0:07

Hello and welcome to Being Well. I'm Forrest

0:09

Hanson. If you're new to the show, thanks

0:11

for joining us today. And if you've listened

0:13

before, welcome back. I'm joined

0:15

today as usual by Dr. Rick Hanson, right?

0:18

Because a clinical psychologist, a best selling author,

0:20

and he's also my dad. So dad, how

0:22

are you doing today? I'm pretty fired up.

0:25

And also, I'm doing what's

0:27

always tied for first place with me

0:29

as my favorite thing in a day.

0:32

I always love talking to you too. And

0:34

like you, I was really excited about this

0:36

one. Today, we're going to be talking about

0:39

self abandonment, which occurs when

0:41

we go against our authentic wants,

0:43

emotions and boundaries in order to

0:45

serve others meet external expectations, or

0:48

protect ourselves emotionally. And it's

0:50

often part of a common family of issues that

0:52

can include low self worth, difficulties

0:54

with setting and maintaining boundaries, and maybe

0:56

some overlap with more anxious models of

0:58

attachment, which I'm sure we'll be talking

1:01

about a little bit today. But

1:03

I wanted to start, dad, by just asking you, how

1:05

do you think about self abandonment? I know this was

1:07

kind of a new term for you when

1:09

I introduced it to you. It

1:11

is a new term for me. And for me, it

1:14

really touches something very deep about

1:17

when we abandon ourselves in a

1:19

very deep way, we

1:22

betray ourselves. We

1:24

let ourselves down. And there

1:26

are all kinds of reasons we do it. It's

1:29

quite poignant. It's really quite deep. And it

1:31

also gets to the whole kind of

1:33

parts work territory from different traditions,

1:35

different places, the abandonment of the

1:37

inner child. And it kind

1:40

of gets almost at loyalty. And

1:42

I think about the first chapter of my

1:44

book, Making Great Relationships, Be Loyal to Yourself,

1:46

where you and I started in

1:48

the resilient book, Get on Your Own

1:50

Side. And that's what we're going to be getting

1:53

more and more into here. Yeah, totally. I

1:55

Think that's a great summary. And We're going to

1:57

start with kind of a being well, classic here,

1:59

which is talking about what we're talking about. about.

2:01

So let's maybe name some of the things that

2:03

you've already kind of brought up here Dad, a

2:05

little bit more specifically, what are some of the

2:07

common features of self abandonment and we can probably

2:09

start with this is just neglect in the South

2:11

and favor of other people. So. People

2:14

who engage in south abandonment. They

2:16

often disregard their own desires, what

2:18

they actually feel inside of themselves.

2:21

They're authentic wants and needs in

2:23

order to perform some kind of

2:25

a function for other people. And.

2:28

Then we can kind of go down a layer and ask,

2:30

okay, why might that behavior pop up for people. And

2:32

often it's security seeking and nature. There

2:35

was an experience that they had at some point. Where.

2:38

They. Sell like they had to

2:41

perform a function for others. In

2:43

order to receive. Totally

2:46

normal levels of love

2:48

support safety, Security. Relationship.

2:52

With other people. And so really.

2:54

com examples that it's just like the habit of

2:56

saying yes to people, Sir, I'll do that. Yeah,

2:58

no problem. Don't worry about it. I'll take care

3:00

of it. And that's one of the ways that

3:03

this kenneth constellation of behaviors can come up for

3:05

people. When. I'm doing

3:07

inside myself. It's. Essentially

3:09

were use. Someone. Tells

3:12

you about something. Or. You

3:14

hear an idea or a term like

3:16

South Abandonment. And. Then you go

3:18

inside. I. Go inside to

3:21

seal into what would that be

3:23

like for me? So.

3:25

If I have a client let's

3:27

say tell me. That they

3:29

just feel that it's an absolute rule

3:31

to take care of others. And.

3:34

Not to take care of themselves. I

3:36

go into. While. with

3:39

happy like for me. When. You talked

3:41

about that. I'm aware

3:43

of the difference between.

3:46

Feeling. Fine inside and being

3:48

very focused on loyalty to others

3:50

duty to others service. That's

3:53

okay. that feels fine. They're really kills

3:55

fine. Then. there's the

3:57

aspect that's like your mood

4:00

away from, you're losing

4:02

touch with what's going

4:04

on inside yourself. And

4:07

maybe that starts to move more into the

4:09

false self, you're putting on a persona, you're

4:12

not against your

4:15

deep core, you're just losing touch

4:17

with it. And then next

4:20

level, there's the place

4:22

where we're actively dismissing the

4:25

needs, the tenderness, the

4:27

vulnerability, the frailty of

4:29

that inner core. And

4:31

then going even further, and I

4:34

can relate to this as well, we don't just lose

4:37

touch with it or dismiss

4:39

it, we attack it.

4:42

That's the full-on with

4:44

shaming, with loathing, for

4:47

various reasons, including that's how we make

4:50

peace with the parents or caregivers

4:53

or powerful figures around us.

4:56

So I guess that's how I would feel into

4:58

it, on that range, right? There's

5:00

a very important difference between self-abandonment and

5:03

somebody who just has kind of a

5:05

positive pro-social orientation toward other people, right?

5:07

You can really care about what's going

5:09

on in somebody else, while also really

5:11

care about what's going on inside of

5:13

you. These two things can coexist. So

5:15

we get to kind of a classic

5:17

Rick question here, which is what's the

5:19

function, right? The real question I think

5:21

with self-abandonment is not so much what

5:24

the pattern of behavior is and

5:26

more what's the internal function that

5:28

it's serving for a person. And

5:31

in this case, I think that the

5:33

function is just total security-seeking. Like you're

5:35

performing these behaviors because you feel like

5:37

you have to in order

5:39

to stay safe. And that's why you're

5:42

becoming divorced and disconnected

5:44

from who you feel you are

5:46

inside. As you know, one

5:49

way this happens is that we

5:51

internalize what others do to us. So

5:54

on that kind of range I

5:57

laid out, You can imagine that

5:59

other people. All just

6:01

expect. Children. Would

6:03

say in the family to be really

6:05

oriented toward taking care of the needs

6:07

of others. One of my very best

6:09

friends said to me that he grew

6:11

up in a family in which it

6:13

was a taboo to I say what

6:15

you need is wanted yourself. But.

6:18

There was such a focus sincerely.

6:20

On. The needs and wants of

6:22

others in the family system that your

6:24

needs and wants would get taking care

6:26

of because other people were. Very.

6:28

Oriented that way. So. He

6:30

was kind of shocking to him. To.

6:32

Move into adulthood in different kinds of

6:35

settings where there wasn't that commitment. To.

6:37

His own needs and wants and he had to learn

6:39

to speak up increasingly. And. Vulnerably for

6:41

his own needs and wants overtime. So

6:43

I can imagine growing up in that

6:45

situation. Let's say where you're just sort

6:48

of prosocial, Then you can also imagine

6:50

growing up in situations in which it

6:52

was normative in the family to not

6:54

be in touch. With. Someone's

6:56

innermost being much more emotional levels

6:59

and so then we take that

7:01

on. We do it ourselves or

7:03

gone further. A dismissive parenting style

7:05

that tends to create avoidant attachment

7:07

as you know, they did it

7:09

to us. So now we do

7:11

it yourself for dismissive or even

7:14

growing up in situations maybe not

7:16

to send found May, maybe we

7:18

were bullied or and are really

7:20

toxic gonna horrible math teacher or.

7:23

Baseball. Coach and we attack

7:25

ourselves. So. This is different ways

7:27

in which we could treat ourselves based

7:29

on how other people treated us. Twenty

7:32

right? I'm just kind of sharing about these

7:35

distinctions, which I find her may be useful

7:37

maps for people. As for how they are

7:39

themselves may be related to how they grew

7:41

up. and then based on those maps you

7:43

can think. Okay, When. These

7:45

out and now right? Sophie.

