November 11, 2025 • 52 mins
In this riveting session, Cynthia Marks and Dr. Loren Weiner unpack masochism as a deep, often invisible style of living driven by unconscious guilt—the felt sense that we “deserve” to suffer or deny ourselves good things. Loren traces the guilt back to Dr. Bernard Bail’s imprint theory: the fetus unconsciously takes on the mother’s unprocessed pain and wrongly concludes, “it’s my fault,” a “first lie” that later fuels self-sabotage, procrastination, and staying in punishing relationships. They show how dreams reveal this pattern—from lost purses and missed deadlines to violent head blows—mapping the original psychic “blast” and the mind’s attempt to wall it off. Cynthia shares personal dreams (like a book titled “Life Is Torture”) that capture resistance to joy and the pull toward old operating manuals. Loren explains how this inner guilt scales up into culture—why groups, institutions, even nations repeatedly choose policies that make everyone suffer. The antidote isn’t moralizing but honest dreamwork, daily self-questioning, and claiming the birthright to love and pleasure. Start inside, they insist; shift the inner operating system and the outer systems begin to change.
00:00 — What Is Masochism? 07:20 — The First Lie 14:40 — Head-Blow Dreams 22:00 — Working the Pattern 29:20 — “Life Is Torture” 36:40 — Self to Society 44:00 — Allowing Love & Pleasure 50:49 — Closing Invitation
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello, I'm
Cynthia Marks and I head up the HolisticPsychoanalysis Foundation
established by my latehusband, Doctor Bernard Bail.
Welcome to And Now Love.
Doctor Loren Weiner is here today.
Always a treat.
And we are going to talk about masochism.
(00:24):
Right. That's what. We're doing.
So first off.
Hello. Of course.
What is masochism.
This is a very wellknown psychoanalytic concept.
I think many people are alsojust generally familiar with the idea,
but it is a character trait
(00:45):
where people carry unconscious guilt
and then live their lives
trying to assuage that unconscious guilt
by self-sabotaging self punishment
or denying themselves good things,and that there is a feeling,
unconsciously, that the person deserves
(01:09):
some type of suffering or punishmentbecause of this guilt,
and the guilt is usually very undefined,meaning it
isn't traceable to one thing,but it is more of a false self-concept
that the personsomehow deserves some of the punishment
or in some way to not have something good.
(01:33):
Can you give us kind of a real lifeexample of how that would present itself?
Yeah.
So some people might
do something really simplethat we all know, which is procrastinate.
Now, there may be many reasonsthat isn't always masochism,
but one of the things that often does is
(01:53):
makes it sothat the person can't do their best job.
I don't deserve to turn in my best
homework assignment or report for my job,
so I will procrastinate and then, oh, see,
I couldn't do the best thingand I'm punished.
In a sense. I've self sabotaged.
(02:14):
I've kept myself from being the bestI can be,
but it's all stemmingfrom this unconscious guilt.
Right.
So the person really believes deep inside,
I've done somethingand I don't deserve the best.
So it's more than thereis just some unconscious
(02:36):
satisfaction in being dissatisfied.
It's bigger than that. It's.
It's it's as if you know no other way.
You're kind of innately going that way,
because this is how it'sbeen since the beginning for you. Yes.
I assume that the origins of thisare very early,
(02:57):
meaning most people have this style style
of relating to themselves in the world,and that starts very early.
Bail would go back and saythat this starts at the very beginning,
and his understanding is a littledifferent than some of the other theories.
Freud talked about this,that it's not just getting a pleasure.
(03:20):
And now all of this unconscious.
I want to say thatbecause most of the time people
aren't walking around saying,oh, I have to be punished.
You know?
It's just that they keep findingthemselves in these predicament. Yes.
They keep self-sabotaging themselves,you know, there.
You know another example, right?
You're supposed to complete a project
(03:41):
and at the last minute you accidentally,you know, have some disaster happen
where you've dropped your computer and,you know, a car ran over it.
Okay.
We would say what you know,obviously something's at work there.
What is it?
Well, there may be an unconscious feeling
that, you know,this report was going to be great.
(04:01):
I'm not allowed to turn it in.
Or if I'm going to,it has to be so painful,
so difficult that now I'm going to nowhave to stay up all night
redoing this workand where it should have just been like
you'd get to do itand you get to turn it in and that's it.
So we now these are little waysin which we see masochism.
(04:22):
And again, because it's a continuum,
you know,you may see it in in large ways as well.
Back to your question.
His idea differs from other theorists
in that he says this actually startsat the very beginning.
His idea is that the guilt reallyarises from the moment the
(04:43):
fetus receives an imprint from the mother.
Now I go to the mother.
Not that it doesn't happen laterwith the father, but it's later.
So the origin know dyad, the mother
and the fetus when that imprint.
So again, this is unconscious.
The imprint is a deliveryof all of the unprocessed,
(05:06):
negative feelingsa mother carries about herself, all of her
problems, all of the ways she feelsshe's not good enough.
When that is delivered to the fetus,and the fetus,
in essence takes this and says, okay, mom,
you are suffering, I will take this.
Now the problem is many,
(05:27):
but in terms of masochism is that
if mom is that upset,the fetus assumes it's my fault.
So it's not justthe fetus is splitting its own mind
and taking all of this mother'spain and trauma in.
Additionally,that fetus thinks this is my fault.
Bail called this the first liethat his idea was.
(05:51):
We then start from a guilty place.
Oh my God, I caused this.I am somehow bad.
I must not only take it,but live with this guilt
that I must have been the root causefor all your suffering.
It is because of the mother's imprintthat we get to the place
of living our lives in this.
(06:14):
Guilt. Way.
Masochism. That's right.
That that.
Then that guilt sits.
Then what do we do with the guilt?
And we may have to assuage it in some way.
How much guilt we feel.
And this is part of the reasonI think the guilt is often
not defined because it is such
(06:34):
an early unconscious origin.
So we're all walking aroundwith some of this guilt.
And again,a continuum depends how much trouble.
How much pain was your mother inand how much did you feel responsible.
And if that starts at the rootfor all of us,
(06:57):
then you can imagine we carry thisnot only into our own lives,
but we carry it into every system,every relationship, and every system.
We make, you know?
So we're always rubbing off oneverybody else around us.
And, yes, and building our societieswith this embedded in it.
And if we're all rolling through lifewith this sort of same root,
(07:21):
it just kind of perpetuates. Yes.
And if it's all unconscious
and then it's never touched,we just keep living that way.
So you just somewhere deserveto be punished for something.
And that is relieving
in a certain way or pleasurablebecause you know you are guilty.
(07:44):
So of course I deserve this.
And then there's something satisfyingabout that, because that's the world,
you know, and you kind of train yourselfto stay within these parameters.
I don't deserve that.
I can't go therebecause that'll upset my mother,
who is now more than just your mother.
(08:05):
It's, you know, sort of every authorityout there, right?
It becomes global so that, yes, that'swhat happens.
And, you know, this is because we're human
and it happensat the time of receiving the imprint.
It is very closely related to it.
But you add that piece ofand it's my fault.
(08:25):
So it's not just some prohibition, meaningyou're not to have love in your life.
You're not to be a success.
You're to have a tough go,
which may be some of the imprintspeople are familiar with.
This really adds a piece.
That is, and it's your fault,and it's your fault.
You originally caused your motherall of this trouble.
(08:47):
It's your fault.
And as you said, it's the original lie.
But in our lives we're like,oh yeah, I get that.
It's my fault.
So of course this is where I am.
It's my fault and all unconscious.
So we have to all look at ourselvesand say, okay, where are we
masochistic, where do we punish ourselves?
Self-sabotage.
(09:07):
And later theorists added that you willdeny yourself pleasure in other ways.
So it's not necessarily only punishment.
But maybe I'm just not entitledto good things or if there's
something good happening in my life,I may start to feel too guilty.
And then I either have to undo itor stop being a part of whatever that is,
(09:31):
because there's no way I get all of thatgood experience sense.
I'm too guilty. I don't deserve that.
And then there's the other ideaabout guilt
in that at some momentswe feel a little uncomfortable
because we did something that we know
(09:51):
was maybe not in the best interestof someone we care about.
That's a whole different thing.
Is that right? It's yes.
There's a lot to talk about
in terms of guilt,and some of that is appropriate guilt.
That's a more mature place where you canthen make reparations.
I mean, potentially, if you understand
it, you know, in yourself, you canyou can say, oh, I did something.
(10:14):
I don't feel comfortable with, right.
That and a lot of that is more conscious.
Right. We know we did something.
This is truly so early and so un conscious
because when we receive that imprintwe split that off
and that we deny this in our own minds.
We split our own minds unconsciously,so we don't have to feel
(10:38):
that painof receiving the imprint ever again.
The problem is,once you've walled something off,
you don't know it's there, soyou don't have anything to connect it to.
We're just completely unawarethat all of this has gone on.
When we're walling this thing off,we're are we walling
off the mother's imprint to protect it?
(11:00):
Or are we walling off our true self?
Because that shouldn't bubbleto the surface, because we have to be
so busytaking care of our mother's feelings.
I think what we're walling off is the pain
associated with receiving this imprint.
This package of negative feelingsdoesn't come in a benign way.
(11:23):
It comes with a, you know, kind of a slam.
This is incredibly toxic,incredibly painful to the psyche.
We don't want to feel that again.
It's awful.
So we actually wall it off to protectourselves from ever feeling that again.
Now what it also does is itkeeps us separated from our true selves.
(11:44):
It keeps us holding all of mom's
pain in a an imaginary way.
Really, we are imagining that fixed mom.
But the walling off is primarilyto never feel that pain again later.
Does itkeep us from being our true selves?
Yes it does.
Once we've taken in something like that,that is another person's.
