Hello? Okay. So one of the things that you said that, that kinda challenged me is that I so I've been, I'm in a program for a long time, about 14 years, and a lot I work with a lot of women. And I don't have a problem being available for the negative emotions. I do have a pretty good sense of boundaries now. It's taken a long time to get there, but I've been working on those for about 25 years. For some reason, I have a hard time, being able to experience the positive emotions.
For some reason. What do you mean for some reason? It it I don't understand why. I guess it doesn't matter. Joy and ex well, it does we can talk talk about that, but let's just let's just remember that joy and excitement and positive emotions about yourself are in the top seven things that we avoid the most emotionally. So that's why. Right? And I'll just make it simple for you. Right? It was likely not safe for you to feel that way. Right. For sure. That that makes
sense. So what would happen if you experience excitement or joy or positive emotion about yourself? Well, currently, it makes me, I get I've got tears in my eyes just thinking about it. So That's a somatic response. So there's tears in your eyes. That's physical body response. Right? What else is happening in your body thinking about it? My leg is bouncing, which I don't usually do. Okay. So bouncing leg into your eyes. And so when your leg bounces and your eyes tear up, what
do you normally do? Change the subject. Would you like to change the subject? No. Okay. So good look at you stepping into a little bit of defense restructuring right now. Right? So this is a good example. What I love about your example here is, like, if you think about like, we've been talking about the specific issue regarding you being happy or feeling positive emotions for just a couple minutes, but just the topic itself has started to create a whole bunch of cascading reactions in your
body. Does that make sense? Yeah. Those are reflexes, and those reflexes are based on past experiences that happened to you. Right? So what should we do? Just change your state? I don't think so. Right? We wanna say, first of all, where are you in terms of regulation? Do you feel like we're hyper aroused, where there's too much? Do you feel like you're kinda checking out, or do you feel like you're still with us? You checked out. No. No. No. I've I've got I
gotta be honest. I really, really, really want to check out, so it's a struggle to stay. Yeah. So watch this. Like, I took this out. You can just try this and see if it works. Okay? Just try this and see if they could go you can go like this. I'm back. See what happens. Just like with your left if you can't with your left hand, because I'm back. Let's see what happens if you snap it. I'm back. I'm back. Now what happened? There's another way to
do it too. You look more present to me. Here's another way to do it too. This is this is this is, like, super, super, super, super, super advanced. Okay? Every once in a while, when you dissociate checkout, if somebody else is with you and you have shared context, they can go like this. They can go like that. And then all of a sudden, you go, woah. Hey. Hold on a second. Right? So now notice you're back. Right? Right. Why are you back? Because you have safe transformational
coregulation. We're changing the subject, so we're not exactly on that topic. So we went to that emotional state for a second. Now we're going back over here. And now that we're over here, we can go back over here a little bit. Right? Okay. So what would happen in your history if you felt positive emotion about yourself? What What would that mean? It got me in a lot of trouble. Yeah. It started it started out just with the, the, you know, you have such great self esteem. Don't be conceited.
Okay. Got it. Okay. But then it started getting me into physical trouble. Okay. So there was there was, it sounds like some type of, warning, and then there was, physical abuse is what you're saying. Correct. Okay. So let's just check-in for a second. Is there any intelligence in your body that you can notice that says, I don't wanna be abused? Would that be an intelligent thing to a conclusion to come to? Yeah. I
think so too. I think so too. Right? So when you start to think about being positive and your system has reflexively linked positivity with abuse, then that felt sense in the body is associated with something painful. Yeah. What What just happened right there? Yeah. Just a tightness, like, right smack in the center of me. Yeah. That's right. Now are you ready for something? I'm back. Let's see what happens.
So what happened in your body when you did that? I mean, it's all it's still there, but it's not, it's not taking my focus. Yes. Exactly. So we're just we're doing a little bit of titration. Right? So what this means is is we have an opportunity for you to say, hey. I'd like to feel positive emotion about myself. I'd like to restructure the association of positive emotion about myself so it's not only associated with what happened to me. I'd like to take my power back from the people who hurt
me. I like to recognize that that my trauma that happened to me is not my fault at all. Right. But and also, it wasn't a gift. There's no gift in trauma. But what I can tell you is if you're here, you turned something shitty into a gift because of your response to it. And so I think tell me if I'm hallucinating if I'm wrong. But I think if you can survive the trauma, you can survive the healing. You know, I've made it this far. So, you know, I've survived
all of my worst days so far. So yeah. That's right. But just think about think about it for a second. Think about it for a second. Right? What we're talking about is create a life where you feel positive emotions safely. Right? Think about what you've been through. Okay? The difference is to create the experience of you feeling positive emotion safely means we get to revisit old pathways and create together a new outcome that you participate in creating. Right?
