Podcast E16: Regulating Intense Emotions

In podcast episode E16, "Regulating Intense Emotions," Mette Miriam Sloth explores the challenges we all face when we experience intense emotional states. She focuses on how we can navigate these states without being overwhelmed by them or shutting down, and emphasizes the importance of developing "emotional hygiene" that can help us manage life's ups and downs.

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  Understanding Emotional States:

  Mette Miriam Sloth emphasizes that none of us see the world objectively. Our emotions act as filters that color our perception of reality.

  Emotions as a Filter: When we are in love, we see the world through a positive filter. When we are angry or sad, we see the world through a negative filter. This subjective experience can lead to self-reinforcing loops where our emotions confirm our negative perception of the world, and vice versa.

  The Nervous System and Emotions: Mette Miriam Sloth explains that our emotional responses are part of our nature as mammals. Our nervous system reacts to stimuli and creates emotional states that can be overwhelming.

  Acceptance of All Emotions: She warns against trying to suppress "negative" emotions such as anger and hatred. These emotions are just as important as "positive" emotions and have a function in our lives.

  Emotions in Motion: Mette Miriam Sloth points out that emotions are energy in motion. To try to maintain positive emotions or avoid negative emotions is to work against the natural flow of emotions.

  Developing Emotional Hygiene:

  Mette Miriam Sloth presents a number of strategies for developing "emotional hygiene" that can help us deal with intense emotional states.

  Window of Tolerance: She introduces the concept of the "window of tolerance," which describes our capacity to accommodate intense emotions. Expanding our window of tolerance is a gradual process that requires patience and practice.

  Meeting the Emotions in the Body: Mette Miriam Sloth encourages us to turn our attention inward and feel the emotions in the body. By identifying where the emotion sits in the body and breathing through it, we can give it space to move and release itself.

  Letting Go of the Thoughts: When we experience intense emotions, our thoughts tend to go round and round and reinforce the negative experience. By shifting our focus from the thoughts to the body, we can break the vicious cycle.

  Expressing the Emotions: Mette Miriam Sloth emphasizes that it can be helpful to give the emotions a physical outlet. Yelling, screaming, banging on something, or moving the body can help release the pent-up energy.

  Observing the Emotions: As we express our emotions, it is important to have a part of ourselves that observes the process. This inner observer creates distance from the emotions and helps us maintain control.

  Communicating the Emotions: In relationships, it can be helpful to communicate our feelings to our partner or other close people. By sharing our vulnerability, we can create deeper understanding and support each other in dealing with difficult emotions.

