Closure Optional

I'm on my own this week, finishing my ramblings on motivation as viewed through the Psychological Theory, Transactional Analysis. In this episode, I discuss the ways that we build a personality, how we use it to our advantage and disadvantage, and how we do, in fact, constantly play games with each other even if we claim we don't. I discuss the existential purpose of boredom and the reason why you gave Dennis a wristy in the toilets at last years work Christmas party. 

Reference LINKS:

1. Games People Play, by Dr. Eric Berne
2. https://www.slideshare.net/manumjoy/strokes-24081607
3. http://www.ericberne.com/transactional-analysis/
4. http://www.ericberne.com/wilder-penfield-biography/
5. Gold Coast Laughs Festival

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this thing grow. If you’re on an Android device, I’ve found that Podcast Addict works the best. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

• https://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/eric-berne.html
• https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/games-people-play-the-basic-handbook-of-transactional-analysis/211373
• https://www.businessballs.com/building-relationships/transactional-analysis-eric-berne/
• https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/462393086715625122/
• https://www.toolshero.com/communication-skills/transactional-analysis-eric-berne/

• This week I'm continuing the discussion of human motivation as viewed through the lens of TA which is a method of studying interactions between people, in order to better understand our behaviour.

• If you haven’t yet, go back and listen to Episode 42 and 44 to get a background of what I’m talking about, then come back to this one. I’ll review everything a little bit, so it makes sense on its own but, you might get more out of it if you go back to those episodes first.

• Also, a friend of mine recently pointed out to me that I haven’t really considered or addressed any criticisms of the theory of Transactional Analysis in my excitement to understand this idea – and he’s got a valid point. This theory was developed in the 60’s by a guy who had 3 failed marriages and 4 massive heart attacks, one of which killed him, so he obviously didn’t have it all figured out.

• CRITICISMS:
  • Hasn’t been rigorously tested scientifically, the basis for a lot of TA is the assumption that someone is behaving in a predictable way, and by doing that, the therapist can get caught in trying to label the predicable behaviour rather than dealing with the nuanced person in front of them.

• For example: Oh you’re playing this game right now, and your Child is in charge”. This doesn’t let the patient come to their own conclusions, rather it forces the behaviour to fit into a pre-defined model, and it’s easy to miss something important.

• It has been used to justify some very popular, but completely unscientific and wacky treatment methods, the example my friend found was that therapists were regressing patients back to their childhood and then spanking them or something to re-program their childhood states”. In saying that, just because some people took a theory and developed a fucking wacky protocol doesn’t mean that the theory itself is wrong. The THEORY of TA is profound and, I think, pretty useful in your own self-reflection, but if that’s true then yea, some methods of TA Therapy could be a bit fucked.

• Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was a buddhist teacher in the 70s who was also an alcoholic womaniser who spent most of his time introducing women to the bliss of god through the hole in the top of his penis – but even if he was a fucking maniac, that doesn’t mean that all the ideas inside Tibetan Buddhism are wrong, right? I don’t know.

• Another criticism is that TA comes from the point of view that everything you do comes from your experiences as a child and has little to do with your biology, so anything, including Homosexuality and Autism, can be unprogrammed. Obviously, what we know now about the brain, is that structural changes in the brain will have significant impact on behaviour – and those structural changes can be caused by both genetics and experiences, and to deny either aspect is just silly.  

• I should be clear, that when I make these podcasts, I’m not saying that this is the only path to salvation and happiness – I’m more interested in breaking down an idea that you probably haven’t heard much about, that might help you start to reflect a bit more on your own behaviour and habits. TA is one of MANY theories on why we do what we do when we do it, and when he came up with these ideas in the 50’s it was groundbreaking at the time.

• And, a lot of his early ideas, particularly the idea of Games and ego states, which is the subject of today’s podcast, have contributed to the development of our modern behavioural therapies, and, personally, I think it's really fascinating to watch the evolution of ideas over time. If it still rings true and is helpful, that’s great, if not, then isn’t it wonderful to examine the contents of someone else’s head?

• So, please take from this whatever you will, and if you’re in need of some help with your mental health, please do go see a professional, don’t just rely on the ramblings of someone who reads books then talks to herself about them for hours in a shed on the internet. I doubt you would be, but, you know, it’s worth saying I suppose. 

• So, as I said at the start, TA is a method of studying interactions between people, in order to better understand our behaviour, which was developed by a psychiatrist called Eric Berne in the 1950’s. And basically everything I’m talking about today comes from one of his books on the subject, “Games People Play”. 

• I’ll very quickly review the basic foundations of this theory but if you haven’t heard Episodes 42 and 44 yet, go back and listen to those first which go into a lot more detail.

• So in TA, each interaction between people is called a “transaction” because during the interaction we exchange a type of social currency, which is called a “Stroke’ – as in stroking a cat. The purpose of a transaction is to give and receive these strokes in order to get recognition that YOU EXIST.

• The foundation of this idea comes from observations in Developmental neuroscience. They have discovered – though some fucking horrific experiments – that as soon as a baby is born, it requires the physical touch of a nurturer in order to survive. 
  • Orphan Study
  • Rhesus macaques (monkeys)
  • Mice – Oxytocin Receptors and Nurturing

• Without this contact, the brain will not develop correctly and the result, in extreme cases, is apathy and then death. In the more moderate cases, at a minimum, sensory deprivation will cause severe behavioural and psychological problems in the future. 

• They call this “Stimulus-hunger”; in the same way a baby gets hungry for food, they will cry out for physical stimulation in order to make sure their brain develops properly.

• Then, as the infant grows older, and is less dependent on its mother, the opportunities for physical affection become less, and so the baby learns to get stimulation in other, more complex ways. Now the baby learns to be satisfied with getting a “good job” instead of a physical pat on the back. 

• And when they don’t get it, it becomes “Recognition-hunger” – so again, in the same way we need to be physically stroked to be a normal human being, we also need to be recognised by the people around us. 

• So a stroke is simply put, a unit of recognition that someone exists, it can be physical or not, and it can be positive or negative.

• For example: the simplest positive stroke would be nodding at a stranger as you pass them on the street.

• And the negative version of the same would be that you nod at a stranger and they frown at you as you pass. 

• This is still a transaction, an exchange of strokes, it’s just not the one you were looking for. Because they frowned at you, they did acknowledge that you exist, they just did it in a shitty way. But, if the person had just looked right through you and did nothing, that, that would be even worse. 

• The reason for that is because the point of a transaction is to get recognised, and when you don’t get recognised at all, you aren’t satisfied, and are hungry for more.

• So, how you feel about the transaction will be dependent on the nature and quality of the strokes you give and receive – or the lack thereof. Engaging in social transactions satisfies your need for both getting a hug and getting a “Good job”. But we’re not really satisfied with a nod, or a wave are we?

• What happens after that? What do we do with ourselves when we’re waiting in line at the Post Office and have already established that each other exist? 

• This is what they call, “Time-Structuring” and it's how we, as a collective, pass the time together.

