kind of what I wanted to dive in today was you know I was I was in rehab two years ago yeah and really I think my biggest issue was dealing with my pain dealing with my the sensitivity kind of what you talked about and numbing that and it's been a really great two years but over the last few months it's been there's been a sadness and a a pain that and a grief that I'm realizing that I have to engage with okay and so I'd love to I'd love to know what your thoughts are on that and really what it is is I'm realizing that feeling sad or feeling hurt or that pain is a part of life and it's okay for me to feel that way and so I'd like to know your thoughts on that I'd like to know more about you um okay what before I respond so the sadness that you're experiencing how does it show up for you well I kind of was thinking I was thinking about it last night sometimes it'll show up in in frustration at first or this anxious feeling and I'm not really knowing why I'm feeling it okay and then as I think it through that then it'll turn into more of a sadness and it'll be it's really I think this this grief that there's a lot of things that I didn't feel for a long time and now I'm feeling them and I I feel like I was taught that you don't touch those feelings you you keep those locked away and so then I'll think there's something wrong with me there's a reaction to it and I'm like why am I feeling like this but then I come to a realization that maybe I'm supposed to be feeling these feelings well so here's the thing um addictions whether to drugs uh or behaviors whether it's heroin or fentel or cocaine or cstat or nicotine or caffeine or alcohol or gambling or sex or pornography or shopping or whatever it is they're not diseases they're actually normal responses to abnormal circumstances W so if I ask so if I ask you this question normal but of course they create problems you know um so I let me give you a definition of addiction right from my book the methan norm so an addiction is manifested in any behavior in which a person finds some temporary relief or pleasure and therefore craves but then suffers negative consequences in the long term and doesn't give up that's what addiction is right so it can it can be it can be drugs it could be a lot of other behaviors so the first question for me is no what was wrong with your addiction but what was right about it so what did it give you in the short term that you wanted do you think it gave me good feelings it it made me feel okay it helped me get to this functioning normal that I was able to live yeah so say it made you feel okay how did you feel without them I extreme anxiety extreme Panic okay anxiety and panic so so it gave you some peace of mind some relief of stress is that right yes but then as you said it that's the nature of addiction but in the first place it alleviated your anxiety and your stress right yes now in itself is that a good thing or a bad thing it's a good thing okay so the addiction wasn't your problem the addiction was your attempt to solve the problem right of emotional distress yes and so my Mantra is um and and and basically all addictions are attempt to escape emotional pain so my Mantra is don't ask why the addiction as why the pain now now if we have to look at people's pain we need to look at their lives stuff happen happened to them stuff happened to you there's no doubt I I don't know you but stuff happened to you it's totally natural that when you stop the addiction then the pain and the anxiety that you've been running away from will come flooding in yes and that's actually you know what that is that's the sign of strength because it means that your organism now has the confidence that you uh JB can now handle the pain now you can deal with it right the anxiety where before you couldn't so first of all I would welcome those feelings because it's a sign that you're actually growing wow that's okay that's the first thing yeah the second thing is tell me how the anxiety feels like in your body that you experience or the frustration whatever happens for you what what what do you experience in your body I always feel it in my stomach it's this like not in my stomach it's a tightness a notot in your stomach okay let me ask you this question how familiar is that feeling to you very familiar how far does it go back before I can remember I think you know four or five years old okay so at least the four or five probably even before yeah okay so then I can tell you two things without knowing anything about your personally I can tell you two things okay when I was in Family Practice as a physician I used to see these kids with these stomach aches that nobody could nobody could diagnose there's nothing wrong they'd say you know yes there was but what happened was these kids are the sensitive kids who picked up on all the family stress and they showed up in their guts these are called gut feelings so I can tell you that in your family of origin a there was a lot of stress a lot of um conflict a lot of tension B you were a sensitive child who picked up on all this like the caner in the mine and three for all I know some bad stuff happened to you that gave you all kinds of reasons to be anxious now how accur how accurate would that be completely accurate okay so the difference is that as a child and and I know what the answer is going to be because it's always the same but I can ask you anyway when you had this tension and anxiety and fear and whatever was you're experiencing as a child who did you go to for help usually it was a it was a pleasing I pleased um I'm asking who did you go for help who did you say I'm feeling really bad please help me no one myself