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Hi. Hi, how's it going? Welcome. Good, thank you for doing all of this. I'm learning a lot. I'm quite new. Well, it's cool. Beautiful, well I'm happy you're here. Thanks. I think the question that I have, or like the what I would like to bring to you, is a combination between stories I tell about myself and your question just now, what is the feeling that you don't want to feel or the emotion that you don't want to feel?
For me, it's very much the positive feelings about myself, which connects to the stories that I tell about myself, which are people think I'm cringe and other people don't wish me well. mainly about people in my past and I have a real hard, I have a very hard time to progress from that, even though I know that, you know, the need for approval or forgiveness from people of my past goes back to me being able to forgive and approve of myself.
But that directly goes back into one of these like core traumas that I was never good enough and I did everything wrong, which comes back from my parents. So I'm a bit stuck in how I can change that loop. I bet, you know, like people that I talk to also, I do a lot of somatic body work, which I think is incredible because I have chronic pain. They say like at the end of the cycle, there is that you need to accept that when you know better you do better.
And you did as well as you could at the time. But for me, somehow that's not good enough. And there's still a voice in my head, but not you. You should have known better at the time. And yeah, it's holding me back. - Appreciate it. - In new relationships, you know, and moving on. - Yeah, well, first of all, it's so nice to meet you. And your vulnerability and honesty is really inspiring, first and foremost. there's a real tenderness about you, which is really special and awesome and really warm.
It's interesting, I have a similar experience. So check out how, by the way, when we do trauma form work, right? So we like to, we take things super seriously, but we also around here anyway, bring levity and humor to things. And sometimes 'cause trauma form, it's a little dark side humor too sometimes. just so we're clear about that, but you just kind of get into the culture here and stuff like that.
But so what I'm about to say is through a humorous lens. So I know you're in a tender state, but this is something I say through a humorous lens. It's amazing what my nervous system will do to not feel grief and it will do some shit. It will. My nervous system will do some shit, not feel grief. Example, okay, exhibit A. So when I was born, my mom had a broken back and because of that it took her away from me for almost the first 10 years, 12 years of my life. And with that, my father was a very
preoccupied scientist. I had so much neglect, not like intentional neglect, like I grew up with everything I needed, but emotional neglect. And it wasn't because my parents were bad or addicts or whatever, they were just not available and preoccupied. I discovered five or 10 years ago, a part of me that thought if I could have just been there when she broke her back, then it would be okay. Which was 14 years before I was born.
Literally impossible. And that part of me says I never got a chance. I never got a chance. I never got a chance. Never got a chance. That's so not aligned with anything that could be possible. There's a part of me that wishes so much. If I could have just been there, what would have happened. Now why do I have that story? Where did that come from? Because if I had been there, what would have happened? Well, my mom would have been there. She would have been there with me. She
would have been present with me. And so everyone but me, I should have known better. Well, why should you have known better? What would have knowing better given you? If you had known better, than what? What's the payoff for knowing better? I come from a very close-knitted society. Well, I don't know. I'm gonna keep you right on a knife's edge right now, okay? Let's just go back to that statement, right? If you know better, you do better, but not me.
I should have known better. So let's pretend. We can use our imagination to pretend. If you had known better, what would have been different? I think I would have kept a lot of like friendships and relationships. I would have done much better at a job that I did. So you would have had more relational closeness? Yeah, I've had this like inability to regulate, frustration, and I was in a very high power job.
At some point, there's a balance where you just lost all social capital and mainly because you're just unable. I wasn't even aware of it as well as in relationships when I was younger because I've had a similar issue also. My mom died when I was young and my father was just completely withdrawn. A bit of a feral kid. You just have zero idea of how society works. And because there was a lot of shouting and et cetera in our house, aggression, violence. I didn't know what was normal.
So in that age of 18 to 25, at some points I was doing really well because I was copying as well as I could, really checking in with what was okay with society and how to thrive. And I got really good at it in different ways, but then there was always like this big bam of like, everything fell through where I couldn't hold up my mask anymore. And the last one was a year ago, and it's all combined with my, with this chronic pain that I was also not able to manage.
But I really would like to not have another one, you know. - Did you hear what you just said? That's like, that's like, that is like going to be, that is like your medicine, what you just said. That I don't want to have another one. Before that. Here's your medicine. I'm not able to manage that right now. Yeah. That's actually an assertion, a setting of a boundary. I don't have capacity for that. Yeah. I need you to have more capacity. I don't have that capacity. Follow this thread for a second.
If you had known better, you would have more closeness. Do you see that? Yeah. And if you could have asserted what you really needed, you could have also had more closeness. but you find closeness through taking on burden versus finding closeness from being known for who you really are. There's different ways. You can just pile shit onto somebody, "I got it, I got it, all right guys let's go." That's one way to do it.
Does that make sense? You know what a Sherpa is? So it's like you're like, you only be a Sherpa can't take everybody, just like a couple people on the journey, and they can't always just be a Sherpa. I'm sure Sherpas have days off to have to. So it's like but at some point you're carrying too much and people will love you if you can help them carry their stuff. Oh yeah, it's great. But what about when you need something? Are you good at being close and speaking up about what you need.
Yeah. No, probably. Depends, I guess. Yeah, probably on how much the relationship means to you. Yeah, and on top of that, I was very... My identity was so much the success because that was how I I would get any kind of attention in a virus place. So everything was connected to how to be as successful as possible, which I've unlayered. I've been doing a year of unlayering, so I feel like there's more and more clarity. But who are you when you're not helping someone?