• Your job is a complex example of one of the ways that we structure our time. It’s predictable and routine, and the transactions inside it serve the dual purpose of stroking you and your colleagues, while contributing to the overall objective of the company. 

• And your work Christmas party, is also a time-structuring activity, but now, the people you know well, and see everyday suddenly become stiff strangers standing around staring at the walls – until, of course, they get drunk enough to bypass their better judgements and suck each other off in the toilets.

• This, the staring at the walls, pre-fallacio, is what TA calls “Structure-Hunger” – it is, essentially, what the fuck do we do now? Boredom.

• This is a funny balance to me. I feel like the entire experience of living is just us drifting along the invisible pull of time, constantly bouncing between things we know, and things we don’t. The future and the past. New, old. 

• We’ll seek a new experience to feel alive, then do it again because we like the feeling, and again to learn how to get the feeling quicker, but then it eventually makes the familiar and predictable, which eventually makes us bored, and that boredom kicks us into seeking a new sensation all over again.

• The human condition, and possibly all life in general, is a balancing act of structuring our time in the most satisfying way possible. Staving off existential hunger I guess, which sort of really just means death, I guess. 

• So, as far as TA is concerned, any malnourishment in any of these three types of psychological hunger will lead to degeneration and problems within the others… 

• STIMULUS HUNGER: If we’re desperate for stimulation, we will be creepy, overly affectionate or needy, which naturally pushes other people away, and the problem compounds until it’s unbearable. 
• RECOGNITION HUNGER: If we’re desperate for recognition, we’ll start trying to impress people with bullshit like pouty selfies, grandiose lies, or whatever to grab the attention of others. This, naturally, is unsatisfying because you know it’s a ploy for attention, so you keep seeking more and the cycle repeats itself; you never get closer to yourself or anyone else.

• STRUCTURE HUNGER: And lastly, having to deal with unstructured time, like staring at the walls with our work colleagues, drives us to do unspeakably shameful things. We will literally do almost anything in order to avoid the horror of general boredom and meaninglessness, and when those things are socially destructive, isolating, and / or shameful, we become hungry stimulation and recognition and the whole thing repeats itself.

• So today, I want to talk about the ways that we tend to develop these types of hunger inside our transactions, how that can impact our motivations and behaviours, and some possible strategies to keep us psychologically nourished.

• Please bear in mind that I am not a psychologist, I’m just a person who reads books and needs to structure her time in such a way to get heaps of recognition in order to silence the ache of a lonely and confusing childhood. I hunted boiled eggs for Easter for god’s sakes, no wonder I’m a lunatic.

• So we’ve established that it is, more or less, a biological imperative for us to structure our time with either transactions or activities on our own, in order to stave off the hunger for recognition that we exist. Now one thing is critically important to understand about this though, we don’t need recognition that our existence is special, we just need to confirm that we exist. The need for it to be special is   actually a form of recognition-hunger, but I’ll go into this in more detail soon.

• So according to psychologists, we tend to structure our time in 3 ways, which they call Programming. This is not your “mind-control propaganda social programming” that the conspiracy theorists are all raving about – this is a general structure of humans being in the world that is universal to our species. The content of the programming changes in different cultures, but the structure is inherent to the human condition. They are:

• Material Programming
  • Task oriented activities, things that deal with the external world. Baking a cake, for example.

• Social Programming
  • Your culture’s accepted rituals; good manners and small talk with people you don’t know well.

• Individual Programming

• Much more nuanced and dependent on the individual personality components that make you, you. This kind of programming appears after you’ve gotten through the socially programmed small talk and you have to start being a someone yourself, whatever that is.
•  
• This is where we start to play Games – and it’s not in the sense that we’ve commonly heard in dating like “I don’t play games” – because unfortunately, whether you like it or not, you DO. Every day.

• Games are a predictable pattern of transactions between people who are both seeking gratification in some way from the game. 

• Usually, the game is played mostly unconsciously, to a set of rules that are unconsciously accepted between the players and the gratification that either player is seeking from the game is also unconscious. 

• Our role in the game is run by our Individual Programming, and usually the gratification that we’re seeking is just a confirmation of that programming – it’s our ego’s way of reminding us that “this is who you are, you’re always this way, and you’re never going to change”. 

• Now this is not to say that we can’t change, in fact the entire idea of TA therapy at the start, and the more modern Cognitive Behavioural Therapies and Mindfulness Practices are in trying to help people identify our behaviour patterns and change any that aren’t helpful.

• So within our personality, TA suggests that we have 3 predictable patterns of being in the world, which they call Ego States. They are:

• Child
• Parent
• Adult

• They are different for everyone but modelled on our experience of ourselves and others as children. The aim of TA is to get into the Adult state as much as possible, which would be the modern equivalent of the poplar “Mindfulness” practice, where we aim to act from the HERE and NOW and not some destructive behaviour pattern you collected as a kid.

• This is not to say that ego states themselves are bad though – they all have their place in keeping us happy and social and productive, it’s when they are anti-social or self-destructive that we need to address them.

• Child – Playful, creative, fun / sulky, victim, helpless
• Parent – Nurturing, Caring, loving / critical and overbearing

• Developed over time to help us learn to navigate the world, to socialise properly with others, to protect ourselves from dangerous things and people. So they are useful, until they’re not. 

• When you cut yourself, a doctor will give you some stitches and a lollipop, but once the cut’s healed, you have to take the stitches out. It would be silly to walk around with a stitches hanging out of your skin for the rest of your life.

• A problematic personality trait like, sulking when you don’t get your way, is like a set of stitches that you’ve never removed from your psyche. It solved your problem once, but it’s not going to solve your problems in the future.

• Life Positions:

• Im ok – you’re ok
• I’m ok – you’re not ok
• I’m not ok – you’re ok
• I’m not ok, you’re not ok

• Life Script – story about who you are, capable of, and who you will become.

• Stroke Filters
  • Discounts / Confirmation Bias

• Personality Traits Reinforced by Others
• Personality Traits reinforced by your behaviour
• Expectations of yourself and others
• Keep things NORMAL – they give you a model of reality that feels safe, expected, rational. Even if they’re totally self-destructive. 
  • You hold on to this script and programming because it makes the unknown chaos of the world predictable and manageable. And when something contradicts with what you believe about yourself, you, unconciously, will go to great lengths to deny it.

• So, as tempting as it can be to blame the Patriarchy or the Government or our Parents or simply the fact that we have to go to work and wear clothes in public, none of these things are solely to blame for the state of our current mental health. 

• The truth is, we, as individuals, am the least common denominator in all 3 types of programming. We can only get through about 1 minute of small talk, maybe 2 if we’re helping someone with a task, before we launch into a game to get some sweeeeet sweet gratifying recognition.

• The fact is, the majority of all social activity is in playing games, which means, that your INDIVIDUAL programming is in charge in ALL of these situations. If that programming makes you feel shitty, frustrated, lonely, tired, horny, happy, whatever – that’s how you live your life.

• The aim of games is to get as much satisfaction, in the form of strokes, from the people around you in order to pass the time without having to be too vulnerable. 