(12:08):
We are now also part that other person.
We are no longer just ourselves.
In a way,when we when we come into this world
firstand in utero, we are in sort of this,
angelic space,let's say, for lack of a better word,
where there is no pain,
(12:29):
there is no questioning about who we are.
We're just in this sort of peaceful zone.
And then this imprint is delivered to us,and that hurts like hell.
It's like, whoa, did you ever just disturbwhat I thought was my existence?
I mean, that's all unconscious.
We all are in in utero. And.
(12:50):
And you think I don't like that?I don't like that.
And so you separate yourselffrom the pain? Yes.
You go.
You know, it's sort of like somebodydetonating a nuclear bomb in your mind,
and you go, okay, well,that almost killed me.
I don't ever want to touch that again.
So here are my new circumstances.
Push it away, wall it off,and we see this in dreams where I know
(13:11):
you and I have talked about this before,but I'll repeat it because you see,
people in dreams,people will have a baseball bat.
Somebody will come up from behind themand attack them with a baseball bat.
They take a huge blow to the head off,and you will have
patients have dreams where they areshot in the head or a ball comes,
(13:35):
you know, at an exceedingly high speed
and hits them in the headand they fall backwards, or they,
jump offof something high and crack the head.
So you actually start to, you know,if you listen long enough to everybody,
you start to see
these types of things repeatand they're all telling you something,
(13:57):
you know, after you explore them abouthow painful it is to receive an imprint.
And most of these, I think,are even underplaying the level of pain.
With enough work in this sort of therapythat you're doing
most people get to the placewhere they have a dream like that,
and for you, it's probably not shocking.
(14:18):
You're like, well, yeah,I mean, we're basically pretty
much everybodyhas had that experience in utero.
Yes, yes.
So at some point you typically getsome dreams that will talk about this.
It's a very interesting areabecause there are all kinds of dreams
that tell us about thesevery early experiences
(14:41):
and how people are both how they receivethis imprint and how painful it is.
And also you can start to see people will
all of a suddenthe thinking gets very fuzzy
and they thought they parked over hereand they can't get back to the car.
And the street is different.
And but I knew when I walked over thereit looked exactly like that.
(15:01):
And now I'm completely lost.
And so you start to see wherethese shifts happen after an imprint
also right of where it getsthe person off their center,
what will happenis you start to see the enormous confusion
after an imprint as well,so we can start to follow and say,
all right, this is what it doesto the mind, all unconscious.
(15:24):
So you may look at this lovely little babythat's born as, oh, great.
And everything looks perfect.
And hits all its numbers and,and everything is fine.
It just doesn't mean there hasn't
been internal psychic damage.
And that's.
And it's all unconscious and we'reall walking around with it more or less.
(15:46):
You know, some people are luckyand they have very mild imprints
for most of us, that's not the case.
And we've taken a real blow.
And it's changed us,
fundamentally changed us,and we never want to know about it again.
So the work of an analysis,I think, is really to get you back
to the earliest times, to start to say,
(16:10):
well, you're going to have to revisitthat enormous pain.
Hopefully it's not going to feel exactlylike that because we can analyze it
and you can use your adult selfnow to understand it in your dreams,
to talk about it.
But it is really going backto touch that pain
so that you can try to pull as much ofthat imprint off of yourself as possible.
(16:33):
So there you are.
You can find yourself.
Yes, but unlike an imprintwhich isn't necessarily defined by guilt,
the masochism piece where you received itand thought, oh my God, if she's carrying
my mother is carryingthis much pain, it's my fault.
That is a defining characteristic of that.
(16:54):
What do we do about that?
Analyze itlike we do with everything else.
Watch your dreams.
A lot of dreamswill show the masochistic peace.
It may or may not be the focal pointof that session or that dream,
but at some pointyou're going to be analyzing that.
You're going to be looking to say, okay,look at all of this suffering.
And if you can, you're distinguishing itfrom just an imprint.
(17:17):
But, you know, again, these are all
it's not like a surgical separationwithin the mind.
These bleed into each other.
Of course.
I see it's not like a step by step processlike you figure out
how to undo the masochism.And that leads you to the next thing.
To the. Next. That's right.
The message.
Is. Going to be woven into everything.
And that's the idea with certain peopleyou'll see just a little of this.
(17:41):
Other people, it is just an enduring wayof being in the world.
You know, you can see it inalmost everything. They're describing.
There's just this tremendous need to bepunished for this guilt that is felt.
But if you think about society now,what you just said
just applies so blatantly. Yes.
(18:04):
I mean, that is one of the reasonsI wanted to talk about it.
I think if we can imagine, okay,we are all carrying
some type of masochism.
There are waysin which we may punish ourselves.
We may just generally feel guilty.
We're bad.
We don't deserve good things.
We will make choices in our life
(18:27):
that don't let us have good things now.
Okay, put 500 of us in a roomand we're all doing that now.
Put a million, now put 20 million.
Right, and we're all walking around moreor less with this feeling.
Well, what are we going to create?
How good can our systems,our societies, be
(18:51):
if we all somewhere feel too guiltyto have it too good?
We're going to, you know, bring in rolein the austerity measures, right.
Oh, life was getting too good.
We can't have that.
Something will have to go wrong.
We have to undo it.
We have to sabotage ourselves.
Better start another war.
Better do something to ensure we suffer.
(19:14):
Cut back on those women's rights. Yes.
There are so many ways.
As many as you can imagine,
that we can begin to say, oh, well,we better suffer, we better suffer.
And the problem is this first lie,this idea that you are responsible
for your mother's painand therefore should be guilty
and then have to punish yourself,sits under all of our systems.
(19:36):
And it's a lie.
It is not true.
That is not why your mother was upset.
Your mother was upsetbecause she lived her own
life,and things went more or less well for her.
And she had her own parents.
And we can follow it backgenerationally to why
people are upset, why they have imprints,and what the imprints look like.
(19:59):
But it certainly is not that woman'schild's fault.
Not ever. Not ever.
Not ever.
And is that idea of this original lie?
If we don't really address it,
is it growing generation after generation?
I think it does.
I think the imprints, all of it grows,
(20:21):
and we want to start getting at itso it doesn't bleed into our genetics
so that it doesn't jump inand cover everything.
Yes, we we want to slow itdown, become aware of it
and start going, okay everybody,we have been so focused
on the external, but look what's going onright inside of us.
(20:41):
And this is the most powerful placebecause all of our ideas,
all of the things we are goingto enact out in the world start inside.
And if we don't occupy ourselveswith what is inside, how we work,
what's happening and how we makeall of our choices and decisions,
we cannot change things once it's left
(21:04):
us, you know, it's too it's too big,it's too powerful.
Once the systems are all out therein the world to fix it externally.
People may be tired of mesaying that, but.
But it truly is something where
if you don't get at everybody's guiltand so you're guilty.
You may have done things later in life,but certainly at the very beginning
(21:25):
you didn't do anything and you'rewalking around with a lie in your mind
that is causing youto do all kinds of behaviors
that aren't good for you,aren't going to support you.
And then we buildall of our systems off of that.
So how can you fix it out thereif you don't address it inside?
It'll just it either.
You might change it a little bit,but it'll come back.
(21:48):
So you can say, all right,we built this amazing place
and we have all these good things.
Eventually all of the people will comeand sit, but we all feel too guilty.
We can't have something good.So what do we want?
Okay, start a war.
Okay.
Tear it down. Okay.
Use the money for something else.
Don't feed the people.
Don't housethe people. Don't give them medical care.
(22:08):
And we all say, oh, okay.
Yes, we understand that.
Of course we. Yes, yes, that makes sense.
We can rationalize where all this, youknow, spend the money on something else.
And of course, we the people will suffer.
But where did we get that?
Well, we got that at the very beginningand we just substitute it.
All the politicians or leaders or kings,whatever you want
(22:30):
for our parents,the original authority figure.
So we all on some levelhave the ability to address this.
Obviouslywe all can't see someone like you
who's trained to help us with this, but
if we hear what you're saying and startto think about it, okay, maybe what?
Let me just think about what Loren saying.
(22:52):
Let me look at the world outside.
What's happening inside,
and we just begin to
acknowledge it and apply it and feel it.
Will that help us get to a placewhere we're thinking a that wait a minute.
As an individual, I have some powerto change what's happening outside.
(23:13):
If I can figure out what I was
beforeI had this bomb of an imprint hit me
because that person me was only meant
to be coming from a loving place.
Yes, anything helps.
So all of the places, you know,
if we start with masochism,because we're talking about that today,
(23:35):
you can start to look at yourself and go,where do I make myself suffer?
Where did I not get that work donequickly enough
so that I had to be all upsetand I couldn't enjoy it?
And then I couldn't go to the partybecause I needed to get something done.
You know, little placeswhere it just happens to work its way in.
And what did that feel like?
(23:56):
Why did I go there? Why did I do it? Yeah.
You know, people always say,why do I procrastinate? Yeah.
You know, okay, well, here'sa thought, right?
It may be because somewhere in the deepest
recesses of your mind,you're carrying guilt.
And Bale was say, here's the guilt.
Now, that doesn't meanbecause you know, other theorists
(24:17):
talk about this, and there are waysour families give us these messages.
You're only given emotional rewards
if you are self-sacrificing,if you deny your own feelings,
if you sufferthis gets built into families as well.
And then the family culture reaffirms it.
(24:39):
And then you go out in the world and say,okay, yeah, I'm only lovable
if I'm suffering.
And then
unconsciously that suffering becomes
some form of satisfaction or pleasure.
I deserve it.
Yes. Pleasurable and maybe not in the waywe normally think about it,
(24:59):
but pleasurable in thatit assuage is the guilt.
Okay. I rest.
I can rest because, you know, it was just,boy, life was getting too good.
