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 What's up rock and roll people. I hope you feel well today, but if not, let's process it, I've got a really cool exercise for you to do on how to deal with fears and resistances in your life. Ever had one of those. Don't do this exercise while driving, operating machinery or doing anything that requires your full attention. All right. If you've been doing the exercise in this podcast, you may have discovered powerful new parts of yourself, but why are they new? Why haven't you known about them all along? And why did you need problems to help you uncover these new ways of being, I mean, working on problems, isn't the only way to grow, but it's definitely one of the main ones. One of the reasons you may not have known about these new ways of being is simply that it wasn't yet in your consciousness.
Speaker 1 00:01:31 And as soon as you became aware of it, you could live this new way, but change in growth. Usually aren't that simple, more often, the reason that parts of yourself remain unconscious and take time to integrate when they do become conscious is because you have fears of, and resistances to them. Change is a beast for something to be born. Oftentimes something has to die. Even our bad habits feel like home. So every time you discover something new in yourself, it's like leaving your known home and comfort zone. It's so much easier to just stay where you are. And that's why we need problems, symptoms and messed up chaos in our lives to light a fire under our asses and push us into our processes. A problem is simply the unconscious expression of a new part of you. A new way of being reacting, thinking, feeling relating, moving, and experiencing yourself and life symptoms and pain are our unconscious processes.
Speaker 1 00:02:48 Trying to get our attention. They have an inherent drive to become conscious. This exercise will show you how to work on your fears of, and to these unconscious processes that are trying to emerge into consciousness. I want to begin by sharing an example of what we're about to do a client of mine, a woman in her thirties, who was afraid to assert herself in her relationship with her husband ever since they'd gotten married, she had let him make all the important decisions, but she didn't like the arrangement. Just one problem. She couldn't tell him something was blocking her and we needed to find out what it was. I asked her why she didn't just have a talk with him. And she said she had a voice in her head telling her that the woman is supposed to follow the man. And that going against him would be wrong.
Speaker 1 00:03:48 Her friends supported her to stand up for herself and she tried to muster up the courage, but she just couldn't seem to shake the thought voice. It had some kind of power over her. One of her friends challenged her to a debate over the issue, but it didn't help either. The more her friends said women shouldn't play the background role. The more my client felt irrationally drawn to defending her position. She didn't even necessarily agree with it, but felt polarized in the discussion. Clearly, these folks had the good intention of helping her get rid of the oppressive voice, but just trying to get rid of something often doesn't work. The reason is that you're trying to zap away something you don't know enough about. It's more effective to do the opposite amplify. The symptom, this brings it out of the shadows shows you exactly what you're dealing with and helps to reveal its meaning and message.
Speaker 1 00:04:52 So I had her visualize a character who held disbelief like a spokesperson for this viewpoint. She saw a picture of a 19th century grandmother in a rocking chair. Next. I told my client to study the image, get a really good look of it. Then I helped her feel into it. What would it be like to be this grandma? After that? I had her move, like the figure would move and my client started rocking back and forth next. I had her imagine having the grandma's voice and mind, and she played around with speaking and thinking like her. She gave a whole speech about how a woman is supposed to follow and adopt to her husband. The next thing I did was to play act this character for my client. In other words, we manifested the voice in her head that was blocking her. So my client could see and feel it and interact directly with it.
Speaker 1 00:05:59 As the grandma, I told my client that if she expresses her real feelings, she'll be going against the correct and proper way a woman should be. I even exaggerated it by saying her husband will leave her. If she asserts herself. I didn't think this was actually true, but it was most likely a fear she had instead of trying to get rid of the voice. We brought it out into the clear of day, so my client could wrestle with it directly. I encouraged her to talk back to me as the grandmother. And we got into a really interesting dialogue about the roles of men and women, history, sexism, and so on. We usually assume our problems are just our own, but oftentimes they connect to much larger issues and working on ourselves is actually working on societal, cultural and historical processes that are much greater than just ourselves.
Speaker 1 00:07:00 This is why I say the personal is the political, your personal issues are connected to a vast web of human history. The way you relate to them contributes to the politics of our age. The discussion went on for quite a while. As we explored the characters philosophy about men and women. At one point in the dialogue, my client had an epiphany. She suddenly realized that she had been hypnotized by this crazy outdated idea about how women should be in relationships. It had had some sort of weird hold on her. She stopped the role-play and she said, oh my God, unlike a woman from the 18 hundreds, I don't really believe this crap. I just do it. It was a real revelation for her seeing how she lives one way, but believes in another way, we explored the split between her beliefs and her actions. And she was able to begin identifying with her true beliefs in a way she felt she could act on.
Speaker 1 00:08:08 Eventually she managed to express her feelings to her husband. She was scared to do it, but it actually turned out great for both of them. It expanded their understanding of each other and improve their relationship. And of course he didn't leave her. My client had felt blocked by irrational fear and resistance and the way we processed it was to amplify the block. Unconscious processes can be totally irrational and overwhelmingly powerful. Think about phobias. You can use all the rational ideas you want to tell yourself about how silly and wrong your fear is, but the fear wins, amplifying the block by making it into a figure, brought it to life. So my client could process it. Okay, well, let's begin. Think of a way you wish you could be or an action you wish you could take, but aren't able to
Speaker 1 00:09:45 Now ask yourself. What's against me being this way. Is it a fear? If so, a fear of what is it a belief system or philosophy I have, does it remind me of a bad experience I had in the past? Or is it scary simply because it's new and unknown.