• In the same way we have learned to accept a Stroke of recognition instead of our mother’s physical touch when we were babies, TA suggests that games are a substitute, and perhaps gateway for real intimacy. 

• Real intimacy is hard to come by, as an adult, due to our necessary, but nervous and protective accumulation of a personality over time. Our personality is like a bumper car that we drive around in, banging into other bumper cars as we navigate the intricate race-track of games in our social worlds. Being intimate, would be the moment when you race around the track with someone for a while, then realise it would be heaps more fun to ditch the cars and make out in the bushes next to the track.

• Some Examples of Games:

• If it weren’t for you
  • Players: Wife / Husband
  • ROOT: Fear, both sides
  • Advantages: W: doesn’t have to face fear of failure, doing new things. H: Is needed and secure.
  • Existential: The world is scary/dangerous

• Why don’t you, yes But…
  • Players: Gaggle of People
  • ROOT: Insecurity/reassurance
  • Advantages: W: never surrender. H: Is useful “just trying to help” 
  • Existential: Everybody wants to dominate me

• Why does this always happen to me:
  • Players: Guys at work
  • ROOT: Worthlessness
  • Advantages: W: blame something/someone else, excuse for rage.
  • Existential: The world is out to get me because I’m shit.

• Key to these games, negative ones, is that there is an ulterior motive – On the surface, it’s two Adults talking to each other, but underneath is a parent vs child scolding or seeking attention.

• The way to exit a game, is to notice the role you’re playing in the game, and stop contributing. So the easiest one is not to give a suggestion in Why don’t you, yeah but – have the confidence to simply say, “Oh shit, that is a problem” and leave it at that. Or in the case of “If it weren’t for you,” the spouse just says, “Have fun!” and either they will or they won’t, but it’s not a reflection of you.

• Notice the ulterior motives, and don’t gratify it. Then give the person a change to realise their own game, or let it play out on it’s own. This is often when we can laugh at ourselves and realise that we were being dicks. And that always brings you closer together – real intimacy.

• In the book, Dr. Berne says that “intimacy begins when individual programming becomes more intense and Social patterning and ulterior motives begin to give way”.

• It is so lovely because it’s rare, and takes a bit of work to get there. But, there’s nothing wrong with a challenge, obviously, it’s a great way to pass the time and avoid boredom, which is, as previously discussed, possibly, the whole point of existence anyway. I don’t know.

• So how do we get the confidence to periodically step out of the bumper car in the race-track game in order to make out with someone in the bushes?

• If the goal of human social interactions are to get recognition that we exist, it’s probably helpful to see if there are other ways, independent of games, that we can get confirmation that we exist.

• When you’re not starving, you have the capacity to nourish yourself with a variety of options that will satisfy you most, but when you are starving, you’ll cling desperately to anything that will keep you alive. When we do really counterintuitive or self-destructive things without thinking, TA suggests that it’s probably coming from a place of existential starvation, and the opposite of that is AUTONOMY.

• His definition of autonomy is this:

• Awareness – Immediate present moment
• Spontaneity – Go with the flow, roll with it, don’t get caught up in a pattern
• Intimacy – be vulnerable, open

• How do we fix it?
  
• Just having an awareness of the silly shit we do, and why we do it, can help us stop the programming in action.

• If we don’t like the way we react in certain situations, it’s likely that we’ve got some subconscious belief about ourselves that is being fed by continually playing that character. 

• Take a second to breathe and step back for a second before you speak, and see if you can react in a different way.

• Trying not to get mad at ourselves for the dumb shit we do, rather try to understand what felt bad about it, and what felt good about it at the time.

• Accept that change is inevitable, and the more relaxed we can be when a change occurs, the more options we can see on the other side of it. 

• If we’re looking for one single outcome, that we don’t get, instead of being a victim, its probably more useful to understand what feels like it’s missing. What need did that outcome serve? Are there any other ways to serve that need, or is the need itself problematic?

• Now again, I’m not a psychologist or anything like it, and I have no idea how to apply these principles to my own silly programming that I constantly fall into. But i’ve been finding that the more I read about it, the funnier my silly behaviour gets, and I tend to take myself and other people a bit less seriously. Which makes me feel better about being a maniac, and I find it’s easier to relate to other people on a human level.

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Ana is a practicing Psychologist who specialises in the mind-body connection, EMDR Therapy and Relationship Counselling. With a Masters degree in Professional Psychology and a background in Neuro-psychology, Ana brings some serious knowledge into the conversation about Motivation, Mental health, and the ways that our brains deal with depression.

If you'd like to join us in Meditarch, the app is called Waking Up by Sam Harris.

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this thing grow. If you’re on an Android device, I’ve found that Podcast Addict works the best. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lucas is a Musician, formerly the frontman for the Aussie Hardcore band, HELM, and currently the guitarist for Hammers. He's been on the podcast before in Episode 13, and he's back now to help us un-fuck the world, our own mental health, and our worries about “success”.

Also, if you want to hear Lucas and his mates playing some great music, check out the Hammers EP here. 

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this thing grow. If you’re on an Android device, I’ve found that Podcast Addict works the best. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

• Photo Credit – Daniel Ramsay
• Lucas Stone
• Lucas Recording
• Hammers Bare
• Photo Credit Ummagummamumma – Live Music Photography
• Recording Carry the Black
• Hammers

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Yolanda is one of the world's best fighters, and probably one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. She has had 44 fights so far with only 10 losses, and an impressive list of Titles and awards from the Muaythai community, including a Muaythai Angels World Title in 2017. This is a lovely, though unfortunately too quick, chat about her latest fight, how she deals with nerves, and how abuse and chaos in her childhood fuel her motivation to constantly improve.

To find out more about Yolanda, please visit her website here, facebook page here, or her instagram here. She also mentions Orange Day, which is tomorrow, the 25th of every month, and if you'd like to read a bit more about that, please check out this link here :).

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this cute little thing grow. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

• Photo Credit: www.williamluu.com.au
• Photo Credit: www.williamluu.com.au
• Photo Credit – Muaythai Angels
• Photo Credit – Muaythai Angels
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• Photo Credit: Stephanie Ochoa

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In this episode I continue my discussion of some made up and some actual psychological theories on Human Motivation and this time I'm talking about Recognition – why do we sometimes desperately crave recognition from others, and at other times are purely happy on our own? I discuss why loneliness is actually probably a biological imperative and why we don't necessarily need to be addicted to validation if we can satiate our hunger for recognition in healthier ways.

1. The psychological theory I'm discussing is called Transactional Analysis, or TA.
2. For further reading on TA, Games People Play by Eric Berne, is written by the guy who developed it.
3. A further look into the nuance of “Ego States” in Transactional Analysis
4. A further look into the nuance of “Strokes” in Transactional Analysis
5. at 15 minutes, I mention a book about some current research on loneliness. The book is called Lost Connections by Johann Hari
6. Some links about the effects of loneliness / recognition-hunger: https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/articles/200307/the-dangers-loneliness, https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/prisons-and-prisms/201707/the-harm-solitary-confinement , https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/us-experiment-on-infants-withholding-affection/13213
7. Why we show the whites of our eyes: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-we-show-the-whites-of-our-eyes

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this thing grow. If you’re on an Android device, I’ve found that Podcast Addict works the best. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

• Family and Grandma
• Team Urban Christmas Party
• Zoe and Blair
• Image Credit – Ben Vercauteren
• Lucas Recording
• WBC Title Defence
• Rhys Cohen
• Photo Credit – William Luu

TA Take 2:

Welcome back to Closure Optional

This podcast is a continuation of Transactional Analysis part one, episode number 42. If you haven’t heard that one yet, please go back and listen to that first then come back to this one.