7:47

Zoom out a tiny little bit. Here you

7:50

can see maybe a com and family versus

7:52

there might be related to what we call

7:54

self abandonment. The. First would just be

7:56

the literal fears of abandonment that people might

7:58

have. A Billie? maybe? Something like

8:01

if I express myself if I come forward

8:03

with who I truly am. If I speak

8:05

up and the way that I want to

8:07

speak up, then they'll leave me. Another

8:10

common set of issues that people have

8:12

are just a general issues with self

8:14

worth or self efficacy. There's.

8:16

A lack of a sense of a

8:18

strong interior. And a real

8:20

I external reference saying that concrete

8:23

them everything that you are isn't

8:25

relationship to things that are going

8:27

on outside of the south. And

8:30

if the things that are happening outside of

8:32

the South are approving of Yale, you're basically

8:34

safe and okay. And if they're not, wow,

8:37

It's a total rattler. Another

8:39

really common a set of issues that beef can

8:41

have that you've already spoken to her low but

8:43

that's is is that disconnection with the interior. Maybe.

8:46

There's not a strong sense of what the

8:48

wants and needs are inside and so those

8:50

get kind of filled up by thinking about

8:52

other people's wants and needs and you're like

8:54

hey I can perform that function for others

8:56

and very clear way as I know what

8:58

they want so don't have to worry about

9:00

when I want so much and then as

9:03

a result of all of this to the

9:05

common pattern of people pleaser and different kinds

9:07

of ways and we can maybe think about

9:09

this is like the habit of having really

9:11

porous boundaries with other people. May.

9:13

Be to say no once. But. It's

9:15

really hard for you to say

9:18

no twice. Now. And so

9:20

I'm wondering. bad For something you may

9:22

be walked into your office with this

9:24

and Sandro Schemer as issues. How would

9:26

you start to approach working with a.

9:29

Progressive. Willing to to. Actually,

9:31

I was sorry with a lot of empathy.

9:34

The. Provision of empathy. For.

9:36

Someone who's out of touch with

9:39

themselves is for them. Often a

9:41

new experience. Because empathy

9:43

helps us get in touch with

9:45

ourselves, so if someone is not

9:47

in touch with themselves, they probably

9:49

have experienced a relative lack of

9:52

empathy. In. Their life. So.

9:54

That's kind of a headline. He. Has. The

9:56

kind of issues the you and I are

9:59

talking about. How. ring of truth for

10:01

someone, which is sometimes

10:03

revealed by the desire to turn

10:05

off the podcast, because there's something

10:08

about it that's really disturbing. That

10:10

sometimes is the ring of truth. This

10:14

topic has your name on it, maybe. But anyway,

10:16

if this is relevant to you, it

10:19

might be helpful to you to think,

10:21

wow, receiving empathy from others is a

10:23

high priority for me. And

10:25

I'm frankly going to look for others

10:27

to think that I can, who are

10:30

generally empathic and deliver empathy. And I'm

10:32

going to create the context or basis

10:34

to ask for empathy from other

10:36

people. That's a really important thing to feel

10:38

free enough to ask for. So

10:40

I would go back to the question

10:42

then. I think first intuitive would be

10:44

to be very empathic and particular to

10:46

do the kind of empathy

10:49

that Carl Rogers did, where there

10:51

was both reflection, oh,

10:53

I hear you saying. And

10:56

then there'd be empathic inquiry beneath

10:59

that surface that would be along

11:01

the lines of, quote, I'm

11:04

not sure, but I wonder if you

11:06

might be also feeling such and such,

11:08

or I guess I would be wondering,

11:11

or gosh, if that happened to me, I

11:13

might be feeling this or that. I wonder if any

11:16

that fits for you. I mean, so you're going to

11:18

a deeper level. I think

11:20

a second thing is

11:22

to really pay attention, just like you

11:24

did at the start, to the fears

11:28

of having the true self recognized,

11:30

sometimes called true self, the

11:32

deep self, the true self, the core self, the

11:34

inner must be. Because often

11:37

people grow up in environments

11:39

in which the recognition of the true

11:41

self is very scary. Sometimes they

11:43

grow up, this sometimes happens when you grow

11:46

up with a narcissistic parent, or

11:48

a more borderline personality type

11:51

parent, who's very hungry themselves

11:53

and egocentric, relatively self

11:55

centered. And so if you were

11:57

to reveal your own true self, then

12:01

you would be punished. So

12:03

now suddenly if your therapist is

12:05

pulling strongly from your true self, your

12:08

deep self, or really mirroring it back

12:10

to you, even

12:13

though it's well-intended, it can be really

12:15

alarming. So I'm attentive to the fears,

12:18

the fears of dreaded experiences related

12:20

to what the person longs for. This

12:22

is very poignant. We

12:25

long to be known in our deepest

12:27

innards, but we're also perhaps really scared

12:29

of what might happen if we are.

12:32

Yeah. So you're highlighting

12:35

this really common, I don't

12:37

even know what the right word for it

12:40

is, like schema that appears in therapy, where

12:42

there's a thing that we really want or

12:44

we really need. In this case,

12:46

maybe it's reconnection with our authentic

12:48

self. Maybe it's the ability to say

12:51

no to other people when we really want to say

12:53

no to them. Maybe it's

12:55

just feeling safe by ourselves

12:57

as an individual, whatever

12:59

it is that the person needs to build up. That's

13:02

built up in some way through

13:04

trying out doing that. But

13:06

trying out doing that, whether it's your therapist kind

13:08

of giving you those things or you trying them

13:10

on yourself, is really freaking scary because it went

13:12

poorly in the past and that's why this behavior

13:14

was developed. So you can get stuck in what

13:17

sort of feels like a double bind where you're

13:19

damned if you do and you're damned if you

13:21

don't. You're damned if you try it out and

13:23

if you don't, you're just stuck the way you

13:25

are. So how do you

13:27

kind of pendulate people through that

13:29

process, dad, to help them touch the hot

13:31

stove without being totally burnt by it? I

13:34

understand that I kind of just asked you, how does

13:36

therapy work? But maybe you can

13:38

slice through what I'm saying here. Well,

13:41

you're getting at a really deep thing and

13:44

I learned a very important lesson from

13:47

a mentor of mine. I want to

13:49

call her out with gratitude. Carla Clark,

13:51

Dr. Carla Clark, who ran

13:54

a case conference small group I was in

13:56

for several years in which I learned a

13:58

lot. And one of things

14:00

Carla talked about was

14:04

tendency in some people to

14:06

be basically alienated from others

14:09

and alienated from themselves.

14:12

So there's a distancing and you know it's

14:14

kind of a fairly strong

14:17

version of avoidant attachment. Carla

14:20

pointed out that for

14:22

that kind of person in

14:24

the general journey of deintegrating,

14:28

split off parts including true self

14:30

parts of ourselves that get split

14:32

off, they're kind of fragmented to

14:36

become more integrated rather

14:38

than talking conceptually

14:41

about I

14:43

know you're a beautiful being deep inside,

14:45

you know I know there's a magnificent

14:47

inner child in there, let's

14:49

talk about your inner child rather than doing

14:51

it that way, simply

14:55

getting into authenticity

14:58

in the present with someone, particularly

15:01

related to vitality, they're

15:04

called vitality effects where people are there's

15:06

an aliveness in the person or getting

15:10

into sort of feelings. The

15:12

process of having

15:14

an authentic flow between you

15:17

and another person is

15:19

itself integrating and

15:22

it tends to bypass the fears

15:25

related to you know

15:27

having your authentic deep self, true

15:29

self be seen and known. In

15:32

other words you kind of solve

15:34

the problem of working around the

15:36

person's defenses by giving them repeated

15:38

experiences of open,

15:41

authentic communication

15:44

with another person. That itself

15:47

is integrating and healing and you realize

15:49

that you realize wow we

15:51

all have this fantastic power that

15:53

we can use to help ourselves

15:55

routinely over the day to drop

15:57

into one step more authentic reveals.

16:00

disclosed, present, you

16:03

are present in the interaction, or

16:06

to help other people do that with us. There

16:09

are a lot of

16:11

different things that a person needs

16:13

to develop some strengths related to

16:16

in order to be able to tackle these issues.

