The Self-Connection Podcast

1:32 Jennifer leads us in a self-connecting meditation

5:21 Tim reads from Jennifer’s book and Jennifer reflects on the word “Grace”

What is helping me here at this moment right now? Can I notice my breath, the fresh air?

What’s sustaining my life?

9:12 We need chaos in order to experience grace. Jennifer talks about the importance of pausing and being in the present moment to connect to grace.

How does your grace interact with the chaos of life?

Jennifer talks about how grace helps create a sense of peace and presence. She talks about the practice of taking moments of stillness and of gratitude. Putting a hand on her heart and stilling herself.

Notice and appreciate that keeps going on no matter what happens.

12:40 What are the thoughts, attitudes and beliefs that are connected to grace? What are the expressions of wisdom that express grace? Jennifer mentions that we have all the resources for survival and growth. Also, as human beings we do the best we can with what we know how to do.

Jennifer talks about going beneath the surface of behavior and listening with curiosity for the deeper need. The need to be heard and connected

We may have the capacity to love,but the capability occurs through learning and practise over time

Imagining the iceberg is a skill that can be learned. Awareness of one's and another’s feelings, perceptions, expectations and deeper still their yearnings

17:52 How can we connect to our Resources? Asking yourself when do I start to react? What’s happening in my body? Can I pause and take a breath? This allows us to slow down, pause, instead of going into fight or flight or freeze?

Be curious about what is going on inside of you and in others?

20:28 Can I own my experience? Notice what’s happening in my body, feelings, what meaning am I making? Being open to alternative meaning.

Some helpful questions for self-reflection

What else could it mean?

What’s happening in my feelings? What am I needing right now? What need is unmet?

I can only be in charge of my response and what I am doing.

23:30 Beliefs are alive. They are living when they are embodied in action. I own my experience and actions. Owning my experience and then connecting to a deep yearning that can help transform the experience. We can be in touch with peace and start to embody that.

26:00 Tim asks Jennifer to make more concrete the forms of grace and peace as living energies.

Jennifer talks about flow and harmony and how she experiences calmness and stillness with vitality in her body. Feeling grounded on the earth. Experiencing something greater than oneself. “I experience myself as part of a whole. “ she says.

The notion of ownership may be grounding itself.

I own my experience; I own my response.

Anger is an emotion that projects our attention externally and it's easy to lose ourselves in the experience of anger.

Tim shares Virginia’s idea that parents experience having holes in them which they try to fill by bringing children into the world; those children experience/feel that they have holes. Virginia helped people understand that they were already whole, not hole-y. Being whole means that I have all the worthiness and resources within me.

A grounding exercise might be to say:

I own my feelings, thoughts and needs

I own my responses

I can breathe and own the response that comes next..

Connect to your deeper yearnings.

When I connect to my yearning, for example, the peace that becomes a gift to myself and to the other.

30:30 Jennifer when we are in touch with our yearnings we are much more able to be compassionate towards ourselves and others. Connecting to yearnings helps us account for ourselves, others and the larger context.

32:30 Jennifer shares about Virginia’s work on her life, personally and professionally. She had always felt something was missing. Learning about the foundations of Virginia’s work provided a framework that was grounding for her. Whereas other models focused on different aspects of experience, Virginia’s work helped Jennifer look at the full spectrum of experience.

Experiential, transformational, looking at the whole system.

36:00 Jennifer shares her ideas about changing our use of the word tools to vehicles for change. Focusing on the process of change. There is a dynamic fluidity to processes than tools.

39:30 Jennifer shares the 5 essential elements from the Satir Model: Positively directional, the use of Self, Change focused, systemic, experiential. As long as other techniques are congruent with these 5 elements she can incorporate it. She focuses on the relational process and does not see therapy as doing something to people.

41:30: What is self-connection to Jennifer and how she connects to herself. She describes herself as preparing herself to be fully present so she can connect with others. Spending some time alone perhaps in silent meditation to simply be. Jennifer emphasizes the importance of owning one’s experience as separate from other people.

44:40 The belief and knowing that clients have the resources to learn and survive. Jennifer doesn’t burden herself with having to do something but focuses on being something and providing the conditions for the work to occur. She experiences a lot of energy and fun in that work.

47:00 Jennifer encourages Self-connection to pause and to reflect on what we can be grateful for. Finding moments of grace in the face of chaos. “At this moment in time, I can breathe…I am alive…”

In each moment reflecting what you can be grateful for.

48:30 Tim asks how do you encourage grace and gratitude in the face of deep anxiety, depression or anger. Jennifer shares that during her husband's cancer diagnosis and treatment she was pregnant and this pushed her focus on self-care and manage her energy.

Jennifer said she emphasized breathing and being in nature. Being in nature helped her feel grounded.

50:33 In order to get to that place of gratitude, you need to believe that there is something to be grateful for. It’s an act of faith to get there. If I have the belief that there’s always something to be grateful for, then you have something to strive for. You may not be pregnant with a fetus, but you are pregnant with life and potentials in you. We need to protect the life within us and the yearnings that are desiring to come out. What if we protected our core Self to the level we would protect an unborn child?

We are all pregnant with life. We need to protect our life force...

When we do not honour, protect and express our life force..atrophy, destruction and suffering ensues.

1:33 John begins a meditation Connect to your breathing.

Can you experience your body? What is your body telling you right now?

Can you be aware of your feelings?

Can you watch your thoughts? Presently, past, future?

Acceptance and awareness. How do you experience yourself at this moment?

John invites us to bring in a change, a positive energy of gratitude.

6:50 We begin our conversation. John meets Virginia In January 1970.

John’s training was Rogerian where he learned to not ask questions. John observed that Virginia asked many many questions.

10:25 John talked about the first workshop. They were supposed to learn about family therapy but the emphasis was on learning about oneself , one’s family of origin. “Getting your own act together.” as John put it. Virginia did a lot experiential activities such as sculpting of families. Participants experienced and learned about the difference between incongruent and congruent communication.

13:04 What John learned and inspired him in the first meeting? John witnessed Virginia helping to make changes every minute. There was an immediate change that was positively directional in terms of their relationship to themselves and others. Virginia’s work was very positive and humanistic.