Before we get to the episode, quick update on this month’s challenge, Freshuary:

Rules are, locally sourced food, no corporations, no grocery stores, local produce / meat

Spending roughly $50 – 60 on fruit and veg

Paddock to Porch – $30 local delivery 3 x per week, non customisable

Home Fresh Organics – $60 local delivery 1 x per week, customisable and all groceries you would get from flannerys available. Bit more expensive but it’s also a bit bigger box with more stuff.

Farmers markets for extras

Spending roughly 60 per week on eggs, dairy and meat

Local butcher – making relationships

So I’m spending about $120 on food each week, for one person, mostly organic and if not, then local and straight from the farm.

Onto the subject of today’s podcast – Continuing on with Human Motivation as viewed from the psychological lens of “Transactional Analysis, or TA”. Again, if you haven’t heard episode 42, it’s best you go back to that one before this one so you know what I’m talking about.

I’ll recap a little here from where we left off:

TA focuses on analysing human social interactions by identifying certain “ego states” or “predictable patterns of being” within our personalities, in order to better understand and adjust our behaviour.

If you ever find yourself doing something fucking stupid when you’re hanging out with someone you think is hot, like rambling incessantly about nothing, or going bright red and laughing super loud for no reason, then you walk away and go, fuck what an idiot! I’m never doing that again. Then two weeks later, you hang out with a different person who makes you feel the same way and you do the exact same thing…. Then transactional analysis is for you. It’s for everyone, we’re all idiots.

That weird pattern of behaviours and feelings that you almost automatically fall into when you’re chatting with someone you’d like to sex with, is what’s called an Ego State.

An ego state is our way of being in the world, it dictates our feelings, emotions, behaviours at any given moment.

TA outlines 3 types that are within all our our personalities and depending on the situation, we switch between all three. They are: the Child the Parent and the Adult.

Every one of us has all three, and each state is consistent within each person. Meaning, that my Child ego state will always react to a given situation a particular way, and so will yours.

Though, your reaction will differ from mine, because we had different experiences as children, and that's how we created this ego state. Our parents are the models for our own Parent Ego State, and the Adult ego state is the Objective, present moment, rational, logical state that deals with each situation individually.

The goal of TA is to act from this Ego State as much as possible. However, I won’t be talking about Ego states today, I’m continuing on the discussion of Human Motivation, through the concept of Strokes.

TA suggests that all our social interactions are motivated by one key thing – Recognition – and this comes in the form of what they call “Strokes.

A stroke, like petting a cat, is the base unit of recognition. In the same way an atom is the base unit of matter. Or a cent is the base unit in a dollar. A simple nod given to your neighbour as you pass him on the street, is a “Stroke”. If he nods or smiles back, you have been given one Stroke back.

This simple nod to your neighbour and nod back is what they call a Transaction.

By nodding at my neighbour and getting a smile back, I’ve just exchanged a little bit of recognition that he exists, and have, in turn, received validation of my own existence.

Strokes can be positive or negative – a pat on the back is a positive stroke, and someone spitting in your face is a negative stroke.

Interestingly, since the point of the stroke, and all human interaction, is RECOGNITION, even if someone does spit in your face, your psyche will actually respond better to that, than if someone ignores you completely. Evolutionarily, being unrecognisable means you’re an unknown, an outsider, which basically means imminent death.

The only reason we’ve made it this far, is because of our ability to recognise and cooperate with each other; if you were on your own, in Africa tomorrow, could you kill a tiger with your body? I could, on a really good day, put someone to sleep with my shin, but I couldn’t kill a fucking tiger. And neither could most of our ancestors. We had to do it in groups.

This is interesting, do you know why our eyeballs are the way they are? With a coloured bit floating around in all the white? It’s so that we can follow someone’s gaze without speaking or moving. It’s so we can silently communicate about danger. Or because we’re assholes we can also trick a stranger into believing that there’s danger behind them and then hit them in the head when they turn around or whatever.

The reason they’ve called this “unit of recognition” a “Stroke” is that human babies respond positively to touching, stroking, being held, and have issues when they’re not. If a baby doesn’t get attention, they find a way to get it by crying, or reaching, grabbing – which is very similar behaviour to what “a hungry baby” does.

So, If you imagine that being hungry is like a survival alarm bell that tells your body that it will die without food, Loneliness is the psychological alarm bell that tells us we’ll die if we don’t get some social recognition. In TA, they call this Recognition-Hunger, and when it goes on for too long, it can develop into pathological anti-social behaviour and mental illness.

There has been a lot of research done about the impacts of loneliness on people, and in Johann Hari’s book Lost Connections, he has compiled a lot of that research and summed it up in a very clear sentence: “being disconnected from the people around you has the same effect on your health as being obese”.

So our entire sense of identity and well being is based on our perception of ourselves in the social order. Which we feel in relation to the hostile or comforting nature of the “Strokes” we receive. If we’re Recognition-Hungry for too long, we get sick.

Now there is a very big difference between being lonely and being alone, and that is the point of today’s podcast. Why are some people better at being alone than others? My theory is, that as TA suggests all human behaviour is motivated by recognition – but Recognition comes in two distinctly different forms which are polar opposites, and in order to alleviate loneliness, you need to maintain a healthy balance of both.

One is seeking recognition that you exist from others. Giving and Receiving a Stroke from others.

The other is recognising your own existence yourself. Giving and receiving a stroke from consciousness itself.

Meeting someone’s gaze and smiling at eachother

Watching a sunset alone and experiencing an overwhelming sense of beauty.  

But, these two things are mutually exclusive; meaning we we kill the magic inside each of those moments by trying to make one become the other one. Loneliness, addiction and existential hopelessness, in my opinion, are direct products of this mistake.

For example, you meet someone’s gaze and they smile at you but you are lost in your own world, and you blankly stare right through them until they pass. They think you’re an asshole and you don’t know they exist. There is no connection, no strokes exchanged, just a lingering sense of discomfort on both sides.

And for the second one, you’re enjoying a beautiful flood of love and belonging while watching the sun go down, but you want to share it with someone, so you immediately pull out your phone, take a picture and write some bullshit caption about the majesty of life – which is a pale and empty version of the impossibly lovely feeling inside your chest, and you are now left “hungry” for the little red alerts on your phone to tell you that you’ve been seen and validated.