16:18

So one might be what we've talked about

16:21

so far, which is those fears related to

16:23

authenticity and self-expression. If I come

16:25

forward with my true aspects, then I will

16:27

be destroyed. So you need to resource people

16:29

to convince them that actually it's relatively safe

16:31

to do this. You really can say no

16:33

to people in these ways, whatever it is

16:35

that you have to do. And

16:38

another big family of issues that people

16:40

often struggle with who have self-abandonment tendencies

16:42

is shame. And it's again

16:44

kind of a double bind. They were shamed for

16:46

expressing their needs when they were younger most of

16:48

the time in these cases. And then on

16:51

the other hand, they often feel a

16:53

lot of shame about being somebody with

16:55

this set of tendencies. And

16:57

so you've got this double bind of shame. And

16:59

this is just so core to your work

17:01

in general, like resourcing people in different ways.

17:04

And I'm wondering how you can help resource

17:06

people to deal with these two common sets

17:08

of issues, the fears related to self-expression on

17:10

the one hand, and then more self-criticism and

17:12

shame on the other. Well, it's

17:15

a huge topic, Tori, and it's

17:17

not specific to self-abandonment. Around

17:19

self-expression, the model, I

17:21

think of it as the triangular track

17:23

having to do with fears of

17:26

the dreaded experience. So it's helpful to be

17:28

mindful of the authentic

17:30

self-expression that's arising. That's the first

17:32

of the three legs of the

17:34

triangular track. And then the

17:36

second leg is the fear, the dreaded

17:38

experience that you imagine would happen if

17:40

you actually said no,

17:43

or were loud, or

17:45

big, or irritated. And

17:48

then the third leg of the triangular track is

17:50

the defense against the inhibition

17:52

against that full self-expression. So becoming

17:55

aware of that process is

17:57

really helpful. And so what you're

17:59

trying to do do is gradually resource people

18:02

so that they're increasingly aware of

18:04

that triangular track and that process,

18:06

often initially in retrospect, but more

18:08

and more kind of in real

18:10

time you become aware of it

18:12

in yourself. And then

18:14

based on the awareness, you

18:17

in a very graduated way, step

18:20

by step, start helping yourself risk

18:22

the dreaded experience of,

18:24

let's say, saying no and

18:27

ways to do that. One is, I find

18:30

really helpful, it's to

18:32

consider how other people

18:34

communicate and how it goes fine

18:36

for them. Other people

18:38

say no. He goes, okay. I

18:41

mean, there's a little flurry around it,

18:43

but then it settles down and you

18:45

can see that when your friend does

18:47

that or your coworker does that or

18:49

other people you know, particularly admired people

18:51

who say no in various ways, you

18:54

can appreciate that. So you can realize, oh,

18:56

if they can get away with that, why

18:58

can't I? How can I increasingly apply that

19:00

for myself? That's one way into

19:03

it. That's more rational and reasonable. Another

19:05

thing to do is to

19:08

really build up that sense

19:10

that was typically missing for

19:12

someone who is self-abandoning.

19:14

Think of that as process.

19:17

What was missing probably? Well, probably

19:20

what was missing was

19:22

the internalization of

19:24

something that itself may well have

19:26

been missing of beings

19:29

who really recognized

19:33

the inner you, the

19:35

needs, the longings, the sweetness, the

19:38

good intentions, frailty,

19:41

really recognized it and cherished it

19:44

and supported it and

19:46

to some extent maybe guided it. Like

19:50

coming out with a lot of whininess, it's

19:52

not the best way to let

19:54

people know what you need, but being forthright

19:57

and straightforward about it, yeah, that would work.

20:00

That's good self-guidance. So what

20:03

I would be trying to do and what people

20:05

can do on their own with regard to this

20:07

is to really build up

20:09

the sense, I loosely

20:12

call it the caring committee inside, of

20:14

different energies or

20:16

voices, parts, beings

20:20

who support you. So there you

20:22

are. You want to say no

20:24

to your boss or your boyfriend or your

20:26

parent. You're scared. You're

20:28

afraid of the dreaded experience. You

20:30

start to tune into these parts

20:33

inside, maybe visualizing them, who really

20:35

support you in saying you can

20:37

do it. It's okay. Even if

20:39

they get mad, you're going to

20:41

still be okay. We really

20:43

recognize you and so forth and

20:45

so forth. Maybe I'll just leave

20:47

it there for the moment. One is

20:49

first a kind of rational recognition that

20:51

it's really okay to communicate in

20:54

the ways that you're considering. And second,

20:56

a sense of inner supporters who

20:59

bring to you now what was

21:01

missing way back when. This

21:03

can show for people as direct

21:06

problems with saying no. Like

21:09

somebody's making a request, they have a hard time saying no

21:11

to it. Okay, that's kind of one family of issues. But

21:14

the way that I often see it

21:16

show up for people is less

21:18

granular and more kind of global

21:21

and as a general

21:24

lean of being into

21:27

just not really prioritizing their

21:30

own thoughts, feelings, emotions, needs,

21:32

whatever. And

21:35

instead really prioritizing the thoughts,

21:37

feelings, emotions, and needs of

21:39

other people. So it's

21:41

less about the ability to say no

21:43

in that way and more

21:45

about catching the habit of

21:48

being externally referenced rather than

21:50

internally referenced. Does that

21:52

kind of make sense? And I'm wondering what

21:54

you've seen about that and how

21:57

you feel like people can start to lean into

21:59

that. sense that they do truly

22:01

matter just as much as everybody else in the

22:04

room. Beautiful question. And

22:06

I'm going to do a visual demonstration here.

22:08

Great, yeah. So bear with

22:10

me one second. I'll try to translate for podcast

22:12

listeners over here. Okay. So

22:14

this gets at this whole body

22:16

of work that comes out

22:18

of your favorite psychodynamic

22:21

theory. Oh, yeah, baby.

22:23

Rooted in psychoanalysis called

22:25

object relations. And

22:27

this is really worth looking up

22:29

in Wikipedia. I'm sure there's a

22:32

reference for object relations.

22:35

Okay. Rick is furiously

22:37

scribbling on one of his famous

22:39

yellow legal pads. That's

22:41

right. And so here

22:43

we go. So now the way that

22:45

most people tend to relate to the world

22:48

is in a combination, these

22:50

are called paradigms or object relations

22:53

or working models of relatedness. And

22:55

the one thing I'm going to ask you to do

22:57

here, dad, is to not put the pad in front

22:59

of the microphone. So in other words, like put it

23:01

more to the side of your face rather than in

23:03

front of the mic. So you're

23:06

yes. Great. So we could yeah, good.

23:08

Go ahead. Oh, this is going to

23:10

become a meme. I can feel it. Oh, yeah. We

23:13

have to green screen this. Somebody has to green screen

23:15

this with like a bunch of just so people

23:17

who are listening now. Rick is holding the yellow

23:19

legal pad now up to the side of his

23:21

head. And this is a

23:23

meme template like waiting to happen. Okay, go ahead,

23:25

dad. It is. It is. And

23:28

I need one on the other side too for symmetry.

23:31

Okay, so we have the big circle and the

23:33

little circle. Okay. That's how it

23:35

is for most people. The big circle is other

23:37

people, the world, you know, the

23:40

other. And then the little

23:42

circle is me, me, me, the self. And

23:45

very often then what people do is they,

23:47

in effect, experience as a

23:50

self. They're always dealing with

23:52

this massive internalized other and

23:54

the inner audience and

23:57

highly sensitized to.

24:00

the reactions of other people. That's kind of

24:02

how they spend their days. And I know

24:04

what that has felt like, right? And what

24:06

goes along with this very often is what's

24:09

called orbiting, where the

24:11

self is like a moon going

24:13

around this giant planet, never

24:16

breaking free into full autonomy, nor

24:19

really landing into complete

24:22

intimacy, orbiting. And that's

24:24

a dynamic in relationships that often has

24:26

to do with the seeking

24:28

and the maintenance of optimal distance. So

24:31

that paradoxically, sometimes it happens, is if you're

24:33

with someone like that, so you are in

24:36

the world to

24:38

them, you draw them in the closeness

24:41

out of affirming them or being empathic

24:43

toward them. And

24:45

then for them, that is

24:47

very scary. And so then

24:49

they distance further. So it becomes

24:52

paradoxical. Okay, this is how we

24:54

often go through life. Okay, giant

24:56

world, giant others, mini

24:58

me, mini me over here, okay, we're

25:01

gonna drop in a little mini me

25:03

image, right? I'm now going to

25:05

show you a different way to be. That

25:07

has to be kind of put in perspective.

