Dojo #229 – The Medicine of Pain

we’re recording yes we are hello

welcome to dojo

good to see everybody hope everybody’s doing well let’s see

chad um [Music]

all right uh no hands um

you might have a topic

all right go ahead debbie

yeah i can always think of something um so it was funny at the last dojo

okay so i’ve been doing like a sort of a fast and i’m a little bit spacey

and like not really having too much in the way of thoughts which is actually great

my mind is pretty spacious um and so i got onto dojo

and the first thing i heard when i unmuted or when i turned on the volume was james saying

you all i’m ending this i’m ending this dojo right now

and the reason that he said it was because he was having like a little conversation with james york about

wanting james to do the um modding or encouraging him to do modding

but the way that i came in was right at that point right after um

james true was saying that that’s what you could do if you’re not you just say

you this is ending so that’s that okay but it was kind of funny because

and then i was mentioned as like why don’t you do it debbie and i was like in such a

confused state of mind at that time i just thought it was funny on looking back

it’s like my state of mind prior to the dojo just kind of set up this little

you know confirmation of my state of mind it was interesting and then um

yesterday i was taking a walk in the morning and being spaced out i usually walk on the

street um it’s not usually too busy and i decided to walk on the sidewalk

instead and the sidewalk was not even and i was walking fast and i took a

forward fall like nobody’s business it was right on the kneecap

all right right on the cement which was raised so it was like i just hit it just

right right on the kneecap and immediately um i got a huge

um what do you call those things goose egg you know immediately i mean no time at all

and then i was like oh i’m never gonna dance again

and then i said no no no you’re going to take this walk you’re going to finish this walk you started out and i

did i finished the walk i was at the beginning of the walk and i walked for an hour and i was walked normally i

forced myself to do that and i made it fine um

but then of course when i got home my knee really swelled quite a bit is very bruised and even a little bit um scraped

like when you’re a kid and my hands scraped like when you’re a kid you know

so anyway i um i remembered about these videos um a guy

named tommy john he used to do physical therapy but he moved over to his own method and his

method he was actually being interviewed by dr tom cowan his method is

you you just hack the pain and the the motion

okay so your knee wants to make a cast you know and he says that that part of

the healing is just so that you can walk over to the cave you know just so that you can get to the cave and then after

that you know because we’re older or we’re you know not in the peak of health or whatever your body’s a

little bit slow to get things moving out of there and so his method is to get things moving out of there and the way

you do it is by using your will and your intention to do these exercises which are very simple

like a lunge things where you bend in your knee um and this goes for all injuries in in

your leg joints or whatever it’s it’s just a method and so you um so i decided to do that

and i did it a couple of times i did lunge i did um you bounce you know so

you’re activating you’re activating your leg your entire leg starting from your foot and then up to your brain

and you’re telling your brain you’re going to get well very fast and

normally when i you know and throughout the day the pain was varied and the stiffness

was varied i could see that it’s very um

flexible very changeable and throughout the day so it’s like it’s not

you’re not even dealing with the same thing at different times of the day so okay and by the way this guy tommy john

he says he never takes notes on his people for that reason because he he says every time they come in they’re

different it’s like a different body a different set of emotions and circumstances whatever

so anyway i just kind of realized that my body is much more flexible

um changeable and fluid than i tend to see it and so i was just keeping that in

the front of my mind and also just refusing to get to let it get worse and it was bad it was a bad fall

um so normally when you have a little

accident like this the next day you’re gonna be more swollen um for you know 24

to 48 hours my knee is so much better oh my god i couldn’t believe it and i would say it’s

50 better i can move i can walk normally oh and you have to walk normally you don’t like you know

and these exercises you’re like you’re stiff and you’re in a lot of pain and you just do them anyway you just go

right through that and um i think it’s a good way to uh build your

sovereignty and your ego and your power and i just thought i’d show that because

if anybody ever wants that that there’s two videos or 50 minutes each it’s very clear the guy is looking

at dynamo he used to be a baseball player and he was talking about how they used to um when he was playing baseball

he was professional and they’d give you they would give him like um they would have him taking 26

motrins a day and that’s not unusual um because they’re always in so much pain these

people so anyway great videos uh great help for me and um of course vitial from the pain

but trying to alchemize and uh it’s all good so i just want to share that

that’s awesome debbie i need to do that to my knee my knee is still

really stiff from from the fall and when i wake up in the morning it’s usually

pretty upset and then uh just walking in general is still i i mean bending is all bending is

really really hard i’m going to try that with bending where i’m not going to allow myself to flinch i’m just going to bend

and bend and bend because i need that it’s it’s not it’s not as flexible as it needs to be right now for me to go on so

yeah i sent you uh the first video um that’s really all you need and i think

it’s just you know he’s a very interesting person um i think you’d like it i think uh it’d be good if you would

watch it definitely and it shows the exercises they’re very simple you know and um but you’re really

you’re really getting in there yeah and it’s cool so i’ve mentioned that i interpreted for

tons of uh physical therapy appointments um so i’ve i’ve i’ve seen tons of

physical therapy and uh it’s amazing how much of that role is literally just to help the person

push through pain um in a number of reasons one sometimes people just are too much of a wimp and

they won’t push through that pain and so you need someone there to be like no you’ve got to stretch straight in this leg or you’re never going to straighten

it again kind of stuff uh but also because people

are so disconnected from the idea that they should know their bodies right that they should intuitively know their

bodies that they need someone else to reassure them that it’s okay to do x y or z um and so

it’s a mixture of those things is almost all of what like there is some specialized knowledge that comes with

you know that they have all set up that we did the surgery and now there are these protocols that follow it and that kind of thing and some of those probably

are valid and some of those are just babylon being babylon like it’s made me reconsider some of the

things i’ve seen for example like in preparation for any physical therapy most of the time they would heat up the

area to relax the muscles and make it easier to move so it would be less painful right that’s a babylon way of getting

you to fight through the pain but really you’re not fighting through the pain anymore right they kind of took away the

medicine in order for you to participate in the medicine because for them everyone feels better like the therapist now feels better because you’re not in

pain um and so and that’s kind of where babylon fails uh like as like i’ve

said before and i think this is still true that physical therapy is the most effective zone of babylon medicine that

i experienced as an interpreter that was consistent it did not do damage to you and help people get better to some

degree but you can see those ways that it hampers itself by things like protecting you from the

pain with something that seems so reasonable but it’s probably counterproductive

yeah i i i’ve always thought that especially in relation to this is that

if you were truly a here a healer in babylon you would quite expect it would be quite

necessary especially in physical therapy that you would have patients that were

coming to you for help and leaving your office in anger because you were pushing them too hard

and that that would be exactly the medicine that they needed that they needed the medicine of going

and being told this is your body you own it and then

them saying no you you’re wrong you’re not helping me and then i’m gonna leave that that would be a successful

treatment it’s a successful treatment because it’s exactly what the patient needed to do

the patient needed someone to stand firm even when the patient said i’m not going to pay you i you i’m going to go

somewhere else even then the medicine is still this is something that you need you don’t need 26 motrin

you don’t need a heating pad you need to bend your knee that that and knowing the entire time

i’m getting resistance from the patient and i’m still going to tell the patient yeah well you still need to bend your

knee and if you want to come back and get more medicine from me you’re going to bend your knee right now and

that the rejection of that is exactly the medicine that the patient was requiring that the patient is is gauging

their own medicine by being able to reject it to go home to feel what the just happened yesterday maybe to

find a new a new affirmation doctor that will give them all the motrin they need and to never find healing again that

would be part of their medicine too even over the long the long haul but it becomes our responsibility to be

rejected as medicine people if that makes sense versus the responsibility being no no i

have to make the the the patient feel that i’m a good medicine person

that that’s more that’s the world of affirmation medicine right the affirmary

infirmary the affirmary of it is i’m here to affirm the patient

and the patient is here to affirm me as the medical practitioner which means we need a successful relationship where

both of us agree and most of the time medicine may not agree that the actual process of that healing