I had to throw a wrench into itbecause I don't really deserve that.
Because that means then you
you are not protectingyour mother anymore.
Because you've trained yourself to do X,
(25:22):
Y, and Z, because you're so guiltythat your mom was upset.
And if you undo that,if you step out of that,
you're you're not helping your mom.
Well, potentially understanding the guiltdoesn't quite undo an imprint, right?
Because the imprint waswhere you were really helping your mom.
Then you were guilty because of it,because you assumed you caused it, right?
(25:47):
Yes. We have a problem there, which is
if you start to say,what if I'm not guilty?
Right?
Then what we're really looking at is,oh my gosh,
my mother is not the idealized figureI thought she was.
Maybe she came damaged.
Whoa. Right.
So we're disruptingthese very early concepts
(26:08):
that fetal life in earlychildhood is concerned with
in terms of I need this caretakerwho's in charge of my life
to hopefully be perfectbecause that means I will survive
if I hold all of her trouble.
I will survive.
This is very importantin terms of just basic human survival.
(26:30):
So we are not so differentfrom other animals in the jungle.
We have to survive.
We just do this all unconsciously inside.
We jump through all of these,you know, hoops and twists
and turnsand turn ourselves into pretzels,
trying to manage all of this
emotional damage.
(26:51):
You can see it in dreamsthat human beings do it.
And actually, maybe this is a good timebecause you were kind
enough to volunteer to of your own dreams.
Yeah.
So that we could share with peoplejust to to give an idea
of how dreams might talk about masochism.
Now, sometimes,as I said, it's not the main focus,
(27:14):
but the dream is riddled with itand you'll see it.
And sometimes you're going to interpretthat and sometimes you
you may or may not,depending on the content of the dream,
it may not be the most salient piecein that session.
But often you're going to see itand you know that
you will circle back around and get to it.
(27:36):
Because more dreams will continueto lead you there.
Absolutely. Okay, then.
All right.
In my dream, there is a manwho just finished writing a book.
I'm not actually part of the dream.
I'm watching the dream.
He seemed to be in his early 40s.
He has dark hair, wearsa white dress shirt and black slacks.
(27:58):
He is a psychologistor a psychoanalyst or something similar.
His book has a white book jacketwith a title
written out in fairly bold capital letters
says life is torture.
I wonder if people will want
to read this bookwith such a miserable title.
(28:20):
If we were really working,
I would let you start to tell meabout what comes to your mind.
What does it make you think of?
What were your feelings in the dream?
Who is this man? What do you imagine?
Tell me about the title.
All of this.
We're not going to do that here today,but I think people can get the flavor.
(28:40):
Oh my gosh.
Oh, here's the book.
Life is torture.
So it gives us a sense of your feelingsat that time
that you were trying to talk aboutand say, you know, here's a piece of it.
Oh my gosh, it's going to be so hard.
I mean, we could we could question, right?
Is this the book of life
(29:02):
or the the manual for how it goes?
And this was a dream of a few years ago.
And I can think back to those timeswhen I was pretty fearful of
undoing everything
I thought was a known entityabout my life.
Like, no, these are my parents.
This is everything's just wonderful.
(29:24):
These are my relationships.
Everything's great.
And I was afraid to dealwith the truth of myself.
It was it was scary and vast and unknowncould possibly put me in a place.
It was way worse than this other placethat I had molded for myself.
Yeah. So you say in the dream, right?
(29:45):
Who's going to read that book?
Yeah.
You know,which is a way of saying it's resistance.
Right. You know.
Oh my gosh,who I don't want to read this book.
And nobody else doeseither. I'm not alone in this.
Right. Everybody's on my side. See whowhy would you do that?
Why would you do it?
I don't even want to readthis book at all.
I don't want to look at it,but it is letting us see.
(30:08):
But here is what I have feltlife was to be torture.
This may touch on an imprint.
This may, you know, depending on whatwas going on in your life at that moment,
what the stimulus was for this particulardream.
We'd want to be thinking aboutall of that, but it also gives us a sense
that how is this person going to beliving his or her life, your life?
(30:32):
If life is to be torture,
you're going to have to finda lot of things that make it torture.
That is a piece where we see the masochismcome in now.
I expectwe would see it in a lot of places,
because if life is to be torture,we're not going to see a lot of fun.
We're not going to see a lot of thingsthat feel great being allowed in
(30:55):
right away.
Those might be pushed aside.
And it does feel likethat very thick, serious book
was the book of my life.
That was it. That's the story.
Here's the story.
Don't make me look at it.
Thank you.
Okay,
(31:15):
I don't remember much about this dream.
I've been somewhere and I am now
leaving with my dad in his vehicle.
As we are leaving,I realize that I've left my purse
and a small overnight bag at the placeI had been at.
We are driving awayand I am afraid to tell my dad this
(31:36):
because I don't want to upset himor cause a delay for him.
I struggle in my headand try to rationalize that maybe
I don't need the items left behind, orthat this is a really good lesson for me,
and I'll feel itby not getting my things back.
So the masochism in this one is rightthere as well.
(32:00):
This is a good lesson for me.
I deserve this. And it's going to hurt.
It's going to hurt and I'll feel it.
I'll feel it.
And I deserve to not get my things back.
Now this dream has a lot in it.
And again,if we were really working on this dream,
I would let you just start
(32:21):
to tell meabout all the elements in the dream.
Where are you?
You give us a big story, which is aI lose myself, I have to leave this behind
and I'm scaredto make any attempt to get it back.
You know, this is a very common experiencefor people.
These types of dreams
(32:42):
come all the time and long periods of timewhere you are working on this.
Oh, I did, I lost part of myself.
I lost the keys to my car.
I misplaced my car.
I thought I parked it over there,I parked it there.
I lost my suitcase.
I lost my purse,my briefcase, my wallet, my cell phone.
So many ways people
(33:02):
use to describe losing themselves,not being allowed
to be their fullest selfin some way, shape or form.
Like in my dream.
There was rationalization on some level.
Well, you know, you really don'tdeserve that or you deserve it.
You lost it. That's right.
And that's a masochism piece.
(33:22):
I deserve it somehow.
Why do you deserve it?
What did you do that really warrants?
You shouldn't have your full self.
For most of us, nothing.
You know.
And because we're you're dreaming it.
Now as an adult, you're telling me this.
But that is probably somethingthat happened
not recently, a long, long time ago.
(33:45):
So what do little kidswhat do in fetus infant
children do that would warrant them
not getting full accessto their whole self?
Nothing nothing.
Nothing.
And and as adults with the abilityto consider this what you've just said
and you think about our childrenin the world and you think about
(34:08):
putting this on them unconsciously,consciously, whatever it is,
if you have feelings about that,it is crushing.
It's it's it's why would you want anyoneto live like that?
And you think about these little oneswho unconscious mostly
are walking through starting lifelike this.
(34:31):
It's a tragedy.
For the whole world,
you know, every every child that doesn'tget to be his or her true self.
We all feel.
We all feel the pain.
I think we have this ideathat you're separate.
We all feel it.
Every war, we all feel it.
You have to be careful with your children.
(34:52):
You know,sometimes we slip and say things and
that wasn't nice.
That just wasn't nice.
You have to go apologizebecause that child felt it.
And some kidsonly get a few of those experiences.
Some kidsget too many of those experiences.
Well, what are you teaching?
(35:13):
You're teaching a child againto be masochistic.
Something's wrong with you.
You made Mom and Dad angry.
You're bad.
All right, well, if I'm bad, you beat me.
I'm bad.
Guess what?
I have to go live as a bad person.
Bad people don't deserve good things.
We get enough of that in our society.
(35:34):
We can't have good things becausethe unconscious will won't allow it again.
We all have to help to treat each otherbetter, give each other things.
You know this idea that, oh, you know,you're not entitled to health care?
What kind of craziness is thiswhen you really think about it? Why?
(35:55):
I mean, it's so much easier to say
you are entitled to health care, right?
I mean, isn't that I mean, that's just.
And food and education and human rightsbasic should be basic.
But we as a group have decided
that some people get to be in chargeof deciding that.
(36:15):
And otherswe just take it and we say, oh, oh,
there must be a very good reasonthat we are not entitled to that.
It's expensive.
Oh, but we have trillions of dollarsto go spend on wars.
And trillions of dollars held exclusivelyby very few people on the planet.
We have that too.
(36:36):
So we have all manner of waysin which we can
reenact the, You are the mother.
I am the bad child, I am guilty,so I deserve all bad treatment.
And you are idealized.
If you have money, you must bethe most powerful but perfect mother also.
(36:56):
So we won't makeyou have to change anything.
We will suffer for you.
And is there more and more of this running
through our communal unconscious?
I would say therecertainly is enough of it.
There's enough of it.
That's we've just been living withfor as long
as we've been doing this,but we don't need to.
(37:19):
I think the point is we don't need to.
This can be a timewhere people feel like everything is
spinningout of control or falling apart or,
you know, and look, this isn't Partizan.
Ask anybody on either side.
You know, people have are havingsimilar experiences, but we don't need to.
(37:40):
We don't need to, but we have to changeeverything we're doing.
And it's not workingbecause nobody's happy anyway.
So we have to change everythingwe're doing, which is to say
this can now be a timewhere we all turn inward
and start to look at ourselves,start to understand
that we are much deeper,that we have an unconscious,
(38:00):
we are much deeper than anybody imagined,and we are all connected this way.
And we don't have to start from a placeof guilt as though we deserve bad things.
We don't have to live with imprintsthat then compound all of this.
We don't have to live with any of it.
We are actually supposedto have good lives
(38:22):
and we have to work to get there.
And we do that by starting inside.
Each person has to see where are youheld back
within yourself because that'swhat you bring to the group.