We all know the feeling – we want to capture and share moments that felt significant to us, but every time we rehash the story it is only an imitation of the original thing. Cocaine is a good visceral example:

The rush of that glorious first line of coke sucked up a dirty 20 dollar note off the back of a toilet feels incredible – but, no matter how many times you go back in there, and you’ll go back every 15 minutes for the next 6 hours, it never feels the way it felt the first time. And with every new line the comedown happens faster and the lines get thicker and suddenly it’s 5am, the bag’s are all gone, your “guy” stopped answering your frantic phone calls.

It isn’t the Coke itself, is the promise of a feeling outside yourself that you can escape into pure sensation for a glorious 15 minutes, but the trade-off is total disconnection from yourself and the people around you.

I know we feel like we’re making real connections, opening up our hearts and saying what we mean when we’re blasted off our heads at 3 am – but we are so distracted by the need for more, that our ability to truly focus and take in what’s happening around us is not there. That’s why we often feel so much shame afterwards, we do and say things that we didn’t mean and can’t back up.

Addiction comes in all forms – and it’s silly for us to blame the substance without really considering what it actually does for us. The cocaine isn’t the problem: we are LONELY and in pain, most of the time, and when we find a way to satisfy that loneliness, we can very easily get caught up in a cycle of numbing it, rather than curing it.

I’d argue that we’re all addicted to Recognition in one form or another because we don’t know that it's possible to seek it in healthy ways.

The weird thing about current western culture, fueled by Capitalism and Advertisements, is that this process of craving recognition and numbing loneliness feeds us the Poison and the Antidote all at once. We can see them both, and want them both, and it keeps us running in circles.

The poison is: Hey, buy this car, people will finally notice you and realise that you’re not a useless piece of shit, even if it means spending all your time working, away from your family, to afford it, it’s worth it.

The antidote is: Human innovation is continually creating more inspiring forms of beauty in nearly every facet of existence and it is right here at your fingertips. Not hold, or possess, but to experience first hand. You, too, are a human capable of incredible potentiality.

The awe we feel when we see a beautifully designed car is real. We recognise beauty instinctually. It is a perfect reflection of human ingenuity, which makes us feel beautiful ourselves. We should say, FUCK WE did that! The problem is, that everyone goes, instead, I NEED THAT. We see beauty and we have an immediate desire to possess it rather than to experience it.

Famous Rock Stars are a great example of what I mean:

in order to become a rock star on TV you need to dedicate a LOT of time to your craft which means being alone with pure creativity, honing a skill, and taking risks. This is like spending quality time with your consciousness itself, and it will reward you with Strokes of inspiration. These strokes are just as satisfying as a human stroke, in fact probably even more satisfying, because you know it’s pure, there’s no ulterior motive. Consciousness isn’t trying to get you to sign a deal with Pepsi so it can buy a house in the Bahamas.

Because, music is also a giant commercial industry and so we reward this incredibly powerful creativity with status and money and adoration and power, which are very addictive. They’re the high-fructose corn syrup of Strokes – people who don’t even know a fucking thing about you, love you. Everyone wants a piece of you and this candy coated materialism inevitably smothers the inspiration; there’s no time for quiet creativity inside the circus, other people are making creative decisions for you, the listeners are tainted with expectations of who you should be, and usually the music turns into shit and / or the spectacle kills the artist who created it.

Now it’s not all so bad, there is a rare exception to this rule, and it is the best feeling in the entire world. When we successfully connect to ourselves so completely that our “Selves” dissolve and we slip into pure experience AND at the very same time, we connect to someone else who is in that very same state, that, my friends, is what I believe we call LOVE.

We all know that feeling – whether it was with your family, or your dog, or your band, or your team mates, or the guy you play video games with in Germany – it’s not the carnal love that just wants to fuck and possess someone, it's the deep sense of belonging and pure happiness at not having to BE a something, just BEING.

I recently watched that movie, Bohemian Rhapsody about Queen and Freddie Mercury, and I suddenly felt overcome by the need to “Be a somebody” – I was possessed by the idea that I also needed to do something so powerful that people couldn’t help but recognise the magic in what I was doing. In that same moment, I almost immediately felt a deep sense of hopelessness that I could never do that. And here, I saw in myself bouncing between both parts of this very deep, core need for recognition:

On one hand, I desperately want to feel that burning passion inside myself for something I’m creating – connecting to something greater than me, the self, pushing myself beyond my limits. Maybe I should fight again, make a painting…

Then on the other hand, I know that when I have dissapeared to do only that – making artwork for 6 months at one point – I was desperately lonely at the end. I wasn’t able to tell if I was making “magic” or just participating in a kind of self indulgent masterbation, without the feedback of others. In order to know if what I’m doing has any merit outside of myself, I have to put it out for feedback and see what happens. I need inputs, laughter, silliness, criticism.

So as I sat there watching the pretend Freddie Mercury firing up a crowd of computer generated fans, desperate to be a something but having no confidence or idea of how to do that, I realised why it hurt so much; that moment, for Queen and for everyone watching, was TRUE LOVE. It was the rare synergy of both the External and Internal Recognition of existence – but, in that particular case, it was magnified by a million people all feeling the same thing, which is enough to make your heart explode.

It unleashed in me the deep craving for THAT level of Authentic Recognition – to TRULY connect to my own experience while simultaneously having that mirrored back to me by someone or someone's who have also lost themselves inside it. It’s the ultimate gratification of our evolutionary, core desire to be RECOGNISED.

So how the fuck do we get that then? How to we get there? How do we stave off the lingering loneliness and jealousy of watching other people succeed in love or life or hollywood movies, and get out of our bullshit stories in our heads?

Both of these two aspects of recognition are integral to being a satisfied and contributing member of a human community, and I think that the key is to master walking the tightrope between both.

If we get too caught up in seeking “the zone” or “the flow state” on our own – we can become isolated and redundant – our skill level will only increase as far as our individual imaginations will allow it, nothing creative exists in a vacuum, it needs something to bounce off of.

But if we get too caught up in seeking validation from other people about what we’re trying to do, then our ideas are too easily manipulated, and they become heap imitations of their actual potential. Also, and very importantly, we become susceptible to the opinions of others, good and bad. I could buy into my own bullshit because everyone else thinks I’m special and start to believe that what I’m doing actually makes ME amazing, or the opposite, that what I’m doing is so shit compared to everyone else that I’m better off not existing at all.

So, I think if we go back to the idea of poor mental health being a product of Recognition-hunger in the same way that Malnutrition is a product of physical hunger, there are a bunch of different ways we can satisfy this thing before it becomes a sickness or kills us:

FIrstly: It’s good to realise that there is no shame in wanting recognition, it’s a normal human need.

Then: once we know that recognition comes from 2 different places – other people, and our own presence of self – we can work out the best way to satisfy that need.

So then we figure out what satisfies it, the healthiest way possible.

For recognition of our own existence through experience, really I’d say we just need to experiment with ways that make us feel more connected to the immediate present, without ANY external inputs from social media or other people. Surfing, hitting a heavy bag, drawing, meditating, making music, whatever.

I think that spending time working hard on something that is challenging and seeing the result of it is like having a lovely nutritious meal for your psyche, where as seeking validation from other people for bullshit is like eating a litre of ice cream.