requires the disagreement a therapist understands this uh

or at least a good therapist does but the uh allopathic medicine doesn’t quite get this stuff yet

open witness anyone [Music] i’d like to jump into oh go ahead

thank you debbie don’t forget your hands because the first thing you do when you

injure yourself if you take your hands and start putting it wherever you hurt yourself

and just do hoponopono which is thank you i love you i’m sorry please forgive me because you’re the one that decided

to go on you know you needed this experience and it’s kind of like it reunites you

with your body i’m so thrilled that you chose to heal yourself by

really getting into it and that is the way and i’m just thrilled that you did

find it and just never any of us forget our hands they are so so powerful

thank you

in hypnosis i learned really early on that

when you’re bringing someone through whatever life experience they’re going through that really you hit gold when they start

freaking out the most so but it’s really difficult especially when i started out i’m like oh whoa whoa

i want to back out of here you know i’m feeling their uncomfortability i don’t want to go touch that either but

that’s exactly what you need to do you have to go dig in to that pain

and the job you know for me as a facilitator would be to find a way to

just be with them be with them and create a safe space where they can actually go through and have this full

experience and it’s interesting like you know some people have past life experiences

to probably in my opinion probably to experience some childhood trauma maybe it is past life i don’t know but

um but yeah the gold is when they hit that

just terrified crying screaming mark it’s really it’s scary it’s hard

super hard to navigate that but um you know that you’ve actually done it

done your job when you can get somebody there or not get them to

allow them there bring them there yeah that’s all that’s shaman confidence too

the medicine man has to have confidence that this is helping even when the patient is saying you’re

not helping at all the the the shaman would if he holds

enough power right he will be able to be inside that faraday cage of confidence and still administer the medicine

no matter how much everyone’s freaking out parents go through this with children right the someone’s throwing a tantrum and the

parent is still administering the medicine it doesn’t really matter the tantrum is just proof that it’s time to take a nap or

proof that it’s time to do this or it’s just affirmation is what it is but it’s hard to read that affirmation when we’re

living in this polite world where uh anyone who raises their voice means there’s a problem and we need to stop

what we’re doing right now which is the antithesis of medicine really same with pre-heating your knee before

you move it’s the same kind of concept really anyone else you know yeah it’s so

counter-intuitive to go into the pain i mean pain to me it’s just like instantly you try

to make it stop without even thinking about it and so

yeah and i was having all these different conversations with myself about all these things um

it was really interesting process to watch because i’m not 100

in alignment with that i’m my own healer i’m still working towards that

trying to hack into that belief and um yeah it’s it’s a process

but i can see that i’ve made progress um i think a couple years ago i would have

run to get an x-ray and do that so

is this the the same uh guy that had the arm surgery that all the pitchers get the tommy john’s surgery

maybe there was a major surgery they figured out and the first guy to do it was tommy

john was his name and so they call it tommy john’s surgery where they take ligaments out of your

leg and put them in your elbow and these pitchers that wreck their arms and

so that’s if he’s an older guy that that’s probably the same guy yeah i think it was his dad

tommy john senior or something that and tommy done [Music]

junior deb’s probably who you’re listening to yeah he’s not old he’s not young but

he’s not old and he’s definitely been through the mill being a professional

athlete i’ve taken that

that’s just sorry go ahead but just i can’t believe that someone that we’re walking around

giving someone that many motrin a day that’s just amazing to me that that’s how it’s it’s plays out

susan i think i was stepping on your oh that’s okay um i find it so amazing that

this is coming up today because just last night i’m i’m helping people deal with grief

and just last night i had a client who one of the things we

do is they look at the whole lost history over their lifetime and blocked them through it and it’s all about

witness like we do here just listening to the person being with them not saying anything for let them just get it out

and oh my god this woman has had enough tragedy and loss and abuse and neglect

for like five people and she was really crying and i was like oh

god if i pushed you too far it was scary actually because

um you know she even told me that she had contemplated suicide in the past but she

wasn’t going to kill herself now because she had a dog and a dog i mean it was just so out there you know

beyond anyone else i’ve worked with and i was like whoa maybe i pushed her too far

but then this morning she fat she texted me and said thank you for doing that because no one has ever

been willing to walk all the way through that with me they always quit about halfway because it’s so dark

and i was like oh thank you because i was a little nervous you know like the

she’s still gonna be here in the morning it was that intense but um

this is really affirming you know that it is the medicine sometimes to just let the person go all the way to the wall

and beyond you know and um so it’s actually very affirming to me that yeah that is the

right medicine and she said please don’t stop working with me this morning she said i want to go all the way through with this so i was like thank you

that’s badass that’s exactly the the point i was trying to make and and that’s what makes a a real medicine

person that’s what bursts that is you’re nervous as oh my god what did i do what do i do and you find

yourself leaning into things that you never would have leaned in before because your intuition is telling you

to lean in and working with the teens that i did the

i would lean in on the suicide thing and the reaction was just priceless

because i’d be like yeah you you know you have that power

you have that right you you can take your life that life’s yours doesn’t belong to your parents it

doesn’t belong to me it doesn’t belong to the school it’s yours and maybe what you’re really doing right

now by telling me how suicidal you are is you just want to know do you really have power over your life

is it really yours and do you really want to own that life right now right so you’re reframing the

entire thing and they’re just like you’re supposed to be like really uncomfortable with this right and your

medicine is i’m not man this you have sovereignty over this why would you not why would this not

come up in a in a normal conversation at some point why would you not discuss the

idea of this right this is this is how you prove your own your body is to strut in front of me and say i

might just in my own life and for me to go god man you you have the complete sovereign

ability to do that there’s nothing i can do to stop you it’s not even a threat it’s an

expression of power that’s what you’re doing you’re expressing your power and it just changes the whole thing the exact same

way the physical therapist would tell someone you need to bend your knee yeah i get it it hurts okay do you want

another star you need to bend your knee that’s what you need to do and if the rejection comes that’s

exactly what was what the patient needed to do they needed to be able to express their power well can i reject your medicine is not helpful the answer is

yes of course you can and then you’ll go home and then that medicine will still be in you that

medicine of i walked out that medicine if i i said this person didn’t know what they were doing that’s that’s probably more powerful

medicine than they were getting inside that place while they were cooperating with the affirmation ritual which is really what

we’re doing now most of the medicine is just an affirmation ritual where we’re just affirming each other so it’s a

great great topic anyone have anything on this

well in the thing that susan was sharing too that it feels like there’s this element of um

someone is afraid to share it but with the person with them doesn’t seem afraid

right they’re not uncomfortable they seem then they can be reassured that they can share it uh which just shows

how profound a fail it is when people do that go halfway and and and jut out because that just keeps

reinforcing that oh i was right my intuition was correct that is too hard to go to

you know here’s the fifth person that just tapped out halfway i’m not even close um so yeah in fact i want to read one of

the things she said um i needed someone to do this with me to

be strong enough to endure that’s the power of the exercise the grief pain etc is too big and scary

if no one else can handle it how is it even possible for the person impacted to get past it

well you know it’s like amazing

so it kind of took me out you know beyond where i’ve been before also so it was medicine for me too

i’ve also noticed with the physical therapists a lot of times you know all they really need to do is show you the

exercise and you can go home and you can do that exercise by yourself all you want and you can probably get yourself

better but they generally schedule people weekly because

i guess they do need that witness they you know they they can go home and do the exercise to get better but

it seems like they they feel like they need to have that physical therapist there watching them

go through the process um and i’ve talked to therapists about it that find a lot of frustration in that it’s like

all i really need to do is show you this and you should be able to go home and do it but it doesn’t always work that way

they’re fortifying their technology of belief it’s like a recharge uh you know the same white coat effect

yeah it’s constructive and it’s also debilitating at the same time right

because you’re learning to find the it’s just like training wheels on a bike it really is it’s the exact same thing

so it’s good for a time but then you can’t turn sharp corners with training wheels i don’t know if you guys have ever tried that but you can’t it’s very

difficult to make a sharp turn on training wheels you’re going to really get up exact same thing