25:10

You ready? I'm gonna put the pad down.

25:12

Yep, pad down. You're gonna pad down. I'm

25:14

gonna narrate. Here

25:16

we go. Great podcasting right here. It's

25:18

starting to happen. Just wait for it.

25:21

Wait for it. This

25:25

is the better way to do it. The

25:28

self is big. And

25:30

the world is there. You're not

25:32

egocentric. You're not narcissistic, sociopathic.

25:34

But a lot of what

25:36

you're doing in life is

25:39

not object referenced anymore. You're

25:41

taking others into account in

25:43

appropriate ways. But you

25:45

are, for example, doing

25:47

something I find really interesting, which

25:49

is to imagine walking across a

25:51

room, including a room in which

25:54

other people are without being

25:56

referenced to them in any

25:58

way. Can you

26:00

imagine walking through a mall or a

26:02

store or down a street in

26:05

which you're entirely aware of the world

26:07

but you're not doing anything to get

26:09

a response from others or to avoid

26:12

a response from others? Moment

26:15

to moment to moment, you're

26:17

completely free, you're liberated. And

26:20

the feeling of that is you're

26:23

getting at, for us, deeper than all

26:25

these various techniques, that fundamental feeling where

26:29

you're over there, I'm doing it right

26:32

now, I see you, I

26:35

love you dearly, I'm completely loyal

26:37

to you, seriously committed to you, and

26:41

I'm very aware of my own livingness, my

26:44

own life, and my

26:47

inherent differentiation from you.

26:50

That's another term, differentiation. You're over there,

26:52

I'm over here. Your

26:54

karmas are your karmas in this

26:56

life, my karmas are my karmas in this life.

26:59

There's a sense of differentiation

27:03

and a living in our own being

27:05

in a self-sufficient kind of way.

27:09

I like the language that you're using here,

27:11

Dad, because I think that one of the

27:13

common defenses that comes

27:15

up when we get into

27:17

this kind of work is

27:20

that some version of essentially you

27:22

can say that because you're a

27:24

comfortable, secure white guy. And

27:27

I, who am not in that positionality, simply

27:29

do not have the safety, the security, the

27:31

privilege to be able to move through the

27:34

world in that fashion. But

27:36

what you're highlighting here, I think, is

27:39

not that you're being dismissive of other people,

27:41

not that you're ignoring them, not that

27:43

you're not paying attention to your surroundings

27:45

in an unsafe way. If I'm walking

27:47

down the street in San Francisco at

27:50

1.30 in the morning, I am paying

27:52

attention to my surroundings. That's what I'm

27:54

doing because it is reasonably intelligent to

27:56

do that in life. That

27:58

doesn't mean that I'm self-sufficient. self-abandoning and being

28:01

excessively other referenced, there's a tone to it

28:03

that you're describing here that I think is

28:05

really important, where you can love

28:07

the other, you can relate to the other,

28:10

you can consider them in

28:12

all of these important ways while

28:14

also having this totally

28:16

big and totally strong and totally

28:18

secure sense of yourself as an

28:21

individual who matters too. And

28:23

it's the balance of those two things that's really

28:25

important here. There's a technique I would often use

28:27

with people. I don't know

28:29

if other therapists use it, they probably do, some of

28:31

them, in which I would have

28:34

people say certain things and then

28:36

pause to see how that felt, including

28:39

what resistance arose to

28:41

inhabiting or establishing that

28:45

statement. And so I'll just

28:47

offer a few here and people could

28:49

consider, oh wow, what comes up for

28:51

me if I really say it? Wow,

28:54

what does that feel like? Okay, so here's

28:56

one. I am whole

28:58

and complete as I am, or

29:01

I am whole and complete already. My

29:05

life has meaning in and of

29:07

itself. You could

29:09

shift the language a little to something

29:11

like this one, or you

29:14

could use your name. I

29:16

might say Rick is whole

29:18

and complete already. Another

29:21

one would be, this life

29:24

matters in itself.

29:27

My life matters in

29:30

itself. And how

29:32

do those feel? Well, I think

29:34

that's a great question and those are

29:36

really good phrases for people, both diagnostically

29:39

to see if there might be an issue

29:41

here. And then also for

29:43

people who even have a pretty secure base

29:45

of relating, I would describe myself as not

29:47

really somebody. I'm pro-socially oriented, but

29:49

I wouldn't say I have problems with self-abandonment

29:51

in this way. But even so,

29:53

phrases like that can feel a little squirrely

29:56

for people. They can certainly feel a little

29:58

squirrely for me. And

30:01

there's something about just kind of saying

30:03

them, arresting them that can feel

30:06

egocentric or kind of self-important

30:09

in a way, even though they

30:11

are all just like objectively true statements and

30:14

like very safe things to believe. So it's

30:16

funny how there's that tension there. Revealing

30:19

some of my own oddities

30:21

here, perhaps, this is,

30:23

of course, gonna be full geeky. I

30:25

read a book about Goodall,

30:28

Kurt Goodall, and Albert

30:30

Einstein, and it was

30:32

about time. Goodall

30:34

had the famously the incompleteness theorem,

30:37

and he and Einstein were both at

30:39

the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton.

30:41

They became friends. Goodall himself was very

30:44

eccentric. All that said, somehow,

30:47

when I was reading that book and

30:49

I was getting dropped into reality somehow

30:51

or part of it, the

30:53

phrase arose for me, essentially, I

30:56

am not implicated

30:59

in their mind stream. I

31:02

am not implicated in your mind stream.

31:04

In other words, your mind stream is rolling

31:07

along. Your mind stream may have thoughts about

31:09

me and attitudes toward me, most

31:11

of which have nothing to do with me. I'm

31:14

just not implicated. And there

31:16

are things we can say to ourselves

31:18

that help us decouple from

31:21

being object-bound, in

31:24

other words, stimulus-bound, stuck

31:26

to the giant planet of

31:29

the internalized mother or father

31:31

or authority figure. We're

31:33

freer from that, and it's

31:35

okay to be yourself, differentiated

31:39

from what's going on with them. You're

31:41

aware of it over there. You're living

31:44

by your code. You're not

31:46

evil. You're well-intended toward other people. Well,

31:49

also realizing at the same time that

31:51

you're not implicated in their mind stream.

31:54

They are making that movie themselves.

31:57

So you might find your own phrases, unless... quirky

32:00

phrases like, I'm not implicated in your mind

32:03

stream. But

32:05

you get the basic idea. Kind

32:08

of very practically here, self-abandonment

32:11

comes up as a problem for

32:13

people. We'll be right back to

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slash being well. When

36:59

they come from a background where

37:01

safety is a more critical issue

37:04

than authenticity, the

37:07

choice that's being made is

37:09

that you're being inauthentic in

37:11

order to be safe. We

37:14

abandon authenticity and bond

37:16

to an external other that we

37:19

perceive as something that gives us

37:21

safety. That's the model of it, if

37:23

you think about it. The premise

37:25

of that behavior is the

37:27

belief that you cannot derive

37:29

safety from yourself, that

37:32

when you are alone, you cannot be safe.

37:35

You cannot provide it to yourself. You cannot create

37:37

a secure environment on your own. You have to

37:39

do it through that external reference that

37:41

we've been talking about throughout this episode. I'm

37:44

wondering how you would work with

37:47

somebody to change that belief

37:50

and to increasingly let

37:52

them believe in themselves as a source

37:54

of safety and security. There

37:58

are very good, effective ways

38:00

into this. They often

38:02

start with more cognitive,

38:04

rational, reality-based approaches in

38:06

which if you're working with someone

38:08

who has intact function in those

38:11

ways, you help them

38:13

to realize that they've transferred into

38:15

the present a whole bunch of

38:17

predictions and expectations from their past.