Why post a snapchat filter selfie that looks nothing like you? know you don’t deserve the praise. It’s not you. It’s nothing to do with you. Your psyche knows that, and that’s why you’re addicted. You haven’t been nourished, so you’re still starving and once the red notifications disappear you’ll  still feel like complete shit.

The only recognition we need is recognition that we exist – not recognition that our existence is special.

Getting Recognition from Others: Being completely present with other people when we’re around them, so that we notice and feel the social strokes that we are getting and receiving. That way, when we leave a social environment, we will feel much more fulfilled.

If you’re feeling a bit lonely, try to give out some strokes to people around you – help someone, smile at a stranger, and you’ll notice that you will get some strokes back. You’ll feel a little less hungry, and you can go back to trying to figure out how to be the magic

inside Freddie Mercury instead of wallowing in your own self pity.

Alright that's enough out of me, thank you as always for listening and if you’ve got any questions on anything  I said please do send me a message. I particularly want feedback on these solo podcasts because I would like to know if what I’m saying makes any sense to anyone outside of my own head. We’ll continue on with this subject another day.

If you like this podcast and would like to support it, please subscribe on iTunes or Spotify, share it with your friends, like the facebook and instagram pages, or you can become a patron at Patreon.com/lornabremner.

Thank you for listening!

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Ruckus is a musician and an unassuming spiritual guru / future cult leader. He currently plays drums in a band called Hammers with our friend Lucas Stone, and he runs an organisation called Woke Blokes that is trying to help men understand themselves better in healthy and constructive ways. He's not really going to start a cult… but with his brain, charisma, and talent, he definitely could.

This is a great conversation about relationships, male and female roles inside those relationships, self-reflection and motivation.

To find out more about Ruckus, please visit his facebook page here, or his instagram here, or the Woke Blokes instagram here. Also check out his band Hammers here, and if you're a fella and you want to come to his upcoming event, the details are all here.

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this cute little thing grow. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

• Photo Credit – Daniel Ramsay
• Image credit Ummagummamumma – Live Music Photography

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In this episode I discuss some made up and some actual psychological theories on Human Motivation – why, the fuck, do we do what we do? What is this “dream” that the Social Media Influencers want us to pursue? What need is your dream actually fulfilling? And a sneak peak into how your unsuspecting partner is in fact dating both you and your mother simultaneously….

1. The psychological theory I'm discussing is called Transactional Analysis, or TA.
2. The Blindboy Podcast, Episodes on Psychology are “Creaking Ditch Pidgeon” and “An Introduction to Congnitive Psychology”, Parts 1, 2, and 3.
3. For further reading on TA, Games People Play by Eric Berne, is written by the guy who developed it.
4. A further look into the nuance of “Strokes” in Transactional Analysis

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this thing grow. If you’re on an Android device, I’ve found that Podcast Addict works the best. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

• Why the fuck do I do this?
• Oh yeah, I remember…
• Not Ok – Kurt and Justin
• Zoe and Blair
• Team Urban Christmas Party
• Lucas Recording
• WBC Title Defence
• Family and Grandma
• The making of High as Mike
• WMC Australian Title Melina Yung vs Leonie Macks

• Why do we think we need stuff and why do we get bored or unsatisfied? 

• There is a Psychology called Transactional Analysis, or TA, that deals with this very thing. Now there’s a lot to it, so today I’m just focussing on one introductory aspect of TA, and I’ll do another follow up to this one to cover more of the topic. If you want to read more about it, there is a great book called “Games People Play” by the guy who came up with the theory in the late 1950’s, Dr. Eric Berne.

• So why does anyone do anything?

• There is an entire industry online now, where “Instafamous Influencers” tell you to “Chase your dream” “live your best life” “be yourself” whatever that means… this is so popular only because human beings are addicted to potentiality. 

• We crave newness constantly, and with the world moving as fast as it can between one new thing and the next, we are responding with ever increasing appetites for more and more things, shows, music, phones, whatever.

• Why do we smile at a baby, or get excited about a new puppy? They are Potentiality, incarnate.

• The shit part, is, like an ex-alcoholic turned sex-addict, we are in the habit of transferring this addiction to potentiality into an addiction for stuff and status in the material world, which unfortunately, looses its charm almost immediately after you get it. We haven’t satisfied the addiction, we’ve just plugged our emotional holes for the moment until the leak gets so bad we have to do it again.

• But what about “chasing your dream” Surely that’s better than wanting a new Rolex? I’d argue that, at it’s core – the dream of say, making sure your town has clean drinking water, can be just as cheap as getting yourself a new Rolex, because the DREAM itself is irrelevant. WHY you have that dream, is far more important. 

• What is a dream?

• Literally, a dream is an incoherent stream of consciousness that happens TO US when we’re unconscious, which is completely out of our control without “normal” logic and is not bound by the laws of nature.

• Then there’s the second use of this word, Dream, which basically means your ideal, – this, I think, is referring to the unlimited potential that seems to come to us in an actual dream. There are no limits, no rules, no rational logical setbacks that can stop a dream from being ANYTHING it wants to be. But that’s a key distinction – the DREAM can be whatever it wants to be, You, CANT. 

• Even if you’re good at lucid dreaming, that is, controlling your dreams, even then you’ve actually limited that dream to your own imagination, which is a pathetic imitation of the infinite possibilities available in real dreamland. 

• The DREAM that the instagram influencers of the world want you to create for yourself is in-fact, the POTENTIAL of you being something that you imagine RIGHT NOW would be perfect. What was your dream as a kid? I wanted to either be famous or a doctor. So I settled on playing a doctor on TV – that’s good logic right? How much different are your DREAMS now, compared to what they were when you were a kid? What about 5 years ago? 

• Also, your dream is quite possibly someone else’s nightmare, and so “living the dream” isn’t such an easy thing to define… 

• And inevitably, if you do “achieve your dream” you will realise quite quickly that whatever you imagined was missing a lot of details that make your new life difficult to live – even if it’s near perfect, you will find a reason why it’s not. You’re a human, it’s what you do. And here’s my theory on why that is… 

• At our core, we have two fundamental fears – these two fears drive every other fear we have in our lives. They are: Fear of the Unknown, and Fear of the Finite. This is the confusion of the human condition, because those two fears are contradictory terms, they’re exact opposites. 

• Heres a light example to mull over: your own death. We know that we’re going to die one day, but we don’t know what happens after that, and so we generally cling to life – the fear of the unknown is stronger than our desire to know for sure.

• Because death is, also, Final, as far as we know. So we are afraid of the bleak nothingness of death, just as much as we are afraid of the unknown beyond it. Suddenly, the fear of the unknown seems less scary compared to the finality of nothingness, so we suddenly get excited about the possibility of something better on the other side. 

• But, then again, what if it’s worse? Oh shit, the fear of the unknown re-appears. And so it goes, on forever…

• We are afraid of what we can’t see coming, but if we already knew the ending, there would be no reason to exist. So we’re stuck in an infinite balancing act of trying to seek security from the chaos of the unknown, while constantly seeking new things to avoid becoming stagnant and wasting away.