now do you have kids I don't yet okay if you had a four or five-year-old who felt really bad anxious tight got aing who would you want them to go to me or my wife so the the parents yes which means that you were [Music] alone emotionally alone okay that means there was nobody to go to well that's unbearable for a child and all I can do is to suppress those emotions which then get lodged in the body then later on when when you can you escape into addictions and naturally when you stop The Addictive Behavior that's GNA come flood back in again saying I'm still here I need to be I need you need to pay attention to me you know right so so what I'm saying is what you're experiencing is Perfectly Natural does does the pain ever go away or is there you know a graduation to a different type of feeling or is this just something that I need to just continue to embrace well can I ask you to check in with your body right now please what's happening there right now I think there's a maybe a bit of anxiety how is that showing up in your body anxiety is a word what's the actual physical feeling maybe some tightness in my chest right now okay good are you willing to pay attention to it yes I'm willing to let's just pay attention to the tension okay in fact my Mantra is another Mantra of mine is whenever there's tension it needs attention Okay so let's just pay attention to it and I'm going to ask you a question now maybe nothing will come up maybe something will come up okay I'm going to snap my fingers and ask a question and just say whatever comes up if nothing comes up Don't Force It don't try to please me okay no reason okay I don't need to be pleased so if nothing happens nothing happens but pay attention to that tension okay and what does it want from you I think I just wanted me to let it let it know that I knew it was there exactly so why don't you do that let it know that you're here yeah you know and keep paying attention to it why why does it want attention why does it want attention because it's a four-year-old child and what does a four-year-old want when they're feeling bad attention that's all they need wow wow okay that's really good so just checking with your body again tell me about the quality of the tension that's there now it's it's a way way lower of tension I feel like because I I validated it it stopped wearing its head as much there's the answer to your question you asked will it ever go away when you say will it ever go away You're basically saying I don't want you I don't like you I don't want you but I'm telling you that that's a four or fiveyear old kid or even younger inside you how does a kid feel when you tell him I don't want you go away upset and it get come back when you're smiling and happy and ready to please me okay so I'm doing to that little kid what my parents did to me precisely wow which is why it's stuck in his tension now if you pay attention to it and ask some questions and just get into a relationship with it just like you just did believe me no the pain doesn't have to stick around but when it does come up it's trying to tell you something so you pay attention to it it's really it's really very straightforward wow and all your addiction it wasn't a disease it wasn't some bad choice that you made it wasn't some weakness of will it was just your organism trying try to soothe the pain and the anxiety and the fear that Rel larged in your system when you were helpless and small and alone that's all it is wow it's so good um is there is there a reason was really the addiction and the rehab for me was that just me learning to feel those or learning to feel safe to where I could feel these feelings like why why is it that I picked up this addiction instead of feeling like I am now like to where I can not be addicted to something if that makes sense sure well tell me how well you speak Swahili I don't speak it at all or you don't speak so how come you don't speak for healing so I've never learned it uhhuh and whoever taught you to deal with emotions no one well that's why so yeah so what you're doing now is you're learning essentially a new language a new way of communicating with yourself a new way of relating to yourself but in the absence of that of course you try to run away into addiction and then the rehab helped you give up the behavior and probably helped you gain some degree of self-acceptance for sure and now you're ready to take the further step of dealing with these emotions that you've been running away from that's all it's just it's just a natural process wow wow what would you say to like what what would you say to people that are in the midst of addiction um that need to take a step I would ask them I would first of all I would say to them I totally get it right now you're caught in some emotions you don't even want to feel because they're so scary and so daunting and I get it I'm not going to judge you for it I'm not going to make you wrong for it but what is it doing for you not the same question I asked you not what's wrong about it or what's right about it what is it giving you and when I ask that question people say Well it numbs my pain it makes me feel more in control it connects me to other people it soes my stress it gives me more peace of mind sense of Vitality I say well those good things are bad things yeah those are good things but then the real question is again and I make the point in both my books is not why the addiction but what happened to you that you feel such stress what happened to you that you have to numb the pain what's the pain you're trying to num what are you trying to run away from what happened to you can we talk about that and i' I've talked to a