15:00 John appreciated how Virginia was able to go beyond intellectual learning and to help people experience what was going on. She helped people transcend their immediate experience by feeling fully what was there and going deeper to a core sense of Self. She helped people discover what was getting in the way of being in tune with themselves and these could be feelings, perceptions and expectations.

16:40 How can I be congruent within myself and take responsibility for my life?

17:10 How did Virginia use her Self to make contact? She was fully present with others. You would experience her. You could feel her energy. She truly believes that we are unique, precious and loveable. We can have better and happier life.

Her belief in people helped people connect more deeply to themselves,and to life.

18:26 “I’ll help you light your candle” Virginia would bring her light candle and it inspired people to look for their own light inside of themselves.

19:24 How did Virginia become so positive? John suspects that her experience as a teacher has a big influence, but really it’s a mystery. But he describes that when he met her it felt good to be in her presence and that she was fully blossoming at that time.

21”42 Virginia came to Manitoba for 3 months to work at various levels of governemnt.

22:25 Vrigina did what could be called family reconstruction across 3 generations. How to deal with the person in the present based on impacts of the past. “Changing the environmental impact” of our existence so they could change it at an energetic level.

24:00 John differentiates four levels of Virginia’s work: information, process, meaning, energy level.

25:30 What is energy? “all life is energy” What is human energy and how can we be in touch with it? It could start with awareness, attitude, feelings, but deeper there is a flow of positive life energy. Operating at this level we can get in harmony with ourselves, others and the universe.

27:10 I ask John to reflect on Virginia’s work and it’s relevance to the current COVID pandemic.

John emphasizes ‘going inside’ and learning to become aware of one’s own reactions to what is going on (their thoughts and feelings)

29:00 Can we become aware of a deeper sense of life? Virginia has an idea that there was a greater energy than us as individuals. Some call it God, Being, Spirit, and we could connect to it. Viriginia believed in an inherent healing quality of people’s mind that was analogous to people’s ability to heal from physical injury.

32:50 First, become aware of how we experience ourselves. Most of the time we could find that we live in a negative way either too much in the past or too much in the future.

(How do I experience myself? How do I think? How do I feel? How do I move? What am I not thinking, feeling and doing? Where are my blind spots? What do I avoid? In terms of loving myself and others what do I do, what do I not know how to do, what am I afraid to do?

How are we educated about how to experience ourselves more fully (others and life more fully)?

33:30 John asks “How I help you to be in charge of how you experience yourself? How can you take charge of your unmet expectations, your feelings, attitudes and thoughts? In order to be in charge, we need to look at change.

John describes the process of connecting to a more positive attitude or linking to higher or deeper energy and change attitude, expectations, feelings and behavior.

We can change our feelings by elevating them to a higher level of vibration. For example, getting in touch with gratitude as in the meditation at the beginning.

An example of expectations, something happened that should have happened or that should not have happened. If something was unmet, I would react. Virginia Satir taught, “Can you accept without liking?” This can be very difficult. We can choose to let go, accept or create a new expectation.

Perceptions would go through a similar process. Creating new ideas for ourselves.

37:00 Tim comments that attitudes or mindsets like acceptance and gratitude or higher-order perspectives or ways of thinking that transcend the individual’s needs and considers others and the context.

38:30 John describes the Self as a natural energy that have basic yearnings. Just as trees have basic needs, humans have them too.

We get our yearnings met through our experience. Virginia hoped that we would be responsible for meeting our yearnings.

What does it mean to meet your own yearnings?

I take charge of my feeling of my needs, of my saying and asking. I take charge of how I manage myself, who I ask.

I don’t leave it up to others.

Symptoms are a manifestation that we are not meeting our yearnings.- John Banmen

40:30 Virginia would not say how did that person make you feel. She would ask “What did you see and hear from them that you took in and created the feeling of sadness?”

Yearnings are foundational energy within people trying to manifest through people and in relationships.

42:42 John shares his personal journey of moving from Manitoba to BC and then becoming a professor at the University of British Columbia and then reconnecting with Virginia Satir in 1980. Virginia started doing process communities in 1981 which were 30 day training programs.

48:00 Virginia emphasized the development of congruence which would enable them to perform well across any role. John describes congruence: To be in harmony with your basic life energy, the universal Self, and your personal self and your experience (feeling, perceptions, and expectations) and then being in harmony with others. John makes the point that being in tune with your feelings would not be congruent because congruence incorporates a larger energy that transcends the individual.

53:51 John asks the question, “As a human how can we be in touch with who we really are?” Virginia would use the phrase to be fully human.

John continues to describe the experience of the process community. People could practice at being more congruent, in charge, positive, and have a different experience of themselves.

There were three levels : Virginia working with the whole group, the 3 main trainers working with groups of 30, and then all the triads working together in the evening.

56:00 They would look at how they were coping in a survival way and this would mark a state of being out of harmony with the Self (incongruent). From here, participants would work towards congruence and being in harmony with their Self.

57:30 How can we create a context of safety so we can look at our coping patterns lovingly?

Virginia modelled in her own way of being, loving, caring, curious, and accepting. Her energy helped open people up to do their work.

59:20 Tim asks John how Virginia’s energy impacted him personally and professionally. John reflects that he tried his best to be congruent, to look at what was going on in him and what was coming out of him. “How can I be?” and “how can I apply?” what I am learning were seemingly two questions that became one. There was a constant introspection, a process as Virginia called it, of taking a look and being in charge,

We discuss how recipes don’t work in working in this kind of way. That there was a kind of wisdom to Virginia that empowered her to work fluidly and unpredictably and yet very effective. Tim reads from the Tao Te Ching to paint a picture of this wisdom that transcends intellectual knowing.

1:03:35 John feels that our emphasis on understanding the psychological component means we can overlook the spiritual nature of Virginia’s work. This life energy is beyond thought, beyond the body, non-dualistic. Beyond our emotional and mental capacity, lies a layer of life experience that Virginia was accessing.

1:05:50 John explains the various level by which you can analyze and understand the Satir model. John describes a spiritual transformation; to be one.

We are more than our thoughts and feelings.

Here are some affirmations or a short meditation that can help you reflect on the core energy within you:

I am a positive expression of life.

I am goodness manifested.

I am alive. I am whole. I am one.

