Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:03 Welcome to the doctors, which show where I show you how bad states of mind, difficult life issues, aren't pathological, but rather signs of personal growth trying to happen. All right, let's get into it.
Speaker 1 00:00:27 Hey people, what's up. How's your day or night going? I'm in the middle of mixing a new album and I'm running on almost to zero sleep. I'm in an altered state. Perfect for today's exercise. It's interesting that the only two things that aren't affected by my total sleep deprivation are music and processing. I think they live in an alternative brain or something. Nothing seems to affect them, but I wouldn't want to like drive a car or do my taxes. That's for sure. Speaking of sleep deprivation, not affecting my musical abilities. Research shows that music is the last thing to go in humans, studies of super old folks at the end of their lives, who've lost all their cognitive functions. Still remember melodies and lyrics of songs. Same with people with dementia and Alzheimer's music transcends it bypasses our everyday awareness. Well, today we're not going to focus on music, but on something strangely related called Akido Akido is a martial arts form that doesn't use techniques to battle and defeat an opponent, but rather employs methods for blending in harmonizing with the energy and movements of the attacker.
Speaker 1 00:02:00 In order to redirect the force of his aggression, instead of fighting the enemy, the Akido master observes carefully and uses the opponents own actions to transform the situation. It's really a basic process idea that the problem contains its own solution. And that the way to discover this is to integrate, not try to destroy its energy, its musical, in the sense that music is a process of finding harmony within chaos, you have a million ways to put together notes and rhythms and your job is to discover the best combination of sounds in a given moment, you usually aren't striving for disharmony or in musical language dissonance. You're hunting for how things can blend and unite. This is a powerful notion when it comes to processing your, because often what happens is the more you battle them, the more they entangle you. But then when you try to ignore them, they also get you. It's like you're screwed. If you do and screwed. If you don't, this exercise will show you a different way to work on. What's bothering you as always. Don't do this exercise while you're driving, operating machinery or doing anything that requires your full attention.
Speaker 1 00:03:29 All right, now, one of the ways all of us are the same is that when we have a problem, we feel like it's victim. The problem does something to us, has some kind of control over us and makes us suffer. It's the nasty opponent, the attacker, the bully, the thing that takes the ground out from under us and where it's victim we're in pain, we feel hurt, angry, sad, empty, confused, lonely frustrated, afraid to pressed, scared, anxious, the whole crazy catastrophe of being a human being. Then maybe we blame our suffering on other people, the world, our parents, our genetics, bad luck, God or whatever else, and feel powerless to change the situation. Or maybe we fight back. But as I said, problems often persist. Even when we do everything we can to get rid of them. And sometimes the fight is so intense. It just takes all of our energy feeling.
Speaker 1 00:04:45 Victimized is a universal experience. We all share. I'm going to show you how to get out of being the victim and take over the power. But it's not what you might think. It's not about fighting back. Like you usually hear about fighting back mental toughness, determination and all that is important, but there are so many situations and processes in life where it simply doesn't work. Akido, masters knew this, and that's why they developed a way of embracing, redirecting and transforming the victimizers power. Instead of just trying to eliminate it. Let me give you a few examples. So you can get a feel of what we're going to do. One of my clients had a body image issue because she was overweight. She was a really warm hearted sensitive woman, the kind who wouldn't hurt a fly and feeling bad about her body made her feel so depressed.
Speaker 1 00:05:48 She wasn't even motivated to go on a diet. She told me, quote, and this is painful. She said, I'm fat and ugly. And it makes me so depressed. The victim side of her process is easy to see. She was a victim of the idea that she's unattractive, but I wanted to know about the victimizer side. What exactly was making her feel this way about herself? So I asked her, how do you know you're fat and ugly? Is it a feeling of heaviness? And ugliness is an inner voice telling you you're fat and ugly. Is it an image in your mind of yourself as an unattractive person? Is it a scale showing you how much you weigh? Is it your experience looking in the mirror? Is it a magazine cover with a skinny woman? Did someone tell you you're unattractive or all of the above? I wanted to go to the source of the problem.