So it is self-serving, of course,
but the only way we can truly, honestly.
Be. There is to get to our authentic self
(38:46):
where we can actually actfrom a good, honest, loving place.
Right?
We have to decide we are entitled to love,but if we're too guilty, we're bad.
We don't get love.
Okay, you know,that's one of the nice things
that that people may say, oh, well,I may not punish myself completely,
but I'm certainly not entitledto something as pleasurable as love.
(39:09):
Well, okay.
But that means we are bringingthat mindset to the group
and you get enough peoplewith that mindset.
Then you can't have a government
that acts loving towardsloving lead towards the people.
All of this, yes,
people often will sell, but it'sso selfish to just focus on yourself.
But we have to.
You have to do it.
You have to really understand yourselfand how you work, and that you know that
(39:33):
you have an unconscious, a part of youthat you're completely unaware of.
But that is actually what driveseverything you do.
And that lets youthen if you can work on yourself
and understand that,you can be a better group member.
So there is a selfish piece,
but a healthy, selfish piece,and then you give to the collective.
(39:58):
And I think too,if you can start to think about this,
if you find momentswhere you have a glimmer, that thing
that I just experienced there,that was some kind of love and happiness,
maybe that's different than what
I feel over here in my little arena,and I don't even know what that is
(40:19):
or how you get there.
But if you if you see it and feel it,if you can really remark on that and,
and give yourself opportunitiesto grow that feeling
that I think could helpyou understand that there's
so much more to youthan what you think there is,
and that there is another way of beingthat is healthier, happier,
(40:40):
more satisfying, more helpfulto your community, to humanity.
I mean, we're all only here
because we're partsand pieces of the same thing, right?
Well, and I'll go back to your dream.
Part of the dilemma is we're all carryinga book that says life is torture
and that's the operating manual.
Right? Okay. I'm in.
What else is. There?
How do you get a glimpse? Right.
If that's the operating manual,you have to.
(41:03):
As you said,I think you have to keep an eye out.
Are there any experiencesthat don't validate that?
That's the operating manualthat don't support that idea?
Well, for some people,the way that locks into the lens,
you see everything where it's too strong,it's it's too solid.
(41:24):
So you don't even say, oh, well, you know,I had that other experience
and that that tells me something new.
Maybe you do.
And if so, yes, grab that.
No, it's possible,but I think people also have to start
knowing we are all in some way, shapeor form carrying that book.
We all just believe the human conditionis to suffer and it just isn't.
(41:48):
I remember as a young teenager going over
to a friend's house, kind of a new friend,but I was really impressed with her.
She's just happy go lucky kid.
I went and her whole family was there.
She had a big family.
I had a little tiny familyand they were talking and arguing
and rolling their eyesand touching each other, and they laughed.
(42:12):
They'd be happy and mad and happy.
And it was so curious to me.
And I remember riding my bike homeand thinking, what is wrong with them?
And I'm
sure they had their issueslike the rest of us,
but they were showing each othersome amount of love
that was ailing into me,and it didn't fit into my picture.
(42:34):
I think that happens to kids a lot.
They have a family culture.
You grow up, you get a little olderand start going over to your friends
houses and suddenly,if your mind will allow it,
you get to see that it's different.
And sometimes that's goodbecause it completely opens it.
Sometimes the mind will go,oh no, that's a problem.
(42:55):
It's different.
I recognize it's different,
but we'll have to judgethat is completely unacceptable.
Or what is. Wrong with them?Yeah, right. Yeah.
And sometimes it also makes kidsgo what's wrong with my family?
What is wrong with usthat we don't do x, y, z?
Why don't we hug like that?
Why don't we sit on the couch togetherand watch a movie? What?
(43:17):
Whatever it. Is. But that's a good thing.
It's a very good thing that intrudes onlife is miserable or torture.
Life is torture.
It intrudes.
So we're looking for things,hopefully in the positive way
that intrude upon usand make you have to reassess
everything you thought was trueabout the world, yourself and others.
(43:39):
And I think for me, when I was doing thatand looking
in this kind of family situationfull of depth and, and love,
and I still had to go backand live with my family,
that was not like that at all.
I had to make it okay.
So I had to make everything,make there be something wrong
(43:59):
with what they were doing.
And we do this all the time.
Yeah, either either it gets to shatterthe ideas
or it's too dangerous to threatening.
And then we pick it apart.
Here are all the reasons that's not good.
But they were angry.But they were yelling.
But they were.
Whatever it is.
Right?
And we can say, oh, see,I don't have to now.
(44:22):
Yeah, I don't,I don't have to feel upset that I don't.
Have that right. It'skind of a heartbreak.
It's a it's a big heartbreakif you really feel it.
I think all of these arewhat we're looking for in ourselves
are where where do younot let yourself have a happy life?
And that may be an imprint.
(44:43):
And if it's guilt and God,
I just don't feelI really deserve something good to happen.
And I keep sabotaging myselfand I keep on doing anything good.
And if there's two choices, I will pickthe one that makes sure that I suffer.
Then you can see where the masochism
is also driving things.
(45:05):
And do you have any other
little insights into how we
people, without access to people like you,
can begin to feel or think about this?
I think the first thingis just knowing this exists,
that we have an unconsciousand it's beautiful, you know, when
(45:26):
whether you have someone to talk toor not, every night when you go to sleep,
you have a chance to have,I mean, at least one dream.
You may have many and you may remember it,and at least you can start
to be curious about yourself.
This is not just fragging the hard drive.
This is not just a biological reorderingof stressors from the day.
(45:46):
This is really a communication
from the highest part of myself.
And if I can at least honor thatand know that I am capable of that
and start to be curious, at least
you may not have the help of somebodywho can go through it
all with you and understand.
But at least instead of going that way,not knowing any of that is true,
(46:09):
you can start to at least go towardsthis idea
that yes, we are much more than that.
We have all of this potential inside of usand it isn't external.
I mean, the external world is amazing,but it's also incredibly distracting.
We can all get busywith the latest technological advantage
or political news or whatever it is.
(46:31):
Go inside.
You want really high tech.
How about our ability to communicateincredibly deep emotional ideas
that are the bedrock for how we liveour lives in a dream every single night?
That's huge.
I think you can start to shift
how you view us and where we are goingand what needs to happen.
(46:53):
Because even someone like me,who has a dream where I'm
reading the title of a book calledLife Is Torture,
if anybody has that dream,I mean, that's that's pretty loaded.
That gives you a lot to think about.
That's right.Why am I dreaming about this?
Oh my gosh. Right.
And you can say, oh well see
I don't like it because I think nobodywould want to read that book.
(47:15):
But we have to know ourselvesa bit and say, okay, well, typically
if I take the time in the effortto make that the main focus of a dream,
then it isn't because I don't need to knowabout that book.
It's that I really need to know about it.
And even if part of me is saying,don't make me read it, it's
who's going to read that?
(47:36):
It's an awful title, and I'm surethere is a part of you that says, I'm.
I don't torture myself every minute.
There's another part that says,but this is the book I'm living from.
I read this every night.
I'm a I'm a good girl.
I read my book,and my book is life is torture.
And that's all I know.
I don't. Question it.
This is what I'm to do.
(47:57):
And now we're saying, well, question,
start questioning, startquestioning everything.
Why is it this way? Why is that that way?
Why do I put up with this?
Why do I do that to myself?
Yeah. Great question. Why?
I say just give it a try.
Just startasking these questions of yourself
and think about the feelingsrelated to the statements.
(48:20):
So that's a place to at least start.
I learned so much. It's it's huge.
And to understandhow masochism is sort of layered
on top of our imprint. Yes.
And and it really finds its way.
It's not just our lives,
but we are bringing this to everythingwe set up as humans.
(48:40):
And we're all doing itor doing the same. Thing.
That's right.
This isn't one where you can say,oh, but see,
those people do it,the other does it, not me.
No. We are all as human beings doing this.
And it is say this all comesfrom the original
experience of receiving an imprintand then feeling,
and it's my faultshe was upset and it's my fault.
(49:04):
Now. We do this again laterwith our fathers, but I'm starting where
the fetus starts inside of the mother,and this is the original blow.
That doesn't mean laterwe aren't very occupied
with our fathersor other people in our family.
We are anybody who's taking care of us.
That could be, you know,two moms, two dads, whomever it is,
(49:25):
aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents.
Doesn't matter.
We will take all of them inand also feel some guilt around it.
But that is because the template is set,set down
in the original dyadand then we just live it out.
We are the little babies,and anybody who's in
(49:45):
charge of us is the idealized parent.
And we take the suffering.
You know, there are many more of us
who are not billionairesthan those that are.
There are many more of us who are not thepoliticians in charge than those who are.
And we take. Itand we do. It's normalized.
(50:06):
We take it, and we have to.
And they tell us, well,we can't do this or that, and we say, oh,
we understandthat we would really like it, but
we understand thatthat's not possible right now.
Well, wait a minute. Hold on a minute.
But you work for us, but you work for us.
We want this. You can't say no.
(50:27):
Figure out
how todo it or give the job to someone else.
But we don't ask that of people.
We say, oh, you can't do it.
We understand. Right?
So this is a problembecause we're all living
in this masochistic way.
So I have to suffer.
Yeah, I just I don't deserve the bestand deserve the best life.
(50:49):
So you're going to help me suffer and.
You'll help me. I'll keep you.
You tell me you can't do it. Great.
I'll elect you to office 50 times.
I will keep voting for you.
So it's everywhere.
But we can all take a sigh of reliefor feel a little refreshed,
knowing thatthe most important thing you can do
is to go inward, really,
(51:11):
and find your own loving operating system.
And you can do something. Yes.
And if you can shift that in yourself,you may vote for somebody different.