1:08:20 John hopes that we can bring Virginia’s work can be used therapeutically but he sees that her work transcends this application and is a deeply spiritual teaching.

1:08:45 John’s hope and wish for the Satir Model is beyond a family therapy but a life model; how to be alive. He feels that her work teaches us to be, not just how to think and to feel.

1:11:00 We discuss the difference between using technique to simply shifts states of mind as opposed to Virginia’s seed model which had as its aim the expression of each individuals unique life force.

There is the energy, the yearnings that actuate potential

(the yearning for love, the yearning to live, to contribute, for peace)

There are guiding beliefs that help point us in the right direction that is wisdom

(you can only connect with one person at a time. We are hallucinating our experience. Perception is reality. The way we cope is what is important not how can we not have problems.

I can take responsibility for my experience and yearnings. I can comment on the form from you which I see and what that brings up in me)

In life, I need to risk hurting and being hurt if I am honest with what I feel, need, yearn for; if I wish to risk loving and being loved.

Then there are behavioral skills that act as guidelines for the concrete expression of that attempt to meet a yearning.

1:13:00 John shares about his work after Virginia died. They started work in Hong Kong, then in Taiwan then later in Canton. Psychoanalysis was the main psychological practice in China. They were eager to learn other western psychotherapy models.

1:16:00 John felt that sharing that each person has a Self was a major contribution that fueled the motivation of students in China towards Virginia’s work. Their emphasis on personhood and of having value. “We helped them ground themselves in themselves” John explained.

1:20:00 John felt that politically that the model fit within China’s cultural values because it taught greater responsibility. Their emphasis was also on teaching competency and that would empower them to be more helpful to others.

1:23:00 Tim asks what transformation occurred with the introduction of the idea of a Self. John begins in awareness, awareness of parents’ learnings and coping patterns. They would look at family dynamics and dominance hierarchies. They would sculpt the survival defensive patterns. They would then look at congruence, experientially as a transformational state.

It was very powerful for parents to see themselves with their parents in a survival state often placating to them. They would reflect on their feelings and experience in being in these patterns. How would they like to be? What relationship would you like to see happen?

Virginia would often sculpt congruence as two people on their feet making eye contact at the same height (often using stools and chairs to help).

1:29:00 How can I be on my own two feet? How can I be aware of my survival coping patterns? Tim makes the point that our survival coping patterns aren’t necessarily learned. They are forms adapted from basic instinctual energies of fight, flight and freeze.

1:30:25 Helping the Chinese to be happy, healthy and successful with a goal of 65 Million which is the tipping point to create a nation-wide transformation. The Chinese see happiness as a birthright which is alignment with the type of workshops and trainings which John is responsible for.

1:33:00 John describes what he means by happiness as being congruent: peace within, peace between and peace among.

1:35:00 The Chinese have a concept of Chi, energy, which is how John understands and teaches the Satir model. He has been given the feedback that Virginia’s work helps people understand their culture and Chi even more.

1:36:00 What has been most impactful is the creation of experiences (experiential), not just philosophical or intellectual understanding.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Translated by Jonathan Star)

Verse 15

The masters of this ancient path

Are mysterious and profound

Their inner state baffles all inquiry

Their depths go beyond all-knowing

Thus, despite every effort

We can only tell of their outer signs--

Deliberate, as if treading over the stones of a winter brook.

Watchful, as if meeting dangers on all sides

Reverent, as if receiving an honored guest

Selfless, like a melting block of ice

Pure, like an uncarved block of wood

Accepting, like an open valley

Through the course of Nature

Muddy water becomes clear

Through the unfolding of life

Man reaches perfection

Through sustained activity

That supreme rest is naturally found

Those who have Tao want nothing else

Through seemingly empty

They are ever full

Through seemingly old

They are beyond the reach of birth and death

Eva Wieprecht joins me again to discuss some strategies and ideas for coping with stress, fear and anxiety during the pandemic. She shares a tool using the acronym COACH which stands for Centering, Openness, Awareness, Connection and Holding. We go through these steps which involve processing challenging emotions like our fear and using physical movement to help embody each resource and to deepen our connection to ourselves and to others.

2:00 heather provides some background about her music and the genre it is situated within. Southern country gothic. Tim shares about encountering Heather’s music and its impact on him.

6:20 Heather shares her story. Growing up in Northern Ontario surrounded by nature and training as a cross country skier. She describes her relationship with nature which was a touchstone connection that runs through her music. She describes herself as the opposite of an old soul. She describes her naivete and belief in people at their word and her yearning for life experiences. She studied cultural anthropology and transitioned to law school. Pursuing law was a way of proving herself that she could make it in the world of man. The further she went down the path of law the further she diverged away from her natural and inner desire for art, music and nature. This made it more difficult for her to know who she was. As she went further down this path, she describes feeling trapped within it, which then lead her to look for validation in the wrong places.

14:00 Heather honestly expresses wearing the trappings of roles and exercising that ability to be able to meet everyone else’s expectations and the pain that creates of not knowing who she was.

14:45 Heather describes the romance that unravelled her life. She shares her experience of being deceived, cheated on and hurt within this relationship and the inner conflict between what she was going through and experiencing. and who she thought she should be as a strong professional woman. She talks about her attempts to leave the relationship but also the ambivalence that can exist in any toxic relationship and how challenging it can be to end such a relationship.

19:50 After experiencing a great deal of stress and anxiety that manifested in physical symptoms, she took a vacation and went to see Gillian Welch perform live and it reminded her of a world that she longed to be a part of. Soon after she had an intense experience of being so disconnected mentally and physically at work losing her sense of time for several hours and feeling a fogginess of mind that made it feel like she was underwater. That same day she left her office and never returned.

21:57 Tim asks what kind of validation was she receiving within the romance that lead her to getting caught up in an unhealthy relationship. She describes the emphasis within the practice of law the importance of managing your appearance and impression as part of the role. Heather talks about feeling that aspects of her self outside of specific roles had never felt seen before and that this person was able to make it seem that he could see and wanted to connect to that person.

24:00 Heather shares about how her shared passion for music that was very romantic in theme finding its way into her experience of the relationship. She bravely shares that she was seeking a way out of the life of a lawyer and that this person offered and encouraged her departure from a life that did not feel authentic to her.