Speaker 1 00:06:53 Usually people are consumed by receiving and experiencing negative messages. While the source of these messages does get much focus. She said, it's my own thoughts telling me I'm fat. And that everyone sees this. And I see it in the mirror too. I said, okay, let's work on the critical voice first. And then we can explore what you see in the mirror. I told her to listen to the thought voice and asked her, what's it sound like, is it a man or a woman young or old? Can you make a picture of someone with this voice? She applied shirts. My mother, she actually says these awful things to me, pretty messed up. I said, that's terrible. Okay. Let's play act your mother in all her hurtful, awful glory. My clients started voicing her. Mother's mean comments saying all these nasty things. It was really painful to hear.
Speaker 1 00:07:58 I asked her what it felt like to do that. And she said, quote cold. I said, okay, I'll play. Act your mother saying these mean things to you and you be cold. And let's see what happens. Well, to make a long story short, my client got in touch with her own inner coldness, not in a mean nasty way, but rather as a protective shield, an ability to shut out ignorance and hurtfulness, she took her mother's unconscious negative coldness and used it in a conscious positive way. Then I said, okay, let's check out what you see in the mirror. She stood in front of the mirror, in my office and I said, what do you see? She had laughed and said, quote, I see a fat, ugly wrestler. I said a okay, let's be big fat wrestlers. She laughed her head off. And then we walked around the room, like huge fat fighter dudes.
Speaker 1 00:09:07 I asked her what it felt like to do that. And she said total power. I said, yup. It's like the coldness only more. So she immediately understood because she was now experiencing it physically with her whole body. Then we got into a whole discussion of how she can use this power and coldness in various areas of her life. As she began to implement this change, she found that it served as a counterbalance to her extreme sensitivity, which she actually felt victimized by. And one of the side effects of the work was that she was able to get into a more positive mindset, feel better about herself and actually felt like dieting. She Akido sized her problem by taking her mother's unconscious coldness and integrating it in a conscious way. Then she also amplified her negative self image as an overweight woman, using her fantasy of a fat wrestler to connect with her own power.
Speaker 1 00:10:17 Now she could be both sensitive and strong and she could consciously choose when to do each one. She stopped letting the critic, beat her up about her weight and she took control of her life. Here's another example. One of my clients in Zurich, struggled with depression. He was unemployed on social assistance and spent his days watching TV. He told me he had always identified himself as being sort of a weak and pathetic man. Even before he got depressed. He said his depression felt like an oppressive, dark energy that wanted to squeeze the life out of him. He described the feeling as being quote crushed, but instead of working on his feeling of being crushed, meaning the victim side of his process, I had him explore and amplify his experience of being the crusher. You see, instead of being the victim of the crusher, I wanted him to become it.
Speaker 1 00:11:28 So he walked around my office imagining he was a powerful energy that could squeeze the life out of human beings. In the Palm of his hand, I asked him how he could use this powerful energy and after pondering it for a while, he said he could use it to get off his ass and do something with his life. Being the crusher made him realize how sick and tired he was of like a weak and pathetic human being and awakened him to his desire to change his life. He inhabited embodied occupied became the crushing energy as his own energy, but not in a negative self oppressive way. Rather as his own conscious power, a problem can be formulated by using a simple equation with two parts, the victimizer and the victim, the victimizer is on the active side of the equation. It does something to make you suffer the victim.
Speaker 1 00:12:33 You are on the passive side of the equation. You're on the receiving end of the problem. This is an easy concept to understand when it's a relationship issue, because the trouble seems to originate outside yourself. You feel on the receiving end of something that the other person is doing or not doing. You feel victimized because he's overbearing or she's too emotional or he's uncommunicative or whatever, but let's take this a step further and apply it to all kinds of problems. Even the ones that you feel originate within yourself. If you want to master and transform something you suffer from, you have to process not only your experience as the victim, but the energy of the victimizer as well. In other words, if you want to change a problem, you have to investigate the details of how it acts upon you to make you into a victim.