I need to be loved, for sure, you know. That's, that's... You've ignored it. Does that make sense? It does, and let me help you understand something that might make sense too. So in the work that we do, we are very aware that the part of you that's asking a question and the part of you that's answering a question are not always the same part. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So I just said something, who are you if you can't help someone? And your answer was really beautiful and super sneaky.
said, "Well, I need to be loved." That's not an answer to my question. That's a "aha" moment that says, "I haven't been loved if I'm not needed." But the question is, who are you if you can't help someone? Do you need to be loved? Yes. But if you can't actually help, what does that mean? Where's your value? If I cannot help, I think I'm quite okay when I cannot help. That boundary's up. It comes also from a very nasty angle. I can be very judgmental about who deserves my help,
which is a whole different kind of pattern. But so today... Not my question. Yeah. I think that who am I... You must be right on the blind spot because you keep not answering my question. But I think who I am is like, I'm someone who's learning right now a lot. Right now, but that's not my question either. Who am I? You are. You got some evasive maneuvers going on over here. Oh, I really don't know the answer. Who am I? When I'm not helping.
If you can't help someone, who are you to them? When you really care about someone, let me talk about maybe your family of origin or people that are close to you, if you can't help them, who are you to them? Not now, who were you to them? What was the fear? Let me give you a hint. I have a guess, which is not necessarily accurate, but it's a guess, okay? That if you can't help someone, you probably feel like they're not going to be around. I think that, is it from the helping?
I think that for sure, if I don't do everything according to them, they will leave. Do you know what I mean? I wouldn't say if it's necessarily in the helping thing, even though I have been always facilitating for my sisters and blah, blah, blah. What if we changed it? What if we changed the word? Let's change the word. What if you... When you're not agreeable, when you don't just go along with things, Yeah, if I don't meet other people's expectations. - There we go.
Yeah, that's the same thing, different words, same thing. Yeah, but we found better words for you. - Yeah, yeah. If I don't meet other people's expectations, if first conversation, I always try to facilitate and try to mirror and try to, and it's very automatic. And it's holding me back, obviously, because I sense and they sense that it's not authentic, you know? - Yeah. - But I also feel like- - So if you're not agreeable, you're alone. - Yeah, I think- - Pause, pause, pause right there.
Take this in. If you're not agreeable, you're alone. - Yeah. And to be agreeable to somebody else at the expense of what you need, that is the grief. - Yeah, I've never felt accepted for who I am for a very early age. - But if you could just figure it out, then maybe you would. If you were just a little bit smarter and everybody else can know better and do better, but not me because I'm so alone, being so agreeable, why can't it just work out? I'm agreeing with everybody. Why isn't it working?
'Cause you're missing yourself. But the way to think of it, love languaging for that is, you learn that when you're needless, you're needed. When you're needless, you're loved. When you're needless, when you don't have needs and you just go along, that's what works. And there are a lot of people that'd be like, great, you agree with everything I think, awesome. Yeah, I think I've always scared people. Because I'm Dutch, I'm like pretty straightforward.
I only know that because of Ted Lasso, by the way. Sorry? There's a show called Ted Lasso and the only reason I even know that that's a thing is because of that show. Oh really? Yeah. There's this one character on the show that's Dutch and he just says the most intense shit and like, "He's Dutch!" They're like, "Oh, okay, that makes sense." Yeah, so that's the only reason why I don't even-- - It's really true.
I've been dating someone from the UK for seven years and it's been a challenge in their respect. - They're the opposite of that. - Yeah, which is great, right? It's synergy, it's learning. But so yeah, I've always been, I guess people are always really surprised that I seem very one way at first and then-- - Yeah, anyone would be surprised 'cause you change the rules versus being straight up front. - But it's because the true me, I feel like is not lovable.
- Exactly, that gets down to your positive feelings about yourself, right? So who I am is not lovable, so I will minimize myself and be agreeable to be lovable. Versus I am a person who has wants and needs and desires that are valid, and it's normal for me to have people in my life who want me to have what I want. - And how do you validate that over, I don't deserve love, I hate myself, all the things that we just talked about. - Well, those are experiences that you've had, right?
So when you say I don't deserve love, I hate myself, those are based on actual experiences that you've had. What we wanna work on to this lens of self-regulation is, the grief associated with not getting your needs met and making that more able for your system to comprehend and have capacity to regulate through, because in order to create relationships that meet your needs, we have to let go of the relationships that don't. And that creates a void and there's a loss that has to be acknowledged.
Right. And we will do many things to avoid that loss. loss. Right? So the goal is to be okay not being okay. If you can be okay not being okay,
you can have anything you want. I don't mean dissociate. I don't mean push away. I mean, I'm in this grief and this grief is here right now and I have never had my needs met in a relationship and I'm going to create a nervous system that has the capacity to own that, acknowledge that, to befriend that, to know what to do to help get my needs met, and to put myself in a better state. And then start to recruit relationships. I think we have a whole module
on how to build healthy relationships. We need to create a new identity of who you are, and we want to create new relationships that support you asserting yourself, you and your grief, you expressing your excitement, being direct and candid. Nobody can be in my life, I'm not Dutch, but I am super candid, and there is nobody that can be close to me that can't handle that. Right? Because I'm just going to tell you how it is, even if it's wrong. That's also very Dutch. You do that alone.
Yeah. So does that make sense? It does. Yeah. That's what we get to work on through the rest of the bootcamp, is that dynamic. - Well done. Then I'm in the right place. - You're absolutely in the right place. And I'm so happy that you're here. - Thank you so much. - Beautiful, welcome. Did she just tell me to carry on? I think she just told me to carry on. Like carry on with your coaching call there, buddy. That is always funny. (upbeat music) [music]