flowboy

I'm writing this as I am still integrating my session from yesterday. Since I was very small, I had this recurring vision of my parents buying me an ice cream, and throwing it on the floor. In pure ungratitude. Boom. I don't want this anymore. It's a scenario I would play through in my mind, for no apparent reason, and then get predictably get emotionally shocked by the lack of gratitude and the sadness of throwing it away. "How could I even think such a horrible thing?!" Upon which I quickly tried to think about something else. This would happen regularly when I was 8, and to this day it still happened. I labeled it a "mind worm" and never gave it much conscious thought. Cue random-ass symptom number two: my girlfriend's sister has just adopted a 2 year old boy. Sweet kid. His parents couldn't take care of him anymore because of illness. And I don't like him. I like all the kids from that family, they're the sweetest, but this boy: it was almost as if I had decided to not like him before I even saw him. I only found out yesterday how this ties together. Set the stage: my girlfriend and I are talking and introspecting in bed on a lazy sunday. We touch on the topic of Inner Alchemists, making a website for it, and how much work it is. She comments that I seem to be spending 75% of my energy on what could go wrong. "Why do you do these complicated things for in case nobody likes your website? Why don't you assume people will like it?" (a response to me trying to explain google analytics) I feel myself slip into a spontaneous therapy session. "Because... if I don't have concrete things to fix, I have no hope." "If I have no hope, there's no point in living because it's never going to be good." "I would have to feel that my work is not good, because I'm not good." Why do you feel like your work can't be good because you're not good? "Because... somewhere.. along the way, I was rejected." (I have no idea why I'm saying this, it just comes to me spontaneously) I have a strong sense that my innocence was lost. Something good's been taken away from me. I was in paradise, then I got kicked out. What do you see? "I see.. my mom. She's not looking at me" Why is she not looking at you? "Because she's talking to someone. A family friend. An aunt. Or maybe A DOCTOR" A doctor? I have no idea why I said that, but it seems to lead somewhere. Where was your dad? "I was afraid of my dad. I really had forgotten that I didn't just love him and wanted to be with him, I also feared him when I was little. Because he got mad and threw things" What else do you see? "I see a machine..." My subconscious just gives me a single image of a patient monitoring device, floating above me. You said somewhere along the line you were rejected? "Yeah..." "Maybe I felt like I was being punished?" "Maybe I didn't know why I was in the hospital, and I thought I was there because I was bad?" "Maybe I felt I WAS BEING THROWN AWAY, THEY DIDN'T WANT ME ANYMORE" 😭😭😭😭😭 A huge emotional release follows as I start to sob and cry in a strange high pitched voice. FLOOD OF INSIGHT Immediately, my subconscious reminds me of the ice-cream-on-the-floor obsession, and it connects: I AM THE ICE CREAM. I must have carried that feeling of being rejected by my parents with me ever since the hospital stay at 8 months old (which I don't remember), and whenever it bubbled up, my subconscious twisted it into a vision of throwing away ice cream. If I had done the Gestalt exercise on that (how does the ice cream feel in this scene?) I could have decoded that years ago. Suddenly it becomes crystal clear to me why I have such a hangup around throwing things away. I have the worst time decluttering. I basically can't stomach it emotionally and need psychological support of another person to do it. As a kid, I used to think of teaspoons that fell behind the kitchen counter, no one would use them anymore, and I'd be on the verge of crying. I'm always trying to make the most of what already exists, even when starting fresh would be much more efficient. Which explains hanging on to my old badly written blog posts and coaching exercises and videos. My girlfriend tends to make this joke when she sees a cute dog: "Maybe we can ask them if we can have it, in case they don't want it anymore?" I CAN NOT stomach this joke, it's horrible and it triggers me. Now I know why. I am the ice cream. I am the thrown away clutter. I am the dog. These repressed feelings were projected onto all these. And.... I am the adopted boy. Now I see. Suddenly I understand why I dislike this adopted baby that Maria's sister has. I just disliked this 2 year old because he was adopted. My empathy was shut off. He must have felt rejected and "thrown away" by his parents, just like I did in the hospital scene. So I had to dislike him in order to not feel that. For the ones of you reading this thinking that I'm nuts, or pulling far-fetched theories together, or speculating: I understand, but you're wrong, and I can prove it to you. Do a guided childhood regression session. Give it your all. Do it three days in a row. There will be no doubt in your mind. This experience of crystal clear knowing WHY you have these weird hang-ups, it's something that can only come out of a deep feeling session. No amount of thinking or hypothesizing will get you to that certainty. But the certainty and insight is only a bonus. The real reward is in dissolving these emotional hangups. Which happens FAST once you do the emotional work. I already feel like I can love this kid, at least don't dislike him anymore. Even though thinking about his history makes me cry now. He must always carry that shadow of rejection by his parents. Even though he'll be able to repress it and have a pretty good childhood now, but it will haunt his shadow until he addresses it in therapy. I already feel more courageous about putting the website out there without having everything prepared. Other notable things from the experience: I also had a deep experience of what it's like as a baby to need love in order to live, how hopeless it is to know you can't do anything if you're abandoned. Touch = life, love = touch. To question what you've done wrong, thinking you're "bad", not being able to think a more complex thought than "this must be happening because they don't love me" Just because you're in a different place and your parents aren't there. It feels like a punishment and there's no ability to understand the reason, however justified Then I felt what it's like to need to suck on a nipple, and the direct line of nurture that goes from mouth to belly, and how total and all-encompassing that need is. And it's the same need that makes me want nicotine. I just recognize the feeling. So I'm pretty sure that nicotine addiction can be cured this way. Thank you for reading.