You may influence your neighborsor your larger group around you,
even if you're just shifting the feelingI'm no longer going to live that way.
(51:33):
Why do you want to live that way?
How about we get someone in office
that wants to give us something goodand feels I can do it.
Instead we say,oh no, you know how the system is.
Nobody can really change anything.
Well, yes.
If we continue to hold on to all of this
and and just keep our bookwith our operating system.
Life is torture.
(51:54):
All right. Oh, yeah, of course it is.
I won't ask for any.
I'm in the right place. That's it.Thank you.
Thank you so much. Super interesting.
Thank you so much.Thank you for joining us.
And we'll look forward to seeing younext time.
Stay with us and pay attentionto us on your favorite social media site.
(52:17):
And.
Hello, I'm
Cynthia Marks and I head up the HolisticPsychoanalysis Foundation
established by my latehusband, Doctor Bernard Bail.
Welcome to And Now Love.
Doctor Loren Weiner is here today.
Always a treat.
And we are going to talk about masochism.
(00:24):
Right. That's what. We're doing.
So first off.
Hello. Of course.
What is masochism.
This is a very wellknown psychoanalytic concept.
I think many people are alsojust generally familiar with the idea,
but it is a character trait
(00:45):
where people carry unconscious guilt
and then live their lives
trying to assuage that unconscious guilt
by self-sabotaging self punishment
or denying themselves good things,and that there is a feeling,
unconsciously, that the person deserves
(01:09):
some type of suffering or punishmentbecause of this guilt,
and the guilt is usually very undefined,meaning it
isn't traceable to one thing,but it is more of a false self-concept
that the personsomehow deserves some of the punishment
or in some way to not have something good.
(01:33):
Can you give us kind of a real lifeexample of how that would present itself?
Yeah.
So some people might
do something really simplethat we all know, which is procrastinate.
Now, there may be many reasonsthat isn't always masochism,
but one of the things that often does is
(01:53):
makes it sothat the person can't do their best job.
I don't deserve to turn in my best
homework assignment or report for my job,
so I will procrastinate and then, oh, see,
I couldn't do the best thingand I'm punished.
In a sense. I've self sabotaged.
(02:14):
I've kept myself from being the bestI can be,
but it's all stemmingfrom this unconscious guilt.
Right.
So the person really believes deep inside,
I've done somethingand I don't deserve the best.
So it's more than thereis just some unconscious
(02:36):
satisfaction in being dissatisfied.
It's bigger than that. It's.
It's it's as if you know no other way.
You're kind of innately going that way,
because this is how it'sbeen since the beginning for you. Yes.
I assume that the origins of thisare very early,
(02:57):
meaning most people have this style style
of relating to themselves in the world,and that starts very early.
Bail would go back and saythat this starts at the very beginning,
and his understanding is a littledifferent than some of the other theories.
Freud talked about this,that it's not just getting a pleasure.
(03:20):
And now all of this unconscious.
I want to say thatbecause most of the time people
aren't walking around saying,oh, I have to be punished.
You know?
It's just that they keep findingthemselves in these predicament. Yes.
They keep self-sabotaging themselves,you know, there.
You know another example, right?
You're supposed to complete a project
(03:41):
and at the last minute you accidentally,you know, have some disaster happen
where you've dropped your computer and,you know, a car ran over it.
Okay.
We would say what you know,obviously something's at work there.
What is it?
Well, there may be an unconscious feeling
that, you know,this report was going to be great.
(04:01):
I'm not allowed to turn it in.
Or if I'm going to,it has to be so painful,
so difficult that now I'm going to nowhave to stay up all night
redoing this workand where it should have just been like
you'd get to do itand you get to turn it in and that's it.
So we now these are little waysin which we see masochism.
(04:22):
And again, because it's a continuum,
you know,you may see it in in large ways as well.
Back to your question.
His idea differs from other theorists
in that he says this actually startsat the very beginning.
His idea is that the guilt reallyarises from the moment the
(04:43):
fetus receives an imprint from the mother.
Now I go to the mother.
Not that it doesn't happen laterwith the father, but it's later.
So the origin know dyad, the mother
and the fetus when that imprint.
So again, this is unconscious.
The imprint is a deliveryof all of the unprocessed,
(05:06):
negative feelingsa mother carries about herself, all of her
problems, all of the ways she feelsshe's not good enough.
When that is delivered to the fetus,and the fetus,
in essence takes this and says, okay, mom,
you are suffering, I will take this.
Now the problem is many,
(05:27):
but in terms of masochism is that
if mom is that upset,the fetus assumes it's my fault.
So it's not justthe fetus is splitting its own mind
and taking all of this mother'spain and trauma in.
Additionally,that fetus thinks this is my fault.
Bail called this the first liethat his idea was.
(05:51):
We then start from a guilty place.
Oh my God, I caused this.I am somehow bad.
I must not only take it,but live with this guilt
that I must have been the root causefor all your suffering.
It is because of the mother's imprintthat we get to the place
of living our lives in this.
(06:14):
Guilt. Way.
Masochism. That's right.
That that.
Then that guilt sits.
Then what do we do with the guilt?
And we may have to assuage it in some way.
How much guilt we feel.
And this is part of the reasonI think the guilt is often
not defined because it is such
(06:34):
an early unconscious origin.
So we're all walking aroundwith some of this guilt.
And again,a continuum depends how much trouble.
How much pain was your mother inand how much did you feel responsible.
And if that starts at the rootfor all of us,
(06:57):
then you can imagine we carry thisnot only into our own lives,
but we carry it into every system,every relationship, and every system.
We make, you know?
So we're always rubbing off oneverybody else around us.
And, yes, and building our societieswith this embedded in it.
And if we're all rolling through lifewith this sort of same root,
(07:21):
it just kind of perpetuates. Yes.
And if it's all unconscious
and then it's never touched,we just keep living that way.
So you just somewhere deserveto be punished for something.
And that is relieving
in a certain way or pleasurablebecause you know you are guilty.
(07:44):
So of course I deserve this.
And then there's something satisfyingabout that, because that's the world,
you know, and you kind of train yourselfto stay within these parameters.
I don't deserve that.
I can't go therebecause that'll upset my mother,
who is now more than just your mother.
(08:05):
It's, you know, sort of every authorityout there, right?
It becomes global so that, yes, that'swhat happens.
And, you know, this is because we're human
and it happensat the time of receiving the imprint.
It is very closely related to it.
But you add that piece ofand it's my fault.
(08:25):
So it's not just some prohibition, meaningyou're not to have love in your life.
You're not to be a success.
You're to have a tough go,
which may be some of the imprintspeople are familiar with.
This really adds a piece.
That is, and it's your fault,and it's your fault.
You originally caused your motherall of this trouble.
(08:47):
It's your fault.
And as you said, it's the original lie.
But in our lives we're like,oh yeah, I get that.
It's my fault.
So of course this is where I am.
It's my fault and all unconscious.
So we have to all look at ourselvesand say, okay, where are we
masochistic, where do we punish ourselves?
Self-sabotage.
(09:07):
And later theorists added that you willdeny yourself pleasure in other ways.
So it's not necessarily only punishment.
But maybe I'm just not entitledto good things or if there's
something good happening in my life,I may start to feel too guilty.
And then I either have to undo itor stop being a part of whatever that is,
(09:31):
because there's no way I get all of thatgood experience sense.
I'm too guilty. I don't deserve that.
And then there's the other ideaabout guilt
in that at some momentswe feel a little uncomfortable
because we did something that we know
(09:51):
was maybe not in the best interestof someone we care about.
That's a whole different thing.
Is that right? It's yes.
There's a lot to talk about
in terms of guilt,and some of that is appropriate guilt.
That's a more mature place where you canthen make reparations.
I mean, potentially, if you understand
it, you know, in yourself, you canyou can say, oh, I did something.
(10:14):
I don't feel comfortable with, right.
That and a lot of that is more conscious.
Right. We know we did something.
This is truly so early and so un conscious
because when we receive that imprintwe split that off
and that we deny this in our own minds.
We split our own minds unconsciously,so we don't have to feel
(10:38):
that painof receiving the imprint ever again.
The problem is,once you've walled something off,
you don't know it's there, soyou don't have anything to connect it to.
We're just completely unawarethat all of this has gone on.
When we're walling this thing off,we're are we walling
off the mother's imprint to protect it?
(11:00):
Or are we walling off our true self?
Because that shouldn't bubbleto the surface, because we have to be
so busytaking care of our mother's feelings.
I think what we're walling off is the pain
associated with receiving this imprint.
This package of negative feelingsdoesn't come in a benign way.
(11:23):
It comes with a, you know, kind of a slam.
This is incredibly toxic,incredibly painful to the psyche.
We don't want to feel that again.
It's awful.
So we actually wall it off to protectourselves from ever feeling that again.
Now what it also does is itkeeps us separated from our true selves.
(11:44):
It keeps us holding all of mom's
pain in a an imaginary way.
Really, we are imagining that fixed mom.
But the walling off is primarilyto never feel that pain again later.
Does itkeep us from being our true selves?
Yes it does.
Once we've taken in something like that,that is another person's.
(12:08):
We are now also part that other person.
We are no longer just ourselves.
In a way,when we when we come into this world
firstand in utero, we are in sort of this,
angelic space,let's say, for lack of a better word,
where there is no pain,
(12:29):
there is no questioning about who we are.
We're just in this sort of peaceful zone.
And then this imprint is delivered to us,and that hurts like hell.
It's like, whoa, did you ever just disturbwhat I thought was my existence?
I mean, that's all unconscious.
We all are in in utero. And.
(12:50):
And you think I don't like that?I don't like that.
And so you separate yourselffrom the pain? Yes.
You go.
You know, it's sort of like somebodydetonating a nuclear bomb in your mind,
and you go, okay, well,that almost killed me.