so the thing about uh this guy tommy john

he makes a strong point that you need to work both sides not just the injured side

and so in the end because what happens is um you injure yourself and

even if it’s very very subtle you’re going to be limping you know you injure something on your leg

you’re favoring the other side and so um i think most physical therapists just

go into the herd side he goes into both sides so that as a whole organism you

come out ahead when you’re done with the process i think it’s a good idea yeah i tell you

debbie that that’s going to really stick with me the idea that um i can just picture him or you doing

that right now where you’re telling yourself you’re not sitting up straight and if

you’re not sitting up straight it’s because you’re going to be holding the pose that i’m injured which is reaffirming the injury not not the

opposite that’s really really astute i uh i need to make sure i’m doing that too i

think that’s probably the worst thing we could do is to walk around limping like that that really the exact op the right

medicine would be to to completely stand upright and to feel that pain

we just have to have a friendly relationship with pain too we don’t really have that right now

and that’s a big big big problem i think um but it’s part of why we’re here i guess

i’ve been making some um go ahead who’s there no go ahead andre go ahead okay hey um

making some magic with pain with some chronic things that

still kind of blows my mind but has worked in that

separating the pain that i think is associated with a certain

whatever you know glitch and instead of

so catching myself like the glitch happens and this would be different than

you know you’d happen to you deb yesterday i’m talking about some chronic thing

and the glitch react to the pain and i tighten up and i say oh that pain is because of this glitch

but the pace just separating it’s not necessarily related to that glitch

and that’s been and even now sometimes i can like catch this and it’s like a sharp pain that

i’ll get i’ve as i’ve been kind of aware of that

i and this is this is pt this is a pt that’s been helping me with i mean

she’s oh she’s not your usual um in all ways

and that’s been really exciting so it’s been kind of this magical observation

well yeah this is happening but and and like i can

i can so minimize the team instead of it taking 20 minutes for me to work work itself out it’s maybe

five minutes or 10 minutes or two minutes or 30 seconds sometimes i even catch it beforehand so that’s been

really fun to play with

and you can also if you if you uh i work with a lot with pain people and

if you actually get them to think what i do is have them think about life after this pain is completely gone and

they’re back fully functional and just feel into the emotion that they’re feeling dancing or surfing or

lifting their grandchild or whatever makes them happy and if they can tune into that feeling instead of thinking

oh this pain sucks oh i hate this pain because it that’s reinforcing the pain

but if you can actually just go into the joy of once you’re past the pain or ask yourself just how life is

different once this pain is gone it’s it’s amazing how that will shift uh so quickly especially with chronic

pain because it’s so much tied into memory and and belief about it’s always going to be there and it’s

impacting me and it it is easy to evacuate into pain too

cold shower rain walking is i think really good exercise for

pain acclimation too if you can create a ritual where you’re

embracing something that you think would be discomforting or that you believe or

know is discomforting and to purposely place yourself into that field

and watch how it transforms you because you consciously chose to go there

is like like huge ritual like it’s such a huge ritual

and i think you could actually recreate that inside a healing center where someone could embrace that cold cold

water therapy is just an example but a simulated cold shower that you could

walk walk into voluntarily and just stay there would emerge you would emerge from that

ritual charged for days weeks months even because you embraced the discomfort of

that you stepped inside of it and you literally sat with it you weren’t like

i’m going to resist this you were just like wow it’s not actually pain

what it is is just very very loud temperature differences

are being read right now all over my skin in very detailed specific areas all at the same time

and it just gives you an opportunity to somatically sit inside and feel what

your crew feels like to man your skin all the time right because your crew’s manning your skin and they’re putting up

with these things all the time you’re placing your consciousness inside of their cockpit with them

which i think is like just majorly jacking into your your body more and and

creating that kind of magical ceremony

yeah hey hey hi hey what’s up hey i just kind of want to go to go back to um

the suicidal thoughts that people have and my daughter um kind of didn’t want

to be here for probably like three years and uh

you know she was cutting herself and initially i was like oh my god what are you doing what what the what what’s

on your wrist what’s on your ankles and i you know and i didn’t get too emotional over it i

mean i think i probably cried about it maybe but it was just so weird to me i just couldn’t believe she was doing i’m like

what the and she just go like she just met all of her legs and her arms and i knew when

she was wearing socks and long leggings i was like oh she just went at herself right

so probably like last winter like 20 21 i mean she’s been trying to like exit

this place for a while but i finally got to the point where i’m like you know if you’re gonna go you’re gonna go

there’s nothing i can do about that so i’ll miss you but you know i can’t i can’t stop this

so she kind of looked at me like what the are you doing you’re saying it’s okay mom and i’m like

i i can’t i can’t stop this so she was also drinking a lot

and she drank all my booze i’ve been drinking and i don’t know what i had i was like what the you drink

like the vermouth holy girl that stuff is gross but she’s like drink whatever she could

and then she turned to uh because she’s only 19 at the time she was like 17 18 she started drinking vanilla

like boxes of vanilla guys there’s like 50 boxes of vanilla in her closet it’s like holy

so she was just going for it she was just going down just spiraling and uh i told her probably like

last fall winter i’m like you can’t be here you have got to leave this energy has

got to go i have my own work i’m doing kid you want to go live on the streets cause that’s cool you can go live with your dad he drinks and steal his beer

but i can’t handle this like it’s just too it was just like a hurricane in my energy

and uh so i was like all right that’s your choice you go to your dad’s or you know like

you can move out you become homeless i don’t know you can stay here so she she took it like she’s like oh

she’s serious and she kind of came back around so we’ve had back and forth wanting to kill herself and cutting herself again but

the other day i remember we were talking about like not going through your kids things like and you know their privacy is

important but like you know what i don’t know i think you should look at some of that if you’re drawn to it so i looked

into her bag and it was i don’t know it wasn’t like i was snooping i just kind of opened it up and there was like

vanilla bottles guys this was just yesterday i’m like oh like

are we there again are we there again so i went up to her in the morning and i said hey you know

what i saw what’s in your bag and you can’t you can’t do this here you know like it’s just not okay you’re

gonna have to leave like i’m just i’m cutting this off right now you know and she uh i think she’s good she might have

finished them they’re just two bottles but today she seems better and she was actually james listen to some of your

show i have her your book out and she might i’m like just read like just read a little bit of your six

dragons because it’s so fun and so she’s kind of like looking at that a little bit but

yeah i think you just have to be like boundary no go not happening or you’re out

i don’t want you to leave i love you but this is not going to work in my field so

sometimes you gotta get get a little snoopy guys with your kids it’s things your energies are off

like just your gut like they need it they’re almost asking she had it right in her purse in the living room so i

could open it up so you know what follow your instincts and the healing and the balance i’m all

about stretching and moving and dancing just dancing is a great balance just

dance go outside take your shoes off take your clothes off whatever if it’s private but um

getting out in nature and balancing your body with nature is it’s just so much more powerful to do it

that way do you think she’s trying to express her dad’s trauma oh

like to be just a repeat you know and if you threw that at her it’s you’re

kind of giving her utility for her depression which could be very constructive you know it’s like

the way you’re doing this because you’re compassionate as and you’re just you know you want your dad to be able to

express his pain so you’re you’re being that read for him right now you’re playing his

his sound yeah possibly it’s in your jeans you know oh for sure

yeah well i used to drink you know i know how that feels she feels a lot she’s a cancer she’s

just so emotional and it’s beautiful i love it um

and i don’t i don’t feel bad about myself for having to experience this is just like this is good how would i

learn and how to deal with this if i didn’t go through it yeah an angel for doing this for me

you know i need to learn so much and you know we’re playing off each other even though she’s 19 and i’m 53 or whatever like

yeah i’m her mom but it’s just such a great dojo dude so great with my daughter with both of

them really and my husband we were separated but that’s crazy too

just learning from each other glad to be here guys thank you for listening oh thank you it’s a great