38:19

It's understandable, but these

38:21

days those predictions are not accurate

38:23

anymore. Those expectations

38:26

are untrue. And

38:28

so you start to help people realize and experience,

38:31

we did a previous episode I think

38:33

on this recently, prediction error. We

38:35

talked about this I think with Judd Brewer maybe and

38:38

actually also the ways in which

38:40

psychedelic experiences, that's a whole other

38:42

thing, can disrupt what are called weighted

38:44

priors so that people

38:47

increasingly are less prone after

38:49

you know they go through the healing process

38:51

of let's say psychedelic assisted therapy. But we

38:54

could apply this to other things as well.

38:56

So they're less likely to have that expectation.

39:00

And also the way I do it systematically

39:02

myself is I say well when you are

39:04

young, the odds of a bad

39:06

event if you let's say spoke up. And

39:09

we're authentic, you are authentic. So the odds of

39:11

a bad event were very high, the

39:14

impact on you was huge, and

39:17

your capacity to cope with it was very

39:19

minimal. So now we bring

39:21

that into the present. But in the present

39:24

factually, the odds of a

39:26

bad event of you speaking up in

39:28

normal range ways are very low. Particularly

39:31

if you choose people that don't re-enact

39:33

your scripts from your childhood. Hello,

39:35

second, even

39:38

if they do get kind of feisty and grumpy

39:40

after you speak up, you're just not gonna

39:42

be blown out of the water like you

39:44

were when you were two years old or

39:46

twelve years old because you've got now a much

39:49

more mature nervous system. And you

39:51

have self-regulatory capacities that you've resourced

39:53

up over time. You have more

39:55

shock absorbers inside yourself now. And

39:57

third, you're able to cope with

39:59

it. much more. When you again, you

40:02

were trapped when that teacher was yelling at

40:04

you as a 12-year-old, you couldn't cope, you

40:06

couldn't get away or those bullies were shaming

40:08

you, you couldn't get away, but these days

40:10

you can get away, you can cope in

40:12

different ways. So recognizing those

40:14

three things rationally can be really

40:16

helpful. That would be one thing. A

40:19

second thing would be certainly

40:21

to access the sense of inner support, inner

40:24

allies, I've talked about that, but I want

40:26

to name a third one, which

40:29

is allying

40:31

with the part of

40:33

you that has

40:36

accumulated probably a

40:39

considerable amount of fed-upness,

40:42

even anger. Anger is

40:44

very energizing. This is healthy anger

40:47

and getting in touch with a part of you that just is

40:50

sick and tired of taking it and

40:52

ain't going to take it anymore. And

40:55

that part is often

40:57

aided by sort of like

40:59

a 5% regulating,

41:02

softening, tuning around the

41:04

edges so that you

41:06

don't cancel your own vote by

41:08

just going way overboard. Alright, a

41:11

little bit of regulation there, but

41:13

otherwise really getting on the side

41:15

of that understandably

41:17

fed up tired

41:20

of injustice, had

41:22

it and definitely is going

41:24

to start speaking truth to power, definitely

41:27

is going to start naming what's true. Even if

41:30

we don't have the power to change what's happening, we're

41:32

going to name it and they're going to

41:34

know that we know what's really going

41:36

on here. That would be a third

41:38

thing I would think, I do

41:40

think actually, is to join with the

41:42

sense of healthy entitlement, that you

41:45

have the right to tune into

41:47

your own gravity, your own dignity, your

41:49

own seriousness about this thing

41:51

that has really bothered you. What do

41:53

you think about all that? Especially the last

41:55

one? Well, I think it's

41:57

great for starters and... I'm

42:00

not totally sure why I keep thinking about

42:02

this right now, but I'm just thinking more

42:04

about populations of people who tend to struggle

42:06

with these issues and why they tend to

42:08

struggle with these issues. Self-abandonment

42:12

is closely tied to

42:14

the classic female archetype, right? Like the

42:16

dutiful mother, the person who provides for

42:19

others. If you think about safety issues,

42:21

which we've talked about throughout this conversation,

42:23

the simple fact of the matter is

42:25

that women and minorities have a lot

42:27

more practical safety issues than white guys

42:29

like you and I do. These

42:32

are issues that are present that are real.

42:35

And so one of the common rebuttals

42:38

that might come up in this process

42:40

is there are

42:42

real safety issues for me,

42:45

and I do have to toe the

42:47

line in a bunch of different ways with

42:49

people in order to preserve

42:51

my security. And that's

42:53

where this habitual pattern of behavior comes

42:56

from that has now become an

42:58

issue in its own right for me in

43:00

adulthood where maybe some of those safety

43:03

issues aren't as present, but they are

43:05

still present in some ways. And the

43:07

reality of them makes that voice

43:09

that tells you toe the line, toe the line, toe

43:12

the line harder to push

43:14

back against because there is a

43:16

truth to the security problem. It's

43:19

really, really interesting. So of

43:21

course, anything that we

43:24

say or others say about assertiveness

43:26

needs to take into account objective

43:30

safety issues. And

43:33

there are many subtle forms of that. Getting

43:38

a little heated at work, no

43:40

one will ever forget that. And

43:42

that could have career consequences.

43:48

I think it's absolutely true that

43:51

in patriarchy, in those contexts, in

43:53

that frame, yes, the prerogatives

43:55

of man as a class to

43:58

be able to just... let

44:00

it rip and assert themselves and just say

44:03

what they want. Yeah, that's true.

44:06

On the other hand, in terms

44:09

of being alienated from oneself

44:12

and dismissive toward one's

44:14

vulnerabilities and feelings and

44:16

tender needs and longings

44:19

and hurts, you

44:21

know, I could argue that certainly men

44:23

as a group have certainly

44:26

a lot of significant issues that

44:28

are in the self abandonment heading. I

44:31

mean, anything that starts to feel like tenderness is

44:34

often acculturated out of men for

44:36

sure. Yeah, yeah. Including a

44:38

tenderness towards yourself, towards your own interior,

44:40

which is the point you're making, yeah.

44:42

I think also for us, I keep

44:44

being drawn into something deep

44:46

about this. I think

44:49

that people who grow

44:51

up more embedded in

44:54

the land, the earth, in nature,

44:57

in their culture, they tend to

44:59

be more integrated. Self

45:01

abandonment starts with fragmentation and

45:04

then relationships between

45:06

minds. If you grow

45:08

up in a culture in which you're

45:10

already more integrated, then you're less fragmented

45:12

and so there's less possibility of self

45:14

abandonment. And so when we

45:16

think about those of us who did not grow up in that

45:19

kind of culture, myself, for

45:21

example, outer becomes inner, right?

45:23

We do to ourselves what was done to

45:25

us or we do to ourselves or

45:27

we grow within ourselves

45:30

the structures in which we

45:32

grow up and I grew up in structures

45:35

that were very alienated from nature. So

45:38

then we become alienated from ourselves,

45:41

our own nature. So

45:43

the healing of this is a kind

45:45

of reclaiming of the whole

45:47

of ourselves. So we're

45:50

less fragmented then we're not

45:52

abandoning ourselves. And one

45:54

path into that, I think

45:56

does also involve an appreciating

45:58

of our own. embeddedness in

46:01

nature as nature. It's

46:03

not that we go visit nature at

46:05

the park or in the mountains or at the beach,

46:08

it's that we are already nature.

46:11

And to really experience that, it's

46:13

like there's something sacred and deep about

46:17

being the all of you as

46:20

a whole in the present. Yeah.

46:23

Right? And claiming that for yourself. Yeah,

46:26

that seems like a great resource for people if

46:29

they're able to get into a sense of it.

46:31

And I do think that it's something that most

46:33

people can cultivate more of a sense of over

46:35

time as ourselves as parts

46:37

of an ongoing process around us that

46:40

can help us feel embedded

46:42

and secure and

46:44

one with others while we are still

46:46

being ourself, which I think is kind of part

46:49

of what you're suggesting here.