I don't ever want to touch that again.
So here are my new circumstances.
Push it away, wall it off,and we see this in dreams where I know
(13:11):
you and I have talked about this before,but I'll repeat it because you see,
people in dreams,people will have a baseball bat.
Somebody will come up from behind themand attack them with a baseball bat.
They take a huge blow to the head off,and you will have
patients have dreams where they areshot in the head or a ball comes,
(13:35):
you know, at an exceedingly high speed
and hits them in the headand they fall backwards, or they,
jump offof something high and crack the head.
So you actually start to, you know,if you listen long enough to everybody,
you start to see
these types of things repeatand they're all telling you something,
(13:57):
you know, after you explore them abouthow painful it is to receive an imprint.
And most of these, I think,are even underplaying the level of pain.
With enough work in this sort of therapythat you're doing
most people get to the placewhere they have a dream like that,
and for you, it's probably not shocking.
(14:18):
You're like, well, yeah,I mean, we're basically pretty
much everybodyhas had that experience in utero.
Yes, yes.
So at some point you typically getsome dreams that will talk about this.
It's a very interesting areabecause there are all kinds of dreams
that tell us about thesevery early experiences
(14:41):
and how people are both how they receivethis imprint and how painful it is.
And also you can start to see people will
all of a suddenthe thinking gets very fuzzy
and they thought they parked over hereand they can't get back to the car.
And the street is different.
And but I knew when I walked over thereit looked exactly like that.
(15:01):
And now I'm completely lost.
And so you start to see wherethese shifts happen after an imprint
also right of where it getsthe person off their center,
what will happenis you start to see the enormous confusion
after an imprint as well,so we can start to follow and say,
all right, this is what it doesto the mind, all unconscious.
(15:24):
So you may look at this lovely little babythat's born as, oh, great.
And everything looks perfect.
And hits all its numbers and,and everything is fine.
It just doesn't mean there hasn't
been internal psychic damage.
And that's.
And it's all unconscious and we'reall walking around with it more or less.
(15:46):
You know, some people are luckyand they have very mild imprints
for most of us, that's not the case.
And we've taken a real blow.
And it's changed us,
fundamentally changed us,and we never want to know about it again.
So the work of an analysis,I think, is really to get you back
to the earliest times, to start to say,
(16:10):
well, you're going to have to revisitthat enormous pain.
Hopefully it's not going to feel exactlylike that because we can analyze it
and you can use your adult selfnow to understand it in your dreams,
to talk about it.
But it is really going backto touch that pain
so that you can try to pull as much ofthat imprint off of yourself as possible.
(16:33):
So there you are.
You can find yourself.
Yes, but unlike an imprintwhich isn't necessarily defined by guilt,
the masochism piece where you received itand thought, oh my God, if she's carrying
my mother is carryingthis much pain, it's my fault.
That is a defining characteristic of that.
(16:54):
What do we do about that?
Analyze itlike we do with everything else.
Watch your dreams.
A lot of dreamswill show the masochistic peace.
It may or may not be the focal pointof that session or that dream,
but at some pointyou're going to be analyzing that.
You're going to be looking to say, okay,look at all of this suffering.
And if you can, you're distinguishing itfrom just an imprint.
(17:17):
But, you know, again, these are all
it's not like a surgical separationwithin the mind.
These bleed into each other.
Of course.
I see it's not like a step by step processlike you figure out
how to undo the masochism.And that leads you to the next thing.
To the. Next. That's right.
The message.
Is. Going to be woven into everything.
And that's the idea with certain peopleyou'll see just a little of this.
(17:41):
Other people, it is just an enduring wayof being in the world.
You know, you can see it inalmost everything. They're describing.
There's just this tremendous need to bepunished for this guilt that is felt.
But if you think about society now,what you just said
just applies so blatantly. Yes.
(18:04):
I mean, that is one of the reasonsI wanted to talk about it.
I think if we can imagine, okay,we are all carrying
some type of masochism.
There are waysin which we may punish ourselves.
We may just generally feel guilty.
We're bad.
We don't deserve good things.
We will make choices in our life
(18:27):
that don't let us have good things now.
Okay, put 500 of us in a roomand we're all doing that now.
Put a million, now put 20 million.
Right, and we're all walking around moreor less with this feeling.
Well, what are we going to create?
How good can our systems,our societies, be
(18:51):
if we all somewhere feel too guiltyto have it too good?
We're going to, you know, bring in rolein the austerity measures, right.
Oh, life was getting too good.
We can't have that.
Something will have to go wrong.
We have to undo it.
We have to sabotage ourselves.
Better start another war.
Better do something to ensure we suffer.
(19:14):
Cut back on those women's rights. Yes.
There are so many ways.
As many as you can imagine,
that we can begin to say, oh, well,we better suffer, we better suffer.
And the problem is this first lie,this idea that you are responsible
for your mother's painand therefore should be guilty
and then have to punish yourself,sits under all of our systems.
(19:36):
And it's a lie.
It is not true.
That is not why your mother was upset.
Your mother was upsetbecause she lived her own
life,and things went more or less well for her.
And she had her own parents.
And we can follow it backgenerationally to why
people are upset, why they have imprints,and what the imprints look like.
(19:59):
But it certainly is not that woman'schild's fault.
Not ever. Not ever.
Not ever.
And is that idea of this original lie?
If we don't really address it,
is it growing generation after generation?
I think it does.
I think the imprints, all of it grows,
(20:21):
and we want to start getting at itso it doesn't bleed into our genetics
so that it doesn't jump inand cover everything.
Yes, we we want to slow itdown, become aware of it
and start going, okay everybody,we have been so focused
on the external, but look what's going onright inside of us.
(20:41):
And this is the most powerful placebecause all of our ideas,
all of the things we are goingto enact out in the world start inside.
And if we don't occupy ourselveswith what is inside, how we work,
what's happening and how we makeall of our choices and decisions,
we cannot change things once it's left
(21:04):
us, you know, it's too it's too big,it's too powerful.
Once the systems are all out therein the world to fix it externally.
People may be tired of mesaying that, but.
But it truly is something where
if you don't get at everybody's guiltand so you're guilty.
You may have done things later in life,but certainly at the very beginning
(21:25):
you didn't do anything and you'rewalking around with a lie in your mind
that is causing youto do all kinds of behaviors
that aren't good for you,aren't going to support you.
And then we buildall of our systems off of that.
So how can you fix it out thereif you don't address it inside?
It'll just it either.
You might change it a little bit,but it'll come back.
(21:48):
So you can say, all right,we built this amazing place
and we have all these good things.
Eventually all of the people will comeand sit, but we all feel too guilty.
We can't have something good.So what do we want?
Okay, start a war.
Okay.
Tear it down. Okay.
Use the money for something else.
Don't feed the people.
Don't housethe people. Don't give them medical care.
(22:08):
And we all say, oh, okay.
Yes, we understand that.
Of course we. Yes, yes, that makes sense.
We can rationalize where all this, youknow, spend the money on something else.
And of course, we the people will suffer.
But where did we get that?
Well, we got that at the very beginningand we just substitute it.
All the politicians or leaders or kings,whatever you want
(22:30):
for our parents,the original authority figure.
So we all on some levelhave the ability to address this.
Obviouslywe all can't see someone like you
who's trained to help us with this, but
if we hear what you're saying and startto think about it, okay, maybe what?
Let me just think about what Loren saying.
(22:52):
Let me look at the world outside.
What's happening inside,
and we just begin to
acknowledge it and apply it and feel it.
Will that help us get to a placewhere we're thinking a that wait a minute.
As an individual, I have some powerto change what's happening outside.
(23:13):
If I can figure out what I was
beforeI had this bomb of an imprint hit me
because that person me was only meant
to be coming from a loving place.
Yes, anything helps.
So all of the places, you know,
if we start with masochism,because we're talking about that today,
(23:35):
you can start to look at yourself and go,where do I make myself suffer?
Where did I not get that work donequickly enough
so that I had to be all upsetand I couldn't enjoy it?
And then I couldn't go to the partybecause I needed to get something done.
You know, little placeswhere it just happens to work its way in.
And what did that feel like?
(23:56):
Why did I go there? Why did I do it? Yeah.
You know, people always say,why do I procrastinate? Yeah.
You know, okay, well, here'sa thought, right?
It may be because somewhere in the deepest
recesses of your mind,you're carrying guilt.
And Bale was say, here's the guilt.
Now, that doesn't meanbecause you know, other theorists
(24:17):
talk about this, and there are waysour families give us these messages.
You're only given emotional rewards
if you are self-sacrificing,if you deny your own feelings,
if you sufferthis gets built into families as well.
And then the family culture reaffirms it.
(24:39):
And then you go out in the world and say,okay, yeah, I'm only lovable
if I'm suffering.
And then
unconsciously that suffering becomes
some form of satisfaction or pleasure.
I deserve it.
Yes. Pleasurable and maybe not in the waywe normally think about it,
(24:59):
but pleasurable in thatit assuage is the guilt.
Okay. I rest.
I can rest because, you know, it was just,boy, life was getting too good.
I had to throw a wrench into itbecause I don't really deserve that.
Because that means then you
you are not protectingyour mother anymore.
Because you've trained yourself to do X,
(25:22):
Y, and Z, because you're so guiltythat your mom was upset.
And if you undo that,if you step out of that,
you're you're not helping your mom.
Well, potentially understanding the guiltdoesn't quite undo an imprint, right?
Because the imprint waswhere you were really helping your mom.
Then you were guilty because of it,because you assumed you caused it, right?
(25:47):
Yes. We have a problem there, which is
if you start to say,what if I'm not guilty?
Right?
Then what we're really looking at is,oh my gosh,
my mother is not the idealized figureI thought she was.