26:50 Heather describes feeling like she was beginning to know herself through the gaze of this other person, We talk about what may be a necessary step of needing to lose yourself with someone, an unhealthy connection, in order to find yourself. We talk about the widespread dynamic of external approval seeking that we all experience in our growing up, in our education system which then finds its way in how we approach intimate relationships and relationships of any kind.

29:10 Heather talks about a ‘conflict habituated form of love’ that we can all begin to become attached to because of their emotional intensity. She describes how long it took for her to recover and begin the process of grieving and feeling again.

30:30 Tim asks Heather how she was able to create a boundary to leave the unhealthy relationship and heal. She describes the challenges of being deceived and struggling to trust. On some level, she thought this was the best that love could be. Heather honestly shares about the ambivalence of wanting to leave and also wanting the relationship to continue.

In her situation, Heather gives credit to the circumstance of this person being arrested and giving her space as he would not have the means to contact her so she could heal and as part of that to write her songs which was an important part of her healing.

38:57 Heather offers her story as a caution that when someone breaks your trust to listen to that as an important detail that person and what to expect. She talks about how difficult it is to have a healthy relationship when cheating has taken place.

40:30 Heather points out that the painful things of our lives do not end neatly. She felt she needed to hit absolute rock bottom and to learn to love herself from that point.

41:45 Tim shares his reflection on the ways we are invited to play roles and the potential we have to lose ourselves by getting hooked by the expectations of others.

44:30 Heather talks about her wish that she could transform her experiences into something beautiful that could be meaningful for other people. Heather says:

“I don’t believe in justice. I believe the most noble thing you can do with your time is to help other people who are suffering feel less pain and sometimes feeling understood is part of that.”

“When you have gone through trauma, naming it is a way of taking it out of your own soul and putting it in the world so it’s not able to just eat away at you. And it’s a way of telling the truth of where you have been, which is a way of standing up against abuse.”

46:00 Heather shares feedback about her music from audiences that sound like, “I’ve experienced something that’s being called out in this music and thank you for helping me feel like I’m not alone.” These moments make Heather feel it is all worth it.

47:10 Heather describes how difficult it can be for people who are highly empathic and who have survived abusive relationships to set boundaries. To not feel guilty about setting boundaries and saying no when that’s what fits and feels safe and right.

50:50: Heather shares the acronym for identifying toxic relationships: justifying, arguing, defending, explaining. When the relationship is a toxic pattern and you find yourself in these modes of JADE, these efforts are more opportunities to be invalidated.

51:40 Often, toxic relationships stem from the seeking of validation outside of oneself. This pattern of seeking external validation is established in our public education.

“You can’t be worried about how you will be received. You just have to be as authentic and true as you can be.”

54:30 Tim asks Heather how, as a performer, she deals with ego-mind that could easily worry about other’s judgments.

In preparing for a show, Heather explains her thought as, “I’m going to be as honest as possible and to tell these stories through this music in the best way I’m capable with this practice.” And then I have to just trust that it will connect with people.”

56:30 Heather reflects positively on the challenges she has experienced as allowing to be in a place where she has something that she feels is worth sharing. She talks about overcoming her shyness and the dynamic of sharing something that is specifically her story but general enough that it resonates on the level of human experience with others.

58:15 Heather shares “It’s ok to be weak. When the right people are in your life, they’re not going to make you pay for those moments. You can’t be strong all the time.” Heather shares that she went through her difficulties because she was so proud and afraid of showing weakness and internalized everything.

Tim reflects on his work with people, particularly men, who begin with an attitude that feeling and expressing vulnerable emotions is weak. Through their work in therapy, they learn that, in fact, feeling, sharing one's weakness is tremendously courageous and also receiving help can be the ultimate expression of human strength rather than isolation and suppression.

1:01:40 Heather emphasizes the importance of finding people that you can trust and feel safe with to open up with.

Heather quotes the saying, “When you’re wearing rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags look like white flags.”

0:00 Sharon begins with a medtiation.

8:30 Our conversation begins focusing on community. Community is a coming together of people with like minded values. There is a sense of belonging, Sharon cites research that people are going to be experiencing more depression over time as people are sequestered into virtual social media spaces.

We talked about the importance of community for refugees like the Vietnamese boat people that came to Canada in the 70s of which Tim’s wife is a child of.

14:00 Sharon finds inspriation and energy from her connection to the Satir community and her church. Many windows one light. There is something powerful and connective when a group of people sing together.

17:00 Tim shared his appreciation for the joy and willingness that people at the IHLRN conference showed for contributing to the conference with even the smallest of tasks. Our sense of feeling useful and helpful we can feel meaning and purpose in our lives.

19:30 Sharon shared about her community growing up of about 100 people and that neighbors would be very well connected and helpful to each other. Now that most of us live in large urban settings, we are very disconnected and we don’t know our neighbors.

24:00 Tim mentions how Sharon is a leader in building communities virtually through Virginia’s work.

29:00 When we connect through our similiariities we can apprecaite our differences in a positive way.

30:30 Sharon mentions the temperature reading tool as a way of getting to know each other.

A temperature reading involves sharing appreciations for oneself and others, puzzles (things that are problems that need to be resolved), complains and recommendations, new information and hopes and wishes.

33:00 We talked about Tim’s experience doing a piece of therapeutic work in front of a group of 40 people with Laura Dodson and how supportive it is to do personal work within the context of a safe group , a community.

0:00 We begin with Laura leading us in a meditation for grounding and connecting to our Self.

3:00 We clarify what Laura means by Zap, to understand the transformational process and the process of connecting to our deepest Self.

Laura describes it as being connected to the “golden thread” that which transcends our ego and is a greater energy. She shares her own experiences during of time of grief of receiving an experience that came as an audio ‘zap’ that said ‘The form is not the essence’ Laura describest that this message was like a conversation between the large Self that transcends her speaking to the small self within her. This was a zap of clarity and insight for Laura which she has found to be a universal experience that most people have had cross-cultural around the world

7:10 Laura describes it as an experience of something far greater than oneself. Being aware that there is this Self/Life force energy and paying attention is an important aspect of experiencing according to Laura. Tim shares about his own zap experience that occurred during a session fo holotropic breathwork where had visualizations of eyes and the phrase “The eye sees but it is not what it sees” Laura emphasizes that these kinds of experiences are beyond simply insight but are examples of great knowing “Knowing in every cell in your being” These symbols that come from the unconscious are a comfort because they provide a peace and relieving experience that helps us transcend the events and tragedies that are occurring in time and space.