• So my theory on motivation is that our basic core drive is to structure our lives in a way that keeps us in a harmonious balance between the terror (and thrill) of the unknown and the security / boredom of the known. Everything works in opposites.

• So in order to structure our time here, we develop tastes for things that matter to us, things that thrill us or scare us or keep us safe or make us bored. We hold on to them as long as they keep us entertained, and we move on when we can’t take it any more. You might meet your soulmate, then find out in a year that they have a second family in another country – the only thing we know for sure, is that nothing ever stays the same.

• That might sound scary, but it’s actually the fun of the game. Think about how much freedom comes from that realisation. Your life doesn’t depend on your DREAM, your life depends on the way you BALANCE your chaos and order. 

• If you fail at your dream, you’ll get a chance to make a new one with the shit you just learned. If you succeed at your dream, you’ll eventually get bored and stagnant, and yes, you’ll get a chance to make a new dream with what you just learned. The meaning isn’t in the DREAM, the meaning is in EXPERIENCE.

• The amazing part of all this is the fact that you even have the option to come up with a dream in the first place. It can be something silly like getting your mom to laugh when she’s in a bad mood, or something forced on you feeding your family for the day in extreme poverty. We are designed to solve these problems and survive, and the reward is not necessarily survival, it’s how much you can learn in the process. If you learn, you get better at solving problems and you get new ones, if you don’t you try again.

• So I was saying before that I think the content of the dream, and even it’s outcome, is basically irrelevant, it’s the reason WHY you do it that actually matters. 

• If I use the same example as before, which was making sure your town has clean drinking water, it sounds like a pretty wholesome thing to do right? Maybe.

• Say there’s an election coming up and if you get the town’s water supply clean then you’re sure to win the election and beat that stupid asshole who used to bully you at school once and for all. 

• Then the Dream is, actually, that you win a town election. This is a game, and the clean water is simply a move towards the final goal. 

• Sure the town gets clean water, but for how long? Did you care enough about it to make sure it got done right, or did you do the bare minimum to get elected and will deal with the fall out later?

• The problem with setting goals and motivating ourselves to achieve them, is not that our goals are bad or that we’re lazy – it’s our inability to be honest with ourselves about why we want what we want. 

• So, HOW do you know WHAT you REALLY want? 

• Why, as a kid, did I want to be famous? At the time, probably it seemed like fun, but if I’m totally honest, it was because I was lonely and felt like if more people knew who I was, they would pay attention to me, listen to me, validate me, and understand me. I would be showered with love and affection for merely existing.

• But, since that “DREAM” operates in dreamland where everything is magic and unicorns, it is missing the actual nuanced details that come with the reality of being a Famous Doctor on TV, some of which are:

• When you’re “Famous” no one gives a shit about who “YOU” are, they care about the you they have imagined you are from what they have seen on TV / or the internet or whatever and you’re constantly in the public eye, where the world waits to catch you being something other than what they imagined you are.

• So there is an unnatural expectation for you to be something other people expect you to be, and they are constantly watching you to catch you being something else, and the end result is isolation, shame and the necessary development of a “safe” personality, which can be adjusted to suit the current social environment.

• But you’re not alone in the struggle, your peers are also famous people, but they too have the same issue. No one is satisfied with their current position on the social ladder, because it is not “you” on the ladder its “the you the public wants today”.

• Everyone at the bottom is desperate to get to the top because they feel like if they do, then they can finally relax.

• But, the people at the top are constantly having to balance their disappointment at how isolating the “top” is, with the fear of loosing that position to the hungry “new rising star” who’s climbing the ladder beneath them.

• So, me, now a Famous Doctor on TV, might have achieved my dream, but it doesn’t fix the initial ache for connection and understanding that made me want to be famous in the first place. In fact, the end result is almost exactly the opposite – lonely isolation in a world of incomprehensible expectations.

• So when I was 10 my Dream of being a Famous Doctor on TV was, in fact, a model I built to satiate a need for connection at the time. That should have been my dream. 

• It could have been better phrased like this “I have a dream, of one day, feeling fulfilled in the work I do by connecting honestly to people around me so I don’t resort to embarrassing social seizures where I demand to be given attention for existing because my life feels lonely and meaningless.”

• And it turns out, I’m not the only one. This appears to be a very common human need, so common, in fact, that it forms the foundation for the psychoanalytical system designed by Eric Berne, called Transactional Analysis or TA. 

• So TA is a method of psychoanalysis and therapy that focuses on how people interact with each other, and themselves, in order to understand human behaviour. There are two levels to this, one is the Social level – the interactions you can see between people – and the individual level, which is what’s going on in each of their individual psyches during and after the interaction.

• Eric’s theory is that the foundation for all human interaction is what he calls “Social Intercourse” and the purpose is, simply “recognition”. 

• In a previous podcast, episode 34, the social masturbation episode, I was talking about the effects of social isolation in rats after birth, and how badly it fucked up the pups. If they didn’t get licked and cuddled by their mom, they had major behavioural problems in the future.

• Humans are no different, and since we have complex language and social structures, we have developed methods of getting that affection in both physical and non-physical ways, through social interactions.

• In TA, each interaction between people is called a “Transaction” – which is something as simple as 2 people waving at each other, and the currency they exchange during the transaction is called a “Stroke”. Like stroking a cat… not having a stroke. It’s probably where the term “stroking his ego” comes from.

• A Stroke is “recognition” that you exist, in it’s simplest form. A nod from stranger is enough to reinforce the fact that you exist and that the stranger has accepted that fact. According to TA, the majority of human behaviour can be attributed to this single desire, and they call it “recognition-hunger”, or “stroke-hunger”. 

• Your early childhood experiences can have a big impact on your desire to be stroked, the same way it impacts a rat in isolation. If you haven’t gotten the recognition you think you need, you’ll find ways to get it, good or bad..

• So a simple interaction at the grocery store, for example, may have 10 transactions, and the people involved will have given or received any number of strokes during the course of these transactions. In TA they don’t get into the measurable “Stroke balance” as such, but I’ll put this out there in mathematical terms so it paints a good picture.

• For example: Say you walk into the grocery store one evening:

• You wave at the car passing who let you into their parking spot. That’s one transaction, and you spent one “stroke” in giving them a wave. They wave back, and you receive one “Stroke”, so your Stroke balance is even. So far so good.

• Then you go up the escalator, into the shop, and you nod and smile at 3 people who are coming down the opposite direction. That’s 3 transactions, and you gave out 3 strokes. 2 of them nodded and smiled back, but the third looked at the ceiling when you caught their eye. You got 2 strokes back, and you suffered a little loss at the lack of reciprocation from the socially awkward 3rd person. 

• This is an example of a negative stroke – you got recognised as a human, you just didn’t get the reciprocal response to the positive stroke you gave them.

• Interestingly, it turns out, that even really bad negative strokes, like someone telling you that you’re a pathetic loser is still psychologically less damaging than someone pretending that you don’t exist. 

