrating
Speaker 1: it with something more childlike and free. So meditation is
Speaker 1: a powerful arena. You know. The last thing I'll say
Speaker 1: here is this bolsters my passion for longer meditation sessions,
Speaker 1: which is something we're losing. You know, people are so
Speaker 1: accustomed to five and ten minutes, and that's fine if
Speaker 1: that's what you got. But if you want to develop
Speaker 1: your practice to the point where it offers you the
Speaker 1: opportunities for deep transformation and deep growth, deep healing like
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, you got to spend a little
Speaker 1: bit more time inside. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that last point is an interesting one because
Speaker 3: you know, I'm certainly a big proponent, have been on
Speaker 3: this show of small steps, you know, doing what you can.
Speaker 3: But I also think you're right. I think everything's a balance.
Speaker 3: You can go too far one direction or the other,
Speaker 3: and maybe we're going a little bit too far into
Speaker 3: five minutes is enough. Well, it's a starting place and
Speaker 3: it may be all you have and in the season
Speaker 3: in your life, that may be what is there. And
Speaker 3: there are possibilities when you go deeper. And part of
Speaker 3: going deeper is going longer. And I've noticed that happened
Speaker 3: just in my own practice. It narrows down as far
Speaker 3: as the time commitment. You know, I'm like, well, I'm
Speaker 3: doing it every day and then I need to sort
Speaker 3: of recommit again periodically to the longer piece of it.
Speaker 3: And that's part of what retreat can do, you know,
Speaker 3: I think certainly part of what we'll be doing it
Speaker 3: at the workshop. And I wanted to ask a question though,
Speaker 3: because you used a phrase in their self energy, right,
Speaker 3: and so without going too far into IFS theory, there
Speaker 3: is this internal self that looks a lot like what
Speaker 3: we would call Buddha nature, different things, and that that's
Speaker 3: where we want to get, but it can be difficult
Speaker 3: to get there, right, And so you talk about something
Speaker 3: that's a really interesting idea, which is the idea of
Speaker 3: self energy surrogates. Right, So we know we could get
Speaker 3: it from ourselves. We know we could get it from
Speaker 3: a person who knows how to hold compassionate presence. But
Speaker 3: what are other places of drawing that self energy or
Speaker 3: borrowing it from another source?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because if we can borrow it from another person,
Speaker 1: I mean, don't we feel it around dogs, cats, you
Speaker 1: know sometimes right that they exert a healing presence on
Speaker 1: us that we feel better in their presence. We regulate,
Speaker 1: we calm down. We sense it in other beings all
Speaker 1: the time. And you know, again, I'm going to just
Speaker 1: come back to the Earth. You know, the Earth is this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not going to say it's a person.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to call it a mother, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: It is a provider. It's literally made all the food
Speaker 1: that went into my body. It made these clothes, It
Speaker 1: made the microchips that had to be mined, very big problem,
Speaker 1: but for the computers to work and the devices to work,
Speaker 1: and it's all earth stuff. The Earth has given us
Speaker 1: everything and really asked for so little in return. You know,
Speaker 1: the Earth is the greatest artist that ever was. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not going to find anybody more profound and prolific
Speaker 1: than this planet. That we walk on.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah, I think about that so often, just the
Speaker 3: literal riot of creation. You start looking around and you're like,
Speaker 3: the creatures that exist are insane, you know. Just the
Speaker 3: diversity and the number and the multitude is just sort
Speaker 3: of amazing to contemplate. To me, that's a beautiful reflection
Speaker 3: of that generative nature that is in the natural world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're still discovering what fifteen hundred species of life
Speaker 1: in the Amazon rainforest every year?
Speaker 3: Is that the number?
Speaker 2: Huh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe so it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really wild, the extent of life, right, But
Speaker 1: that is synonymous with Buddha nature, that is synonymous with
Speaker 1: what we call self energy and IFS, and I've come
Speaker 1: to the realization that it's all over the place. There's
Speaker 1: another Biddhist teacher, Locke Kelly, who teaches with Richard Schwartz,
Speaker 1: the founder of IFS, who talks about when we open
Speaker 1: to spacious awareness, such as with some typical Buddhist meditation practices,
Speaker 1: but its spacious awareness practices are all over the place
Speaker 1: in the somatic world, when we open to the space
Speaker 1: around us, that that space has what he calls self essence,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of the vapors of self energy, if
Speaker 1: you will. And we know that when we open our
Speaker 1: awareness to the environment, to the sense of space, the
Speaker 1: body goes into that parasympathetic healing mode very very easily,
Speaker 1: and so there's something to that. It's also in the breath.
Speaker 1: It's also in the breath. It's something I've become recently
Speaker 1: convinceduff If you think about the breath, it's regulating it
Speaker 1: literally sustaining your life. It's oxygen you're breathing in. Is
Speaker 1: what's pushing the plasma to deliver nutrients to your cells.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a relationship to your breath. It's
Speaker 1: always been here for you. You know you can use
Speaker 1: it as an anchor into this present moment. There's lots
Speaker 1: of things that correlate with what love is in the breath.
Speaker 1: And so I'm literally teaching a course right now on
Speaker 1: developing secure attachment, where one of the practices is developing
Speaker 1: a secure attachment to the breath. Using the breath, as
Speaker 1: you know, this essential relationship, this very good, healthy relationship
Speaker 1: in our lives that we can then work out our
Speaker 1: issues in our other relationships with. So there's lots of
Speaker 1: ways to draw in self energy from the outside, not
Speaker 1: just in the presence of a therapist or a coach,
Speaker 1: and then bring it into the body where these parts
Speaker 1: of us that hold our experiences and need love and
Speaker 1: attention live well.
Speaker 3: I think that is a beautiful place for us to
Speaker 3: wrap up. We've mentioned this workshop. It's called Awakening in
Speaker 3: the Outdoors and it's happening at Kropolu August sixth through eleventh.
Speaker 3: And I know on our website when you feed dot
Speaker 3: net under programs, there's a link to it. I'm sure
Speaker 3: at some point on your website it'll be there, But
Speaker 3: anybody who's interested, we would love to see you there.
Speaker 3: And I'm already hatching our next workshop, which is something
Speaker 3: to do with punk rock and healing. We're gonna need
Speaker 3: to work on that one, but for now we've got
Speaker 3: one on nature. Good to see you as always.
Speaker 1: Ralph, Likewise likewise, Eric, always a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
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