12:55 Tim asks “are zap experiences important to transformational change?” Laura does seem them as important and they can come in many forms. In her model of transformational change, this is our contact with numinous experiences (deeply meaningful symbols, dreams, insights, etc.) that help us see life from a completely different and new perspective. We shift out of being stuck and not being able to see where we are and where we are going and we have new light, new insight and hope that shifts us into a new direction. These profound experiences help us disengage from a stuck perspective pattern and we engage and revivify our whole body and being to be free to choose and to move again.

16:13 Laura shares her experience with Ian Baker, in Zurich, who was a Jungian analyst and did research at the mental hospital where Carl Jung worked. People had psychotic breaks because of their experimenting with LSD. In the hospital, they were again given LSD, but this time revisited the part of the experience that left them feeling ‘crazy’. They were supported to talk to that experience in a two-chair Gestalt kind of context. To take charge of the experience and to say that they needed the experience to come later in life when they were ready or that they were in charge, not the experience. With this intervention, they were not longer psychotic. Laura emphasizes the theme of ‘taking charge’ as an important element of what is healing.

18:25 We talk about the iceberg metaphor with the Satir model, which includes behavior which is what is seen and above the water line and other elements below the surface such feelings, feelings about feelings, perceptions, expectations to name a few. Tim explains that he likes to use the metaphor of the iceberg to look and explore what is stuck or an unhelpful pattern of coping, but not to be a representation of consciousness as a whole. In other words, the iceberg is a particular form of consciousness at a moment in time and space. Transformation is the melting of the iceberg so our consciousness becomes fluid, flexible and free and we are able to make choices that are from this empowered place.

Transformation is the process where we reclaim the energy that is stuck and use it in a different way that is in line with healthier states of being. This includes experiencing freedom, peace, joy and vitality. By incorporating transformation within the metaphor, ice to water, we more accurately represent the process of transformational change.

21:00 Laura talks about the importance of creativity and choice in Virginia’s work and this exemplifies healthy fluidity. Laura describes the relationship and flow between awareness, communication and action. That with greater awareness we enhance our communication and the quality of our actions enhances.

Laura provides an example of how open awareness about multiple meaning and interpretations then leads to an expansion of possibilities and choice.

24:50 Laura clarifies the difference between communication and action. Communication is the step of simply expressing one’s feelings, perceptions, needs to oneself, perhaps to the person of a therapist which is about finding the voice or expression that fits and then the action being what happens between the person and the people and their relationship they have in the world.

Virginia would encourage people to connect to their feelings deeply and then together finding a form of expression that accurately expresses it and then ask how it was, how it felt to express it. So often people don’t connect to or say the things they deeply want to say and so to nurture people through that process and help them be aware of what is the embodied experience is very important.

27:00 We talk about how people have barriers to communicating their deepest yearnings because they learned in their family rules that sharing such things were forbidden. Transforming the family rules such as “Do not talk about your feelings.” “Don’t be vulnerable or else people will take advantage.” this explicit and implicit rules become barriers to deep connections to Self and others and keep us in defensive coping.

.

28:30 Tim asks Laura how we can support one another to look at these old patterns in new ways. Laura talks about ‘lending your ego’ This can be done by encouraging, stroking them, letting them know it’s ok to incorporate new beliefs. That person is affirming and supportive of new learning and taking the risk to practice.

33:00 Laura talks about her coping through her husband's death and how meditation was an important tool that allowed her to listen to the greater transcendence Self energy that gives clarity moment by moment of what to do and how to cope. Tim suggested that Laura was trusting the greater Lifeforce, but Laura didn’t see it that way. Instead, she didn’t know what else to do. We talked about how moments of great darkness come to the necessity of connecting to a greater energy (light) that transcends the ego.

37:00 Laura shares some of her dreams at different points in her life to illustrate the connection to our greater life force and how this can be expressed and the impact it can have on our lives. She illustrates through her experience of dreams and her life how they directly impacted her perspective and her movement through life.

39:15 Laura shares a dream that related to George’s death which is a kind of foretelling dream. Laura describes how there are many layers of consciousness and the arena of consciousness that puts us in touch with all things that transcends time and space.

44:30 Laura describes the utility of dream as a moment of being connected or flooded with light that helped her understand what was happening. Laura comments, “In the depth of our unconscious there is a knowing about everything” It gave her a sense of peace and a knowing that we are connected to universal truths. She adds, “I am a part of the universe. I’m not an isolated being in my body. Sometimes I transcend my body and I’m connected to the Universal Truths.”

46:10 Tim asks Laura if the dream is an example of a Zap experience. Laura says Zap are conscious waking experiences. Tim clarifies in wondering with Laura what other significance this dream had on Laura. She feels it deepened her belief in the realms of the unconscious.

Tim asks Laura why is it important to have this connection with the unconscious. Laura affirms that action-oriented therapies have a place. She goes on to describe how Virginia would begin by connecting to various energies systems below, above and amongst that carry wisdom. That there is far more wisdom than what we can be aware of in our minds at a moment in time. To have an appreciation and openness to the unconscious provides many gifts of insight, of energy, of connections. Connection to the unconscious, according to Laura has the effect of “the world gets bigger and the possibilities get bigger.”

50:15 Tim relates this to a trusting of the many complex systems of our bodies that function without our conscious control and appreciating the wisdom that is active within which gives us life (circulatory, digestive, immune, nervous system)

51:15 We explore ways to deepen their relationship to the unconscious. Why value the unconscious realms and how to cultivate that connection. Laura talks about how the connection to the larger plan of the unconscious gives us more information/wisdom from which to make decisions. “We can know much more than we know.”

54:30 Laura introduces the topic of suffering and our judgements about certain feelings states as being bad versus good. Laura shares her perspective that the goodness is in our ability to be with whatever state is with no judgment. The issue of suffering is more a matter of being able to move through it , to breathe through it. And to keep the feeling states fluid and this an important aspect of growth. To go with the states with curiosity and flow with them and see where they take us.