Speaker 1 00:13:37 You have to uncover the details of its behavior, not just how you feel on the receiving end. You have to step into the shoes of the problem maker and out of the shoes of the problem receiver. Okay. Let's use this method to work on a problem, choose something to work on and review your experience of it. Start in the usual way, which is to be the victim. You might begin by saying, for example, I'm depressed and I can't get out of it. Or I get anxious when I'm around people and it ruins my social life, or I can't find a job. And so my whole life is a mess or I have chronic pain and nothing seems to relieve it, whatever it is, review your experience of the problem and include all the details of how you feel victimized by it.
Speaker 1 00:15:23 Okay. Here's the first Akido step. It requires you to use your senses and imagination together. So take your time, meditate on the following question. What would you have to do or say to someone to make them feel like you feel and what would be the quality of your actions? You're a good person. So you wouldn't want to do this to someone, but if you were a meanie, what would you do or say, and how would you do or say it? The what is the action and the, how is the quality of the action? Now, don't worry. You're not going to become someone who does this to people. We're simply exploring the source of your problem so that we can make it conscious. This is just a method to help you do this. It's a temporary phase in the work before doing it. Here are a bunch of examples, but they're just general.
Speaker 1 00:16:33 You have to feel and vision how you imagine it in yourself to make someone feel like you do. Would you use the quality of coldness to do the action of being judgmental? Like my client's mother, would you use your power to crush them? Like my depressed client, which you use your wild, frantic energy to scare them. Would you use your coldheartedness to abandon them? Maybe you'd use your evil creativity to make negative pictures of the future to scare them, or you'd use your sharp knife to stab and hurt them. Perhaps you'd use your dramatic emotionality to freak them out or your rigidity to make them uptight or afraid. Would you use your relaxed or even lazy way of being to frustrate their attempts to accomplish something? Would you use your abrasive insensitivity to hurt their feelings, or maybe you'd use the sword of your cutting words to make them feel unable, to think or defend themselves or you're ripping, tearing, or shredding power to annihilate them.
Speaker 1 00:17:52 Would you use your pressuring energy to make them feel stressed out or you're squeezing cramping, crunching, or suffocating energy to kill them? How about using your power of the irrational to drive them crazy or your pushy or chaotic energy to make them feel overwhelmed? What about using the quality of fogginess to make them feel spaced out or your relentlessness to make them feel obsessive or compulsive? Would you use your fire heat to make them feel angry or your weight of a thousand pounds to sit on them, to make them feel depressed? You might use your insatiable yearning, longing, and hunger to make them feel addicted. The possibilities are endless. Okay. Now make sure to include the action and the quality of the action. Imagine you could give this exact problem to someone else. What would you do and how would you do it?
Speaker 1 00:20:01 Okay by imagining the quality and action, creating your problem. You've already begun to get out of being its victim and into integrating its power. Instead of you suffering the problem by being the one acted upon, you're starting to identify with the actor, the one who owns and embodies this quality, but in a conscious way. And remember, you're not going to actually become this kind of bad person who does these awful actions. We're just taking the power and energy from your problem by claiming its raw energy as your own, forget about its negative aspects because they'll fall by the wayside. But first you need to claim the power and energy as your own. Then you can transform it into something positive. In fact, don't only forget about the negative aspects of the problem maker. Also put your ideas, judgments, and interpretations of it on hold focus.
Speaker 1 00:21:09 Only on the quality of the energy itself, strip it down from a complicated issue to a simple, raw quality or way of being cold or powerful or relentless or weighty or you emotional or whatever, minus the negative content. All right. Imagine and feel into having this raw quality in yourself. Imagine being cold or rough or emotional or whatever it is again. Forget about the negative content. In fact, forget the content altogether. Just focus on the raw quality itself, make it neutral, just feel cold or powerful or weighty or relentless or cutting or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 00:23:07 Now forget the action all together and imagine using this quality as your own conscious power, how could you use it to help you with your problem?
Speaker 1 00:24:20 Here are some questions to help you go further, take your time to answer them, turn off the podcast. If you need and turn it on again, when you're ready, What stops you from embodying this quality or power as a part of your identity? Is it a fear of what others will think of you? Is it an inner critic, maybe even the critic that created the problem in the first place, or is it just something new for you that you'll grow into
Speaker 1 00:25:57 How can you apply this way of being to your inner life, your relationships, your work and your spirituality.