lot of people that are in this spot and I'll maybe I'll ask them a question like this and they'll say they don't remember or nothing really happened to me as a kid yeah how do you deal with that well first of all it's not a matter of remembering because they do remember they just don't recall let me make that distinction memory what we call memory is actually just one kind of memory it's recall and recall is we can call back something consciously so you can recall what you had for breakfast this morning you know you can recall something that happened a year ago or even 20 years ago that's one kind of memory but there's another kind of memory called the implicit memory which is not conscious recall but the emotional and physical imprints of early experiences they live in the present so this tension that you experienced in your belly or in your chest that's a memory you may not recall what happened to cause it but it's a memory so if I was talking to somebody like that I'd say okay so you don't recall stuff tell me what's in your body right now and then I'd say how familiar is that feeling to you they may not recall incidents and episodes but body States they're with us in the present they're memories wow I mean when you talked about the tension in your chest is there anything in the the moment that should be causing your tension no and I think that's what confuses me that's the whole point it's a Memory yeah right that's that's the memory it's the body memory it's called implicit memory explicit memory is recall implicit memory is the emotional imprints of experiences without the recall wow so that's the first point the second point is you give me anybody who says I had had a happy childhood I had an addiction but I had a happy childhood or I don't remember it gives takes me three minutes literally it takes me three minutes to guide them to understand what actually happened to them because actually they remember more than they think they do it just they're not ask the right questions wow would you mind taking those three minutes to do that with me if or well do you have trouble recalling what happened to you I have troubl recalling um I have trouble recalling maybe some of the things that happened um I can just give you some background real quick on me but U yeah yeah yeah let's try this let tell me about your childhood okay um I was born into a a pastor's home so my dad is a pastor my mom is a pastor's wife really stay-at-home mom um I'm the oldest of three boys and my dad was my coach my he was my dad and he was also I'm gonna stop you right now okay because do you remember what the question was uh the question was tell me wa no I don't remember the question actually question was tell me about your childhood and I'm I'm telling you about and who did you start telling me about my dad exactly yeah okay now that tell tells me something right away yeah that from an early age on you had to pay more attention to what was happening outside you than inside you yes no doubt but that's a reason for that a newborn baby is completely in touch with what's happening in inside themselves at some point you had to kind of lose that focus and start paying attention just to the outside right that's the first so I'm going to ask you again tell me what your ch it it was I remember it being walking on a lot of eggshells and wanting to please Mom and Dad a lot and being scared to okay let them know how I feel or be myself what else do they need to know say that again what else do you need to know I mean I guess I don't need to know anything um you know I mean who have what does it mean to walk on eggshells means I was scared to to be around them I was scared to be honest with them no when a newborn when a new human being comes into the world what do you think they expect what is the expectation of the infant that they will be loved and accepted for who they are that they'll be safe mhm so I don't even know what I don't even need to know what happened in your home but there you are instead of feeling safe and accepted and secure you feel scared or we can make two assumptions you tell me what you'd like to work with either that you're crazy or you're not crazy which would you like to work with that I'm not crazy well then you had reason to be scared SC even if you don't recall what happened to make you scared you had reason to be scared otherwise you wouldn't have been right now do you know what happened to make you scared I think my mom there's two parts my mom was very fearful um okay due to her childhood and her dad was um her dad was you know a drug addict alcoholic and very all over the place and then my dad was very rigid okay um and I don't know what exact moments happened to where I felt that way but I think it was just what I felt it was well look so first of all um let me read you something I just need to find it on my computer here okay um now don't forget what I said about sensitivity now the word sensitivity comes from the Latin word sere to feel and the more sensitive you are the more um you feel so some children are just born more sensitive okay now let me read you something it says if I can just find it okay the child is very open and can feel the pain and suffering going on in its immediate environment the child is aware of its own body and can also feel the tension rigidity and pain in the body of the mother of or of anyone else he is with if the mother's suffering the baby suffers too the pain never gets discharged so if your mother was carrying all this pain and with the addicted father and all you would pick up on that wow the baby's brain is actually developed in interaction with the parents brains that's how the