57:46 “There’s a me that’s more than my body” We discuss the importance of being able to explore the question of “Who I am?” Who are you beyond your body? This could be used as a reflective question so see the Self that is beyond the physical form. What is the essence in you?

1:00:00 Laura finishes with a meditation

“Brighter than the brightest sun.

Purer than the whitest snow.

More subtle than either is the Self.

I am that Self. That Self am I

I am that Self, that Self am I .

“Brighter than the brightest sun.

Purer than the whitest snow.

More subtle than either is the Self.

I am that Self. That Self am I

I am that Self, that Self am I .

The Self-Connection Podcast: S1 E 15:

A Zap of insight with Laura Dodson.

Laura Dodson, a former student and eventual colleague of Virginia Satir joins the podcast today. Laura shares her wisdom through the telling of her own healing journey of shame and describes her experience working with Virginia and her own family of origin issues as essential to healing and finding peace. I found my conversation with Laura to be deeply enriching and hope that her passion, heart and wisdom shine through in this podcast.

0:00 Tim provides a brief introduction to Laura Dodson. Laura did her first training with Virginia in 1963 Laura Dodson was a close friend of Virginia Satir and was by her side as she died of Pancreatic cancer in 1988.

In addition to her extensive training with Virginia, Laura is also a Jungian analyst and did her postdoctoral thesis integrating Virginia’s work with Carl Jung with her insights.

Laura is one of the key leaders in sharing Virginia’s work with the world. She has travelled to many parts of hte world including, Russia, Lithuania, and Thailand to offer training and workshops and has been doing so since the 80s.

2:50 Laura does a meditation:

6:00 Tim offers a brief commentary to transition into the conversation between himself and Laura.

7:23 Tim asks Laura to share her own experiences of “Zap” . Laura shares about her early experiences of being a teacher and quickly transitioning to becoming a social worker as she was more interested in connecting to the inner lives of her students and family life and supporting growth at a deeper level. In this way, her life parallels Virginia as they both connected to their students' families to help support them with their learning. Laura wrote letters to the top family therapist of the time and Virginia was the only one to respond inviting her to train with her and offering something for her mind, body and soul.

12:20 Laura talks about her first impressions of Virginia. She was present and expressive of what she felt and thought and Laura found this to be very exciting. She listened carefully to others. Laura worked in an adult inpatient mental health facility and she invited Virginia to come to teach, do demonstrations, and train the staff there two or three times a year over nine years.

16:50 In this work, the emphasis was with families and creating community and the demonstrated successful outcomes over 5 year follow up.

18:10 Laura shares that Virginia had a deep respect for others and did not allow for any blaming or shaming to occur in her work. Laura learned from Virginia to see the problem as one of coping not as one of pathology residing within a specific person which would foretell blame and shame. The intervention at the level of family and community created a sense of community around the problems that were occurring and the presenting problems could then resolve or lessen as a result of working in this way, that is, systemically.

19:22 Understanding logically the futility of blame and understanding family of origin issues, and approaching emotional and family life from a stance of learned patterns and behaviors. Laura talks about Virginia's preparation in meeting a family, putting aside her concerns and agenda so she can be present and meet the individuals of the family with a sense of awe at the miracles they each are. She differentiated between peoples behavior from their essence. “We are all miracles. And I feel I am about to meet a miracle. So I feel respect and awe of that person. “ From that attitude, she would make contact and often physical touch contact to meet people. She wanted to join the family to explore what was happening and to explore choices of what other things could happen.

Virginia approached people with a detective hat (sometimes literally!) , which symbolized an attitude of curiosity rather than blame. Virginia talked about blame being our first attempts at trying to understand what's happening and we don’t have in our minds a broader way of looking at it. Seeing people and situations beyond blame is central to understanding how Virginia worked.

Laura shares her view that people’s intention and goals is not to hurt, unless its revenge for the hurt that they feel they’ve experienced. Revenge is not inherent in our nature but rather a reaction to pain.

24:40 Tim asks how Virginia was able to have such confidence in the essence of people beyond their behavior and patterns. Virginia talked about each person have the seed of creativity within us. A problem is a block in energy. We are geared towards growth.

26:00 Laura provides an example of someone suffering with Schizophrenia saying "people in this family never liked me|". Virginia would thank them for sharing and ask when they first felt that. They would go into the past and that’s when the creative energy started to be blocked, the energy to solve problems was blocked because the solution or formulation is somehow they are ‘wrong, bad, dirty, evil, stupid or crazy’. Virginia would explore how differences were handled and talked about. Were they labelled as "bad". Then she would offer a new perspective, “What if we called your difference your uniqueness?” She worked to take blame and shame out of the conversation. Shame is particularly difficult because with shame we feel we should just disappear and not exist. She worked to help people see themselves as she saw them, as a miracle of life.

27:42 Tim asks what Laura’s experience of Zap. Laura describes growing up feeling shame about her body being tall and very thin. Laura was different in being attracted to people’s emotional life which was very unlike those in her family. Laura recalls noticing tension in the family and taking on the blame and responsibility for that. “It’s because of me. I did something wrong. I’m not loveable anymore. It must be my fault.”

31:55 Laura recalls Virginia doing a sculpt with Fritz Perls (the founder of Gestalt therapy) role-playing her father and sitting his lap. Virginia said to her “You know something more happened to you when you were 5, something more than having long legs. You need to go find out.”

Laura questioned her mother and finally found out that her father had an affair. Laura realized that what was happening in the family was not her fault. She explains that she felt relief. This was one example of a Zap moment for her.

36:00 Laura shares that she had learned that shame was a reaction to anything wrong. She expanded her possibilities of how to react when something was wrong; beyond what a child would do, thinking “It’s all my fault” Realizing that she was not the center of the universe as a child would think.

Laura shares that her defence of pulling back and not talking, not being seen, was rooted in the shame of “I’m not ok” Before her work with Virginia, she couldn’t become a woman and integrate her sensual side.

39:50 Shame disconnects us from our Self, or Life force. We can apply the ideas of unravelling shame to healing from cultural trauma. Laura talks about her work in Lithuania as an experience of a nation experiencing shame. “Healing of shame applies to all systems.”