topic yeah all right thanks oh mute

open mic anyone

i think that one of the hardest things about wait

let me know i’m in my truck and so uh if the audio is weird that’s why

um anyways i i figured um i wanted to talk to

just uh the process of healing and you know this idea of inflammation and

my process um

so i i’ve had scoliosis and crooked back at

least since like [Music] 12 13 age um

and what happened with me is i as i went through puberty i

and kind of like built a lot of muscle but i built it on a crooked back and

um it’s been something you know i continued on through college played football i built a lot of strength on a sort of

crooked foundation and so over like the past 10 years or so there’s been a

process of a lot of dissolving away

a lot of realigning but getting to you know i still have work to do but

kind of finding that balance in my structure and then rebuilding that strength on it i just

you know the tommy john stuff relates and um i like his perspective as well

and i definitely have experienced a lot what what that process

is and that process of inflammation moving through the pain diving into the pain

i had a injury in football where i took a helmet to my thigh and

my thigh was you know the side of my thighs and i um

i got dogs in the car relax okay

um just there was a whole process there it

i still have some residual scar tissue but just years of stretching and like

working at that tissue that had that had built you know

i i only missed like one because our team was already short on players it was a division three like a smaller smaller

program and i was one of the best players and so um i just and i i come

from that background where everyone in my family um one of our traits is

being able to push through pain being able to just endure like as kids we all

would win all the fun runs we’d all come home with trophies that kind of things and so i have four brothers and we all

just tend to share that ability to to push through the pain and um that

kind of thing so i have done a lot of that and i’ve you know obviously since learned that

there’s a balance to that or if there’s you know that’s a skill that can be useful when

uh i don’t know hunting or going into war or you know i play ultimate playing a

sport i was kind of joking but it is something that i still

um can do and i guess i’m proud of in a sense that i you know can push push through that pain

but i also recognize um the healing process and that

there is that process of like

like what was said the inflammation is is there to build that cast to kind of get you

safe where you need to go but then there’s going to be this this process that that takes feedback that

takes time which is the honing and refining of all that new growth all that new tissue

that that that living cast we can call it

specifically in the last couple years i’ve been playing ultimate more consistently and i’ve also been doing

practices uh like aligning practices so kind of

you could call yoga i honestly don’t actually do yoga routines very often um

but like hanging on a pull bar or an inversion table using a rolling pad so just really

um trying to be balanced and aligned in my movement and so every when i go

it’s gotten a lot better i would go to play after doing some of this aligning stuff and i after the game i would have these

like really intense pains around my hip and around like my

just kind of in my mind it’s like our tailbone

is kind of this fulcrum where the what’s above and what’s below are sort of overlapping and

uh like a fixing to each other and so

it’s like i could feel i still have a little bit but i felt the crookedness in my tailbone

um there’s been a lot of pain in trying to move with balance and and move

back towards alignment to the degree where like i’d play and then i wouldn’t be able to lift my like

i wouldn’t be able to put on my clothes and lift my leg after really

and it doesn’t happen anymore and i really feel like it’s because i’m that that pain was

uh a new aligning it’s like i had to rebuild myself on this new axis of

alignment and i just keep i keep kind of rebuilding on this new axis of a line

and uh yeah i don’t know that’s that’s just been my process and um i just wanted to share a little bit

of that

i like it those dogs are freaking adorable by the way it’s just like oh my god they’re so

freaking cute he was just enjoying you talking too he

was just like yeah you tell him tell them about the other thing now it’s so great i like that idea of rebuilding on a new

posture right i think that really comes down to what what a lot of us are doing all the time

um no go ahead uh so uh renee that’s having to

witness that whole self harm thing of that nature has got to be intense uh but i mentioned a previous jojo that i’ve

always been someone that uh like creates wounds on myself scratching scabs or even just small things and i can

literally create big wounds out of nothing that kind of thing and my mom saw my uh dad’s brother do it

and realize that it came through his side of the family so like why she’s doing that in general i don’t know but the choice

of that specific tactic could actually be epigenetic like i’m convinced that it came through the father side of the

family to me as far as the actual choice of how to do it whatever that expression was the anyway um

my mom used to pick at her face and like pull out her hair you know so she would do kind of some

weird like that my dad but like why are you like she’d have a basically put out a whisker and they’d be like a big wound on her chin

and she just couldn’t stop so maybe something like that came through so as far as why it’s the cutting or the that

thing maybe that like that why it is expressing in that sense uh could be a anyway a factor uh but the other thing i

was going to mention i i’ve been on the side of your daughter in the sense of my father

having that intervention moment with me it was about uh financial support and things like that it wasn’t about your situation but saying that you know i’m

heading your retirement so at this point you really got to take care of yourself um you know you got to kind of get together that kind of thing

and it did have a major impact on me because he had never really done that before like so when it comes out of the blue like that to me it had a whole lot

more impact uh and one thing i’ll mention is that as i succeeded

in respecting that boundary and this happened over time in my situation but i i i succeeded over time

respecting that boundary my parents started to find opportunities to

give give on their terms like give that same kind of financial support they would have given me in the past but when

they wanted to on their terms kind of thing and for me the moment that happened the first time was sort of

revolutionary about how successful i’d been about respecting that boundary um so i don’t know what that means in your

situation but looking for those opportunities to be able to show her when she is succeeding that she’s

succeeding for me that was a really big deal with my parents when they set that boundary with me and i actually held it like respected it

well even just like today i was cooking breakfast or something and i think i said i’m sorry

and she’s like you’ve been saying i’m sorry a lot mom like i have she’s like yeah you’re always apologizing i’m like really

so she’s like just i’m just noticing i’m like that’s cool you notice that because i don’t i don’t know i’m doing it and

then as i was leaving today i was kind of like sorry and i’m like oh she’s like it’s okay mom but yeah it’s it’s a

give and take now we’re kind of like throwing the ball back and forth you know i ever saw her and when i saw

the bottles of vanilla in her bag i like maybe skipped i mean maybe waited 10 minutes i

kind of got into a place where i could approach her she was upstairs in the room like hey audrey come come downstairs

and she’s like what i’m like sorry let’s sign your bag and she’s like oh i’m like how long you been doing that she’s like

not long i’m like it’s not gonna fly here just heads up i’ll see you later i don’t know love you bye and she’s like

but you know she went to work that night and got off and she felt a lot better i i don’t know like i just have to it’s a

wave i’m just writing it i’m just like when i feel it i call it i’m not waiting

i’m not even questioning myself i’m just doing it and following my intuition it’s got me here

all right thank you uh gnome appreciate it

hey renee um i had to step outside so that my daughter i wanted to address

what you’re talking about i’m sorry not on camera um my daughter

i mean i don’t know how much ability i give to the signs that my daughter’s a double cancer sun and moon

my middle daughter and she’s extremely sensitive and i’m not so emotionally sensitive not

like she is um and when you were talking i just felt like

sort of a lack of compassion rather

in the sense of um i feel like you’re joking about it

and just making making light of it and it feels to me

sorry the wanting to kill herself for the cutting both just the whole situation it’s kind

of like i had to i think i feel like um

not sure really she she needs i feel like she needs a lot more witness from me like some serious like some nitty

gritty let’s get down oh dude i mean we’ve i mean you know when this was all going down off and on this is just kind

of the end i’ve kind of come to a place where that works for both of us but like i lay down in bed with her and

just she just cry i mean i’ve you know that’s been going on for years so there’s always more to do and i’m glad

to like you know but i i think i do kind of have to step back and be like just observe it i’m a capricorn

and you know i’m a single mom at this point and i have a business and i’m doing five minute things which i love

but i’m like i don’t have time for this like i’m kind of like that snippet in the bud like i’d be a really pretty intense shaman because i’m like let’s

just go there all right let’s move let’s go it’s the aquarium age

let’s do this yeah i i think i think i was seeing that

but maybe yeah no it was just it was me it was me going into myself and compassionating you

and i um yeah charlotta i i i really think you’re onto something and i think that renee