• transcript

  Translated transcript of the original Danish podcast

  Host: Mette Miriam Sloth

  So what I work with down to dysregulation, that's the form that we all have. So in terms of what the hell do I do with intense states, what do I do with intense emotions? Because that's actually where we all fall a bit short. Regardless of whether you're male or female and whether there are differences and so on with children too. So that's one of the most challenging things for us. It's actually when we're overwhelmed by a condition, what do I do with it without completely shutting it down, where I can't feel myself or being so overpowered by it that it causes way too much trouble. Either I'm going to do something that's inappropriate, or it's simply trapped in an overwhelming feeling, like it could be anxiety, it could be depression, it could be anger, it could be like where I have such a hard time snapping out of it again. So this is something that everyone knows about. Some may be more familiar with being trapped in anger, and some may be more familiar with being trapped in shut-down depressive states. It can be a little different. It can also change in life. But everyone will recognise this feeling of being trapped by something, feeling trapped by a state, and it can be deeply, deeply uncomfortable. So that's what we're going to talk about today. And it's not like I can give you a golden answer on how to fix it. Because it's not something you can just fix, but it's something you can work on. It's something that you can practice. You can kind of see it as a lifelong learning, but that you can kind of practice it in the same way that you remember to brush your teeth and all sorts of other forms of hygiene, so it's an emotional form of cosiness. And it just makes life much, much easier. You get a lot of your, there's less conflict, there's less drama, and you get to know yourself much better. So there are very, very big gains in this. And if you have children, it also gives you this huge, huge gift that you can pass on to your children. Because the better you are at being with your emotions and seeing them in a nuanced way, witnessing them in a nuanced way and understanding that ah okay, that kind of anger, that's enough, it's something about setting boundaries. Ah, that one, it's something to do with my childhood. You probably recognise the different flavours. days in the states. And that means that you're actually able to accommodate your child's feelings much better. And when you're able to contain your child's emotions better, you're also much better able to teach him or her to recognise his or her emotions. So some of this work that you spend a lot of time practising now, your children will come to swim in it much more naturally. And then for their generation, their children, if they choose to bring children into the world, they can be even better at swimming, right? So there is something very very very very beautiful in this, because what we experience ourselves is such a frequency thing. It settles in our energy field around our body, because that's what happens when we have tension in our nervous system, it's contagious. So we can and you can and you can read it in a person if you meet a person who is very angry or very happy. They will be affected by it. Or at least you have to be very conscious of not letting it affect you if you want to avoid or move away from the situation, right? So yeah, but let's get started. I have a billion points that we have to go through. One of the things, which I think is very basic, is that you need to understand that you don't see the world as it is. None of us see things as they really are in a completely objective way. So there is no such thing as objectivity in the purest sense, because we all look at the world through filters. And those filters are if you're in love, then you see the world through that. If you're angry as hell, you see the world through it. If you're deeply unhappy, you see the world through it. If you feel like a giga off, you see the world through it. So it's very much, we see the world through the glasses that we wear when we reach us in terms of what we feel, in terms of how we feel emotionally. And that's not something you can change. But the first step is to be aware that this is the way it is, because here you can start to create a little bit of space between how I feel. Ergo, the world is like this because it's not right. The world is not like this, but you see the world like this because you feel like this. So the two things are connected. So that's why sometimes, that's also why sometimes, if you're caught in a very difficult state, you can get into a self-reinforcing loop, because it seems like it's a bit like when you're pregnant for the first time. All of a sudden you just say baby, and you have to decide whether you want a pram, whether you want one and carry your baby in a sling or what to do. All of a sudden you just see pregnant women everywhere and see prams everywhere, because that's what you focus on. So that's also what you see. There might not be more prams than there were when you weren't pregnant. But you just didn't see them because your mind filtered them out because it wasn't something that was in your focus. So it's exactly the same when you're in an emotional state. So that's why it can happen that you need to understand, but it has nothing to do with who you are as a human being. It's not you that's wrong or broken or anything, but it's something about how your nervous system works and how your neurologist, how the neurological pathways here communicate with your, with your nervous system. So it's simply part of being a mammal. We are also a mammal's body, and that's something we all have in common. There's not really anyone who can run away from it. Even the most rational human being, which is not like that, because the degree of how much and how high and how deep we feel differs from person to person. So you can meet a person who doesn't have such strong emotional outbursts and it doesn't necessarily mean that the person is shut down emotionally. There are also some genetic and epigenetic variations in relation to how we feel. There are also big differences between men and women in terms of how we experience emotions and how we process emotions. So there are very big differences, but what we have in common is that when you're trapped in a state or are in a state, it will in one way or another, big or small, help to characterise the way you see life. And that's why we have what in meditation is called the inner witness. And this is one of the most important things to cultivate. The one where you say, I'm angry. No, you're not angry. But you experience anger in you. Because the more identified we are with a state, the harder it is for the state to let go. Because then it's actually our self-narrative, I'm angry, and that guy is also bloody annoying. Now that guy also drove too fast, and you never say thank you, and you never give me flowers and stuff. So you drive like a spiral or I'm not worth anything, you don't want to see me there, she didn't bother to say hello to me either. So it becomes like that because we expect to be greeted in a certain way. We expect to be greeted like someone is going to fuck us over. We expect to be treated like we're a victim or we're not worth anything. Or we expect to be met with love. So it's simply not certain that we're always met in love, but sometimes there's also a separation of who is the other person and who is me. So it's just to say that if you and you have probably experienced being caught in some emotional fluctuations where you just feel like it's getting worse and worse and worse. It's as if you've been confirmed in such a way that the world is also a terrible place or yes I'm also a victim or yes the whole card head is falling and it doesn't mean this with then it's just your own fault and then you get attracted to it and it's just you yourself about it I'm not so keen on I'm actually quite a big fan of the interpretation that it's true that the state we're in, we're kind of helping to confirm that there can be a spiral of self-affirmation in that state, but it has nothing to do with guilt, it's more about the fact that this is how our mechanics work. So that's simply what it means to have a nervous system because it operates based on the frequency, the state that you're in. And that frequency will seek out similar frequencies. So if you just kind of go aha, there's something in that. So what I really just have to work on when I'm caught in some kind of state is if I don't want to be in that state, because I just want to clarify first of all right now, if any of you are in more of a spiritual environment, which I am and I think is absolutely amazing, there can be a tendency to say you have to be high vibrational. So you have to be totally high. You have to be in unconditional love. You have to be in hope and alturism. You have to be up here in these soft lovely things where you have an open heart all the time. Um. And it's wonderful if we can do that. But we can't. We'll quickly come to say that there's only what's acceptable up here, and we don't want to have anything to do with everything that's hateful and aggressive and stuff like that. But it becomes a bypass, because you're in a mammal's body. You will experience hatred, you will experience aggression, and there's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with anger. Anger is a completely vital state for survival on this earth. So there's nothing wrong with it. So we can sometimes make a split like that. These are the conditions we want to deal with. These we want nothing to do with. And the more I'm in these, the more spiritual I am. And like that. It's not really about that. Instead, it's about us being able to witness without judgement all the states that arise and actually being able to be with them and being able to use, to release. For example, in aggression and anger, there is actually an enormous amount of potency. There's an enormous amount of potency in it. There's an insane amount of energy in it. We can use it enormously constructively in our lives to change where we need to change, to set a limit where no limit has been set and so on. So, it's more to say that there are no states that are better than others. Modes are uh and then there's this mind here and our culture puts all sorts of labels on the different modes about whether they wanted our culture or not. So I'd like to throw that out with the bathwater. Of course, there may be some modes that are easier for you to join. I mean, it's easier for you to be with such well-being, comfort, ecstasy. I feel in love, I feel me, I feel love in my body. I feel love towards other people. It can be easier and more pleasant to be with. It's a bit like sitting and eating delicious chocolate, right? Where the other one can be kind of thick a little bit a little bit sour liver or something. So if you feel trapped in anxiety or pain or frustration or anger or aggression, right? So of course there's a difference in how you feel about that. And the tension of the states is different, so it's completely legitimate. yours. And that's also why there are some states that you really, really want to try to escape. Um, and the states that can happen a bit quickly is that you can quickly try to escape the states that you don't like. Anger, aggression, jealousy, all that stuff. You want to try to get rid of that. And then you want, what we can get to is when we're caught in a glimpse of uh, you know oneness with everything and unconditional love, like a hard peak experience or just like a, you know, like a nice just like right now I just enjoy being me. I enjoy breathing, I enjoy being. And so it's a lovely, lovely experience where we can become convulsive in the fear that this state will pass. Can we come to want to hold on to it? It can't go away because I also know what it's like to feel meaningless and feel empty and feel everything else. So I have to, I don't have to, I have to hold on to this feeling. I wish I could make a copy paste so that I always felt like this. So we can, we can quickly end up in the fear that what we like will recede and that the slightly darker states, slightly heavier states will come in and take over. And when we end up there, we actually end up working against how emotions and intensity work in our system. Because it's very natural for you to do that, I would say. We all do it. It's just like, uh, emotion one, so it's like, you have to understand that when we try to escape either holding on to a state or escaping another state, you've already gone astray. We all get to that point. But the more we can become aware of it, well okay, that feeling, I really don't want to be there or not, I wish I could feel like this all the time. It's really nice. Um, because there will be some people you like to be with more than others, there will also be some feelings that you kind of wish weren't there so often, right? But that's just it, you have to understand the way that emotions at their core work, it's the energy that wants to be in motion. Stagnation is simply against the nature of emotion. So then when you feel trapped in a state or you're in a state that you want to hold, it's never the state. It's never the state itself that wants to stay in you or that wants to disappear. Because that's not how emotions work. Emotions are floating around and they really just want to be there and give whatever they have to give or with their message, then they have to withdraw again. So it's kind of an apple-pie thing. And if we learn to surf on it, life becomes extremely much easier. We can take on these emotions a little easier. It doesn't get so judgemental. Um, it can feel a bit judgemental. Especially if you've had challenges with anxiety or depression, there can be a latent pain or an oh my god, is it coming back? Because it can be so overwhelming. I'm a person who has spent most of my life being extremely anxious. So I know all about that. It's taken me many years to get it to let go, and it has let go. That means of course I can go in. I recognise the taste of it. Just like that, okay, that's how I lived my life for many, many years. I simply lived the substance of a beer soul. And that's kind of interesting. It's that when you have a condition that's like a foundation or a ground, I actually thought that was what it was like to be a human being. I actually thought everyone was like that, that everyone walked around and was a bit wary, and everyone was a bit afraid that either I'll be rejected, or I'll be put to sleep, or I'll have to protect myself and so that was actually 99% of the time I was there. Not as a fear of falling, but just enough anxiety to never actually ever quite get down into the parasympathetic, where I just felt like it was just okay to be without having to perform anything. And that's why when we get caught in these, because that's very much what I got into, which was to do all sorts of self-reinforcing things. I got totally caught in this spiral where I got attracted to the wrong people to a pretty big extent in terms of being confirmed that I was rejected or confirmed that they couldn't accommodate me or that they could get along with someone like me. So it was very interesting now to look back on that process. Um, and to see that there were many warning signs in relation to entering into relationships or friendships or whatever it might be, where I was just something that was dangerous or something like that. But it was certainly something that created a lot of turmoil in me, because there was always a bit of a mismatch. And you could say that what was in it was that I had to figure it out and and and there could be a guilt spiral, and now I just create this same chaos for myself again and again and again and again and again. But sometimes, when something happens over and over again in your life that goes like, okay, I keep running into the same type of men, keep running into the same type of girlfriends or the same type of business partner, the more you can take the guilt out of it, and more take like, oh, I'm just stuck in a pattern. I'm completely broken. And it's my own fault too. So out with it. Because it's just another one of those doomsday things. You can't really use anything other than that it will just make it harder for you. So think scarcity. Pettiness is always pettiness towards yourself. Okay, there's obviously something here that's difficult and hurts and stuff. Okay, then I have to try to start somewhere to see if I can change this pattern. And that's when you start like that because when you start changing a pattern, you actually start to make room for some feelings to come up. When we're in a destructive pattern. So the justification of that pattern