brain develops when there's a lot of fear and anxiety in your mother I had the same infancy not I didn't have the same infy I had similar experiences in infy as a Jewish infant under the Nazi occupation in Hungary my mother had a lot of fear when I was a baby and a lot of grief I picked up on all that you know babies can't help it so even if nothing happened to you specifically just with your mother being like that you you'd pick up on that you follow that I follow that completely okay now number one number too here's the bad news folks we always marry somebody at the same level of trauma that we're at so even even if the trauma shows up differently your father's rigidity is a sign of trauma as well yes when do we go stiff and rigid when we get really scared exactly your father was just as scared as your mother MH it's only that it showed up in a rigidity that masquerades a strength and maybe masculine power but actually there's a lot of fear underneath it wow so so you're being brought up in a home where your parents who are doing their best I'm not blaming them right but are radiating a lot of fear to you right then then of course their behavior is going to reflect all that yeah is there I think a lot of times I want there to be a Redemption for them as well is do you see that a lot or or is that like too high of hopes or not my problem or what H how should I be thinking of you know wanting them to find Hope and wanting to in this in the family line if if I could say yeah well that's a natural and Humane Wish isn't it I mean compassion means that we don't want people to suffer especially people that we personally care about yes but there's nothing you can directly do about it it's their Journey what you can do is to do your own work and possibly that's going to have some impact on them maybe open them up they more open and confident and relaxed they seem you seem to them if you're in relationship with them the more might they want to know what's going on how did this happen you know you might want to they're open to give him the copy the myth normal and say look please read this even if you don't agree with it you just read it I will definitely do that you know um my son Daniel with whom I wrote The Myth of normal um uh I just show you the book uh so it's um gab mate with Daniel mate and Daniel is my son and I wrote the book with him and him and I are now writing a new book together it's called hello again a fresh start for parents and adult children wow based on a workshop that we do so it's possible to create a new relationship for adults with their parents and vice versa as long as there's a mutual willingness to do so but what I don't suggest you do is you go in there like an evangelist trying to change them yeah can't do that that ain't never gonna work you know so if you can say look Mom Dad I fund out some things and uh I if you're interested I'd like to tell you about them or show you this book or whatever but no pressure and no expectation and timilty it's not your responsibility yeah I think I'm dealing with another thing I'm dealing with right now is that it's like this guilt or people pleasing as I'm individualizing or or pulling away from them because it's like I never I'm 29 years old now yeah and sometimes I feel myself feeling guilty for not you know pleasing them even if they haven't ask me to yeah well let me let me ask you a question when in your life have you not felt guilty never okay so you've always felt guilty right now what do you think you felt guilty about I felt guilty that they weren't happy okay so naturally if you had a three-year-old child or a four-year-old child and you and your spouse weren't happy you turn to the kid and saying Hey kid it's your fault it's your responsibility is that what you would do yeah how come because it's not their fault at all ah but you make but you made it yours didn't you I did so the question is are you willing to apply to yourself the same standard that You' apply to somebody else yes and and here's the thing about that guilt it's natural you know why it's natural because kids are narcissists and when I say narcissist I don't mean in a pathological sense I mean that they take everything personally they think it's all them so when the parents are unhappy guess whose fault it is the kid in the kid's mind let me tell you an experience that I had and I talk about this in the myth of normal sometimes I work with psychedelics and both as a Healer but also you know personally so I was in a psychic session um seven years ago now I'm 80 years old I was 73 72 years old and I was the client I was with this therapist and I knew who she was she was a therapist I knew who I was Doctor Author so on so there was no confusion in my mind but at the same time under the influence of the mushroom I experienced myself as a one-year-old baby wow and this therapist was like my mother now I wasn't hallucinating I knew that this was a mushroom session I knew who I was where I was with whom I was but at the same time I the consciousness of a one-year-old baby and this was my mother and I started crying and I said to her I'm so sorry I made your life so difficult now when I was year old my mother had an extraordinary difficult time of it again this is still the second one I took it on as an infant wow and that's what kids do so your guilt has nothing to do with you doing anything wrong it has to do with your sense that if things are not well it's it's your responsibility and kids that's what they believe now there's something strange about that or not strange but um intriguing about that because I'm saying that even that guilt had a protective value for you now because let me give