uh gave herself away by by the story about how much she

apologizes i think those two things are related and

this is really powerful topic i i we’re gonna see how this goes but i just

i think you’re onto something and i appreciate that bravery there um i’m gonna go to mark though because he’s got his hand up but uh

i i love this stay on the mat too renee this is good stuff go ahead

yeah i got a new topic so i definitely don’t want to end this if we’re not done with this um

okay um yeah we can always come back to we can always come back yep and in fact sometimes that’s the best thing to do

because right now renee is probably already going what the was that what does that mean what

wait a minute is that right yes that’s cool i like it yeah this is great so go ahead mark this is good we’ll let we’ll

let that wine breathe but yeah just uh on just what charlotte

just said i i just remember she had the you when you were dealing with that situation you were talking about okay

let’s go out to the car and uh let’s just turn on the turn on the car and uh and let’s let’s go let’s all do it

together and i just thought that was your unique way of handling it you didn’t know what else to do and i just remember that

so i just think this is renee’s way of dealing with it the same thing i mean it’s just very serious situation um and

you have to figure out a way to deal with it it’s your child and you know you don’t just want to tell them uh you know don’t do

that you have so much to live for you know you know you want to have a unique way of approaching it i think so

yeah but uh for me uh so i just want to say uh first of all

things are like a lot of things been happening to me uh most of them all good so

i’ve been wanting to speak up in the dojo for a while and just tell you guys how how great things are going and how

well i’m dealing with things but uh i think it’s it’s more important use my time to focus on the things that are that i want to alchemize need your help

with and that are i’m struggling with a bit so um

but uh yeah so i went home for a family reunion and uh you know i

i was dealing with everything great all the people that give me vitriol i was just like you know judo moves just taking it absorbing it

and just turn it back around on them just alchemizing it in real time and just uh

feeling that feeling like a giant really among my family i was just you know we talked a few weeks ago about that being

an elder and i came home and i really didn’t know what to expect because i knew how people feel about me and my

beliefs about things and none of that really came up everything was just oh you know we kept it all you

know how you doing how are your kids doing how’s your work going and we kept it really light it was very

very emotional very loving a visit with my family i mean there was no need to make anything expensive for

anyone nobody really talked about covet or the news or politics i think everybody just had a has this a feeling

that uh yeah you’re not gonna change anybody’s mind it just leads to fights let’s just not do it even though i know

with my parents especially there’s animosity they’re mad at me still but you know they wanted to have a good time

nobody wanted to bring anything up and so

on wednesday’s dojo you guys were talking about um i think it was mo he was saying uh you know it’s the question

of when to talk and when when to say something when not to say something because

you say something and all of a sudden you know a nice moment uh you know the good energy just turns really bad and

you’re in a fight about something but you know there’s also you know like we’ve been talking about making it expensive versus

um you know trying to get along with your friends and your family and uh you know this was all just good stuff all

getting along great and until the last night um you know i have a much better relationship

with my my brother’s family um you know i bonded so well with my nephew everybody says he’s he’s just like me

and all of a sudden we’re just like we’re talking like really good friends and he wants to hang around me he’s like

and um you know so that was just like i said everything’s just going well and uh

then we all of us my brother’s uh wife and all their kids were all sitting around the table we’re all talking and

my my wife’s there my daughter’s in bed and um so we start talking about two really

uncomfortable things and this is the issue of not saying something nobody having the energy

or people being polite and not wanting to speak up and say things and the first one

and all this trip i had already you know my mom she did her with me and my dad too and i just like put it right back on

them i call them out on that immediately and i’m just like you know look at the way you’re acting but it’s fine you know we gave her a hug afterwards just like

don’t do this you don’t need to do this and and so i was telling her and i had no problem with telling my mom and dad things just

right there on the spot and just dealing with it and so but there’s other things that came up

with with my mom and uh my my wife and my brother’s wife apparently

there’s been some issues where my mom has said horrible things to them directly when i’m me and my brother were

not there in their presence and also to my brother’s kids so basically saying that

my sister-in-law my brother’s wife is is not a good mom and so all this stuff has been going for years and so i think

we’ve tried to address it with my mom and then i’ve never really believed her or that does she did these i couldn’t

believe that my mom would say this stuff and so we’re kind of basically all in front of the kids my brother’s kids were

talking about this just these horrible things that my mom had did uh said to her in front like you know i

had to go out and buy you clothes because your parents don’t care about you or they’re they’re taking horrible care of you so it’s like nobody said

anything to her for all these years and i’ve kind of like just kind of been i can’t believe that she would actually do

that that stuff so we’re talking about this and you know we’re talking about it and we’ve talked about it for years but it’s

it’s nobody’s ever said anything to her and i i think my brother has confronted her with it before and she’s never

um you know she’s never owned up to it it’s like oh i didn’t do that she’s lying and it just you know i wanted to

believe my mom that she wasn’t that bad of a person and it’s just kind of like you know and my wife

went off on this trip to germany where where my mom invited herself over and

and just said all these horrible things to my wife and i i just couldn’t believe that that that was going on and so

um it’s just this kind of thing right you know how do i deal with that situation uh you know i

guess i need to confront my mom and just say you know everybody’s agreement that you said all these things and if you don’t want to admit it or believe it

that you said this stuff then uh you know i i just

don’t know how to deal with it and um i i guess i need to grow a pair and just tell my mom it’s like what good is is

going to cover that because we i remember we had this and i know she said some things and she’s not this perfect angel that she plays to pretends to be

and um so but it’s just kind of a question where

you tell people you call people things and then they have a memory a different memory or a different reality of what’s

going on it’s like oh i didn’t do that you know that’s a lie and and um

that was part of it and the other part of the conversation was about my sister’s kids

and my sister’s kids one of them the middle child my nephew is uh

you know we’ve all known that there was a problem an autistic problem going on there the kids doing the flapping the wing

clapping his arms and i come over you know long drive drive thousand miles to see him he doesn’t

even look up at me doesn’t care that i’m there doesn’t talk to me i’ve never really had a meaningful

conversation with him but so we were talking about saying something

you know say something we should all agree she needs to get some help now while the kid is young and nobody had

the electricity to do it to say anything to her um this has been going on for years and he’s made it through the school system

fully functional and well i don’t know i figured that the schools will pick that up there’s no

he’s going to get in special school district or something but they never did because he’s able to get through the you know passing grades and

and play sports and he has a few friends and all that and so now it’s a question of you know

the other one the oldest child who i didn’t think there was a problem with i just thought he was awkward and weird

um or just couldn’t have a conversation doesn’t want to buried in his phone doesn’t say anything

and so now that what we were talking about is just how these kids you know might be on the spectrum but also that they’re they’re really kind of kind of

they just even the youngest daughter who we don’t think has is on the spectrum she you know just she’s

really mean she relishes on being mean she’s been mean to my daughter when my daughter kind of looks up to her as a

few years older and um you know she says something mean to me you know i get no hugs no love

it’s just like night and day with my brother’s kids and her kids and i tried talking to this about my mom and they

just defended oh they’re fine this is why they are the way they are and gave me all these excuses and and we’ve just

kind of been you know we ended up talking about this just how it’s really a situation serious situation within the

family because my brother’s kids don’t even want to go over there and talk to them because they’re just they just ignore you know

one one of my niece on my brother’s side she had a birthday party and and the kids wouldn’t even you know they didn’t

didn’t even say happy birthday they didn’t you know they drove all the way down to um to be with them and they

didn’t even interact with them or anything they was buried in their phones didn’t say they so they were up the my brother’s kids were hurt by this that

they you know they don’t even talk to me they don’t do anything what’s going on so so we’re all talking about this together

with the kids my brother’s kids around and nobody’s like saying anything even though i’ve said stuff to my mom and dad

and they they deflect and say there’s there’s no problem so so i mean i know

the easy answer is just say yeah you got to go up here and say something tell your sister hey your kids are they don’t know how to function in

society they’re going to have all these problems you know you should have got you know the middle child help a long time ago maybe the older child needs

help to something just you know they’re not going to be able to function in society if they’re if they’re you know it’s totally

socially inept don’t interact with anyone and and beyond that just being not even you know give them