is always to try to help you not feel the emotions that are stuck. The problem is, it becomes a bit of a broken record. There's this place, this point that never gets over. So, when you start working with a pattern in a very miniature way and begin to lovingly and gently change it, you start to do something else. Okay, I know I'm attracted to these kinds of people right now and I avoid them. I need to figure out why it is that I'm so drawn there. What is it in me that triggers it or whatever the behaviour is that you've figured out. You can, it was actually quite destructive for me. I don't think I'm the person I would like to be in this situation or if a lot of anger comes out or whatever it might be. So, when you start working with patterns, you actually start to create space. And here in psychiatry, we talk about what's called the window of tolerance, which I think is a wonderful concept. And I use it a little bit, I might use it more broadly than in psychiatry, but window of tolerance is every time you work with an emotion, in your life it will be to take an emotional state that is difficult for you. For some it's anger, for some it's powerlessness, for some it's hate, for others it's jealousy. So there are probably not any of you who are super fond of some of these emotions, they can be challenging, but there are typically one or two states that are much more difficult for you than others. For me, for example, it's been, I had this huge hole of meaninglessness for many many years that I was constantly trying to escape from by creating a lot of drama in my life. That was the smart thing. Now there's this destructive coin that creates drama, because then you can't feel that thing with that void until at some point it all comes crashing down and you're like okay I can't I'm just too tired I'm just too exhausted I can't I can't go out and create more drama so I just have to be with this hole of meaninglessness so for me I had to be with it and think either I perish in it or I simply have to find out what's underneath what's underneath what's underneath what's underneath this blanket of f*** there's nothing to be here for umm in that ground very very very deep down where something sprouted up but which at the time I absolutely could not feel this window of tolerance because you could say it was something that happened in my life. And it's not, well, it's not because it can be transferred to all of you, but the mechanics are completely the same. It's completely human, that when we make room for a state, when we finally, and I would say typically it's because we're so exhausted or we lie down flat, or we're hit by a crisis. So it's not something we do voluntarily, it's not the first time, it's not something we do voluntarily, I would say that we voluntarily make space to be with a state that we've spent most of our lives running away from. Because it was so overwhelming to us. It's something that life kind of lovingly pushes us over the edge to do, because at some point that running away from it becomes too overwhelming. You start to realise that the more you run away, the less you can feel life. And the more there is a condition that has become so dangerous for you, that your system wants to protect you from it at all costs, then suddenly there will be more and more things that your system cannot handle. No, but you might be interested in that man over there, but you could risk being hurt, you could be rejected, you could be, depending on what it is for me, hurt and rejected and stuff like that, it's common human nature. But mine was actually this thing about what if I fall in love and then realise it's also empty. I can't handle any more emptiness. I can't take any more illusions falling down around my ears. I don't think there's any substance to it. So you know, so before I start to get hold of, I have to, I can't blame it on some poor man, that he has to be the one who gives me meaning in life. It has to come from here. He can be part of the journey, but it has to come from here, right? So there was a lot of cleaning up to do. It's more to say that when we have conditions that we're really fleeing from, there are minds, your system and your psyche have to go to great lengths to try to protect you. You have to constantly do a risk assessment. Okay, but if I start my own business, can I risk running into this? Yes, I don't have to. So okay, can I, if I take this programme, can I risk facing this condition? Upups, yes, that's certainly a possibility. No, but then again, I don't have to. You know, so there are many things we are suddenly stopped from doing because the fear of this condition is so great. So sometimes it's actually better to fall flat on your arse and say, okay, but then take me in there, and then I have to deal with it. And what happens is that when we kind of learn that if we get a grip on our thoughts, on our narrative, our self-narrative, when we're in a state, I mean, if I become like my overwhelming state was meaninglessness. When I was hit by it, I could end up in all kinds of, if it's just like just look, and then there's probably some war in the Middle East. And then there's the trafficking of women. And it's also that there's nothing, so I could put in all sorts of things because of course I was drawn to everything and then I could just realise that it's all meaningless and chaos and there's nothing to it. Um, and art is when you're trapped in a state and you just start specifically consciously working with it. Okay now I'm actually inviting this state that I've been trying to escape. Um then comes this window of tolerance because you can't you can't go from rejecting a state for many many years and doing whatever the hell you could to avoid it to completely can space. It can't be done. It's simply too overwhelming for your system. You almost have to see it as if it's a tiny little old wire that all of a sudden has to handle such a high voltage, er, volt. It can't. So you'll crack in the attempt. So also just be really careful on your journey, because sometimes we think, well, I should be able to do this. Why am I so scared? It's just a feeling. But just realise that it's not just a feeling. It's a huge tension in your nervous system. So you are and you are also playing on the edge. So please, please, please be as self-loving and as gentle as possible. And also use a therapeutic space if there's someone you're working with. That's what I do with some of the women I help. We explore this together, right? That is to say, they practise being with states in everyday life, and then they meet with me, how was it? And then we can do some exercises together, but really also more like tell me, okay, how was it? Well, I understand that it was so overwhelming and what insights came out of it. So you kind of have someone to say, okay, now I use everyday life to exercise my window of tolerance, and then I'll use you to talk about how it was, what the hell, where do I go from here? So just be nice and know that you're practising it a bit like if you were to start running Iron Man. You don't run Iron Man the day after you've decided to run, you've never run before. It's really something that needs to be trained. So it's also something you should choose to dedicate some time to. And here you can say, how do you do that? Well, Trends Iron Man, I can just write a slot in the book, then I go out and run or whatever you cycle or whatever the hell you swim or whatever you do. But where you can say, well, I would say that life offers an insane amount of opportunities to practice your emotional capacity, that is, the capacity to be with intensity and condition and find out what kind of gifts they bring? How can I take this huge frequency energy and actually turn it into something beautiful and positive in my life and among my loved ones and in the world I'm part of that I want to contribute to? Because life invites you all the time. So if you have children, if you have partners, if you have relationships, we all do. So it doesn't take much. A discussion on Facebook can be enough to kick-start some kind of state. So you will constantly be bombarded with states of greater or lesser degree, so sometimes you might just take a break and say, well, I'm just lying on the couch watching Netflix and I'm off Facebook, and I'm not actually talking to any people right now. And that's fine. Sometimes you need to just kind of zoom in and zoom out, and other times you're like, okay, now I can feel, now I dare to work a little bit, so now I'm pushing myself a little bit. I put myself in situations. I reach out to some people where I don't know if they'll say no or whatever. So you're being a bit proactive in terms of trying to see if I put myself in this situation, because I want to go this way. I want to be self-employed or write a book or do a theatre play or whatever you dream of, but haven't had the courage to say, okay, now I'm slowly starting to go down this path and maybe I'll get a few bumps along the way, not because anyone is out to get me, but just because it's a bit like life is, right? And how do I deal with that? So it's the same as with children, they need a task that's just right and pushes them a little bit over the edge, so that they can actually make an effort to learn something new, but not so much that they get overwhelmed big time. And you actually have to think a little bit the same. So that's also why when you start working with the sensations that are most difficult in your life, don't just think 120 right away. Really take it a little bit blindly and just constantly notice, okay, if I work with this state, invite it in, sit with it when it naturally appears in a situation, when my partner is in a way that triggers it in me, and my parents are in a way that triggers it in me, and my girlfriends or friends are, when I can feel it's the trick in me, what do I do? Well, you look inside your body, and then you find out when it's there, you look inside. ad and then you actually ask your body where it is and for example, if it's anger it's in the sun and the plexus it can be in many places it can also be your throat knotting up it can be in many places because the good thing about having focus in the body and communicating with the with the body when you're working with a condition is that you can't you've you're giving yourself a break from the thoughts and that's because it's the thoughts that maintain the condition so you turn it down and then when you've identified it you just sit and breathe. That tells me, okay, you can be in this state. What's it like, what's it like to have it? And you can say, because sometimes you can hold it for maybe 10 seconds, then you have to get up and move, so now I can't anymore, now I'll put on some music, or now I have to go and fix that fluid. You may not be able to do that for very long. That's fine, that's fine. So no one, you shouldn't have any judgement at all, what happens when I sit with this condition? And sometimes you might find that it changes along the way, that there was anger and then suddenly it turns into deep sadness, where you just want to cry and cry, finally, finally, finally, finally. So it's this thing about when we first feel the actual state of feeling seen and met. But okay, hey, there you are, there's no judgement on it, so it can be allowed to move, it can be allowed to wash through us, it can be allowed to change, it can actually deliver the message that it's been knocking on our door for many years and wanted to give us, or it can actually just say ‘blop’ and then withdraw again. Because sometimes you've just had a rubbish day. You've slept badly and your husband has been annoying as hell and the kids have been crawling on the wall and stuff like that where you're just you know it's such an everyday grumble, you know it's completely natural where you're just a bit annoyed. I feel trapped in this f****** shitty home or whatever it may be. And it's not because you feel that way all the time. You can have moments where you just feel f****** trapped by laundry and useless husband and annoying kids. And your husband is not useless. Your kids aren't annoying, but right then you've just had enough. Erm. And sometimes it can actually help to literally give yourself permission to say f*** all together. You know it's fine if they're not there. Um, we don't scare the shit out of our kids do we? Because you get an outlet because we've been schooled to be so nice that it's like, oh my god, I can't do that. I'm not allowed to throw an emotion, that's horrible too. And my kids, I love them dearly and stuff, because of course you love your kids, of course you do. And this, it's not aimed at them. It's really just an energetic outlet that sometimes it can be enormously liberating just to be allowed to say what you're thinking about the feeling you have, not to the person. Because if you say it to your kids, you're actually offending them. Sometimes we get to that point, and then we deal with it. It changes other lectures. But in the situation where you're caught in it, it's really more about you doing it alone, where you're just trying to experience, what's it like to just let go of this without taking it out on the people? Because I know intellectually that it's not their fault. It's not, they're not the problem. I've just caught this state that right now I'm just allowed to scream out of me and then breathe, and then just relax. Then you might start laughing. Most likely start screaming laughing. Sometimes it's pretty cool to be on the edge there and play with this angry aggression. Um, because what happens when we don't dare to play with angry aggression is that, that when we go and bite us and bite us and bite us and bite us and then it just cuts us off and then it runs away and then we can't be playful with it because then it takes over us and then we go over to where it completely overwhelms us and then it simply takes over the carpentry of your behaviour and then you end up screaming all your bile and your anger at your partner and at your children and then you have to clean up afterwards just like, okay we have to sit down and talk too. Well I did I really scared you and this is what is going to happen. That also includes me. So it's not about making it totally dangerous. We should try to minimise it as much as we can, because it's not nice. I mean, we know that ourselves when we get overfuelled by something for no reason. It's deeply unpleasant. So when we understand the mechanics of how we sometimes end up there, we can be more compassionate when others do it to us, even though they still have to take responsibility for it. Just as we can have greater gentleness towards ourselves in relation to such, okay, I ended up right out there in being completely overpowered and 100% identified with the anger, where I just spat it out on all my loved ones. When you actively, before it takes over you, just say, okay, I'm so angry and I feel so trapped because what's happening, the nervous system, which we share with all mammals, can't really stand feeling trapped and paralysed at the same time. It's actually, it's actually the worst possible thing. And sometimes you'll be trapped in a situation in everyday life where you're like, I don't have any energy, and you have to make packed lunches, and it all comes crashing down for you. And this is when that energy comes up, that energy is legitimate, because you feel trapped. You feel trapped in a, there are some things I want to do, and I can't do them. And then there are children, and then there's a partner, and I want that to succeed. And I can't, I don't know how to solve this. These problems in my life are bigger than I can fix. And we'll all be there at some point. We'll all be overwhelmed by life sometimes, right? I mean, life is beautiful and wonderful and turbulent and everything. And so when you can take it before you get so overwhelmed that you just spit out your anger, you can actually maybe just say, I'm just going to, you know, go into a room by yourself. And here you might just shout and scream a little. That is to say, it doesn't remove the emotions, the anger. pattern, but it does give you an outlet. In other words, you approach the anger. You approach, what is it like when I feel angry? What is it like for my system to actually allow the anger to be there without having a judgement? Oh no, I can't do that. And it's also that I wasn't allowed to either when I was a child. And it's also it's not, it's also not nice when women are angry and all that shit. How does that adrenaline rush in your body feel when you actually just allow the anger and being there to actually come out in all sorts of eats and curses? Er, maybe even convulsive laughter too. Er, while you have a part of you up there observing yourself while you do it, because that's what