46:51

Also going back to what we were

46:54

talking about a second ago about situations

46:56

where there are different kinds

46:58

of real safety concerns, real security

47:00

concerns. A really

47:02

powerful tactic, both in therapy and

47:04

in life is called joining with

47:06

the defense. Self

47:09

abandonment in general is a attempt

47:11

to solve a practical problem, which

47:13

is those security issues we've been talking about

47:15

throughout the episode. And

47:18

it can be really helpful to start by convincing

47:21

your internal parts, the aspects of your

47:23

personality that are like, hey, we

47:25

can't speak up because it's dangerous

47:27

to. It can

47:29

be really helpful to convince them that you're

47:31

taking that problem seriously. And then you

47:34

can kind of get on the same side as them internally

47:36

and just be like, yeah, no, I see these

47:38

issues out there. I do take them really seriously.

47:40

I believe in the story that you're telling me,

47:43

but is there a different way that we can approach this

47:45

problem? Can we both

47:48

stay safe, however it is that you need to

47:50

stay safe in the world, while

47:53

also appreciating your own needs in different

47:55

kinds of ways? And maybe

47:57

one way into that is asking yourself,

47:59

Is there a situation, is there a

48:02

circumstance where it is

48:04

objectively safe for you to care for

48:06

yourself, whatever that circumstance is

48:08

for you? So you're not vilifying

48:10

your trauma response here, which is self-abandoned.

48:12

You're not making it wrong or making

48:14

it bad. It was probably a rational

48:16

response at one moment in time. As

48:18

you were talking about earlier, Dad, when you were talking

48:21

about the patterns that we have in childhood now being

48:23

ported into adulthood. So

48:25

it's not really about not pleasing

48:27

or being fiery or whatever

48:30

it is. It's just

48:32

about being at choice about your

48:34

behavior. That's really where we're trying

48:36

to go with all of this. Oh,

48:39

beautifully said. So

48:41

as we get toward the end of the episode,

48:43

I want to spend the rest of our time

48:45

here talking about how self-abandonment issues can show up for

48:47

people in relationship. One

48:50

of the things that you mentioned earlier, Dad, was how

48:52

people who have these issues can

48:55

sometimes recreate the circumstances for

48:57

them that were problematic, maybe

48:59

with their parents or just in other

49:02

relationships that they've had previously. So

49:04

they keep on going back to this familiar

49:06

set of behaviors. Would you mind describing what

49:09

that looks like? And I'm sure you've had

49:11

people who have walked into your counseling room,

49:13

a couple dealing with that kind of an

49:16

issue. And I'm wondering what the process of working with

49:18

it looks like for you. For

49:20

example, someone who grows up with

49:23

parents who for various reasons are

49:25

dismissive in their attachment style.

49:27

They kind of push away the child's

49:29

needs. They tell the child to, you

49:31

know, big boys don't cry. Just

49:33

take care of it on your own. Daddy's

49:36

busy. Mommy's busy. Okay. And

49:39

then that person as an adult ends

49:41

up in a relationship with

49:43

someone who's pretty dismissive themselves.

49:46

Friendly, polite, decent,

49:48

and also dismissive, especially

49:51

of the soft underbelly, you

49:54

know, that we all have. So that

49:56

would be an example of that. I

49:58

think a different kind of example. is

50:00

more cultural in which people

50:02

who grow up in a culture in

50:04

which there's not much

50:06

in touchness with feelings.

50:09

People don't speak the language of

50:11

feelings. They don't tell each

50:13

other. They love each other, for example. They

50:16

then might seek out that familiar

50:18

culture because it's what they're used

50:20

to. But as a

50:22

result, in that familiar culture, continue

50:24

to feel unseen, unheard,

50:27

deep down inside. So

50:29

let's say now you're a person and

50:31

you're in a relationship and you're in

50:33

the frame of trying to make the

50:35

relationship work better. And let's say you're the

50:38

person who is feeling kind

50:40

of abandoned yourself. They are abandoning

50:42

you or you feel deep down

50:44

inside, I know I

50:46

should stand up for more for myself. I

50:48

know that I should say more of what

50:50

I need, but I'm really scared. Maybe my

50:53

friends are cheering me on to do it, but I just, I'm

50:56

freaking out here. Classic,

50:58

very understandable. One

51:00

thing that we haven't really talked about,

51:02

it's very useful, is to

51:05

deal with the grief about letting

51:07

yourself down. Because much

51:09

as we can face regret and remorse

51:11

about letting others down, we can face

51:13

regret and remorse and grief about letting

51:15

ourselves down. And coming to terms

51:17

with that, and there's a

51:19

really important distinction between shame and

51:21

grief. Rather than

51:23

feeling ashamed that you have

51:26

let yourself down or

51:28

reenacted the abuse that was done to

51:30

you by doing it

51:32

to yourself, okay, feel a

51:34

little shame. But move through the shame,

51:37

which tends to be toxic in

51:39

quantity, and move

51:41

into the grief, the

51:43

sadness, the sorrow, the lost opportunities, feel

51:46

that and let it flow much

51:49

less toxic than shame. And

51:51

it's appropriate. There's a mourning, there's

51:53

a grieving, there've been losses, some

51:55

of them irrevocable. Okay, we

51:58

tell the truth about that, which then helps us. to

52:00

move to the other side. Truth telling

52:02

is the bridge that gets us across

52:04

the river of suffering. Now

52:06

we're on the other side. So that's

52:09

one piece of it is to

52:11

just drop that in. I wanna highlight

52:13

that around grieving related

52:15

to self-abandoning. Another

52:18

is to really appreciate

52:21

the justice, the worthiness,

52:23

the allowingness, the entitlement,

52:25

the healthy entitlement of

52:27

what it is that you wanna say.

52:29

That really helps people, not to get

52:31

all philosophical, but to rather to stand

52:33

against the beliefs that say, oh, you're

52:35

not allowed. Well, what's the why?

52:38

Underneath, oh, you're not allowed. And

52:40

to really dispute that why

52:42

with an understanding of why you should

52:45

be allowed. Other people are allowed. If

52:47

they're allowed, I can be allowed. I

52:49

am allowed. It's fair, it's

52:51

just, it's appropriate. That's really useful.

52:55

It can really help to script it

52:57

out for yourself. I've gotten

52:59

on my yellow pad, and even

53:01

recently just laid out the words I

53:04

wanna use, the sequence I wanna say

53:06

it in. So I'm

53:08

really prepared in a situation that's scary

53:10

for me to be able to speak

53:13

from my heart and say what needs

53:15

to be said in a skillful way.

53:18

So prepare. And then the last thing

53:20

I'll say, it's a wonderful technique. You can

53:22

apply it to many things. Imagine

53:25

how you wanna be and

53:28

visualize it. So you're saying it and

53:30

you're feeling it. It's like a movie.

53:32

You're creating a little mini movie of the

53:34

interaction you wanna have, and

53:37

you are imagining yourself saying things and in

53:39

the way you wanna say them and feeling

53:41

in the way you wanna feel while you're

53:44

saying them. You're then

53:46

imagining how the other person might

53:48

respond and imagining skillful, effective responses

53:50

to their responses that lead it

53:52

to go well. And then

53:54

you're imagining it moving into a

53:57

good resolution. You're rehearsing

53:59

it. mind in advance. Doing

54:01

that is a really effective

54:04

technique. You can imagine different things.

54:06

You're kind of training yourself to

54:08

be prepared when the oatmeal starts

54:10

to fly and you're likely to

54:12

feel more confident. If

54:14

after a couple of cycles, especially

54:16

a few cycles of

54:19

skillful loyalty to

54:22

yourself, the other person

54:24

is still resisting, well then that's

54:26

an indicator of, you know, a

54:28

significant issue in the relationship that then you have

54:30

to think about. Part of

54:32

what you're pointing to here, dad, is the

54:34

notion of the scripts that can appear inside

54:37

of our relationships and like the more familiar

54:39

scripts that we fall into as somebody else

54:42

as opposed to being more deliberate

54:44

and at-choice about the

54:46

words that we're saying and the ways that

54:48

we're interacting with another person. And

54:51

I know for me, I have a lot of

54:53

patterns of relating to other people that have their

54:55

own problems. They might not be self-abandonment problems, but

54:57

they might be, you know, other kinds of issues

54:59

that I have. And there

55:01

is a real gravitational pull toward

55:04

being that kind of a way

55:06

with and around other people. And

55:09

one of the things that you

55:11

can be really attentive to is when you try

55:14

to shift into a new

55:16

way of being, when you try to

55:18

say a different word, when you try to

55:20

express yourself a little bit differently, how does

55:22

the world around you, the group that you're

55:25

part of, respond to you?