Speaker 1 00:27:09 What other problems could you apply Akido to
Speaker 1 00:28:13 Great work. You've just learned how to apply the principles of Akido to a problem. You did this by reviewing your experience as a victim of your problem, then asking yourself what you'd have to do or say to someone to make them experience your problem. Identifying the quality you'd use to take this action imagining and feeling into having this quality as your own conscious power, and then applying it to your problem. If you feel like it, you can listen to some bonus material next, where I share some of my client's experiences doing this exercise
Speaker 1 00:29:05 Here are some of my client's experiences with applying Akido to their problems. Uh, 41 year old sort of macho type man had relationship problems with his girlfriend. They argued a lot. She accused him of lacking emotion and he accused her of being too emotional sound familiar. It's one of the classic male female dynamics. He said he often felt shaken by her dramatic outbursts to make someone else feel shaken. He said, he'd physically shake them. So I told him to go ahead and shake me. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me pretty hard. I encouraged him to keep doing it until he got a sense of what he was doing. I also asked him if he'd want to say anything to the person, I was play acting. He said, quote, yes, stop being so stiff and defensive. And I said, how am I stiffened defensive? Then he said, you're fricking afraid to show your feelings because you think it means you're a pussy.
Speaker 1 00:30:19 He was obviously talking to himself and he knew it. Whoa, what a revelation. We spent the rest of the session exploring where he learned this taboo against showing his feelings and how he could change it. He Akita sized his problem by integrating his partners, focus on emotions. He became the shaker instead of just feeling shaken. And he used this to shake and wake himself up, uh, very kind and gentle. 60 year old woman had frequent bouts of anxiety. She said everything made her anxious and afraid from things like making it to work on time to more important things like her health to make someone else feel anxious. She came up with a really strange idea. Sometimes these things look irrational and don't make sense at first, but you have to trust them. She said, she'd jump up and down and make noises to distract the person so that they get nervous and scared.
Speaker 1 00:31:32 So I stood in the middle of my office and had her do this to me. After a while I asked her how she felt. And she said she felt super strong in her arms and legs. I told her to keep going and really get into the experience and just enjoy the feeling of strength. When we stopped, I asked her how she could use this body experience to deal with her anxiety. And she immediately lit up and said, she feels totally strong. And she doesn't feel scared or apprehensive like she usually does. And she realized that she needs this sense of power. Over time, she was able to integrate this inner strength and it had a dramatic effect on her anxiety. This is because she became the powerful, chaotic energy that had previously victimized. Her, her own split off power had manifested as anxiety and sometimes real panic attacks.
Speaker 1 00:32:40 But she managed to reclaim that power. A 50 year old woman had a bad cold with a cough. She said the most annoying part was the cough. So we decided to focus on it to make someone else experience her cough. She said, she'd scratch their throat. I had her scratch a pillow as if it were someone's throat. While she did this, I noticed she was making some weird grunting noises under her breath. And I encouraged her to amplify them. After a few minutes, she started to look like some kind of wild animal. Suddenly she stopped and looked at me with wild eyes and said, I'm so angry. Then she told me a story of how her best friend had recently treated her badly, but she never told her that she was hurt and angry. The next day she came down with the cold. Now she was in touch with the process behind her cough and she made a decision to confront her friend. She became the throat scratcher that had victimized her and discovered her true feelings toward her friend and not surprisingly, her cough went away by the end of the session. Now I realize this is an unusual example since it dealt with a physical symptom that has obvious physiological causes, but everything we experience is an expression of our process. I'm going to devote a future episode to the connection between medical disease, biochemistry, and process. See you next time, stay aware.
Speaker 1 00:34:32 You can follow me on social media@doctorsawakeandyoucansignuponthemailinglistatdoctorswake.com, where you'll receive discounts on private coaching events and merchandise starting in 2021 weekly personal growth tips and lots more be well.