makes all the difference. When you have an inner knowing observing yourself, it's as if you have someone from the outside looking at you while you're screaming and laughing and cursing yourself out. That's kind of why you typically start to laugh a little. The difference is that when you do that, you're consciously working with the state. When you get taken over by the condition over here, where the so-called win of tolerance has been cut. Your system can't handle the condition anymore. It simply takes over you. That is, you take all your eats from the field and then you pour them out on your children, your partner, your colleague, your family or whatever the hell it may be. It's that it's unconscious. This means that you will be forced to clean up afterwards. And then you'll typically also feel guilt and shame, because the anger may be legitimate enough. It could be that I'm angry because you spoke to me in a way that reminded me of the way my father spoke to me when I was a child, when he was extremely abusive. So I know you're not, but because I wasn't allowed to speak up at the time, I'm asking my system to speak up now because it was so uncomfortable, because I was so trapped in powerlessness at the time, I never wanted to be that again. I want to, I never want to be as trapped again as I was at that time when I was so vulnerable. So I let go in that moment, there's just something that smells a little bit of it. The problem is that it's not your partner's responsibility. You could say that where we can help each other as partners is if he becomes aware of your patterns and you of his, we can lovingly help each other heal some of these wounds. But it requires the ability to say, okay, right now I can feel that I'm so tricky that I want to pawn you. I'm going to leave because I know it's nothing to do with you, but before I get so overwhelmed by this condition, I just need to pull back and sit with it for a while, and then I want to talk to you about it afterwards. So it's something about building in these little breaks so that you start to get to know your system and your states in a way where you can feel like: ‘Okay, now the anger is starting to run loose for me. Now I'm starting to spiral down into meaninglessness. Now I'm starting to fall into his, he's probably leaving me. Now jealousy starts to creep up. It's this thing of like okay, what's going on here? And how is it that I can invite instead of either getting the condition to be elevated so that I can spit it out on someone, or putting a lid on the condition so that I can escape it. Okay, I'm going to sit down by myself and invite this state in. I need to take care of it before I figure out what to do with it and before I figure out why it's there. Because sometimes there's going to be a kind of jealousy or like, can I trust you? Will it come up because you've spotted some signs? I might not be able to trust you. We need to talk about that. Other times Is there no one at all, is there no one at all? Do you see some signs that aren't there because it's tied to an old history? So that means things can be so similar. That's also why, when we get caught up in something that really triggers us, it's quite important that we do a thorough observation work. So for sniffing, we go and sniff a little bit. We find it because sometimes there's not a good one that tells you there needs to be hardcore boundary setting here, and that may well be true. Other times it can be something old that comes up. Then the third time it could be a misunderstanding. That's what makes this so damn interesting sometimes. I know it's not interesting when you're caught up in it, but for a geek like me it's pretty interesting. And because sometimes you start to be able to laugh with tiny little nuances, where you have like, ah, this anger, it tastes like something old. It tastes like how I felt when I was a kid, when I felt powerless. Okay, it's not my partner's responsibility. I'll just have to deal with it myself. Or f***, I fell into it. I got it out of my partner. I behaved towards him as if he was my father, whereas I'm an adult who can now speak up. It wasn't really fair. Um, and then you can talk about, then you can say, when you come back again to your partner, just say, okay, I just want you to know, when you have that specific tone of voice, or when you speak very loudly, when you speak very short, bluntly hard to me, I just have to tell you how it, how my body is affected by it, because it was just so overwhelming for me as a child. So I know it's not your intention to hurt me or make me afraid. It's just what's happening in me. So I'm just telling you this because I just want to ask you to be a little understanding about it. And then he might also naturally say, okay, but then I'll just, then he might say, then model, because I love you so much, then I'll model my behaviour. Not because he has to completely change his behaviour, but it's actually when you meet halfway, you'll actually be willing to, okay, I'll also say, I can handle, you can help me with my wind of tolerance by sometimes just talking to me briefly or just a little bit, no, but I don't want to right now without me having to think it's because you're leaving me. Okay, I can take responsibility for that one myself. At the same time he's like: ‘Hey, if it's really that overwhelming for you, then I'd like to soften my tone a bit, because then this is where we choose to work together in a partnership, right? And there's something insanely beautiful when we do this. We often say that when we stand there and hurt, it becomes a pointing finger. You're just like, how the hell do you know what I'm going to be like, and I just know how he's just like that, it's not my problem. You can't stand anything either. Why are you so sensitive? But then you stand there and shout and scream at each other, right? And it's just that you can't say it's the same things that are at stake, but there's just a 100% difference in where it comes from. Where do we get it from? When we're in fight or flight, we only get it conveyed to us, so we only create more fight. We get it from where we actually have a nervous system that is balanced. Here I'll just quickly give you a little hand model. If you've followed my work before, you've seen it before. I didn't make it up. I wish I had - it's Dan Seagel who came up with it. And I say, if this is the brain, and this is the nervous system spine, then in here is the reptilian brain, which is all the way down here, which adjusts our breathing and ensures we feel hunger and we feel we need to sleep and stuff like that. Then there are some, we share that with all animals. All animals have it. And then a million years pass, and then comes the limic system, which is called the sensory brain. It's much too simple, but it seems to fit the example. Um, and then a few more million years go by, and then the neocortex comes in, and then we have the brain here, right? And what happens when we go into fight or flight, that is, when we feel, when your system feels threatened. And it doesn't matter if your system is threatened or not, because sometimes you feel threatened by your partner or your children or by your colleague or your friends where they're not believers. But your system experiences it, their behaviour as a threat because it's similar to something you've experienced. In the past where you weren't able to speak up because you were helpless or you didn't have the power to speak up. So sometimes you will and sometimes there will be someone who is just annoying the hell out of you and you need to draw a line, but other times it's just something that you believe because it smells a little bit of something that was once believed by you. So they can be full and they can feel to your system completely identical, but they're not. They're not identical. And that's why we have to learn to sniff out, when is it one and when is it the other? You could say when you're caught in fight and flight, that is, when your system is threatened, then you have difference mechanisms. We don't have girl. We have very soft soft boo. So we walk upright. Um, the only thing I have to protect my heart is my ribs. It's my ribs. They can get smashed pretty quickly. So, other animals, they walk on all fours and protect their major organs from the ground or have claws or shields or something else to protect themselves. We humans don't have that. We're actually really soft when it comes to that. So we have our psychological defence mechanisms. And that is, when you're threatened, you'll go into convulsion or flight or down or shutdown. Shutdown is the oldest umm on the tribe. You could say. And it's where you really just feel like you're totally incapacitated. Either you pass out or sometimes you go into a coma. Uh, so we're in the crying stage, other times you don't faint. Uh, but but you you you you you your brain feels muddy. You can't find words, and you just kind of stand and stare and can't I feel a bit like you're standing in a kind of cheese box looking out at life, but can't really interact in it. Then you're what's called freezing or shutting down. Erm, but let's get a handle on fight and flight. That is, when fight or flight makes you feel believed, the neocortex goes off. The neocortex is the one that makes sense of all this shit. Especially the prefontal cortex, which when it goes off, it goes like this. I thought that was really funny. The thing about it is that it touches both a glue system and the retilium. In other words, it can inhibit. That is, if you suddenly get really tricked by a situation, it can just go in and inhibit like this: ‘Ah, okay, calm down. You're getting super tricked here. Try asking a few more questions. Try to find out if there really is a threat, or if it's because the person has said something a bit sour, or maybe they've been a bit flustered or got the wrong leg out of bed, and therefore comes across as a bit more edgy than the person might actually mean it. And then we can figure out how to have a little bit of an okay, so I can inhibit my immediate reaction to go off on you. I'll just get some more information. I'll reach out to you to find out what the hell is going on here before I kick your arse, before I mark a boundary, before I choose to leave. And and and and there we will typically be able to reach each other with language. Oh, okay, fine. Okay, you've had a bad day. Fair enough, fair enough. Well, that's understandable. It's not something marked. It's fine. But hey, if you want me to get you some coffee, you know, it's done. But uh, when this thing goes off, that is, you only have the feeling, and you have your physical reaction. That is, you can feel your blood pumping faster to protect you. You can feel your cheeks getting red. You can feel yourself starting to breathe faster. Um, and at the same time, you have the feeling of anger or aggression or sadness or whatever file comes up, not when you feel believed. But this one that has to make sense of it all, and that can inhibit it and give you a break. Well, I just need more information before I snap. It's off. Totally off. And that means that when you're here, it's very much like a train has left the station, because you're already in a battle and you're in alignment. You can't really do anything else but run away or attack. That's also why it's so important to train the ability to get this on. This is what I call the regulation cycle. And it really means that you get this back on in a way where you can still feel a bit tricky, but you're able to think, huh, let me just get some more information. Let me see, can we meet? Can we meet in this? Good, good, good. I can be, I can feel my own to be like, okay, there it goes again. And it's actually when you work with wind of tolerance, because when you have some conditions that overwhelm you a lot, whatever it may be, for me it was meaninglessness. Um, I also had a little rendevue with some anger at one point that I had to learn to deal with, because typically if you've had meaninglessness and shutdown, anger was insanely dangerous for you. So you have to learn that when you start letting go of the shutdown and depression and meaninglessness, you'll move into anger. You have to do that. You have to get into the anger before you can move on to the social function where we use language. In other words, you have to get up and get to know anger. Um, and that's for the people who know something really difficult. So it's something you can learn. So if you have a hard time with anger, not in the sense that you can be with anger, but you have a hard time because you're afraid of anger. You are very afraid of feeling your own anger. So it's very, very important that you work with it. And you can do that. Think of it as a muscle. You can train in a way where you can actually feel the anger, but you can also butt this wind of anger. You can butt it in your nervous system where you can use it for something constructive. Because the reason you're afraid of anger is, what can it do to me? It can be destructive to others. It can be destructive to myself. So uh, so it's easy to know that when we're standing, when we're apologising, there was some phone ringing. When you're standing, when this goes off, the most ideal thing for us before we deal with a conflict is to get this back on. So when this goes off, that's when you're about to swear at your partner because he said something that reminded you of something your father once said, then this goes off. And that is, if it's just like this, that's when you can start saying, okay, I can feel, oh s***, that triggered me. You can, you dare to be vulnerable. I know it's totally my own, but oh, it went straight in. You sounded like my dad there, you know. So it's not, it's not his, it's not going to be his problem. It's not something he has to deal with, but you communicate with him what's going on in you so he understands your behaviour. Erm, when this thing goes off, you sometimes have to just say, I have to go now, because otherwise I'm going to smear you. And then you leave when we reach the point where you withdraw from a situation. It's actually to get this back on. And when you start working on getting this back on again, to get some coherence, to get some coherence, to actually get off, well, we can only use the highest functions of the brain, such as thinking coherently, thinking thoughts, understanding larger contexts. We can only use it when it's switched on. If it's switched off, we don't have access to it. It's simply not the blood supply is cut off. All the blood supply goes to the lower regions. So that's why we need to put this back on. Because it's actually only here that we can find creative solutions to unsolvable things and difficult conflicts. This is where we manage to meet each other in a way that is not threatening, but where we can still be enormously, what do you call it, constructive in setting boundaries. I would actually say that when we're here, it's actually typically from here that we can really formulate something like that to a partner. That, that behaviour doesn't work anymore. I'm not going to try to change you. But I will no longer accept that behaviour. So either you have to take responsibility for your own behaviour, or we have to stop being together. Well, but not where it becomes that, where from here it's not communicated as a punishment, like if you don't do it, I'll leave you, but more as a completely new consequence. That kind of behaviour going on there, it's actually not mine. It's something you have to deal with, I have my own behaviour to deal with, but it's something you have to deal with because it destroys the love between us. Because sometimes that's what it is. Sometimes it's also that we're going to unload or our partner is going to unload their wounds on us. Um, and where we take responsibility for them. So sometimes there will also be a legitimate anger about what is not mine. It's simply not mine. I have my own, but we'll talk about that on that. That's yours and you have to take care of it. We each have to be adults and take care of our own. I want to help you but you have to take responsibility yourself. So there is another layer. Sometimes the anger also comes because I need to send that back to you and I need to be able to see that you are capable and start taking responsibility for yourself. Because that's the only way we can make any kind of relationship flourish. The relationships that don't last are the ones where only one person is able to take responsibility for their own behaviour and the other person can't. That doesn't last. It's simply too hard. It's so exhausting to be with a person who isn't so rigid in their behavioural structure that they can't change. And I don't mean changing completely, I mean not changing their essence and