• Since what you want is simply recognition, if you cant get a positive stroke, you’ll actually find a way to get a negative stroke just to make sure you’re still real…

• Now inside the shop you’re focussed on getting your food – trying to appear healthy to all the prying eyes, and filling your cart with vegetables to cover the cookies and chocolate that are the real reason you’re at the supermarket in the first place. 

• You meet the eyes of a passing stranger and their eyes flick down to the contents of your cart, and you know they’ve seen what you’re trying to do. You smile, and they look away. Now you’re at -2.

• You turn the corner out of the veggie section into the stinky meat refrigerators and you notice someone you know from the gym (thank god the kale is fully covering the cookies). 

• “Oh hey, Lorna right? From the gym.” +5 strokes, they’ve said hello, they remember your name, and they remember why they know you. “Oh hey man, yeah, how are you?”  Uh-oh, you’ve reciprocated with only 4 – asking them how they are only just got you back on the scale at all after not remembering their name!”. 

• A little flicker of hurt crosses their face, but they’ll stick with it because you care enough to ask how they are, and they reply with a curt “I’m good thank you.” They look around for something else to say, they’re already down 1 stroke to you, and they’re not going to give you any more until you make up for the deficit. “Ah that’s good to hear, hey did your mom’s surgery go ok, I remember you were saying you had to get her to the hospital last week.” 

• Nice one!! thats a full 5 strokes in one sentence fired back at them, and they flush all pink with pleasure. “Oh, yes, thank you, that’s so kind of you to remember. Yes she’s fine, everything went exactly to plan, we’re all very happy.” They beam a huge smile at you as a stranger tries to squeeze between your carts in the aisle and the packs of dead animal on the walls, “well, I should keep moving, but it was very nice to see you again, Lorna, hopefully see you at the gym in the morning!” +4 points right back.

• “of course, you too, have a nice night!” You both smile and you’ve left with a perfect even balance. Nice save.

• Now this example could go on forever but I think you get the point – each interaction leaves us with a sense of ourselves and our place in the social order. We feel good when things are in balance, and we feel bad when we’ve expended too many strokes, or not reciprocated with enough of our own.

• The negative sensations of being out of balance, then, could determine our behaviour on the next interaction, and so on. And if we get caught out of balance for too long, our internal Stroke machine will start to click on.

• This is where things get complicated – if you, over time, learn that strangers look away from you when you smile at them, and that makes you feel invisible, then you will start to believe that you’re invisible in those situations. So you develop what they call “Stroke filters”, which are biases about who you think you are.

• For example, if you’ve been told your whole life that you’re pretty but you’re a bit stupid, if someone compliments your great idea, you won’t accept it. If they said you looked good while presenting the idea, then you’ll take that one on board. You won’t accept a stroke that contradicts the intricate web of beliefs you have about yourself.

• Crazy huh? So even if you had an objectively balanced day, in terms of giving out and taking strokes – if we had a little computer keeping count of everyones interactions all day, your PERCEIVED stroke balance will likely be different than what the computer says actually happened. The brain is a tricky bitch.

• One of the main points of TA is for the psychologist to analyse these types of external transactions in order to determine the patient’s INTERNAL psychological State.

• So the “Stroke Balance” I just described is a simplified/measurable example of what is commonly known as “triggering” or how we tend to slip into certain behavioural patterns when we interact with the world. The Ego State, is a predictable collection of those behavioural patterns once they get rolling.

• The three ego states are:

• Child – The behaviour patterns you learned as a kid. Tantrums, Pouting, showing off, seeking validation, creativity and curiosity.

• Parent – The behaviour patterns you saw in your parents or authority figures growing up. Criticising, judging, scolding or nurturing, problem solving and organising.

• Adult – This is a state of objective, conscious decision making, that deals with the immediate inputs at hand, with presence and clarity. This is the aim of TA therapy, to get the patient to operate more often in their Adult Ego state.

• So what does it all mean? What’s the point? The point is, if you find yourself repeatedly doing the same behaviour in social situations, it is most likely that you’re feeling a bit of “stroke-hunger” and in order to get some recognition, you’ve slipped into a predictable set of behavioural patterns that have gotten you recognised in the past. And that could be by adopting a method that you used as a kid, or adopting the method your parents used on you. 

• If you don’t like the patterns you’re falling into, you can change them by recognising the child-like or parent-like states that you or other people are adopting around you, and instead of reacting to them, be an Adult. With presence, clarity and patience. This will help the other person also shift out of their behaviour pattern, and it stops the game from progressing.

• Lastly, your day to day behaviour is what creates your life, generally, so having a bit more presence in your daily interactions will start to help you see where you are seeking attention or validation, and where you’re generally present and content. This little act of noticing can help guide you to discovering the ACTUAL reasons why you’re doing what you’re doing, and why you’re dreaming up schemes that you keep avoiding or sabotaging.

• You can almost guarantee that if you’re sabotaging something, or avoiding something that you know you need to do, it’s a very clear indication that your actions are at odds with your actual motivations or desires.

• That’s enough from me for one day, next month I’m going to do a continuation of this week’s podcast on TA, because we’ve only really just scratched the surface. If you have any questions, concerns and ideas, as always, send em through.

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This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at the Yard Cafe on the Gold Coast, featuring Ben Johnston. Ben has just recently won a WBC World Title in Muaythai, and this is a great conversation about what it takes to become the best in the world at something, how the social media affects our motivation, and how to deal with the mental rollercoaster of being a fighter.

You can find ben at The Fight Centre in Brisbane, and on Instagram here, and facebook here.

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this cute little thing grow. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

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Nick is an enigma – he walked away from a 13 year career in stand-up comedy to walk the Australian desert and sleep in various forests burning frog secretions into his skin in order to learn how to grow up… this is a great conversation about the power of the mind, how it manipulates us, and some varying tactics to bypass the prison that our intellect can create. We also talk about how to put a flaccid penis into a vagina in the name of true love… so there's also that…

To find out more about Nick, please visit his facebook page here, see his standup and other very silly videos on youtube here, and you can read about all his adventures in his blog here: https://medium.com/@nicksun

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this cute little thing grow. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Iggy specialises in mind and body transformation through his company Via Bellatoris. I brought Iggy back onto the podcast this week because it's a new year and we're all saying “Oh yeah, this year I'll do it!!!” – and I wanted to give you some tangible, specific advise on how to actually do what you say you're going to do.

Iggy is a Muaythai and Boxing fight trainer, personal trainer, massage therapist, mindset mentor, and has been an incredible asset in my corner, and as a friend over the last 3 years.

To find out more about Iggy and to get in contact with him, please visit his facebook page here, instagram, or website here: http://www.iggymcgowan.com/ 

Please subscribe to Closure Optional here: itunes, Stitcher, Android, Email, or wherever you like to hear your podcasts and help this cute little thing grow. Thank you for listening, as always.

This podcast is made possible by Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach Physiotherapy, Heart Start Fitness Muay Thai and YOU, the listener, at patreon.com/lorna bremner.

Closure optional Theme is created by Kurt Chatfield.

• Iggy vs. Daniel Sam

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