you this question things AR going well you're not Lov the way you need to be loved you feel scared your parents are unhappy the child can make two assumptions unconsciously one is the world is a dangerous place I'm all alone my parents are incapable of meeting my needs or the child can feel all this is happening because of me and if I work hard enough maybe I can fix it if I work hard enough and please them maybe they'll love me maybe they'll be happy wow which which assumption do you think is easier for the child to make the lad yeah so even that guilt came along to protect you because it kept you working hard enough to try and please your parents to try and get the love that you needed but it also means you have to give up your own needs and your own feelings so a type of survival it's a survival thing that's all it is so that when you feel the guilt now it's what I call a stupid friend you know it came along at a time to help you it's a friend in that way but it's kind of stupid because it can't learn that you're no longer that three-year-old kid anymore and you don't need it anymore right so when you when you feel the guilt just say okay hello here are here you are again W Don't Be Afraid don't be afraid of the guil just hello right but I don't need to listen to you it's really good it's really good um and and you kind of talk about that as that I took on this guilt a lot of us take on this guilt and then I start making decisions to numb that guilt and then I'm really guilty it's that's oh yeah oh yeah that me do a lot of stupid things hurt yeah I mean look I had my own addictive behaviors and uh I lied to my wife and I neglect I neglected my kids I even sometimes neglected my work to pursue my addictions and that's what addiction will do and yeah then you do the 12 Steps if you do and you do the moral inventory you say oh my God I really did I really did um behave in ways that were hurtful that's healthy remorse healthy remorse is a good thing but guilt is something else right salor says I did something I wish I hadn't I'm going to make amends for it if I can guilt says there's something wrong with me I'm a bad person that's really good I think I think what helped me solve that was you know the resentment list and step four and and understanding where they were wrong and where I was wrong and yeah yeah bringing both of them together my problem with the 12 steps is only I think the 12 steps are great I mean I think any human being on Earth would benefit from doing the 12 death whether they're addicted or not the problem is that they don't talk about trauma they tend to talk about addiction as a brain disease you it isn't it's a response to trauma it's a response to pain and it's rather strange because Bill W one of the founders of AA was a traumatized child he was abandoned by his parents he had a lot of pain and so I just wish the 12 step movement would incorporate an understanding of trauma into their teachings rather than just looking at the addiction is kind of as a problem or is it a disease to get rid of or it's permanent it's and it's you know the addiction like you're saying the addiction is not permanent it's yeah it's dealing with this back here I well I really appreciate you and is if if anything from this time I learned a lot and I learned you know I've been I've been dealing with a lot of feelings lately and I'm it's confusing to me and I'm I'm wanting to understand them and you've helped me to do that and so I really appreciate it welcome are you talking to any are you talking to anybody yes I am okay is that helping is that helping it is helping um but sometimes I don't know what to talk about and over the LA it's been weird over the last couple days um I was on a I was on on a trip and we had done we did like a little trauma trip healing trip with the group of men and I just was sad and I realized that I was I'd been over the last few months I've been frustrated to scared and then all of a sudden it was like this sadness and I realized that the root of this even under the sadness was me being scared there was I was that was the root of it is is fear and so it was just kind of fresh on my mind as we came into this to where I I wanted to know what you thought and so I apprciate you take well I me can ask you something when you say you don't know what you talk about how do you feel not knowing what to talk about scared because I it's like I don't know what's wrong or I don't know if okay yeah and um do you feel a responsibility to have something to say for sure okay and if I came to you and if I said hey JB I I have some confused feelings and I don't know what to say would you say to me while gabo there's something obviously wrong with you get over it or you know would you say that I wouldn't say that that how come you wouldn't say it because I feel it too yeah but I know how they feel but you're making yourself wrong for it right right so why don't you just say I don't know what to say yeah I think that's probably the most authentic and vulnerable thing I could say is I don't know what to say yeah and and and you know but here I don't know what to say and is that okay with you or can I be with you or can you know something you know yeah these are just normal human dynamics but with the a breing that you had and a lot of people had people make themselves wrong for it yeah there's a performance aspect of you know have to perform to you have to perform in order to be acceptable yes well notice that every time it shows up because you wouldn't do it to anybody else I wouldn't yeah you're right you're right okay well thank you so much and my pleasure I appreciate it nice to meet you take care thank you