45:25 We talk about Virginia's incorporation of the body, breath, movement. Tim asks Laura to share what she learned from Virginia about the importance of the body in the work of growth and healing. Laura relates her experience of Virginia dying and having an insight of what to do that came from meditation that was preverbal and body-based.

49:20 Laura also shares another experience training with Virginia working with a woman who was in a car accident and walks us through the bodywork that occurred in her process of healing. “Leading by following a half a step behind.” is how Laura likes to work and how she witnessed Virginia working. She helped to help make conscious that is unconscious and almost conscious. She recalls Virginia stroking her hands and asking “if your hands could speak what would they say” so that she could come to her senses more and more.

There is a relief when you can place in time and space the feeling tone that you carry within a particular context. Laura describes this as comforting and making sense of her pain. “To become familiar with that part of life that she had repressed”

Virginia was very mindful not to interrupt the individual's process and encouraged her to experience her experience for herself. She was present to help Jackie find what her body was remembering. There is an art to staying out of the way and being a guide. Laura describes the importance of creating that bond between therapist and client before being able to go deep into bodywork or any healing process.

58:50 Laura talks about how thrilling it can be to have a partner doing the work together and not getting in the way of it. Laura describes Freud's use of the couch with the patient lying down and facing away from the therapist as a way of doing this but analysts were not trained to show they care and to bond and to journey together was not present in Laura’s experience of analysis of the time.

1:00:00 We talk about the connection at the level of Self being the essential ingredient to transformation. That an overemphasis on method and technique can lose sight of this.

1:01:30 We talk about the use of touch in therapy. Tim appreciates Virginia's use of the whole body and Self in therapy and Virginia’s fearlessness in doing so. Laura talks about the important risk a therapist must take to speak the unspeakable, to bring to light what is felt but not yet said. The risks that a therapist takes an important ingredient according to Laura of what makes the work therapeutic and not just a casual conversation. To make the hypothesizing together and not needing to be right is an important part of being able to grow and learn in relationships.

0:00 Meditation

5:30 What’s alive in you? This is a different way of asking “how are you feeling?” This allows for the exploration of other forms of consciousness which may not be feelings such as beliefs, wishes, and yearnings.

7:15 What is the space between things? It is formless and can be described by some of the energies we use to help transform our stuck experiences. Such as using presence, compassion, love to transform challenging emotions such as anger and depression.

10:20 Congruence is the manifestation or expression of consciousness. This is where we have done the internal work of Self-connection and creating a conscious response in the form of a congruent behavior/expression. Congruent has as its effect a sense of peace and wholeness regardless of the response/reaction of others.

13:00 Evolving consciousness occurs when we can connect to our deepest values and resources to transform our experiences and reactive patterns. Sharon calls this the “Pause” effect where we disengage from set patterns and access supports and resources to learn and create a new response.

15:40 How do you know when you’re in a rut or a pattern? Virginia talked about 4 survival patterns that represent ruts we can fall into : blame, placating, superreasonable, and irrelevant. What marks the use of a survival pattern is a loss of connection to one or more elements of self, other and context.

18:20 Fight, flight and freeze are marked by overgeneralizations, characterizations, threatening, intimidating, are forms of fight. Flight looks like distracting from the topic, withdrawing, emotional withdrawal, stonewalling, cutting off. The defences can be combined in many ways creating what Virginia Satir called a ‘stress dance.”

21:00 People’s sense of themselves are eroded and degraded when stuck in these survival patterns. This is an important marker of defensive coping. In other words, you can identify that you are in a defensive stance if you are feeling of low worth and disconnected from your authentic Self.

23:00 Healthy congruent communication is marked by a genuine dialogue where people’s flaws aren’t fixed character judgments and people can engage in a process of mutual understanding and growth together.

23:45 “Its all about process the perception together” People quickly assume that they know what each other mean. It is important to check out each other’s meaning because what is said and what is meant is often not the same thing.

24:30 In having this dialogue we need to take turns listening because two people can not speak or listen simultaneously. Tim asks how do you decide who gets to be heard first? The person who can shift their energy from survival to openness, curious and compassionate can volunteer to listen first and can positively impact the relationship.

26:30 We discuss the challenge of transitioning from the need to be right and to “win” the argument towards a collaborative supported conversation. Sharon suggests that we need to connect to our higher values and wishes of harmony, connection, love , we can let go of needing to be right.

28:00 We debate on the utility and use of compassion. That congruence may simply the honest expression of one’s own feelings without projecting a need of a particular response from the other.

30:00 The difference between Ego and Self. We comment on competency at the level of Ego and our feedback should never be related to the Self. In order for us to receive feedback constructively, we need to differentiate between our ego and Self. When these are enmeshed then there is a tremendous threat and vulnerability in hearing negative feedback.

32:30 Consciousness is a differentiation between Self and ego. The work of differentiating Self and ego is an ongoing growth process. Reflecting and meditating on these differences can help us grow. We need a secure base from which we can know who we are (Self) and then a way to share at the level of role /ego what is happening and having constructive growth-oriented conversations.

33:40 Sharon makes the point that some people will struggle to feel Self-worth. We talk about how the attachment needs of a child are ego needs; and are an important part of healing. Ego’s can die when the patterns no longer fit and can be reborn and this is personality transformations.

36:15 Congruence is honest but it doesn’t go below the belt and lose sight of respect of self, other and context. When we are communicating congruently, we are connected to our value and dignity at the level of Self as we are discussing things at the level of ego/form/role.

39:15 “The Hardest Thing to do Ever!” is holding the mind and heart of my self and of the other simultaneously.

0:00 meditation connecting to feelings building awareness

5:00 We begin exploring definitions of feelings, how we work with them personally and professionally. Sharon talks about the idea of ‘listening profoundly’ where you listen from your heart your spirit and your presence that says “I’m here for you and I’m not making any judgments’. I’m working to understand you and I accept you. “ Listening to feelings allow feelings to expand and elaborate and increases their capacity for growth. Feelings are energy.

12:00 Sharon describes that there are feelings about feelings and that there are primary and secondary emotions.

14:45 Emotions are an aspect of experience or consciousness that we try to discuss independently albeit artificially so that we can try to come to understand what is unique and distinct about feelings. “Feelings fire first” They are fast and could be tied to unconscious and implicit beliefs. We feel emotions based on a particular way of thinking and physical sensation. Emotions are preverbal. These patterns of relating were established based on family or origin become recurring emotional patterns throughout life.