Maybe she came damaged.
Whoa. Right.
So we're disruptingthese very early concepts
(26:08):
that fetal life in earlychildhood is concerned with
in terms of I need this caretakerwho's in charge of my life
to hopefully be perfectbecause that means I will survive
if I hold all of her trouble.
I will survive.
This is very importantin terms of just basic human survival.
(26:30):
So we are not so differentfrom other animals in the jungle.
We have to survive.
We just do this all unconsciously inside.
We jump through all of these,you know, hoops and twists
and turnsand turn ourselves into pretzels,
trying to manage all of this
emotional damage.
(26:51):
You can see it in dreamsthat human beings do it.
And actually, maybe this is a good timebecause you were kind
enough to volunteer to of your own dreams.
Yeah.
So that we could share with peoplejust to to give an idea
of how dreams might talk about masochism.
Now, sometimes,as I said, it's not the main focus,
(27:14):
but the dream is riddled with itand you'll see it.
And sometimes you're going to interpretthat and sometimes you
you may or may not,depending on the content of the dream,
it may not be the most salient piecein that session.
But often you're going to see itand you know that
you will circle back around and get to it.
(27:36):
Because more dreams will continueto lead you there.
Absolutely. Okay, then.
All right.
In my dream, there is a manwho just finished writing a book.
I'm not actually part of the dream.
I'm watching the dream.
He seemed to be in his early 40s.
He has dark hair, wearsa white dress shirt and black slacks.
(27:58):
He is a psychologistor a psychoanalyst or something similar.
His book has a white book jacketwith a title
written out in fairly bold capital letters
says life is torture.
I wonder if people will want
to read this bookwith such a miserable title.
(28:20):
If we were really working,
I would let you start to tell meabout what comes to your mind.
What does it make you think of?
What were your feelings in the dream?
Who is this man? What do you imagine?
Tell me about the title.
All of this.
We're not going to do that here today,but I think people can get the flavor.
(28:40):
Oh my gosh.
Oh, here's the book.
Life is torture.
So it gives us a sense of your feelingsat that time
that you were trying to talk aboutand say, you know, here's a piece of it.
Oh my gosh, it's going to be so hard.
I mean, we could we could question, right?
Is this the book of life
(29:02):
or the the manual for how it goes?
And this was a dream of a few years ago.
And I can think back to those timeswhen I was pretty fearful of
undoing everything
I thought was a known entityabout my life.
Like, no, these are my parents.
This is everything's just wonderful.
(29:24):
These are my relationships.
Everything's great.
And I was afraid to dealwith the truth of myself.
It was it was scary and vast and unknowncould possibly put me in a place.
It was way worse than this other placethat I had molded for myself.
Yeah. So you say in the dream, right?
(29:45):
Who's going to read that book?
Yeah.
You know,which is a way of saying it's resistance.
Right. You know.
Oh my gosh,who I don't want to read this book.
And nobody else doeseither. I'm not alone in this.
Right. Everybody's on my side. See whowhy would you do that?
Why would you do it?
I don't even want to readthis book at all.
I don't want to look at it,but it is letting us see.
(30:08):
But here is what I have feltlife was to be torture.
This may touch on an imprint.
This may, you know, depending on whatwas going on in your life at that moment,
what the stimulus was for this particulardream.
We'd want to be thinking aboutall of that, but it also gives us a sense
that how is this person going to beliving his or her life, your life?
(30:32):
If life is to be torture,
you're going to have to finda lot of things that make it torture.
That is a piece where we see the masochismcome in now.
I expectwe would see it in a lot of places,
because if life is to be torture,we're not going to see a lot of fun.
We're not going to see a lot of thingsthat feel great being allowed in
(30:55):
right away.
Those might be pushed aside.
And it does feel likethat very thick, serious book
was the book of my life.
That was it. That's the story.
Here's the story.
Don't make me look at it.
Thank you.
Okay,
(31:15):
I don't remember much about this dream.
I've been somewhere and I am now
leaving with my dad in his vehicle.
As we are leaving,I realize that I've left my purse
and a small overnight bag at the placeI had been at.
We are driving awayand I am afraid to tell my dad this
(31:36):
because I don't want to upset himor cause a delay for him.
I struggle in my headand try to rationalize that maybe
I don't need the items left behind, orthat this is a really good lesson for me,
and I'll feel itby not getting my things back.
So the masochism in this one is rightthere as well.
(32:00):
This is a good lesson for me.
I deserve this. And it's going to hurt.
It's going to hurt and I'll feel it.
I'll feel it.
And I deserve to not get my things back.
Now this dream has a lot in it.
And again,if we were really working on this dream,
I would let you just start
(32:21):
to tell meabout all the elements in the dream.
Where are you?
You give us a big story, which is aI lose myself, I have to leave this behind
and I'm scaredto make any attempt to get it back.
You know, this is a very common experiencefor people.
These types of dreams
(32:42):
come all the time and long periods of timewhere you are working on this.
Oh, I did, I lost part of myself.
I lost the keys to my car.
I misplaced my car.
I thought I parked it over there,I parked it there.
I lost my suitcase.
I lost my purse,my briefcase, my wallet, my cell phone.
So many ways people
(33:02):
use to describe losing themselves,not being allowed
to be their fullest selfin some way, shape or form.
Like in my dream.
There was rationalization on some level.
Well, you know, you really don'tdeserve that or you deserve it.
You lost it. That's right.
And that's a masochism piece.
(33:22):
I deserve it somehow.
Why do you deserve it?
What did you do that really warrants?
You shouldn't have your full self.
For most of us, nothing.
You know.
And because we're you're dreaming it.
Now as an adult, you're telling me this.
But that is probably somethingthat happened
not recently, a long, long time ago.
(33:45):
So what do little kidswhat do in fetus infant
children do that would warrant them
not getting full accessto their whole self?
Nothing nothing.
Nothing.
And and as adults with the abilityto consider this what you've just said
and you think about our childrenin the world and you think about
(34:08):
putting this on them unconsciously,consciously, whatever it is,
if you have feelings about that,it is crushing.
It's it's it's why would you want anyoneto live like that?
And you think about these little oneswho unconscious mostly
are walking through starting lifelike this.
(34:31):
It's a tragedy.
For the whole world,
you know, every every child that doesn'tget to be his or her true self.
We all feel.
We all feel the pain.
I think we have this ideathat you're separate.
We all feel it.
Every war, we all feel it.
You have to be careful with your children.
(34:52):
You know,sometimes we slip and say things and
that wasn't nice.
That just wasn't nice.
You have to go apologizebecause that child felt it.
And some kidsonly get a few of those experiences.
Some kidsget too many of those experiences.
Well, what are you teaching?
(35:13):
You're teaching a child againto be masochistic.
Something's wrong with you.
You made Mom and Dad angry.
You're bad.
All right, well, if I'm bad, you beat me.
I'm bad.
Guess what?
I have to go live as a bad person.
Bad people don't deserve good things.
We get enough of that in our society.
(35:34):
We can't have good things becausethe unconscious will won't allow it again.
We all have to help to treat each otherbetter, give each other things.
You know this idea that, oh, you know,you're not entitled to health care?
What kind of craziness is thiswhen you really think about it? Why?
(35:55):
I mean, it's so much easier to say
you are entitled to health care, right?
I mean, isn't that I mean, that's just.
And food and education and human rightsbasic should be basic.
But we as a group have decided
that some people get to be in chargeof deciding that.
(36:15):
And otherswe just take it and we say, oh, oh,
there must be a very good reasonthat we are not entitled to that.
It's expensive.
Oh, but we have trillions of dollarsto go spend on wars.
And trillions of dollars held exclusivelyby very few people on the planet.
We have that too.
(36:36):
So we have all manner of waysin which we can
reenact the, You are the mother.
I am the bad child, I am guilty,so I deserve all bad treatment.
And you are idealized.
If you have money, you must bethe most powerful but perfect mother also.
(36:56):
So we won't makeyou have to change anything.
We will suffer for you.
And is there more and more of this running
through our communal unconscious?
I would say therecertainly is enough of it.
There's enough of it.
That's we've just been living withfor as long
as we've been doing this,but we don't need to.
(37:19):
I think the point is we don't need to.
This can be a timewhere people feel like everything is
spinningout of control or falling apart or,
you know, and look, this isn't Partizan.
Ask anybody on either side.
You know, people have are havingsimilar experiences, but we don't need to.
(37:40):
We don't need to, but we have to changeeverything we're doing.
And it's not workingbecause nobody's happy anyway.
So we have to change everythingwe're doing, which is to say
this can now be a timewhere we all turn inward
and start to look at ourselves,start to understand
that we are much deeper,that we have an unconscious,
(38:00):
we are much deeper than anybody imagined,and we are all connected this way.
And we don't have to start from a placeof guilt as though we deserve bad things.
We don't have to live with imprintsthat then compound all of this.
We don't have to live with any of it.
We are actually supposedto have good lives
(38:22):
and we have to work to get there.
And we do that by starting inside.
Each person has to see where are youheld back
within yourself because that'swhat you bring to the group.
So it is self-serving, of course,
but the only way we can truly, honestly.
Be. There is to get to our authentic self
(38:46):
where we can actually actfrom a good, honest, loving place.
Right?
We have to decide we are entitled to love,but if we're too guilty, we're bad.
We don't get love.
Okay, you know,that's one of the nice things
that that people may say, oh, well,I may not punish myself completely,
but I'm certainly not entitledto something as pleasurable as love.
(39:09):
Well, okay.
But that means we are bringingthat mindset to the group
and you get enough peoplewith that mindset.
Then you can't have a government
that acts loving towardsloving lead towards the people.
All of this, yes,
people often will sell, but it'sso selfish to just focus on yourself.
But we have to.