Okay. So what's the likelihood that you'll be triggered by these pathways in the future? 100%. Okay. So if you're gonna experience the pathways anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to experience them and make progress? Well, duh. And every time you've experienced them in the recent years, has it actually resulted in abuse or did you just feel like it? Most of the time, it just felt like it, so
I stopped beforehand. Okay. Yes. So so does Unless I put myself in the position where which is, you know, replaying the same thing over and over again. That's right. So notice, the likelihood that you're gonna feel these feelings again is basically a 100%. Recently, as you've been feeling these feelings, what you can now decipher as you contemplate it is that the experience of these feelings does
not result in the outcome that it used to. Right. So what that means is is that you can increase the value of your resiliency by consciously choosing to go do this work, to feel the feelings you're already gonna feel, but create a different outcome. Okay. Like, if you're gonna be triggered, you might as well trigger yourself into
growth. Right. And so Couldn't agree more. What what we're afraid of, ultimately, at a at a unconscious level is that the emotions and the physical sensations that you're experiencing will result in the same outcome that it used to. That's what we're actually afraid of. And the corrective emotional experience says, we feel similar thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, but we create a different outcome over and over and over again. And that's what builds capacity so that your nervous
system has proof that, hey, it's not always that way. It was that way, but it's not always that way. And even just knowing that, notice what happened with your breath. Did you notice that? Mhmm. Big exhale. That's my way of snapping. That's my that's that's my way of snapping it. So Yeah. When you took a breath, what happened? I was acknowledging what was hap what was where I was feeling what I was feeling and, just letting that just be okay. That's right. So
here here's what's so interesting. Right? Sometimes people in the trauma healing space, when someone, you know, presents the idea of trauma, right, all of a sudden, the practitioner starts to almost coddle or treat someone who's been through trauma as if they're wounded or as if they're broken or as if they're fragile. Right? Mhmm. We don't do that exactly. What we do is we say, if you went through that, you definitely
have parts of you that are fragile. But what I know about you is that if you went through what you went through, Lori, and you're here, you're not fragile. You're a fucking navy seal. Like, you you you can get through you are a survivor. You've got through some shit. That also means you have strength and resilience also. So I'm not holding you as fragile. I'm not experiencing you as fragile, but I am making room for parts of you that
feel fragile. But And I can appreciate that really. I really appreciate that because, honestly, over the course of the last, 8 months, sick no. 6 months, I, I haven't wanted to have that coddling feeling. I haven't wanted the, you know, oh, I you're you're in pain, whatever. I wanted that. I've wanted someone to take more of an interest in, you know, putting their foot in my ass. Well, I mean, I definitely don't have any interest in doing that. But, you know, I'm like, I wanted
I wanna move I wanna move through it. I don't wanna just Mastin, but I don't wanna be, oh, you're gonna be okay Kipp of thing. And and here's the thing. You can have empathy for somebody while not experience them as a fragile person. You can have empathy for somebody by while holding that they are a resilient person because your history proves it. Right? So your who you are is resilient, and you have fragile parts that we can hold and have empathy for, but we don't
see you as fragile. We see you as a strong person who's been through a lot. What that implies is if you can survive physical abuse, I think you could survive saying nice things about yourself and internalizing it eventually, and have that people do the same, If you think about it. I mean, why are you laughing? Because wouldn't that be lovely? You know? Yeah. It's possible, I suppose. I just really haven't. That's right. And and and and that smile,
that's the moment that we're looking for because it's like, wait a minute. I went through some crazy ass shit. That was super hard. And, you know, yeah, my nervous system associates positivity with all that. But if I really think about it with my prefrontal cortex for just a second, I can really understand how, though I have parts that hold that, in reality of today, if I believe positive things about myself or let people say positive things about me, I'm way able to survive that.
I understand that here. Now it's like I get my system on board with the experience because I can cognitively understand it, but I don't feel it yet. Okay. Great. But the cognition is the first part. K. So, ah, there is possibility here. Yeah. Yeah. My body doesn't like it. I can tell you that. That's right. And it's because I can feel it. Right now. Yeah. Because it really is stiff, you know, or Yeah. Sore. That's right. And and there's good reason for it to
be. So let's just say that there's no desire or need to change right now other than to hold the possibility that this is possible and that who you are is resilient. And if you can if you can be resilient to get through physical abuse, you might be able to be resilient enough to feel positive feelings about yourself and learn that they're not the same thing as physical abuse. And I'll say it one other unorthodox way. Okay? I'm excited to help you build a conceited
life. Okay. Makes sense? Yeah. Beautiful. So good.