16:17 We acknowledge that there are cultural or family rules that resist the experience of feelings and talking about feelings. Virginia talked about emotions being the ‘juice of life’.

17:10 Emotions put us into motivation. Our emotions both positive and negative are resources that help us being fully motivated in life.

The way that we utilize the energy of emotions requires us to use resources like intelligence, compassion, wisdom, honesty and awareness.

18:20 “To be disconnected from our emotions is to be disconnected from the life within us. It would be the same as being cut off from oxygen.” Being stuck in emotional states creates behavioural and relational patterns that leave us rigid and unfulfilled.

19:20 Violence can stem from the identification with another person’s behaviour being a comment on a person’s worthiness. Not being served well at a restaurant. I can feel unworthy and it doesn’t mean that I am worthy.

20:00 the way that our emotions are related to by others when we are young becomes the way that we relate to our own emotions later on. We learn as a child which emotions are forbidden and we can either suppress them or project them, but any emotions that are forbidden can not be processed in a healthy way.

21:00 when we relate to our emotional experience positively, lovingly, constructively then we open up new possibilities that create deeper connections and creativity.

22:00 Sharon describes 4 primary emotions and an additional 2. These are angry, fears, sadness and joy. You could add shame and excitement as other primary emotions based on the research on primary emotions.

23:00 We discuss the importance of just being able to be with emotions without trying to change or get rid of it immediately. To be with emotions in this way we need to make a few decisions about what we believe to be true:

I am responsible for creating and maintaining my emotions.

It’s to appreciate the resource and wisdom of the emotional response and responses that occurred and are occurring.

I can relate to my emotions openly, constructively if I am rooted and connected to myself. (That I am worthy) not that if I feel bad, that I bad.

27:45 Without the connection to our emotions and it’s honest expression to those we care about, intimacy can not take place. The difficult, negative emotions are challenging and the initial temptation is to avoid them and not talk about them, but when we are in touch with our higher goals of genuine connection and the valuing of our relationships; feeling the feelings and conversations about them can result in a greater connection.

29:28 The root of the word encourage has to do with courage and the courage to express what is deep in your heart. Some people believe that feeling vulnerable emotions makes a person weak so they hide from that, but the opposite is true. Expressing vulnerability is an expression of courage and strength.

31:45 Courage, truthfulness, love and awareness are meta-resources and values that help us process, move through and transform our emotions.

32:50 You can not change the event, but you can change the impact that is occurring inside of you.

33:30 we discuss the inevitable occurrence of loss, trauma and death which will erupt negative and difficult emotions. We are all capable of building our resource to contain these experiences, to express the emotions and our ability to ask for help.

Show notes:

Today we continued our conversation about choice and hinted at a future topic of integration. Our choicemaking evolves from our ability to be aware and awareness requires a connection to what we feel, what we are needing and yearning for, awareness of others feelings and needs and the ability to differentiate between Self and role within each person. If we can communicate from the basis of our Self we can make whatever constructive criticisms about our roles and functions that are needed.

0:00 meditation

4:30 the conversation begins. Sharon talks the part of the meditation she enjoyed having to do with the home inside. We talked about the developmental process of creating a home base inside that first comes in our experience of our relationship with parents as children.

7:00 We explore what the elements of becoming a choicemaker are. We discuss the survival energies of fight, flight and freeze and Virginia Satir’s coping stances as impulses that happen quickly and instinctively that are compulsions and not yet conscious choices.

11:00 Sharon shares her insight that people who have experienced trauma have a tendency to self-blame and that this is an instinct to stay connected to parents. Understanding the underlying energy underneath the coping helps create a space for choice. Understand the survival instinct and the underlying energy as being protection or self-love, and then exploring the actual consequences of the survival coping can motivate the exploration of alternative choices.

14:00 Sharon shares that when we speak in absolutes “it’s all your fault” “it’s all my fault” we are disconnected from the Self and speaking from a part. This could be the inner child or the protector, but these parts can often be functioning away from the whole Self.

14:45 Sharon shares the hypothetical example of her husband being late and her blame of saying “you are always late” Communicating can instigate survival coping in others. Being aware of the expression of “you always “ or “I always” creates a choice point to treat yourself and others differently, perhaps with more compassion, acceptance and flexibility.

15:20 When we say things like “you are always late” these messages and tone can be received as absolute conclusions “you are bad” When we communicate in absolutes we are potentially impacting and harming people’s connection to Self. Often people give messages like this when they are feeling low in themselves, hurt, angry, disappointed. The perception of evil or a toxic conclusion about the Selfhood of another person is the source of a lot of pain, conflict and destruction in the world whether that is self or other perception. When messages are given in the way it is very easy to pick up a global message of “I am no good”

17:24 There are choices with this awareness around how we communicate our emotions, especially hurts and pains. Then there are choices to make as the receiver that is healthier and process-oriented that avoids sticky conclusions that negatively impact the self-worth of a person.

18:00 the Four survival coping stances. We go over each one briefly: these are blaming, placating, irrelevance, and superreasonable.

21:00 Sharon walks us through the example of allowing herself to become aware of the initial emotions of anger and agitation, and then exploring the feelings underneath those, which might be upset, the unfulfilled wish, worry, anxiety. Our voice tone communicates blame and the energy in how we use our voice is essential in communicating non-defensively.

23:40 Tim highlights the importance of being able to offer criticisms of each other in a way that does not diminish the self-worth and dignity of each other. Because we are in roles we are needing to give each other feedback so we can continue to grow and improve. Holding a connection to our Selves and to the Selves of others by saying with our voice tone “I see you and I value you and I’d like to tell you something that i need from you for us to work better together. Are you open to hearing me?”

26:00 Sharon and Tim discuss and demonstrate communicating about role and function while also validating the Self in each person. This is an example of congruent communication.

27:10 Sharon talks about resolving differences by asking each what they need and they pose the question “how can we each get our needs meet with the least cost to each other?” The question of need gets at yearnings and when we communicate at this level we can be creative and have constructive conversations about how to function in roles. Asking the question helps reorient ourselves back into our authentic Self and out of survival coping. Acceptance of the cost to each person allows for a free choice to be made, one that involves awareness and responsibility.