Speaker 1 00:11:15 Now express the viewpoint of the fear or resistance that's against your new way of being, what does it say? What are its beliefs and fears? Some examples are, if you live this way, your life will fall apart. Or if you behave this way, people will think you're crazy. Or if you act like this, your partner will leave you. Or if you do this, you'll get into the same bad situation you got into last time. Give this part of you. A voice. Now create a character out of this voice, make a picture in your mind of what someone with these beliefs and concerns would look like. Is it a man or a woman? What's his or her age? Is it your mom or dad, your husband or wife? Maybe it's the world in general, if it's something abstract like the world or an institution personify it as a character that represents the specific attitudes and beliefs like a spokesperson for this particular viewpoint study the image you see, you can also let it unfold into an inner movie.
Speaker 1 00:14:44 Now feel what it would be like to actually be this figure. What's it feel embody it
Speaker 1 00:15:53 What's it feel like to inhabit the movements of this character? Go ahead and turn the podcast off and turn it back on again. When you're ready,
Speaker 1 00:16:33 Now make your mind and voice like this characters. How does a think and speak totally become it. Say what it says and act like it acts, for example, maybe it waives its arms and says, stop. Don't be like that. Or everyone will think you've gone mad or no one will love you or you'll die or whatever it says.
Speaker 1 00:18:02 Now step out of the character and interview it. Do a role play dialogue between yourself and the figure. Go back and forth between letting it voice its views and then responding as yourself. Get to know what drives this part of you and what kinds of reactions it sparks in. You ask it questions like, why are you stopping me from being my true self? What are you afraid of? What happened in my past? That's making you worry about this dialogue with it, debate it argue with it, challenge it, fight it, and maybe even learn something from it. Process the interaction as you do this, be sure to address each of its concerns until both sides of you feel satisfied. Keep asking yourself, is there 1% of me that disagrees with what the figure just said? If there is voice it, say what you really think and feel also ask yourself, is there 1% of me that could actually learn something from what the figure says there doesn't have to be, but be open to this. Use the process to get to know yourself better, to become more confident in who you are to become more whole and solid and to be stronger and better able to explain and stand up for yourself. Okay, go ahead and role play the process. Go as far as you can, you may not resolve it the first time round, but if you keep revisiting this exercise, you'll slowly transform the obstacle. Turn the podcast off and turn it on again. When you're ready.
Speaker 1 00:20:36 All right. Here's some questions for you. Were you able to make progress in the dialogue with the figure that blocks you? If not, you may have given up too soon. This kind of dialogue takes some sticktuitiveness don't stop. If you start going in circles, close your eyes and meditate on any unsaid feelings and thoughts you may have, and then express them to the figure. There's often something that gets overlooked and that's why things cycle
Speaker 1 00:22:13 Did the negative part blocking you also have something to teach you. If so, what
Speaker 1 00:23:22 Is there a way you and your blocker could work together?
Speaker 1 00:24:26 Great work. You've just learned how to process your fears and resistances. You did this by identifying a way you wish you could be or an action you wish you could take, but can't identifying what blocks you from being this way or taking this action, making it into a character, play, acting it, doing a role, play dialogue, and using the process to become more conscious of your inner parts and begin to transform the problem. If you want to hear some bonus material where I share some of my client's experiences doing this exercise, that's up next.
Speaker 1 00:25:19 Here are some of my client's experiences working on their fears and resistances by amplifying their blocks. A 22 year old woman felt blocked by a fear that if she tells a friend she's in love with him, she'll make a fool of herself and be rejected. She made an image of a character who would think like this, and it was her mother. Then she play acted and dialogued with the figure, after going back and forth debating for a while, she managed to convince this scared inner mother, that life is about taking risks and that she can handle the outcome. Uh, 43 year old man felt blocked by his own resistance against his desire to quit his secure job and start his own business. He created a figure out of the resistant part, an old man with a white beard. He dialogued with him and discovered that the figure actually had something important to teach him about differentiating smart from dumb risks. The result was that my client kept his job and began building his business and his spare time until it was up and running and could provide him some level of security.
Speaker 1 00:26:44 Uh, 35 year old woman felt put down by a part of herself that said, she's a failure because she's not married yet. The character she created to represent this inner critic was a conservative older woman. She argued with the critic, but the dialogue didn't seem to go anywhere. At one point, my clients said to the figure, either you support me in living how I want to live, which includes not getting married or I'm through with you, but the critics still wouldn't go away. My client pondered the moment and said, she suddenly felt liberated free to live. How she wants to live. I asked her what freed her. And she said that just knowing and understanding what was blocking her was enough to wake her up and free her. Sometimes just being aware of your parts. Does the trick, see your next time, stay aware. You can follow me on social media at doctors awake and you can sign up on the mailing list at doctor's wake.com, where you'll receive discounts on private coaching events and merchandise, weekly personal growth tips, and lots more be well.