smart ass answers people try to engage you try to talk about whatever the one kid’s into godzilla and just try to talk

to him about that stuff and he’s just got short chopping answers doesn’t want to just back to his phone just like or

be smart ass you try to you actually know some things and try to interject and he um you know this is a smart ass

to you about the whole thing which he’s been ever since i can remember i’ve tried to be the uncle like i was to my my brother’s kids which

has been perfect and then this is like a totally different thing which i thought well maybe it’s on me i’m just not doing the right things but we all kind of are

in agreement that these kids are are just you know socially awkward and they’re and um

so i i think that’s all i wanted to say but yeah just knowing when to say something and not say something it would you know

i have a great relationship with my sister and her husband we get along great but it’s just the kids and just

you know i feel like i need to tell them something a long time ago and i didn’t nobody did my parents just coddle them

and make them think everything’s great and they’re these awesome kids because they’re doing well in the school system

um but yeah that’s all i wanted to say thanks for listening it’s good to see you mark

um i think that you might find uh

a good mantra would be i’m i’m always supposed to say something however the percentage of what i’m

supposed to say is purely based on the amount of budget that i have or the amount of calories

that i have to spend in this moment so 100 is

your kids are up they’re they’re anti-social they’re going to be a mess you should have done something a long

time ago that’s 100 and i don’t think you ever want to do that i think the 40 would be more about just

looking at your own field and so you can say the exact same thing without

actually talking about someone else’s uh misguided trespasses you could more say

it as hey the last time my kids interacted uh

with your kids it it feels like that i’m just my kids are being trained to be

antisocial and to have this lack of interaction or whatever it’s just it’s

it’s i don’t like how how my kids are are are receiving this

and my move my 40 is to say look we’re gonna have to cut these

things back unless something different happens and then that’s the opportunity for them to say well what do you mean

or how and you don’t even necessarily want them to take that opportunity you’ve

just simply done enough for your own personal field so you’re not focusing on your mom’s dishonesty you’re not

focusing on your cousins or or whoever sorry i’m not saying the exact role right you’re not focusing on their

behavior you’re more focusing on your own behavior and how it relates to what you’re exposing your children to

and so when you’re having a conversation about them you’re not actually talking about them you’re more just talking about how important it is that your kids

get the right nutrients and that one of the nutrients that they get is the correct

healthy social interactions that are so important right now in this world

and so it becomes you more focused on yourself in their presence and that sets a posture that hey maybe

maybe they could focus on themselves too but none of that’s really any of your business

that your 40 percent really could just stop right there because you did say that you felt that you should have said

something earlier so really i think that’s really the only fault that you can really constructively work

on is to try and put yourself in a posture where you feel like not only do you disagree maybe with the

energy but that you’ve made the necessary steps to d to set up your immune system in a way

that’s proper for you and your family to interact in the future so it’s a pullback

point being you’re always saying something but you don’t always have to win you don’t always have to make a massive

move you’re just constantly exercising even if it’s five percent

all the time i think five percent all the time is better than 40 once or

worse 100 once that even if you’re slowly always throttling that

central uh immune system yours basically it ends up being easier to exercise next time

and more importantly you’re setting up the prime economy where someone else is waiting for knowing

well mark’s going to give us five percent here any minute and that makes it easier to give 10 percent the next time because they

already know you’re going to give them that five percent and it’s going to be really polite it’s going to be very grounded they’re not even going to be

able to really say much about it they’re just kind of forced to deal with it in the room that ends up being quite a

therapeutic even though you never actually say anything i’m only bringing this up because my mom

i have a lot of mental issues about what’s real because growing up i just

i just i would get slapped in the face i’d be blood pouring down my face and i’d be

told that didn’t happen it was just like some of the weirdest most bizarre even today

as i’m telling you that story i don’t know if that’s if that actually happened i swear i remember it i

remember the physical pain i remember looking in a bag and accidentally seeing a watch that was for my brother it was

his birthday gift and then bam i got hit in the face and there was blood everywhere but no one in my family will ever admit

or acknowledge or even give me a heads up that that happened that’s deeply caused a lot of brain damage in me that

i’ve just had to deal with all my life the reason why i’m bringing this up is

because the few times that i’ve tried to give my mom what i think would be the right medicine

it is completely erupted and blown up and hurt me even more

because of how long i allowed that prana economy to exist with her so i’m trying to say that i would give

someone else outside of my family a completely different amount of my calories than i would give to her

because the calories that i give to her are so much more expensive when i pull them out that i know i’ll

never survive if i was to give the same amount so i have to temper and tether those things back to myself

and i try and just not really focus on the fact that maybe my mom lied to me i try and focus on why do i have such a

hard time believing in the reality that my body said it experienced

that becomes all about me it has nothing to do with my mom at that point i don’t know if that helps or not i hope

i didn’t make that too much about me it’s just that that mom thing is a biggie because especially when they lie like that

because you’re brought up in that thatched roof and every time it rains you’re getting drenched but there’s not

a thing you could do because everybody in the house is insisting that that the roof’s fine it’s it’s really up uh system to

live under so open witness for mark

i i have open witness hi everybody it’s marie um i’m moving around so i’m i have my still

thank you everybody for your shares um um you know um

it’s mark i related to what you said and i related to what renee said and uh

you know maybe i had a case of mistaken identity with a lot

of my family and i put pressure lots of pressure on myself so it’s kind of i made it

expensive for me like james says talk about make it expensive you know i made it very very expensive

for me and very profitable for them and when i started to deal with the fact

that i had to come true to myself that this mistaken identity they will never

be what i want them to be and i it was it was heart-wrenching to go through that very very painful

and i got there through grief work i went to a six-week regular when someone

passes away uh grief work at a nearby church a non-denominational church it was just

six weeks people just lose their loved ones blah blah and they go and i went in and i said i’m here for

two people that have been dead since the 70s and i’m here for two people that are that are alive

and they said welcome and they were very interested in the fact that

i wasn’t their first rodeo so to speak i i was there for people that are alive

and i needed to go through the grief work we sat around a fire and we wrote letters to those people

saying what we really wanted to we threw them in the fire we did all stuff like that and for six weeks it was the best

six weeks i didn’t want it to end you know you know and and i found out through that grief work

that no one can x my experience so now when i deal with my loved ones

that i have mistaken identity about i i will use like certain their

therapeutic statements i mean from i don’t i’ve never had much therapy in my life but the therapy that i have they’re

like when you i feel when you when you blank i feel blank and

that was really hard to find the right feelings words because there’s a lot more words than just

angry sad lonely and afraid or happy they branch out into very technical

words and there’s a feelings wheel for it so it’s like really really foreign

so i started to use you know you know when you say this to me i feel

um cast out or unappreciated and stuff like that and that would stop them in their

tracks and even though i want them to be the way i want them to be they themselves are just wow they have

to take it so then i felt like i was putting coins in my bank you know what i mean i was i i was making it expensive

without hurting them because i’m telling them my experience you know and and getting back to with the grief

work i also there was one gal there and that that name that debbie gave about

tommy john that that person that’s this since that grief work that person’s name

this one person knew of that person tommy johns if i’m saying it correctly

and she also went to where her horoscope where her bird sign is and her horoscope

so as to the area in the body which is going to be painful and that took so

much interest i had so much interest in that my husband’s a capricorn and she goes well that’s why his knee is wrong

you know because his knee needs a knee replacement what do you mean he’s just going to get a knee replacement he’s going to go in

he’s going to and i had all this lined up she goes because the capricorns hide all their

grief in their knees and the knees i mean it starts in the knees it could start in the knee and it spreads well

mine i’m a pisces and so my feet i mean damn it those damn feet

have not worked well in years and so and i broke one and my bones in my feet and

aching and all this other stuff so i went back another week and i’ll end with i said to her

oh what can i do about my feet she’s like well you could get some foot reflexology