55:28

Because all systems are resistant to

55:30

change, but they're not

55:32

all equally resistant to change. There

55:35

are some systems and circumstances, friend groups,

55:37

whatever else, that are gonna be

55:39

pretty receptive to this. You know, they're gonna kind

55:41

of like look at you weird for a minute

55:43

or maybe for several weeks, but okay, sure, they're

55:45

gonna look at you weird for a minute, and

55:47

then they're gonna basically shrug and move on and

55:49

let you be this new different kind of way.

55:52

But there are some systems, particularly romantic systems

55:54

a lot of the time, that are

55:56

very resistant to any change

55:59

in the people. people who are a part of them. And

56:02

when that's the case, man, things get very difficult

56:04

for people. And it's a key thing to be

56:06

attentive to, particularly if you're considering

56:08

somebody as a romantic partner or if

56:10

you're looking for a good romantic partner,

56:13

something to really keep an eye on is how open they are

56:15

to this kind of change. Last

56:17

thing I wanted to say, it

56:20

might just sound way too, I don't

56:22

know, personal growthy. It's

56:26

a personal growth podcast, dad, that's kind of what we're doing

56:28

here. It's a really powerful

56:30

technique in which, so you

56:32

imagine the genesis of the

56:35

self abandonment very often as others who

56:37

let us down or we didn't

56:39

feel like parts of ourselves

56:41

could be included or they mattered or they were

56:44

seen, so on. Well,

56:47

today, you can do the technique

56:52

of I call linking in general.

56:54

It's a general technique where you're

56:56

bringing positive and negative together. It's

56:59

really interesting how the brain is

57:01

because these parts of ourselves are

57:03

little layers, they are

57:06

sub-personalities, they are parts. They

57:08

don't have the full package of

57:11

self-awareness that the

57:14

total psyche has.

57:17

So that gives

57:19

an opportunity. For example, you

57:21

can bring into awareness, let's

57:24

say, a part of you that,

57:27

I'm doing it right now, as a 15-year-old, felt

57:30

very awkward and unlikable

57:34

and doomed

57:36

to failure with other people. And

57:39

you can then be prominently

57:42

aware of what

57:44

is soothing or healing or reassuring

57:48

and including related to

57:50

that part. So for example, I

57:53

could be aware, let's say, or a person could be aware

57:56

of feeling worthy and good and

57:58

oh, Some people do

58:00

like me and my son likes me

58:02

and oh, you know,

58:04

you're just, you're in the feeling of

58:07

that and then you bring it into

58:09

contact. That's the linking. You bring it

58:11

into contact with that part of you

58:13

or layer way down in

58:15

the sediments of the psyche that

58:17

felt the opposite of that. In

58:20

other words, you're bringing the current

58:22

beneficial experience that's well-matched to into

58:25

contact with some wounded,

58:27

hurting, alienated, warded

58:30

off, disowned, exiled

58:32

part of yourself. And then

58:35

there's the sense of that

58:37

exiled part, receiving that

58:40

positive experience that would have been

58:42

so good to have received in

58:44

my case, 60 plus years ago.

58:47

Anyway, that's a really powerful technique. So,

58:50

and it's a way to kind of retroactively

58:52

heal. You're not tricking

58:55

yourself. You know what actually happened, but

58:57

there's a soothing, there's a softening, a

58:59

healing deep down inside when you use

59:02

this linking method. I

59:04

think that's great. And it's a great place

59:06

to mostly end our conversation today. I want

59:08

to throw in one last thing at the

59:10

end here, maybe queuing a little bit

59:13

off of some of the questions that you were asking

59:15

earlier, some of the statements that you

59:17

were saying people could say and try on and see

59:19

like how this feels for people. And

59:21

I'm not a therapist, so, you know, take it with

59:23

a grain of salt, but there's a process from cognitive

59:26

behavioral therapy that's called cognitive restructuring. That's kind of the

59:28

basis of what they're trying to do where

59:30

there are these various beliefs that people have

59:33

about themselves or about the world. And one of

59:35

the big processes that you go through is trying

59:37

to change those beliefs in different kinds of ways.

59:40

So what I think could be kind of helpful and

59:42

interesting at the end here is just

59:44

thinking about some of the common beliefs

59:46

that people with a self-abandonment set

59:49

of issues might have. Maybe they

59:51

look like things like this. My needs are

59:53

less important than those of other people. That

59:55

might be a belief. Right. My

59:58

worth comes from what I can do. others.

1:00:02

In order to be safe, I have to be

1:00:04

liked. If

1:00:06

they knew who I really was, they wouldn't like

1:00:08

me. And those two kind of travel together a

1:00:10

lot of the time. And the final one that's

1:00:13

a little bit of a wild card, I really

1:00:15

don't know what I want. Or

1:00:17

maybe I really don't know who I

1:00:19

am inside. Or maybe

1:00:22

I don't know who I am when I'm

1:00:24

not with other people. And

1:00:26

these are all beliefs a person might be

1:00:28

carrying around that might be driving some of

1:00:30

those self-abandonment behaviors. So a

1:00:32

process you can go through if you want to

1:00:34

very deliberately is you can write

1:00:36

down those various beliefs. You'll

1:00:38

kind of feel the ones that make you go, ooh, or

1:00:41

you write them down, or maybe feel like there's kind of the

1:00:43

ring of truth for you. You can just cross out the ones

1:00:45

that aren't true for you, just get them out of here. And

1:00:47

maybe you're left with one or two where you go like, oh,

1:00:49

yeah, there's some life there. And then

1:00:51

you can think very deliberately of

1:00:54

what's an alternate belief? What's

1:00:56

something else that's kind of

1:00:58

in the same shape as that belief,

1:01:00

but is fundamentally different from it and

1:01:02

lets you step into a new way

1:01:05

of being? Maybe something like, my

1:01:07

needs are as important as those of

1:01:09

other people. Or something

1:01:11

like, in order to

1:01:13

be safe, I have to care for myself. Whatever

1:01:16

it is for you, just a phrase that you

1:01:19

can buy into, and you can get

1:01:21

on the same side as, that fulfills

1:01:23

the same purpose of finding

1:01:25

that safety, finding that connection

1:01:28

that you're trying to fulfill through that

1:01:30

self-abandonment pattern of behavior, but

1:01:32

has less costs for you today than

1:01:34

those old behaviors had for you in

1:01:36

the past. And how can you step

1:01:38

into that new way of being? And that's really fundamentally

1:01:40

what we're asking here today. Hmm.