their quirks. I mean that's something we live with. But we all have some survival strategies that are inappropriate. And these are the strategies that need to be loosened up. And we all need to loosen them up in order to make relationships work, because then we end up offending each other. I know offence is a harsh word, but I actually want to call it that because that's what it feels like. So let's call it what it is. So this is the exercise I gave you before in relation to this kind of thing about coming back when you're in, when you're like this, and this has come off, and you're trapped in some state to put this back on. That's where it drops the narrative. He's just fucking said it now, he's not going to let it go up here, right? And this thing about letting it go, and it can be hard. So if you experience I have it's almost impossible for me to lick my mind again. Mindlessness, mindlessness, mindlessness. It's really hard this one. This, this is really really good. The mind doesn't like the mind doesn't like not being busy. The mind doesn't like to have a story. The mind doesn't like to have some kind of, when that happens, it happens over here. Because the way the mind survives, it's constantly trying to figure it out. So that's just the way the mind is. So the mind is just its own being in its own right. And then we have the feeling as and the two things, they're two very different beings. So it's very much a human being full of paradoxes. So it's more the And the mind. Well, dear mind, you really want to keep telling this and and and and feeding this anger in me or the victim in me or the meaninglessness in me or you know you can come up with all kinds of stories. You can come up with all kinds of scenarios about how your partner suddenly leaves you and then suddenly wants you back again. So there can be all kinds of inner soap operas that can escalate very quickly. Just be aware that the mind is playing tricks on you. Not because the mind deliberately wants to mess with you, but just because that's how the mind works. So think of it as a dear mind. We need to work on that a little bit, because that's the essence of me in here. behind running the show, not you, mind, because it goes a bit wrong. So especially when you're a bit hurt, the mind is a bit like a little child that we have to take care of. And that's why, when you have to put this on again, you kind of take time for yourself and go into another room. At first, you may simply have to move or scream or knock on something. It's symptom management, but you may need to do that first to get that excess energy out. And then it's that you take your focus off the tank, off this whole soap opera that's going on. Er, and then down towards the body. Okay, dear for condition. It's such a conscious choice. It can be so, it can be so liberating, it can be so full of adrenaline and have such a narrative and so now he's also just acting like a r*****. And you know what, I'll just, he can just, I don't want to be with him anymore, I'll lose 10 kilos, I'll be fucking hot, and then he'll completely regret it, he can do all kinds of shit. Um, and it's just that being trapped there can be all sorts of nice things. It's such a colourful magazine we have in here that sometimes goes off the rails. But it's the one that you make yourself a black tit, yes, I can see, now you've gone into self-harm right down here body. Right, right, right. Where is this condition? And what is it, what's hiding under this anger? Why am I so angry at him? I mean, what am I angry about? Does it have anything to do with him at all? And then sometimes it will come out, it's just like, no, it's nothing to do with him. Sometimes it does. It can, but you're like you have to go down here and feel before you realise what the hell is going on? Is it my past? Is it my partner who has dumped his own baggage on me, where I have to mark a boundary and say, ‘Nope, you have to deal with that yourself. I'll take care of mine, you take care of yours. We're here to mirror each other and kind of teach each other to recognise when one is the other. Um. or I'm something completely different, or I'm trapped in a life I don't really want anymore. That I have doubts about who I am. And that's why I'm so angry all the time, because I don't dare realise that, God, I'm changing. What does that mean? What does it mean in terms of my relationships? What does it mean in relation to my job? Can I cope with this? I mean, nobody knows what you're going to find. Well, I don't know either. I know there are some of these things you can find, but you'll find something. Um, so that's also why it takes some courage, and we're with these modes, because mode is the messenger. So, there's always a message in emotions. The trick is just figuring out what that message is. There are different nuances to it. And that's why I think this work is so exciting. Erm, because sometimes you get so excited that you're like, oh my God, that's what was there. Oh dear. So you might be thinking like s*** man okay I'm not going to have the job I need anymore. That's why I'm walking around so pissed off, but what am I going to do because then a whole new journey starts, right? And that's wonderful and of course a little bit overwhelming but that's why working with our emotional nature is so important because we can't change what we can't feel. And we can't change what is so overwhelming that it takes us over. So that's why we have to kind of balance on a knife-edge right in the centre of these of these of these of all overwhelming states. And it's not easy. It's like learning to walk a tightrope at a height of 1000 metres, I would say. So it's not that I'm not trying to make anything easy. It's more to say that you will experience in your life again and again and again and again and again and be in situations where you experience some condition that is overwhelming where you are called to be able to work with it. And this is where you can sometimes get a little lost. But okay, what about that condition? And what about that one? I think I also have a bit of anger and then you can get a bit confused, but should I work with them all, and where do I start and then it can be overwhelming. So my advice would be to take a very practical approach and start with a condition that is guaranteed when I have talked. At least I hope so. If I've managed to make my message clear enough and I've been clear enough in my speech, then you should be left with some kind of feeling that I know I know what Mette is talking about. I understand that she says there are some conditions that I can't stand to be a part of at all. And so I somehow escape from them. You'll probably want one, two or three of those. Well, we often have a small handful. Sometimes just one. I would say there are always states we can work with, but you will probably have at least one that is more crying than others and that is currently tied to where you are in your life right now. And when you work with that one, a new one often comes up. But of a smaller nature. It's not quite as dangerous for you because you've kind of been through the mill, right? So maybe it's a good idea to start with a condition. And it may also be that you have a state that says okay I know I know that state, I'll do what I can to escape, but it may also be that you can just feel your body that I'm not ready, because for me it was that kind of meaninglessness that took me I worked a lot around it I walked around the cat around the hot porridge for many years before I dared to approach it because the vortex that was under there was so big that I had to have developed a pretty solid personality structure before I could even dare to approach it. So I think you can't, you shouldn't force yourself out. This isn't like that, I know I've compared it to the race coach and stuff like that or Iron Man and that's maybe a bit of a wrong comparison because you shouldn't force something through with violence and force in relation to emotions. That's a bad idea. It's much much more instinct and intuition. So if your body tells you, if it gets completely depressed, you get all heavy all over just at the thought of I know this is a problem. I know this is a challenge for me. I know that this state is so challenging for me, and my system is doing what it can to escape that specific state, but I just feel like I can't even approach it. I mean it's just too overwhelming. Then you have to listen to it. You have to really honour the sensations that come from your body, because you don't have to do that right now. Then start somewhere else. That is, okay, I can be there, but the wind of tolerance, it's not there. I'm not at all ready to invite that excitement in. It would simply be too overwhelming for me. So finally, finally, finally listen to it. So maybe there's another thing, but okay, I think the anger thing, well, it's actually quite difficult for me, I'm not so fucking afraid of anger, but I can feel it's not so fucking easy for me and I would actually like to find out what's there, how can I use anger creatively, I think it could be interesting so start with something where you are a little curious, it's much easier to invite something in where we have a bit of curiosity. Something where you can just feel your body is just kind of going all the way into self-protection, just nothing like that, I'm not going to get into that right now because what typically happens is when you start working with some of these layers and these states that you kind of get through the process, you automatically start building a generic window of tolerance. You start to build such a foundation in your nervous system, which is to say the nervous system like a dam, let's say right now you have such a narrow dam in your nervous system, say it's the passage that can handle and let water in if a huge tidal wave comes, so there should not be a lot of water before you're overwhelmed, that is, before you're completely overwhelmed and either have to collapse or become so overwhelmed that you're either going to spit out all your anger at your loved ones to clean up or you're going to jump into an affair or you're going to do something, you think oh f***, I'm going to clean it up, right? Whereas when you start working with a state because you consciously choose a state that you think, I can play with that, then you actually start to expand your capacity. That is, there can be more flow of intensity. There can be more flow of water or in this case, when we talk about emotions, intensity. So my ability to accommodate conflicting emotions, to accommodate paradoxes, the tension of paradoxes, the tension of existential difficult choices in life, the tension of an overwhelming state. In other words, you're actually experiencing greater and greater complexity in yourself and in your nervous system. And therefore, you may suddenly, without realising it, experience a life circumstance that activates the state that you have kept away from you for most of your life. Maybe it's related to a childhood trauma, where you suddenly experience, okay, I don't think it's fun at all to go in and play with this. But right now, life has pushed me out there where it's time to do it. And because I've made this work by working with other modes and being a bit curious about it. So that means my passage in relation to actually being able to accommodate that flow, being able to accommodate that intensity is much greater. So no, it's very uncomfortable for me, but now I can handle it. Whereas if it happened when I was just like this, I would have collapsed. I would have collapsed. So that's why I also say that you shouldn't approach this like: ‘Well, I should just be able to do it, or let me just work on the hardest part first.’ It's really a matter of just sniffing out, okay, how does my body react? when I actually start to open up to this state, because if it completely says no, then it's really about respecting it, because then it's not time. So in that way it's it's it's it's not a it's not a you can you can you can't use you can't navigate this with your rationale per se. You have to have your rationale you have to have your ability to witness what's happening in you in place. Because that's what keeps this thing from going off. That is, it's what keeps you balanced. Phew, I'm overwhelmed by the feeling. But I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I can feel it. I can track it. I can find its message. message. I don't, I don't switch it off, but I'm not totally overwhelmed by it either. You're standing right there in the centre, right? I mean, you're witnessing what's happening in you, and you're able to feel what's happening in you, and you're able to communicate with what's happening in you. Um, but without getting too overwhelmed. So that's where we need to go in and operate so that you don't do one or the other. So yes, I have to keep an eye on the time. I've got half an hour left, I see, I was m on questions. And now I've promised. There are many things. I'd really like to talk more about polarity spectrum. I've also written a lot about that. What's really interesting is that you can use a polarity spectrum to spot when we're attracted to a partner or friends, especially one hour relationships, we will very often push each other to the outer edges. That is, if you're the one in your parenting who is very boundary-setting by nature. Typically, we should be able to balance both setting boundaries and letting go of boundaries so that we can breathe in and out in the same way. So we actually use this tool quite fluently in our interactions with our children and in our care. So we should be able to say, now it's time to mark a boundary, and now it's just like, no, now I don't have to, now I can just lean back. So it's kind of feminine, masculine. Should we be able to flow in and out like that? We don't do that. We practice it. So typically you'll have one thing that you might do a bit more. And in relationships, it can often be the case that it's very often in dangerous relationships it doesn't matter whether it's the father or the room, one person is often the one who sets the hardest boundaries and the other is the one who tries to compensate by softening the boundaries, so it's really important to be aware of the way you can use each other here. are we going to push each other into polarities because what happens when you're standing here is that this person sets boundaries no and this one has to be like this and this one has to be like that but it shouldn't be like that you also have to be able to understand and blah blah blah blah and things like that not like that oh so where we we keep each other checkmate and then we try to reach each other but we move around like this, because then it's always like this, you're also just so direct and you're so boundary-setting. It's also because you're so soft and so yielding. So I had to No, but it's also just that I had to be soft and yielding. Because then we stand like this and shoot at each other. And we don't actually understand that what actually keeps us stuck is that we continue to be rich in our behaviour. That is, if you're trapped in this kind of behaviour with your partner in relation to parenting or in relation to each other. If you're trapped in a situation where the only place you can end up is criticising each other. You can't really get behind it. You just agree that you're completely wrong or you're completely wrong. And once you do, you have to realise it. S*** man, we're playing out the opposites of the same behaviour. So the best way to break this, where you're so completely locked in, is that you deflect. Not towards each other, but that you simply stop trying to solve this with words, because you can't do that. Just let it go. That is, you actually just let it go. And then you can actually start saying that there's a conflict with the children. So where you'll typically find that one of you will go in and be very boundary-setting or something, you can actually, before the battle is allowed to play out, you can actually be the one who goes in and sets more boundaries. No, but that's it now. In other words, you actually go in and do the opposite of what you usually do. In other words, you start to train a capacity in you to perform a different type of behaviour than the one you usually do. Then you'll probably find that your partner fakes that you're actually freeing your partner here to actually go more into the opposite direction. But here it is, here it's not just rigid. Here it's more of a conscious dance. Okay, but if I just take this one, then you will naturally push you to take the other one, because that's how the dynamic plays out. And there can be something insanely wonderful in that sometimes you actually see your partner doing what you've ordered him