try some stretching and what was spoken about before the stretching

is painful stretching it just goes past the comfy mark

to the oh my effing god but i want more mark and when it went to

oh my effing god i want more that got me very curious

because i wanted to be in that very i was curious to see how

much more pain that foot and that heel and that shin that

bothered me how far this other person could stretch me and then when i got to that part

like the tommy john’s person has to do the other side he goes we got to do your other side now because otherwise

we this will not balance and this is going to be psychological and when you go home

you’re going to feel a hell of a lot better maybe around right away and sure enough and i craved more of it

and so i crave more of that what do you call it someone else stretching you here in arizona they have a lot of

stretch bars i call them or something like that when you go and you can get stretched you know i went to a rehab

place uh so i did that and if that helps anybody and um yeah that’s all i have

thank you for letting me share all that that was really hard to do thanks

thank you marie i always love it when you when you join us open witness on that

uh so mark i just had a couple of uh or a few uh reactions uh one um

well first kudos for being able to create that space in that family hangout uh where it was just awesome for the

couple days of enjoying it and being able to have like actual family time and then being able to shift to something more contentious and productive like uh

and if you keep that up with that confidence and that energy level um you were a golden child so at some point you

may find they start trying to invite you right back on that pedestal um so uh i i

wouldn’t be actually uh that surprised but uh when you mentioned this the issue with your mom and the way they treated

she treated your wife my mind went completely a different direction in the sense that like i my initial reaction was like forget

the prana economy with the mom just make sure your wife knows you she had you have her back that’s that’s all house that’s where my

focus was like just make sure your wife knows you you’ve got her back do what you need to do to do that

forget the mom that that was my initial reaction um and then when you mentioned about the kids and

the like they won’t have a place in society or whatever that phone thing that is a new culture

that we have formed in our society and i think some of the behaviors that you’re seeing of the kids is attributes of that

culture um that depersonalized that

i don’t know that ability to just completely disregard something instantly like you can on your phone like i i think there’s a lot of

and there’s going to be a lot of places for those people in that culture uh moving forward um it’s not the culture

that i want to be in uh but i think a lot of people are gonna kind of opt for that so um i just want to say that i i do think

there’s going to be a place in society for them i just don’t think it’s a place we would want to choose for our kids uh

you know by choice kind of thing but um yeah that’s it that’s just some

reactions i would bet that probably the majority of people that are

employed in certain fields are 100 just autistic

and they’re just employed but because everyone is employed in that same building no one no one calls it autistic they

just call it normal i think that’s that’s really just gonna keep happening

more and more unless we stop i don’t know maybe with the autoimmune diseases

if we could stop that that’d be that’d be great but you know so yeah

that’s really true that’s really true um because i’m dealing with the younger ones there are

so many so-called high-functioning kids with autism now when i first got into the field it was more like

you know tantrums on the floor head banging um no verbal now it’s

it’s hit the you know the functional um groups

and um yeah it kind of coincides with those are our scientists

yeah those are our scientists those are our engineers and our scientists in our front lines

of what’s supposed to be rational thought the scientific method all those things are living inside and the torch of that

is given to the autistic populations now because they’re the ones that have those jobs

so and they do not have compassion you have to teach them compassion

and if you can’t teach them compassion you teach them how to fake it that’s what we do

my daughter’s on the spectrum she’s 21 almost 21. she has compassion

uh oh is that not working no i we heard you yeah there was just yeah i mean that’s strange debbie like what what do

you mean kids on the spectrum don’t have compassion yeah it’s a generalization i’m sorry

yeah i have two daughters on on the autistic spectrum and they’re they’re so

compassionate it’s um it’s almost a handicap

wow yeah but i don’t know i mean we’re obviously

not talking about the same part of the spectrum then that’s awesome the ability to read other people’s

emotions compassion or are you saying that they’re just emotionally driven

um no they can they can read they’re sensitive like

it’s more of a sensitive thing and yeah i sometimes they can’t

read emotions as easily um because of overwhelm but usually

they’re they’re they’re feeling them intensely

like for the other person almost um

to the point where they’re almost uh

paralyzed almost just by feeling what the other person feels or it’s like

how you might feel when you see an animal getting hurt it’s like they will feel for the animal really intensely

they do that with people too it’s like that so

um i just think this world is so loud for them

it’s just so yeah so maybe we’re confusing um x being super

sensitive you know being like those sensitive people or whatever they’re called

and being perceptive of others and having um

you know being told by neurologists 20 years ago that they were on the

autistic spectrum i mean it’s a label it’s a label i guess so i i it does hit

a nerve because you know my own kids i’ve kept you know

i i handled i didn’t have the school handle it except for um you know i did have i did have to

intervene with with a status at one point but not like a full disability status

um you know but anyways the system both

presents autism as a single thing that has like a cause uh and then also a

spectrum it’s it’s like it’s like and it’s because it’s become this catch-all right of all the things that are either

vaccine damage or you’re poisoned by this or that or you just maybe do have a genetic thing like it’s become this kind

of catch-all for um kind of a list yeah but then just just

to shift that catch all into um and associate it with the sociopathic label

i don’t you know it hits a nerve in me it just does yeah well what’s funny is i didn’t tell my

daughter she was autistic she didn’t know until she was 14. even though she was getting taken out of

her class for like you know working with someone like debbie probably speech therapist or whatever and

you know i just never never came up she never asked so when she was 14 you know

her sister was in school as well so she was going to go to her first junior high dance and colette had gone through a

couple but you know i took her down there and she’s like mom i want to go in there she was in eighth grade so she was kind of on

her way out at the middle school vibe but we went down and you know let’s just go in and check it

out they’re supposed to be bubbled and smoke and lights and stuff so i went in and we’re there for a couple of minutes

she’s like mom i just want to go so we get in the car and i was like this is the moment this

is the time i go collette you know there’s a reason that you don’t like that stuff she’s like really i’m

like yeah you’re on the auction how about you’re on the spectrum autism spectrum and yada yada blah blah blah

and she’s like oh that’s really fascinating she’s like you know what i’m really glad you told me that because i don’t want to be normal

what else i guess yeah so i think it’s good to kind of just leave it

like i don’t know i just never told her she was too young to say hey by the way you have this thing it’s called autism

i don’t know just never came up but she i think she appreciated but then it was also like oh that makes a lot of sense

to know that i feel you know oh yeah that’s why i was like that oh it’s all even good or bad

yeah exactly exactly jen it’s either a fashion or it’s a detriment and depends on what

room you’re in and who’s in that room even the quest to not want to be normal

i think is sometimes a desperate call to be broken which is i really want to be can i be

this broken i want to be the autistic kind of broken because everyone is getting special treatment around me who

has that a lot of their behaviors are completely dismissed including eye contact

i i find it hard to call autistic people compassionate when they cannot feel the

emptiness of not being able to give eye contact to someone and the reason why they can’t feel that they’re not

actually meeting someone in the room is because they do not have compassion to feel what someone else feels because

their own microphone is so jacked that it’s making too much noise

that the presence of that sound inside themselves is so loud that they cannot process it in a constructive way

which is why they end up having to create a way of communicating that doesn’t involve facial

telepathy and i don’t think you can be compassionate without that facial telepathy in fact i think cutting is

part of that lack of compassion because if you were cutting

and in front of someone and you had compassion you would leave the room you would not feel comfortable

because your compassion was on and i think this is part of what the

lack of the myocardial wall is destroying this outer realm of being able to perceive

feelings but without having them myocardially destroy our heart

and it’s very very profound i don’t think that it’s sociopathic i think that kristen maybe you you’ve read into that

a little bit i’m sorry to say i don’t if i’m wrong please forgive me but i just think that the sensitivity of that read

into that because sociopathic tends to have more of a tendency of i have a goal to cause harm

i don’t think that’s what we’re talking about as much as we’re saying i have a goal to stop feeling harm myself by

making facial contact with people i need it to stop and so we end up stopping the facial

contact simply because it’s too loud which sets our compassion into entropy

right like your muscles your muscles stop they’re not able to exercise as regularly so they eventually they end up