1:01:43

That's great. It really

1:01:45

helps to deepen conviction

1:01:49

about the new beliefs and

1:01:51

intend for them to prevail. These

1:01:54

methods, one reason why they're really good

1:01:56

is that they tend to surface obstructions

1:01:58

deep down inside. that could

1:02:00

be more emotional or deeper than

1:02:03

rationality, even pre-verbal, you know,

1:02:05

during the first couple years, let's say, of

1:02:07

life. So you want to,

1:02:09

as you do these processes, they're like

1:02:11

affirmations, in fact, and you

1:02:13

want to really help yourself believe

1:02:15

them and have them even sink

1:02:18

into, that's linking, and

1:02:20

dislodge those old problematic

1:02:22

beliefs. Great. And

1:02:24

that's a wonderful note to end today's conversation on. So thank

1:02:26

you so much for doing this with me today, Dad. I

1:02:29

really enjoyed this one. I thought this was great. Thank

1:02:31

you for us. Today

1:02:38

Rick and I talked about self-abandonment, which is

1:02:40

the common family of issues that comes up

1:02:42

for people, where they neglect

1:02:45

their own wants, needs, boundaries,

1:02:47

or the authentic self that they have inside of

1:02:49

themselves in order to be of

1:02:52

service to other people, to

1:02:54

perform a function for them, to

1:02:56

be referenced to and

1:02:58

deriving security from them,

1:03:01

and to essentially make themselves

1:03:03

like a small moon orbiting

1:03:06

the great planet that is

1:03:08

everyone else. One

1:03:10

of the questions we ask most frequently

1:03:12

on the podcast is, what's the function

1:03:14

of this behavior? It's an incredibly useful

1:03:16

question to come back to over

1:03:19

and over again, because there's a

1:03:21

difference between self-abandonment and just being

1:03:24

kind of pro-social and interested in

1:03:26

what's going on in other people,

1:03:28

and having a sort of conciliatory

1:03:31

personality type. The question is,

1:03:33

what's the cost for you here? And

1:03:35

what are you trying to do by performing this

1:03:37

behavior? For people who self-abandon,

1:03:40

there are two really big costs. The

1:03:42

first one is you lose authenticity. The

1:03:45

second one is you're neglecting yourself in

1:03:47

favor of other people. That

1:03:49

means that you do not get what you want most

1:03:51

of the time. What do

1:03:53

you gain from this? What's the function? You

1:03:55

gain safety and security. The roots

1:03:58

of self-abandonment behaviors for most people are the same. people

1:04:01

are our early relationships. This could be our

1:04:03

relationship with a primary caregiver, that's the way

1:04:05

it is for most people. But

1:04:07

for other people, it might be later,

1:04:09

formative relationships, a early romantic relationship that

1:04:11

had a certain kind of structure. For

1:04:14

other people, unfortunately, it might be

1:04:16

abusive relationships, ones where they were

1:04:19

told over and over again

1:04:21

that their needs simply did not matter by

1:04:23

another person, and that the only

1:04:25

way that they could stay safe was by

1:04:27

serving a function for that individual. Whatever

1:04:30

the roots of this pattern of behavior, there

1:04:32

are some common aspects of it that tend

1:04:34

to show up in people again and again.

1:04:36

The first, as I said before, neglecting the

1:04:38

self in favor of others. People

1:04:40

who self abandon tend to disregard

1:04:42

their own physical, emotional, and psychological

1:04:44

needs in order to

1:04:46

meet those that other people have.

1:04:48

This can include neglecting even basic

1:04:50

self-care, like getting enough to eat

1:04:53

or to sleep, as well as

1:04:55

ignoring their emotional needs. For

1:04:57

instance, totally normal range needs for

1:05:00

nurturance and self-expression. They

1:05:02

tend to seek validation, approval, or

1:05:05

love from others as a means

1:05:07

of either compensating for their perceived

1:05:09

inadequacies and insecurities, or because

1:05:11

they feel unsafe without external

1:05:14

support. And this tends

1:05:16

to lead to people pleasing behaviors

1:05:18

and an excessive reliance on others

1:05:21

as the source of safety. And then

1:05:23

finally, they tend to have issues with

1:05:25

low self-worth or authentic

1:05:28

self-expression. They might adopt

1:05:30

different kinds of personas or masks in

1:05:32

order to fit in, to be liked,

1:05:35

and to receive what they want from

1:05:37

other people. A really

1:05:39

key point here is that self-abandonment

1:05:41

behaviors often arise as rational responses

1:05:43

to a dysfunctional environment. That's a

1:05:46

fancy way of saying that people

1:05:48

do these things for a practical

1:05:50

reason. They actually did

1:05:53

need to find that safety and security

1:05:55

by giving up a part of themselves

1:05:57

in order to please and respond to

1:06:00

the needs of of other people that

1:06:02

was a practical, rational, often very intelligent

1:06:04

choice. The problem is that

1:06:06

now in adulthood, they often aren't under

1:06:09

those same conditions that they were back

1:06:11

then when they were a kid. They

1:06:14

have more resources. They have more capabilities.

1:06:16

They have a stronger sense of self.

1:06:18

There is more objective safety maybe. But

1:06:21

even so, the behaviors persist. So

1:06:24

the question then becomes, how can

1:06:26

we find other behaviors, other ways

1:06:28

of being in the world, that

1:06:31

still satisfy those same underlying needs,

1:06:33

that same underlying desire, for example,

1:06:35

for safety and connection,

1:06:37

but without all the costs

1:06:39

that come from self-abandonment? And

1:06:41

we entered this part of the conversation with

1:06:43

me asking Rick how he would approach this

1:06:45

broad family of issues as a clinician. And

1:06:48

one of the things he started with that

1:06:50

I felt was really interesting was empathy. Empathy

1:06:53

and relationship with the other person's experience.

1:06:56

And by creating that empathic and

1:06:58

secure container as a therapist, often

1:07:00

quite quickly, you can get

1:07:03

into a pattern of authenticity with the person

1:07:05

that you're working with, the person that you're

1:07:07

talking to. In little ways, you

1:07:09

start to open up with them and they start

1:07:11

to open up with you. And

1:07:13

what this means is that you are

1:07:16

practicing authenticity in a secure environment. And

1:07:18

the more and more comfortable you become

1:07:20

with authenticity, the easier and easier it

1:07:22

becomes to leave the therapeutic space and

1:07:24

actually do those behaviors out in the

1:07:27

world with other people. But

1:07:29

the problem is that those authenticity behaviors,

1:07:31

speaking up for yourself, saying what you

1:07:33

really need, taking yourself seriously, caring about

1:07:36

your own needs, not being such a

1:07:38

people pleaser, whatever it is, the

1:07:41

problem is that those behaviors had consequences

1:07:43

back in the day. So when you

1:07:45

do them now, it's really, really scary.

1:07:47

So one of the things you have

1:07:49

to do is start to resource yourself

1:07:52

so you're able to tolerate that discomfort.

1:07:54

Rick talked about a number of different ways that we can do

1:07:57

this. One of the things that he mentioned

1:07:59

was developing a... a stronger internal caring

1:08:01

committee. Those are the voices that

1:08:03

are truly on your side that

1:08:05

are supportive, that believe that you

1:08:08

really do matter. I also

1:08:10

mentioned joining with the defense as

1:08:12

a useful intervention here that's convincing

1:08:14

the voice that's inside of you

1:08:16

that is more critical or is

1:08:18

more concerned about security, that you

1:08:20

really are taking its concerns seriously

1:08:22

and you're just looking for a

1:08:25

different way to solve this problem.

1:08:27

Rick also had a funny moment during

1:08:30

the conversation where he was talking

1:08:32

about the object relations framework and how

1:08:34

many people have a inner paradigm or

1:08:36

a inner schema of themselves as

1:08:38

this small vulnerable thing and

1:08:41

everything else as this large

1:08:43

and imposing thing. And

1:08:45

so what we need to do is

1:08:47

develop an internal view of ourselves as

1:08:49

something that is worthy and meaningful and

1:08:52

matters on its own, not

1:08:54

just because it is in relationship to

1:08:57

something outside of the self, but because

1:08:59

we exist too. We

1:09:01

then close the conversation by talking about how

1:09:04

these patterns can show up for people in

1:09:06

their relationships and how it

1:09:08

is not uncommon for

1:09:10

people to get sucked into relationships

1:09:12

that have the same problematic tendencies

1:09:15

of older relationships in their life. Maybe

1:09:18

the ones that they went through when

1:09:20

they were just a kid with their

1:09:22

parents, maybe those early formative romantic relationships

1:09:24

that went really sideways for them for

1:09:26

whatever reason, we have, as

1:09:28

Freud called it, a repetition compulsion. We

1:09:30

just keep on going back to the

1:09:32

same problematic kind of person. And

1:09:35

one of the ways that we can start to

1:09:37

work with this is by changing the scripts that

1:09:39

we have in our relationships. What are

1:09:41

the patterns that you fall into and how

1:09:43

do you want to go through a

1:09:46

process of deliberately constructing a new script

1:09:48

that has a different ending? I

1:09:50

hope you enjoyed today's episode. I had a great time

1:09:53

recording it with Rick. And if you've been listening to

1:09:55

the podcast for a while and you haven't subscribed yet,

1:09:57

please subscribe when you can. That would really help us.

1:10:00

And also if you'd like to support us in other

1:10:02

ways, you can find us on patreon. It's patreon.com Being

1:10:06

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and you'll receive a bunch of bonuses and

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return until next time. Thanks for

1:10:14

listening, and I'll talk to you soon