It all started when she noticed me biting her head off after she’d wake me up. Even though she tried to get me out of bed in the nicest, sweetest way - I’d hold a grudge until noon! It had become a pattern. So we decided to do shadow work to see if we could fix this. The first session (documented here) brought me back to childhood, and I was able to connect the experience of having to get up, to having to get up and face the dread of daily highschool bullying. That felt like a tremendous relief, and I already felt lighter. The heaviness around getting out of bed had lifted. Though as we kept talking, I realised this had only been the first layer. There was something deeper there. Being “woken up” felt like a profound symbol … for something. So I started a round of circular breathing and felt into it. Soon, I was in the center of a tornado of old feelings. Bullseye. I stayed in the feeling by expressing it, even though it wasn’t clear what it was yet. Then my brain started showing me little flashbacks. A safe warm place. Having to leave. Fingers prodding me. I started breathing sharply and heavily and hysterically crying. Strange, high-pitched baby cries. My girlfriend is holding the camera. I hated those fingers prodding me. I WAS NOT READY. However, I am BORN. (I asked my mother about the story of my birth: turns out I was induced, which explains the feeling of not being ready, and I was also breeched (ass-backwards), which a doctor discovered by prodding me) Now I remember: all I wanted to do was GO BACK, just for a little while. And that’s how I feel when my partner tries to get me out of bed. Now, I’m over the hump. I’ve felt the pain. The flood of insights follows. Why I never felt like I was fully participating in life. Why I felt like my life was just “for practice”. Why I always had this sense that my life decisions were not real, and one day I would go back and do them all over again.. If you’ve ever done sessions like these, you know the onrush of spontaneous insights and clarity. This was 2 years ago. Since we did this session, I’ve never had a cranky morning again. I’ll say it again. I’ve NEVER HAD A CRANKY MORNING AGAIN. I’ve had slow mornings, sleepy mornings, snooze-ten-times-mornings. But never angry ones anymore. Not only that, but my knee-jerk reaction of “leave me alone, I’m not ready” which manifested in many situations, such as right before planned social activities, before bed, basically anytime I’m in the zone with something and interrupted, my angry reflex has gone, only to leave a mild residue of resistance that can be overcome with a simple sigh. I hope you enjoyed this story and that it may inspire you to try a shadow work session for yourself. Cheers, Erik

Yeah. Good realisation. That is so, so key. They want the best for you 🙏 Sometimes, the best for you is to reject you, because you're not being honest with yourself and playing a fake role, so you have a creepy vibe. Sometimes, the best for you is to break up with you, because you're stuck in a rut and you need a shock to your system to motivate you to reach the next level. It's all FOR you💚