shutting down and you end up with a giant uh company full of autistic people

and no one’s noticing anything that’s wrong because it’s been bred out of

the radar no one would be allowed in the building who had a myocardial wall and i think that the autistic spectrum

is filtering themselves out saying look man you’re not gonna work here you you’re

making eye contact with me you’re making me uncomfortable you’re gonna make everyone else here uncomfortable this isn’t gonna work so

there’s definitely some a different species like noam was kind of touching on it’s a new kind of there’s a new

uh culture in the room but also that culture came on the backs of the dying

old culture which had the ability to connect via face which had the ability to i think

stand in the light of someone else’s feelings without having it uh short out your own system too

open witness it’s just crazy i’m thinking of my daughter audrey and my daughter colette like so audrey’s going through

this i don’t want to be here and colette’s like what the hell is going on could she she could feel that energy she knew when

her sister was upset and i wasn’t always there she’s like my man come home she’s destroying the house she’s

like like holy so i felt like

it’s like i just can’t handle it i’m like whoo you know you go home just like okay let’s figure

out what we do here like what you know whatever it’s all we’re here now and they’re both great but

just to imagine colette’s like just losing her you know with her sister like trying to kill herself is nuts

it’s nice to be in the head left like what was going on in there and we’ve talked about it but

not deeply it was so it’s just so you know collect audrey’s attacked colette just wanted to beat the shutover because

she just wanted to be she just wanted to hurt herself so she hurt her sister i’m like holy you can’t do this here

you can’t beat up your sister it was just nuts guys it’s such a crazy experience and i know i don’t want to make light of it

but i appreciate it too because holy crap it’s crazy ride

to navigate and we’re up to the task

so debbie when you said about the oh sorry no go ahead good good debbie when you said about the

if they can’t do it we teach them to fake it um in a sense that’s we’re trying to teach them the fashion right

like the you can just kind of wear this and and that stuff and i have a friend uh old friend from high school that

he has two kids uh a daughter and a son uh the daughter’s uh now um

in her early twenties and is a lesbian and is in the world culture uh and then the son was autistic um

but one of those high functioning autistics uh and now he is just saying that he is i think he’s saying

that he’s non-binary and i think it’s one of those things where he’s ex he’s he’s exploring the fashion like we’ve

taught these people like one of the things you have to do is play with the fashion and get the fashion right uh and you know he’s

modeling his his older sister and his mother’s into that what kind of stuff i assume as well and so it’s just

interesting it doesn’t surprise me that we’re finding that in the transition field uh the autism autistic thing is

over over-representing um and i think it’s because of that that because we are literally teaching them one of the

coping mechanisms is to use fashion correctly um and that is one of the big fashions of the day in those

younger crowds uh especially on the online crowd where it’s easy to fall into that stuff so i just kind of

reminded me of that yeah i think the only way you’re going

to be able to compassionate someone who’s in this state is to try and put yourself in a position

where facial contact hurts and if you can get in that state you can

really start to empathize and compassionate what someone’s going through with there and i think you’ll

find that if you’re in a state where facial contact hurts that would mean empathy or connecting hurts

and those are things that you would look to find excuses to avoid as often as possible and my god how convenient would

it be to have a phone how easy would it be to simply stare into the phone instead

so really these are pacifiers these are autistic pacifiers and they come to mark’s house and they

can they can go they will participate but they’re going to need their pacifier because they can’t look at faces right

now and there was a time when autism used to be something that we tried to treat

i used to work for an organization called cure autism now it was literally in the title our goal is to cure

and that they had to change their name to autism speaks

that it became a bigoted prejudicial idea to be in that company and trying to

cure or fix these things and before that culture change it was considered therapeutic to have

facial therapy where the student was encouraged to sit

and have eye contact with someone for a certain period of time and the exact same thing happened

as when you go into the physical therapist and the physical therapist says yeah

it’s supposed to hurt stop being a let’s get this therapy let’s go let’s embrace it let’s

go and instead the affirmation sets in and we’re like well i’m not going there anymore how dare you speak to me that

way and so we end up affirming the pain instead of actually using it as

a valuable kind of medicine and i’m saying this knowing full well that the kids that we were working with

in relation to this facial eye contact thing it was never going to be something

where they’re going to wake up one day and just have full eye contact with someone else at least i never felt that

way but the point was to exercise those muscles all the time to make sure that those muscles work

because there’s no way that that child is going to be able to survive as an adult once their parents are gone

because they’re not going to understand how to make these kind of connections but we’re told that that is compassionate to make sure that they

never have to have facial contact which is just gross

but i have to understand this is how we we deal with these kinds of things that

we only have so much electricity parents can only afford to do so much i i know i

don’t have kids so i mean this as respectfully as i can i get i get that i

don’t get it i get that i’m not in that trench every single day and i’m waking up i what i

saw renee doing earlier was using the schedule of time as a disciplinary

measure instead of her having to say no when she tells her kid i don’t have time

for this or we don’t have time for this or we can’t deal with this that is her saying i cannot pull the leverage to say

we’re going to stop all of our life because this is the most important thing that’s ever happening you’re cutting yourself or you’re drinking or whatever

we will solve this right now there’s simply not enough calories or electricity to make that solving happen

so renee has to come up with whatever she can come up with to keep the machine moving and to keep some sort of

direction going it ends up being the medicine and it ends up being what what we end up evacuating ourselves off of

too because the child is learning that the schedule is more important than me

that the entire practical thing that we have to do to participate in life takes priority over the fact that i just cut

myself or that i’m drinking vanilla when no one’s looking and this is the only tactic that we have sometimes

i get that i don’t get it is what i’m trying to say and that we’re only going to be able we have to use our calories

as creatively as possible to try and make these these moves and accomplish what we need to

accomplish i mean i guess i had to feel it in a different way like how i process all the

vanilla like i went into her closet i was cleaning her room and i just found

all these boxes in the plastic containers and i i could have just thrown them away but

i opened every box i took the cap up and rippled everything

one that’s how i do it it has to go deeper with me i have to go in deeper and kind of break myself a little bit

but it’s private i don’t know

but i’d feel it feel it but not in that conventional way i don’t know let’s do it my own way

um we’re out of time i’m trying to keep respect to the doja ceremony but i really appreciate this um

thank you guys for being here appreciate you anyone have any last words

um can i say [Music] show you something about the eye contact thing james

can you hear me yes you know as a kid i hated my father because he was a hardcore sensei when it comes to eye

contact especially in hard moments that we have he always insists look into my eyes you

know and as a kid i never understand it as i grow up i uh

learn what the powerful magic that that is now catching myself like my father

and uh insisting to my kids look into my eyes i know they hate me in this moment but i

know in the future that will that’s great

especially in this world to be able to look someone in the eyes is

a big force witness they’re basking in this and autistic

kids don’t want a basking witness it’s very painful to bask and witness just is and i don’t mean to generalize

it’s not just autistic people but witness itself it’s very difficult to bask in that and if you have a high

microphone if your fidelity’s turned way up it’s going to be even harder

all right last words anyone thank you let’s all unmute and say

goodbye great dojo have a nice week with a brother we can try bye

Philip Earwood says:

July 13, 2022 at 7:24 am

Hello, Dojo

As a builder, I am pushing because Summer sort of demands it. As a result, I find myself unavailable during dojo and get to watch them later.

Renee told a story of setting boundaries, having the courage to be a parent (invading her troubled daughter’s privacy, in spite of conditioning that makes parents feel ashamed of this) and feeling relief for doing so.

One reaction to this story was witness about the apparent lack of emotion towards the difficult circumstances. Strangely, I find it interesting how we, the audience, can hear two stories. I heard a story of courage and accomplishment and someone else heard one of indifference towards her loved one’s struggles.

I appreciate how Renee told her story. It was my perception she didn’t want us, the witness, to sympathize with the struggle, which she had clearly stated lasted years, but to see how she experienced some victory, healing and overcoming in a long-standing, personal difficulty. .

Thanks for not being melodramatic, Renee. I was encouraged by your story.

Philip

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Dojo #229 – The Medicine of Pain

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