You have to do it.
You have to really understand yourselfand how you work, and that you know that
(39:33):
you have an unconscious, a part of youthat you're completely unaware of.
But that is actually what driveseverything you do.
And that lets youthen if you can work on yourself
and understand that,you can be a better group member.
So there is a selfish piece,
but a healthy, selfish piece,and then you give to the collective.
(39:58):
And I think too,if you can start to think about this,
if you find momentswhere you have a glimmer, that thing
that I just experienced there,that was some kind of love and happiness,
maybe that's different than what
I feel over here in my little arena,and I don't even know what that is
(40:19):
or how you get there.
But if you if you see it and feel it,if you can really remark on that and,
and give yourself opportunitiesto grow that feeling
that I think could helpyou understand that there's
so much more to youthan what you think there is,
and that there is another way of beingthat is healthier, happier,
(40:40):
more satisfying, more helpfulto your community, to humanity.
I mean, we're all only here
because we're partsand pieces of the same thing, right?
Well, and I'll go back to your dream.
Part of the dilemma is we're all carryinga book that says life is torture
and that's the operating manual.
Right? Okay. I'm in.
What else is. There?
How do you get a glimpse? Right.
If that's the operating manual,you have to.
(41:03):
As you said,I think you have to keep an eye out.
Are there any experiencesthat don't validate that?
That's the operating manualthat don't support that idea?
Well, for some people,the way that locks into the lens,
you see everything where it's too strong,it's it's too solid.
(41:24):
So you don't even say, oh, well, you know,I had that other experience
and that that tells me something new.
Maybe you do.
And if so, yes, grab that.
No, it's possible,but I think people also have to start
knowing we are all in some way, shapeor form carrying that book.
We all just believe the human conditionis to suffer and it just isn't.
(41:48):
I remember as a young teenager going over
to a friend's house, kind of a new friend,but I was really impressed with her.
She's just happy go lucky kid.
I went and her whole family was there.
She had a big family.
I had a little tiny familyand they were talking and arguing
and rolling their eyesand touching each other, and they laughed.
(42:12):
They'd be happy and mad and happy.
And it was so curious to me.
And I remember riding my bike homeand thinking, what is wrong with them?
And I'm
sure they had their issueslike the rest of us,
but they were showing each othersome amount of love
that was ailing into me,and it didn't fit into my picture.
(42:34):
I think that happens to kids a lot.
They have a family culture.
You grow up, you get a little olderand start going over to your friends
houses and suddenly,if your mind will allow it,
you get to see that it's different.
And sometimes that's goodbecause it completely opens it.
Sometimes the mind will go,oh no, that's a problem.
(42:55):
It's different.
I recognize it's different,
but we'll have to judgethat is completely unacceptable.
Or what is. Wrong with them?Yeah, right. Yeah.
And sometimes it also makes kidsgo what's wrong with my family?
What is wrong with usthat we don't do x, y, z?
Why don't we hug like that?
Why don't we sit on the couch togetherand watch a movie? What?
(43:17):
Whatever it. Is. But that's a good thing.
It's a very good thing that intrudes onlife is miserable or torture.
Life is torture.
It intrudes.
So we're looking for things,hopefully in the positive way
that intrude upon usand make you have to reassess
everything you thought was trueabout the world, yourself and others.
(43:39):
And I think for me, when I was doing thatand looking
in this kind of family situationfull of depth and, and love,
and I still had to go backand live with my family,
that was not like that at all.
I had to make it okay.
So I had to make everything,make there be something wrong
(43:59):
with what they were doing.
And we do this all the time.
Yeah, either either it gets to shatterthe ideas
or it's too dangerous to threatening.
And then we pick it apart.
Here are all the reasons that's not good.
But they were angry.But they were yelling.
But they were.
Whatever it is.
Right?
And we can say, oh, see,I don't have to now.
(44:22):
Yeah, I don't,I don't have to feel upset that I don't.
Have that right. It'skind of a heartbreak.
It's a it's a big heartbreakif you really feel it.
I think all of these arewhat we're looking for in ourselves
are where where do younot let yourself have a happy life?
And that may be an imprint.
(44:43):
And if it's guilt and God,
I just don't feelI really deserve something good to happen.
And I keep sabotaging myselfand I keep on doing anything good.
And if there's two choices, I will pickthe one that makes sure that I suffer.
Then you can see where the masochism
is also driving things.
(45:05):
And do you have any other
little insights into how we
people, without access to people like you,
can begin to feel or think about this?
I think the first thingis just knowing this exists,
that we have an unconsciousand it's beautiful, you know, when
(45:26):
whether you have someone to talk toor not, every night when you go to sleep,
you have a chance to have,I mean, at least one dream.
You may have many and you may remember it,and at least you can start
to be curious about yourself.
This is not just fragging the hard drive.
This is not just a biological reorderingof stressors from the day.
(45:46):
This is really a communication
from the highest part of myself.
And if I can at least honor thatand know that I am capable of that
and start to be curious, at least
you may not have the help of somebodywho can go through it
all with you and understand.
But at least instead of going that way,not knowing any of that is true,
(46:09):
you can start to at least go towardsthis idea
that yes, we are much more than that.
We have all of this potential inside of usand it isn't external.
I mean, the external world is amazing,but it's also incredibly distracting.
We can all get busywith the latest technological advantage
or political news or whatever it is.
(46:31):
Go inside.
You want really high tech.
How about our ability to communicateincredibly deep emotional ideas
that are the bedrock for how we liveour lives in a dream every single night?
That's huge.
I think you can start to shift
how you view us and where we are goingand what needs to happen.
(46:53):
Because even someone like me,who has a dream where I'm
reading the title of a book calledLife Is Torture,
if anybody has that dream,I mean, that's that's pretty loaded.
That gives you a lot to think about.
That's right.Why am I dreaming about this?
Oh my gosh. Right.
And you can say, oh well see
I don't like it because I think nobodywould want to read that book.
(47:15):
But we have to know ourselvesa bit and say, okay, well, typically
if I take the time in the effortto make that the main focus of a dream,
then it isn't because I don't need to knowabout that book.
It's that I really need to know about it.
And even if part of me is saying,don't make me read it, it's
who's going to read that?
(47:36):
It's an awful title, and I'm surethere is a part of you that says, I'm.
I don't torture myself every minute.
There's another part that says,but this is the book I'm living from.
I read this every night.
I'm a I'm a good girl.
I read my book,and my book is life is torture.
And that's all I know.
I don't. Question it.
This is what I'm to do.
(47:57):
And now we're saying, well, question,
start questioning, startquestioning everything.
Why is it this way? Why is that that way?
Why do I put up with this?
Why do I do that to myself?
Yeah. Great question. Why?
I say just give it a try.
Just startasking these questions of yourself
and think about the feelingsrelated to the statements.
(48:20):
So that's a place to at least start.
I learned so much. It's it's huge.
And to understandhow masochism is sort of layered
on top of our imprint. Yes.
And and it really finds its way.
It's not just our lives,
but we are bringing this to everythingwe set up as humans.
(48:40):
And we're all doing itor doing the same. Thing.
That's right.
This isn't one where you can say,oh, but see,
those people do it,the other does it, not me.
No. We are all as human beings doing this.
And it is say this all comesfrom the original
experience of receiving an imprintand then feeling,
and it's my faultshe was upset and it's my fault.
(49:04):
Now. We do this again laterwith our fathers, but I'm starting where
the fetus starts inside of the mother,and this is the original blow.
That doesn't mean laterwe aren't very occupied
with our fathersor other people in our family.
We are anybody who's taking care of us.
That could be, you know,two moms, two dads, whomever it is,
(49:25):
aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents.
Doesn't matter.
We will take all of them inand also feel some guilt around it.
But that is because the template is set,set down
in the original dyadand then we just live it out.
We are the little babies,and anybody who's in
(49:45):
charge of us is the idealized parent.
And we take the suffering.
You know, there are many more of us
who are not billionairesthan those that are.
There are many more of us who are not thepoliticians in charge than those who are.
And we take. Itand we do. It's normalized.
(50:06):
We take it, and we have to.
And they tell us, well,we can't do this or that, and we say, oh,
we understandthat we would really like it, but
we understand thatthat's not possible right now.
Well, wait a minute. Hold on a minute.
But you work for us, but you work for us.
We want this. You can't say no.
(50:27):
Figure out
how todo it or give the job to someone else.
But we don't ask that of people.
We say, oh, you can't do it.
We understand. Right?
So this is a problembecause we're all living
in this masochistic way.
So I have to suffer.
Yeah, I just I don't deserve the bestand deserve the best life.
(50:49):
So you're going to help me suffer and.
You'll help me. I'll keep you.
You tell me you can't do it. Great.
I'll elect you to office 50 times.
I will keep voting for you.
So it's everywhere.
But we can all take a sigh of reliefor feel a little refreshed,
knowing thatthe most important thing you can do
is to go inward, really,
(51:11):
and find your own loving operating system.
And you can do something. Yes.
And if you can shift that in yourself,you may vote for somebody different.
You may influence your neighborsor your larger group around you,
even if you're just shifting the feelingI'm no longer going to live that way.
(51:33):
Why do you want to live that way?
How about we get someone in office
that wants to give us something goodand feels I can do it.
Instead we say,oh no, you know how the system is.
Nobody can really change anything.
Well, yes.
If we continue to hold on to all of this
and and just keep our bookwith our operating system.
Life is torture.
(51:54):
All right. Oh, yeah, of course it is.
I won't ask for any.
I'm in the right place. That's it.Thank you.
Thank you so much. Super interesting.
Thank you so much.Thank you for joining us.
And we'll look forward to seeing younext time.
Stay with us and pay attentionto us on your favorite social media site.
(52:17):
And.
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