I'll respond based on my experience, which is that I have had a lot of anxiety, shame and awkwardness around approaching girls I found attractive, and most of the time I didn't even do it because of that. I would say 99% of the time that I saw someone I would have liked to approach, I chickened out and beat myself up over it. But sometimes I'd be in a courageous mood and still do it, and even though it was massively awkward, I went on dates with them, slept with them and had relationships from that. Having never become really good at it or anything. The thing is that people respond to authenticity, and for me that means I'll talk about whatever is on my mind. Like really what is on my mind. Such as: "Hi, I saw you yesterday and I thought you looked cute but you were already on your bicycle going somewhere, were you going to the gym or something? Yeah so anyway I didn't say anything but here I am now, hi nice to meet you I'm Erik. Yeah anyway you might find it awkward or something and honestly me too but I'm thinking I find you quite attractive and maybe you could be interesting to hang out with" She asked me for MY number after that, texted me first, and we slept together 2 days later. Blah blah blah stream-of-consciousness not hiding anything. It's not a trick or a pick-up line, it's just being vulnerable and authentic and the more things you actually admit like being nervous, the more confident you actually come across. This is a real example of me awkwardly chatting up a girl who lived on my street who did kickboxing multiple times a week, so she had a 10/10 body and could easily have beat me up 😛 But I did date her for a couple months and the nice thing is that she also opened up to me and we could relate about insecurities we have and getting burnt out and being ambitious entrepreneurs with adhd and bad habits and whatever else. So start with authenticity, it's the quickest path.

@Rose 😝 Me too... I've had the experience of finding a whole new layer too many times though, that nowadays I know it's a pretty safe bet that I don't know the half of it. Saying this as someone who healed some adhd symptoms after digging out birth memories. It's a pretty safe bet that I don't even know the half of it. But we get to feel better in the mean time ☺️

@spiritual dreams Good! Then that's a good action to take.

So my mom has quite a bit of childhood trauma and over the years I have been able to inspire her to try certain things here and there... I actually invited her to a mescaline ceremony in May and she's joining me actually! Of course over the years I've also asked nutritional advice on her behalf that she didn't implement, and sent her other links and people that didn't really work out. Here's what I learnt: Before they are on a self-motivated path to change/expand/heal, every effort is pointless The way to get her on that self-motivated path is only through her getting inspired seeing a change in me Be patient, don't push, but keep offering opportunities only recommend things that have benefited you personally She saw me get a lot better over the years doing childhood trauma healing and psychedelics, and I think I contributed a bit to her curiosity (re-)awakening because I kept sharing about it without necessarily pushing her into it. But I did give lots of little nudges and remained patient. The most important thing is that she witnesses your improvements.

@Rose I suppose that's the same principle yeah! Similarly I also used to be a good boy attracted to bad girls 😝

It is awesome! I used to be totally cramped up in public and always imagining people judging me. Today it is not even on my mind, unless I'm doing something truly socially unacceptable. I'm loud and expressive and it feels much better. Some things that have helped me: Primal Therapy & trauma release ... practicing just doing it anyway (whatever 'it' is: what you would do or express freely if you didn't care about judgments) A big insight for me was that having other people's judgments on my mind was actually a neurotic symptom rooted in childhood trauma that I had no idea I had.

@spiritual dreams Good to see you too! Also what's the thing you've sometimes dreamt about trying out but telling yourself that you're not ready or that's not you? If there is anything like that, that could be a great invitation by the universe to move forward, new people will also come into your life as a response to that, quite often.

@spiritual dreams I've met friends who are into spirituality somewhat serendipitously, but one thing I've done was join activities that I was interested in but scared of. For me that was Toastmasters, tantra workshops, improv classes, and psychedelic festivals. Being scared = being challenged, it makes people more vulnerable and likely to bond.

You also have unresolved psychological trauma. The nature of the mind is to repress trauma. A primary tool for that is denial. You and I tend to tell ourselves that we've resolved everything. Our behaviour says otherwise. Same as the youtube guy, he's not aware of it.

Perfect! Next time you do this, you can also ask; "Where have I felt this before?" You'll be surprised at the revelations.

This friend is just helping you point at your unresolved anxiety when it comes to health and relationships. What changes would you have to make in order to know "I'm good, I'm taking the actions I want to take and this area of my life is handled"?

I only use this: https://sensitiveplanet.com/collections/original-scent-of-samadhi-formula It's one jar I only have to buy once a year. It's a powder of natural ingredients that mix with your sweat to produce a somewhat unique perfume. I can't stand deodorants and perfumes, they give me allergic reactions these days.