to do. You've shouted at him what you want him to do. You've sobbed and why can't you just suddenly because you change some behaviour in yourself, it happens naturally. It's wonderfully beautiful to realise. And it's actually not about who you or your partner are. It's about this interaction dynamic that is this polarity dynamic. I would say that for around 80 to 90% of us, there are some who don't need it sexually, but for the majority of us in a heterosexual relationship, between man and woman, it will be necessary to consciously work with polarisation. In other words, consciously maintain polarisation between feminine and masculine, simply to get the necessary sexual island tension that makes sex completely delicious and fantastic and honouring and everything else. It can happen that we end up trying to turn our man into a woman. And that's a bit of a problem because it's not just this problem, it's a huge problem because if we want him to function the way we function, he should be a sentient being like we are, he should see and meet us the way we feel seen and met by other women. If we eventually almost convince him that this is how he should be, then for most of us, most women, they will stop being turned on by their man. So it's something about understanding that sexual polarity is a bit different than when you're with a friend. So we just have to understand that we kind of think that we need our father relationship to be our best friend, our soul mate, our wildest lover and stuff like that. It's a load of bollocks. Or at least you should know that you can have a situation with your partner where you have a deep friendship. You have a deep conversation on the flip side, but right there you'll also realise that you're not getting any closer. In other words, if you want to find the spark, it's actually the other kind of dynamic that needs to come into play. And as you begin to understand this, you can actually play with it here. You can just know if we need to be shaken out of the friendship, right? In the sense that we're about to fall out. It's not that, it's just a way in which the dynamic is different because you're not banging your mate. Maybe some booty call kind of thing if you don't have a girlfriend. But I'm just saying, you're not going to get turned on by your mate. So there are some other things that turn us on. So you just have to be aware that there's a difference here. And it's the same if you're going through some kind of therapeutic process with your partner. Sometimes, let's say you've been brought to your knees, and your partner is there to help and support and actually be a kind of therapist for a while. It can be so nice and beautiful, but at some point you have to be shaken out of it and then it has to be transferred to another therapist, because that therapist field erm at some point it can become erosive for sexuality. So it's just something about knowing that it's not about if you suddenly feel like, well, you're my best friend, and why is it such a shame that we can't attract each other. There must be something wrong with and stuff like that. No, there's something wrong with you. There's something about the polarity that you need to sort out in terms of how to restore desire, because that's a different game. It's completely different for sexuality. So you have the logic, then you have the emotions. Then you have sexuality. It's all different things. So that's more what I didn't get into much more today. I just want to mention it because it's quite important. Because if there's anything, if there's anything that can be detrimental to sexuality, it's actually the deeper you become friends, the less likely you are to be turned on by your partner. That doesn't mean that you can't also have a lovely communicative and nourishing relationship where there are friendly elements. Because of course you can. I mean, you don't want to be with that person. It's just to say that it's gone too far into friendship, so later on it's actually appropriate to play with this polarity. A conscious polarity between masculine and feminine. And also know what polarity you have. Because this is not something I made up. It's David Data. Um, and I actually completely agreed with him, and it was the eyes, it was the epiphany for me to read his island, his writing in relation to that. Because he says it's quite important you figure out what your sexual sexual polarisation is. Where are you primarily? Because you can be feminine in your mind, you can be masculine in your body. So, we all waver between masculine and feminine. Whether you're male or female, it's not tied to that. It's less important, but it's quite important that if you're feminine identified in your sexuality, then for at least 80% of those of us who are feminine identified in our sexuality, you can be too, they will need to be with someone who is masculine identified in their sexuality to get the necessary sexual energy. So sometimes, if you've struggled for many years to get your sexuality to work, the challenge may well be there. It may simply be that if both are feminine identified, they have a hunger to be taken. There's a difference between what you long for sexually and what you long to be seen and met and touched. There is a difference between whether you are feminine infected or you are masculine identified. And sometimes you can and sometimes you can end up emitting especially because as Westerners, we women are really good at going into the masculine and it's great because we get a lot done and we need to do that. I mean, we go out there and we need to do that, and that's great. We just need to be able to switch between them. And so do men, by the way. So it's not that gender isn't that important here. It's more the energy structures that we all have. I don't think I'm going to get into that right now. I think it's a lecture in itself. But there's something very cool there. There's something very cool to work with. If you're in a place with your partner where I say okay we've become really good friends but we actually need to get some sparks back in our sexual relationship. I would really recommend David Data because he brings some insights that I haven't come across anywhere else that I think have just shifted, I mean completely shifted my world, I would say. Yeah, yeah. Then there's this thing about transforming aggression. I did a post about this when you're in aggression because we're so afraid of aggression. We're so afraid of anger. And the reason why we are, it's very understandable that we are. Because blind rage can be so fucking dangerous. I mean, a lot of murders are done for effect. Most murders don't happen because we have a lot of serial killers walking around. I would say almost all of them are personality disordered not narcissistic or psychopaths where you can say well they do it because they get pleasure so that means they are not at all in effect when they commit a murder as in at all and they are not at all they have not at all they are not at all their emotional violence which in no way. It's completely calculated whereas but but it's not so it's not the ones you have most of the mum that happens or the abuse that happens or the violence that happens it's typically when a person is so caught up in their emotional violence that acts, she's going to do something that is abusive or can cause death to another person. And it's a testament to how violent these behaviours can be, including aggression. So it makes sense that culturally, for many thousands of years, we have tried to contain aggression and also to figure out how to legislate our way out of it. Well, if you're too aggressive and you take it out on others, then you'll go to jail. We know that helps you, because then you're just sitting in there and mirroring a lot of other aggressive people, so it rarely makes them less aggressive, but we don't know what else to do with them. So we don't really know what to do about it. So it's just more to say that there's definitely something evolutionarily appropriate in the fact that we're very careful with it in humans. That is, the aggressive sides, because they can do a lot of damage. The problem is that when we don't learn to deal with aggression, that's when it becomes dangerous for us. Because you can't, you can't skip aggression, because you are a mammal. Well, we are also a mammal. So it's in us. So it's simply, it's simply instincts that are in you. So aggression is a natural part of being human, whether you like it or not. And if you're thinking, I'm never aggressive, believe me, if you go through a loop in your life, it will be there. It will just come out in a different way. Come out sideways in women. Aggression typically comes out uh much more indirectly. Um, and there's also a risk that men actually start to become much more indirect in their aggression, because right now, a lot of aggression is very much linked to assaults against women, which there's definitely something about. But the problem is aggression is also very different. Aggression doesn't always have to come out in an offence. The problem is if we say, well okay, it's men who are the problem. It's because they're aggressive, then we're doing it wrong. Then aggression just has to be taken out of the equation, because women certainly aren't. But that's not true. Women are very much aggressive too. We're just aggressive in a different way. So it's about, we have to, if we want to get rid of offence, if we really want to get rid of offence, whether it's a very physical offence or an indirect offence, which can be out of the way, deep manipulation, I'm going to pull you close and keep you outside, in the most blatant sense, which is more the female form of aggression. So we have to learn Danish, mate. We as individuals must learn to understand it. Our children must learn to understand it and must learn to be able to hold it back. In other words, to be able to translate aggression into heart opening. That's basically what we need to be able to do. So we're not going to be able to do spiritual bypass and just think that we can sit up here and do everything for Honkyori spirituality. There's some truth in that. It's actually something true where we can transform the more dense and the more animal instincts, but instincts don't disappear. It's not one of those things where all of a sudden you've worked with aggression and it has become a heart opening, and then you never experience being an aggressive person again. That's not how it works. What it does is that you create a path. You simply create a path from ah, now I feel aggression, now I feel aggression. What do I do with it? That is, you actually get an opportunity to take the aggression and pick it up in your heart and put it into action rather than taking the aggression and doing harm in the world with it. And that's why there's something insanely beautiful about it. And it's not something we're going to fall asleep to in any way. But we have to be curious about working with it again. We must be curious about inviting aggression into this window of tolerance. Okay, what's in this? What is there? Where is what? Why do you want to bite his f****** head off? There you go, there you go. Where does that come from? A lot of women have this I just wanna rip him f****** head off. Um, and there is something that can be both hugely shameful, and we actually know from clinical studies that yes, it's true that when we look at such rubbish violence and rape, well, that's how women feel about it, as if they are victims of it. But if we look at what it's like to be beaten, you know, slapped, then it's actually the men, so it's actually women who go and slap men. Um, which is also an offence. And it's not to say that one is a bad thing or the other, it's just to say that we can't just talk about one problem. We need to talk about the whole package. And we need to understand, where is it coming from? Sometimes there's just a kind of aggression towards men because we think they've fallen asleep. We're like, you're sleeping, I'm here to wake you up. And of course we're not going to do that by ripping their head off. But sometimes you follow the aggression. Why is it, why is it that I get so aggressive? And it can sometimes be, well, I think you're sleeping. So there's simply in our partnership, you're sleeping and like, okay, fine, now I have to deal with it. I have to start waking myself up. And if you don't wake up with me, then we have to part ways. Other times, it can be aggression in relation to, well, it's hard for me to set boundaries. I consistently overstep my own boundaries because I was crossed so many times as a child. So therefore a huge aggression flares up when that happens. Because what I wanted to have set as a boundary when I was a child, where I was too vulnerable to even do that, but now I do. I have to do that now. Erm, but then it's on you. So I have to invite the aggression in. Okay, how do I get this boundary statement out? How do I articulate it? Who am I going to stand up to? Even if it's uncomfortable for me. Where do I go in and practise my no, even though it's deeply uncomfortable for me when I do it? But the moment you realise that your aggressiveness is about setting boundaries, that's when you start. The moment when you're just a little bit hesitant and like, oh my god, I have to say no to that task. It's absolutely horrible. I have to say no to a cup of coffee with a friend and just like, oh my god, you know there can be a lot of that. It can be overwhelming, I have to call and tell that hairdresser that I've chosen the other one because we're moving. Oh no, it goes completely wrong. It's something like that that can weigh heavily on women. Um, and it may be that it's just this thing about practising in small groups. You may not start by going back and saying, you know what, dad, you crossed the line, you were so transgressive as a child. And do you realise how difficult it has made it for me today to set boundaries? You may not start there. Nor are you likely to ever have a conversation with him. You might. But it's not, but it's more to say, you can work with it even if you don't go to that source. Because sometimes you don't go to the source because your instincts tell you. Even if I go to the source, I don't get anything out of it. The only one, I only get something if I go to the source, then I just get the same reaction I did when I was a kid. Because he hasn't moved. Or it doesn't matter if it's mum or dad. Or whatever it may have been. It's not that it's less important. So sometimes there's a reason why it's not just because you're weak and useless and everything else, which is the self-narrative we often have. It could also be that your instincts are simply telling you it's a wasted fight. It may be that you think it's a good idea. And I think I can change the pattern by going there now, but there's nothing to be gained. You may well be right, you stink, but you can't work on gripping it in a different way, because whether you sit down, whether you go back and mark a boundary with a father or a mother who should have avoided that specific behavioural weapon when you were a child. Um, it might not do any good because if they're not at a place where they're able to take it in, then it's not healing for you. That's why it may be that you feel like I should tell them anyway, so they know. I need to say it, and fine, then do it. Um, but it's just not, it just doesn't mean that your boundaries are miraculously in the closet. You need to see it more like okay, so now I simply have to practice. I simply have to exercise it like a muscle. And the moment you start practising it, and it can be for a friend like that: ‘No, I really don't want to.’ Well, I need to talk to you. Yes, I understand that, but I can't today. I'd love to be there for you, but I don't like today. When you start to feel like, no, I don't really want to do that, and I'm allowed to say I don't want to do that. When you start doing that, you'll also find that your aggression and anger will actually decrease because your system is like this: ‘Hey, you're listening.’ Yes, that's what it takes. You just need to realise that the anger was about defining yourself a bit more. You were too fluid in your structure, so it was about boundaries. But we only know, we only know what that state is when it's aggression, anger, meaninglessness, powerlessness, whatever the hell it is. We only know what it's telling us when we dare to be with it long enough for it to deliver its message. So it's not that important. Yes, it's important to you of course what it has told you, but it's not that important really. It's just that you actually get to train the capacity. So you get to make your dam bigger so that you can handle more frequency. You can handle more energy because that's where you'll be able to have the radio transmitters out and will be able to decode h okay, why are you here? And sometimes for those who have multiple reasons. So you might be thinking like, okay, I still don't understand this state anymore. I still don't know why the hell it's there. Sometimes it takes longer, and sometimes it's both setting boundaries in relation to something in the present and something in the past. Sometimes there are several things twisted into one, but then it's just something you keep unpacking. That's how it is with emotions. It's not that kind of logic from A to B and then it's done. It's much more like that with emotions. So it's also, it's really nice if you can have a bit of humour along the way and really be kind to yourself. Um, because it can be a bit of a scary road to take and there aren't that many people who are there to make sure that you haven't learnt this because I'm not on the syllabus in school and even a lot of therapies that are very cognitive in nature will work more on saying now it's okay, you may feel a feeling but that's what it is, it's not dangerous out here so we'll just put it on the back burner just like that no it may not be dangerous but there's a reason it's there so shouldn't we try to invite it in instead and sometimes it can also make sense sometimes it can make sense that you kind of get Okay, I know, now this condition is coming up and I can taste, I know the flavour. I can taste this, it's because it's tied to something in my past. Okay, but then I don't actually have to act on it, because it has nothing to do with this person. So it can be allowed to run here in the background, but I don't actually give it any more nourishment, because I'm completely lost in my analysis or my, it's not even a mental analysis, but in my work with it, I can recognise it. I can recognise that it has this, it has this specific trade. So okay, fine. I'll have to take that with me when I get home. But there's no reason why this person doesn't need me to recognise my past traumas. Some people you want to tell your partner and nog and your parents, your closest friends, your closest tribe, it might be appropriate to kind of tell them what's going on in you and why uh to the extent that they want to know. Because then we can become curious about each other, we can help each other. But if you meet a colleague, er, it's not, you don't have to inaugurate it. Sometimes we have a fact that we sometimes talk too much about emotions. You have to see emotions as different types of emotions. There are different levels of emotions and masters. You could say the first level is where you take what you have on the inside and spit it out on the outside. That is, I feel anger so it gives you. It's kind of like I get angry so I spit it out at you. It's like that, it's very much like that and that's what children do. So small children experience an emotion, a state and then they kick you or throw it at you. Because they haven't learnt it yet. That's how it works. They feel something, an emotion, and then they react to it. That is, the world around them gets it. There's no tsting to wonder why I'm angry if it was also just because I wasn't allowed to get chocolate looks and stuff like that. So that's the first level. And that's not one of the levels you can skip. It's kind of like you can't really skip and crawl properly or at least crawl. There are some that are kind of like you have to be born before you can run. So there's like a chronology to things. And there is also in relation to learning to master emotions. So the first level is that you tend to feel something in here and then spit it out, or to feel something in here and shut it down more inside yourself. The next level. This is where you actually learn. You feel something in here. And then you can communicate it. I feel really sorry for you. N, when you say things like that to me, I actually think it makes me really, really sad, otherwise I'd like you to take my feelings into account. That talk. You know, it's one of those things where you can sit there and feel like, okay, when you don't call me, I get the feeling that you're leaving me. So that's why I want to have that. When you can talk about girlfriends and partners and stuff like that, you learn how to communicate your feelings. So you're not, you're not where you feel something spitting it out on the first best person you meet. You're actually where you're more nuanced. You have a sense of why you feel that way, and you can find the cause, and you are actually able to communicate the cause to the person you're interacting with, where these feelings have arisen. This is the second and third step, this is where we actually no longer need to talk about emotions very much. We don't actually need to talk much about how we feel in life and what we like and our ambitions and our vision and everything else. Yes, but you don't actually sit there and say, I was a bit hurt by what you said. All that talk has actually started to bore you a bit. Assume that you're actually really good at feeling and expressing your feelings. In other words, you've kind of reached a saturation point. So now it's actually the case that you are translating the feeling in your body in the individual moment you have it and that it calls for a behavioural change in the person you are with. It may sound a bit abstract, but let's say you walk in the door and you see your partner sitting and disappearing into the iPhone and you can't see each other all day. Um for you as for most others it will be like that it would be uncomfortable because that's what we it's just that you you there's a smile there's recognition there hey I'm here and it's that thing with someone you disappear something like that checking actually one of the things that women react to the most is when their male partners check out umm because that's what women want from men it's his consciousness so it's his presence his presence it's what we feed on he feeds on our fullness he feeds on our energy there's a difference between or you could say the feminine and the masculine because it can also be reversed in man woman. So femininity and masculinity are not tied to gender, but you could say that there are more women, there are more women who are feminine identified with sexuality than there are men. But there would be some men who are and vice versa. So so now therefore, it's just to make it very clear cut that I'm not saying that femininity is equal to women, because it's not. It's a basic structure. It's a basic energy that is in both women and men. It can just be different in how it plays out. Um, so it can be that, and it will really be where you are. So that means that at that moment, you actually feel a uh What women feel, let's say a woman who is feminine identified in her sexuality and is therefore attracted to a man who is masculine identified in his sexuality or another woman who is masculine identified in her feminine sexuality. In other words, the opposite, right? What you experience as a woman is actually a kind of pain when there is a lack when he checks out. In other words, when his presence is not there, there is actually a pain in the female body. It's deeply disgusting, because that's what we're looking for as a critical connection, the less we are in our masculine, the less we are in our masculine, the less we slip in and out of it, if you're in your masculine and your man comes in and right there he's in his feminine slut mode, then you're just like, fuck off, I don't want to talk right now. I just need to finish this. So women can definitely be there too. Now, in this example, it's just that the woman comes in and realises he's checked out. He doesn't realise me. Not because he has to realise me, but because I can tell he's checked out. That's actually that's actually that's actually that's actually that's actually where we tickle me. We're here to make sure they don't check out. Because they keep coming back to consciousness. Depending on where we are developmentally, it can look more or less elegant. And sometimes it can look very dramatic. Erm, but that's really that's pretty much what we do. We feel an instinctive call to it like that all the time. Hey, you're falling out, there's a fallout, come back. Um, and that's also why men need us, and we need men too. So that is to say, but the moment that you like in the third stage, the emotional mastery layer, you're going to make a, there might be a sound coming from you. You might want to take a breath. You will, you will simply react physically to the pain you experience when you realise that he's checked out. But you don't even have to think about it, because you don't have to. And just the fact that you're actually taking care of that pain, you're releasing it, if he's as evolved as you, in a match there, he'll pick up on it and actually become aware of how much it hurt you. I've checked out, he'll come back. But we haven't actually said a word. So it's more to say that this is possible. And even then, of course, you'll never be a pure third stage. Well, it requires an enormously high level of consciousness to be there. It's more to say that you can be there some of the time, and then sometimes you fall out, then you collapse, then you're down in the second stage, where you just need to talk about things and stuff like that. And there's nothing really wrong with this. It's more to say that you can be a bit playful with it and just know that there are different levels of mastery. So if you've reached the point where you actually think, well, let's sit down and talk about our feelings, because that's a damn good thing to do in a relationship. And you can see that he's just like, oh, I don't want to, but I've learnt. And you're kind of like, I think it's really boring. I don't think we get anything out of it. It doesn't make our sex any better. Well, maybe it's time to start playing with something else. Yeah, you know what? I think I got round it all. There's just one last thing that I haven't got round to, and I can see I've got, well, I've got five minutes left, not before there's time for questions. And this is the one about life, death and rebirth. It's, it's quite a big one, but I need to spend five minutes on it. Life, death and rebirth. It's the whole foundation. It's the basic existential condition for life, for all life. For planets, for stars, for the universe, for the sun, for the solar system, for the whole package and thus also for human life, you could say, well, we are born, we live, we die, we multiply, we go again. The soul maybe rinkanerer. So depending on what level you take it at and what you believe in, you will see this cycle again and again and again and again and again and again. And sometimes you might think that it only happens in the physical. It doesn't. It doesn't. It also happens in your psychological life. We also know that it happens physically or something like that every seven years, I think you've replaced all your cells. That's because there's also a completely natural decline, so your cells die. They age, they die. Um, and there's a part of you that you have These are kamcasi cells, these suicide cells, um, which are actually there to say, okay, you are, it's time for you to die now, so I just go in and activate you to die now, right? So um, that also happens in the psyche. We know less about that, or no, that's not true. We actually know a hell of a lot about it, but we often work against it because we can't really stand it. Um, because the death process is probably one of the most overwhelming things. Because the ego, your whole mind, your whole ego structure is here to make sure you don't die, which is paradoxical because you do. It's just that the ego is like, no, that's not going to happen. So because the ego can't have that, because my personal belief is that there is a soul, and I'm actually quite a fan of the idea of reincarnation. I mean, we don't really know. So now it's my own personal point of view. Um, and you can easily be there, where you have a soul, I don't really believe in that. I think we just die, but then we formulate and give life in that way, right? So, with all due respect for how you see that life is connected. Erm. But the death process will also happen psychologically. So it will also happen in relation to how you identify yourself, what you are identified with. In the sense that you go from woman to woman and mother. The child goes from child to tot. That is to say, there is a level that is fully mature, which then dies so that something new can be born. And that's also why it's important to understand when you want to change some things in your life. When you want something new and offer something new, or you want to go new ways or get curious about your feelings or get curious about who I don't know who I am. I mean I'm I know I'm changing him. I'm in a death process. That is, who I thought I was is no longer, but I don't know who the new me is. So I'm in this vacuum. That is, what's really important to know is that nothing new ever comes in until you let go of something old. Something has to die. And that's why some of this work with emotions is an insanely important death process. Death learning, because we are quite immature as a species in the sense that we are not very old in evolutionary terms. So in our more spiritual development, we're maybe a little bit not, we're probably a bit precocious. So we are where we think we are immortal. Well, we're not, but we're very captivated by youth and beauty and not so much by the very small and the old. We're not, we're not so much. If we look at the populist culture. But it's very, very important to get acquainted with death. Because there is something and it may sound like a cliché but you can't really live until you dare to die because then you will constantly fear death. And when you fear death, you're not living. So we don't really know what happens at the finish line. And at the same time, it's also very natural that you're afraid of death, because you have a self-preservation ability in you that wants to survive. So all these things are at stake. So it's not strange that you don't want to let go of life, fortunately. But what's important is that when you're in a development process, going from one thing to another, there will be unpleasant elements in it. Because a death process will be unpleasant until you have cracked the code. Because what's uncomfortable is not actually the death process itself. What's uncomfortable is when we work against it. Um, the death process. That's what's insanely uncomfortable, because states exist to be in motion. That is, death must also occur for something new to emerge. In other words, it's a completely natural cycle that occurs. But when we work against this cycle, the energy in us stagnates, and that's actually where it gets uncomfortable, when we try so hard not to die and hang on by the roots of our nails. That's what makes it insanely uncomfortable. So it's when you're in some kind of process where you can feel yourself changing him. Okay, I thought I was like this. F***, I'm not. Then who the fuck am I? That's right, it's really uncomfortable because that part of you, it's uncomfortable for your ego, your ego structure. Because your ego structure's job is to know who you are. And to have this as a kind of bounded whole because I have to be bounded, because then I blend with you. I have to have some kind of boundedness. I also need to know who I am in that boundedness. So that is to say, it's insanely provocative for the ego. And the ego, the last thing the ego wants is to die. So there will be resistance to the death process, but again, the exercise, the art is to surrender, surrender to it and let yourself get caught up in it. Just like that, I can't stop it anyway, because that way you shorten the process and you learn to be with it. You simply learn to spot it. Okay, now I'm going into a ham shift again. Ha, interesting. You might be one of those, oh, a shapeshifter again. Okay, but I've done it before, so I know I won't die from it. Well, you could say you don't die physically from it, but you die mentally from it. But there's always something new coming up. And I would actually say it's a bit like that scene. Now I don't know if you're the kind of Harry Potter fans I just introduced to my son. He's a big time fan. I knew that because I'm a big time Harry Potter fan too. I don't have to dress up as Harry Potter, but I've watched and read the books many times. And I can in one of them, one of the film and I can't or one of the books, I can't remember which one of them, there's Harry he's in with that Professor Dumbled and he meets Fox, who's a phoenix, like the phoenix bird. And he's sitting there looking at the dumbledore, and all of a sudden he goes up in smoke and fire, and then this beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful bird comes round, right? And it's kind of the same thing. So there's a we live in these kinds of forms and then when that form is brought to perfection, when there's no more learning there, when we're done with it, it dies. It's like, now you don't need that too, you don't need to lean into that form, because that form has become too cramped. It can't hold all the nuances of you. Like this little dam, when you start working with the intensity of energy so that you can open it like this, this dam has to crumble and die because you open it. You make a bigger passage. You're building something new and it's exactly the same. So you just need to know when you're working to say, okay, I want something different. I want, I want to feel, I want to create a life where these states are there more. Or this sense of freedom or this sense of connection or whatever the hell it might be, just knowing, well for God's sake go for it, but there will be deaths along the way because to achieve that, to create the new, there will be something old that you have to leave behind. And often in going for something new, it will be letting old defence mechanisms die because they are trying to protect you from risk. Maybe you get hurt, maybe you get disappointed, maybe you get hit with a meme, maybe you get rejected. So all those old ones that keep us holding ourselves in place, they will have to die. So old beliefs, maybe also relationships, uh, maybe relationships, maybe ways of doing things in parenting. There can be many things. In fact, there is something insanely beautiful when we dare to go with it. We can feel like: ‘Well, I've always been extremely passionate about meeting children in such a way. I've experienced that several times. I'm writing about it for crying out loud, right?’ And just like that, where I'm like okay, I have to nuance this because I had this picture on and this was the right way to do it, but holy shit there's a whole range of nuances where I felt I had to go through some kind of death process and now I can't write anything at all because I don't know where I stand, I don't know at all. I haven't got the nuance at all, I haven't got the nuance yet where I just almost have to lie down in the first position and say f*** okay right now I'm not writing anything or I'm only writing something in some areas where I'm not really there until something new arises and then I can feel the energy and then I'm ready to communicate again in a new way. Still the same It's still me, but there's a nuance. I don't know, I'm actually quite curious to ask some of you who have followed me for a long time if you can taste a little difference, because I can certainly see that I've been through some processes where I haven't changed my values, but at least in how I express myself, I have changed. And I've been through some kind of death processes in the process. I've had quite a few of them. Apparently, I'm a person who changes quite often. Erm, not everyone changes him so often, I would just like to say. So, but there can be a lot to learn from someone who switches a bit often, because I've tried it a lot. So it's more to say, I'm also holding hands with a lot of women who are in this kind of process, because the first time you change him, you think you're going to die. Either you or you think you're going insane, so there's this and there's this and there's this and there's your mind doing all sorts of things like what the f***, I'm going to a psych ward, what's going on? So it's more to say that some of these things will be there. Um, and there can be a huge huge huge huge help, and it doesn't have to be me, but just having someone who is with you on the journey, or more of a women's group or a good therapist or a good friend or whoever the hell it is. Just that one you feel so okay right when I'm with you like this can keep my sanity and then I dare to take another day not. Those were the words for me just five minutes past my speaking time but it was important to include it because it's actually one of the biggest bigys in terms of working with intense emotions. It's actually the death process. And I would actually say that once you've gone through it, there's almost nothing you can't handle, I would say. Um, now I'm opening up for questions. So if there are any of you who have questions out there, please feel free to let me know and write in here. I'll also pick up the computer, so I can keep an eye on it. Erm, there's one here. There's the question. I'm so mad and angry at my immediate family, mum, dad, sister, so not interested in my children and family, who constantly demand everything possible from me, both mental and physical support. I'm just completely fed up and I can no longer give them what they want, which is to play their mum. And they tell me that too. They are disappointed. They miss me. My focus is just on my four little kids. And they don't take my criticism and they don't take any initiative. I'm very affected by it, and it affects my own relationship with my children. I think maybe I really need to work on my boundaries. But how do you go about it when you have as much anger and probably grief as I do when they don't listen? And when I don't want to cut that scary connection either. I don't. Oh, that's a really, really good question. Really good. There's a lot of people who can recognise a little bit of that. Um, I don't know if you've read my book, my latest book on connections, I write that there are a lot of people in our generation of parents who feel like we feel like we're parents to our own parents. Not really, but having an emotional responsibility and feeling like we feel like we're being jerked around in the managesie there. And you could say it will create anger. It will create anger if you feel you have to go and parent someone who is your own parent and can actually take responsibility for their feelings that they don't take for you at all. And also the fact that you kind of feel like there's no one to kind of give you relief, but you expect them to relieve them, right? And there's definitely some boundary setting in this. And you can say boundary setting, when you start practising boundary setting with your loved one, where it has been fluid, it's rarely nice. It never sits like that, you know, some people are just eminently skilled at setting boundaries. It's so elegant when you start practising setting boundaries. It's anything but elegant. But it doesn't matter, because you can say the most important thing is actually that you start acting on the anger and the aggression and the sadness that is there. So actually what you can use as an exercise is that what I could imagine happening is that if you are asked to do something by your parents, you can't just say that we miss you so that there is both someone who would be there after and not, but if I go, then I feel seen and met. There can be a very familiar pattern if you basically don't feel seen and met as who you are and your parents, because they haven't managed it. That quite often you will have adapted to such a degree to find okay I can't get what I really need. So to try to get it in a different way, I try to see and hear you. So you can get to be a bit of a therapist role for your own parents, where they really just unconsciously use you to regulate their own emotions. And that's why they love it when you're there and stuff, because you always get to ask them about their lives and blah blah blah and stuff like that, right? The problem is that it often means that when you come home after a family weekend, you're tired for a week. So you're completely exhausted, completely in the doldrums. And you feel like you've just given and given and given and given and given and given and you feel empty and drained, and you probably haven't really got anything out of it. Um, and often it can be really hard to talk to this dynamic because it's most likely not how your family perceives it. They may not feel it like this. And sometimes things go wrong in the dynamic, in the sense that sometimes, if you've allowed yourself to fill others up, if people don't have the nuance to understand this dynamic, then they just take what's there. Not because they're bad people, just because that's the way it is. That's great. It's there. You ask and you're full of light and you're so lovely, then you're just cake, it's so weird and stuff like that. You go and colour us all together, so I don't have to do it. Then you can do it yourself. That's really nice. I don't know exactly if that's the dynamic that's there. But that's how I see it at least sometimes. And that means that you can't change that dynamic, the only way you can change it is by doing something else. And in order to do that, you actually have to go through a death process. Because you actually have to go through the death process called I don't care about my mum's feelings. I don't ask a lot of questions about her. I remember what I ask as normal people do, but if I don't feel like asking, I just sit in silence and wait for her to say something. And then it gets awkward because I'm the one who usually fills in the blanks. That is to say, you actually have to be a pleaser and I've grown used to being the one who makes sure that everyone has a nice time. That part of you, and you in that sense, you actually have to let that die. And that would mean there would be resistance in you, because there would be a part of you that would be like, I'll be cold, and then they won't know where I am. Then they get awkward, and then they get angry with me, and then all of a sudden they start saying that I'm everything that I'm not, but that they are. So, if they get confused, why doesn't someone come and ask me soon, why have you become so cold? Why are you so rejected? Why are you so annoying? So all sorts of things can come out on this one every time. Very often what happens is that when we start changing our behaviour towards our loved ones, they don't like it. And it's often unconscious. It's not because they don't want the best for us, but often we're used to there being some roles that are kind of nice. We know what we're dealing with. And when someone starts doing a role change, it creates a ripple effect and affects everyone in the group. Erm. And it could be nice to just be like, no, how exciting, who are you now and well okay and stuff. But people just think it's really disgusting. And so that means that the hardcore thing for you would be to actually be able to stand in it. And therefore you wouldn't be able to stand in it all the time was too hard for you. But there may be some specific situations where you can very clearly feel when I take on this role in relation to my parents or in relation to my family, when I do this in relation to them, when I say yes to what you don't actually want to do. That's when I feel the most frustration, pain and emptiness when I'm with them. So take one to three of these situations or maybe with a how many do you think you have resources check with your body tell your body like this well I can do it I can at least take three of these situations no I start somewhere then I get too overwhelmed listen to your body and be how much yes and how much yes like this what I go with and then that's really what you start with that is, if you're used to being the one who is very much the one who makes sure that the conversation goes and the conversation becomes pleasant and it's you who makes sure that it kind of glides and you just get to talk to your dad because he can't fucking do that he can't figure it out himself he never asks so that's why I just take care of him, because it makes him feel less academic. So just don't say anything, and then you're just there as you and just where you where you where you where you and then you then they may well start like you are you okay? I don't think you're saying much today. No, but I don't have as much to say today. You know where you're kind of slipping and try to see what's doing that and try to observe. What happens in the dynamic when you do that? And what happens in you? It would with pretty big at first it would be crazy uncomfortable for you. But the payoff can be when we kind of do something different and we're not trying to force someone to change, but when we kind of take a different position in the dynamic, then over time, we can actually find that all of a sudden the dynamic loosens up. All of a sudden, they naturally start to do some of the things that we've been asking for all along, but that they've never realised. Or sometimes it happens, sometimes it also happens that they just find it uncomfortable. They just want you to be the old you again, because it was really nice. They don't want to move. If it happens that they keep giving you smoke for it. You keep standing there like that. I'm not falling back into the old role. No, I don't want to be the one carrying that dynamic because it's too draining for me. I don't want to do it anymore. I'm done with it. It's dead to me. We have to find another way to be together if they're not going to keep not playing there. Because you have that choice. You have that choice. We all have that choice when we enter into relationships. We all do. And just as those we are in a relationship with also have that choice. We must remember that. It's not just us who have the choice. They also have the choice to say, I don't want this relationship anymore. Not in that form. Our partner has that choice. Our children have that choice. Everyone has that choice, including ourselves. If they don't want to play along, but keep giving you, then you have to choose what you do next. You don't always have to cut the connection completely. For some, it's the right thing to do. For others, it's like, no, but it doesn't feel right. But then it's a matter of you consciously deciding how long do I want to be together, when we are together, and in what way. Do I make sure I have like, well, I'll be here for a couple of hours, then I'll go for a walk with the dog, or we have a friend I need to visit in the city. So the thing with you going to and from, where you're the one who kind of dictates, I have a certain degree of freedom, something like that, I think it's too much, so I choose to leave, and then I come back again. It's just because then you have an action, if you have to make sure you give your system an option when you're in that situation that's overwhelming for you, because the way you make sure that it becomes more bearable. But the first step you need to take is to stand firm in terms of maintaining a change. And then, over time, you will find that this anger, aggression and grief will begin to subside and you may have to go through it. You may need to give yourself time to grieve. When I was in therapy, when I was at rock bottom, I had to go through a long process where I actually felt like my orphan. And I actually have a really good relationship with my parents today. Um, we've come quite far, and we haven't actually come far because we've had a lot of conversations. Those conversations didn't really do anything. It's actually what has done that, that I've let go and moved on and changed the dynamic. So they're much more aware of what I want to be a part of and what I don't want to be a part of. And I have a much bigger acceptance day. I think there are things you don't understand, and you'll probably never understand it, but you understand it as well as you can. So I can't get your acceptance there, but I can give that acceptance to myself and I can get that acceptance from other people who see me in a different way. So I would actually say, but at that time, I had to get down and feel like an orphan. I had to get down and feel like I had no parents. And grieve as if I had no parents. And that was not something I wanted to do. It was a no-no. It was a sleeping process in me. I had to get all the way down there. So there's something about sometimes seeing it and it was a death process in not losing my parents physically, but I had to lose. I had to let my hope that they saw me in a certain way die, because they couldn't. I was asking them to do something they couldn't do. And I also had to let that child not perish, but take that child to myself, so that I could nurture her instead of her having to nurture my parents. In the way that I wanted it to be. At the same time, I had to let the carer die. The one who always thought I had to make sure they were comfortable because I had gotten used to it. I always had to take care of their feelings because they can't figure it out for themselves. I had to let that part die too and then I had to train myself to stand in the discomfort of not stepping into that role when I was at home because it simply drained me too much.