Commit To Change - Healing Trauma Through Addiction

"My Loved One". This is how i start my inner conversation when something is difficult when there is contraction when the emotions that I used to numb are now moving in my body, heart and soul. My Loved One, what is it you are not willing to feel.

The Commit To Change process, the 3 Day Method, the meditations and connection are all doing wonderful things inside of me. And my hope is that it can do wonderful things inside of you too. With Love, Carlos

Transcript

Welcome to this process of committing to change, 21 days. This is Wednesday, The 12th of May, And the focus is going to be HTTA, Healing trauma through addiction. Which I'm actually finding out now what actually means, So it's going to be, I think, A vulnerable session for me. But let's see how it works out. Thank you so much for being here, And we're going to start in 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, And we are live. Good evening, Good evening, Good morning. Hello everybody. Let me know if the sound and video is fine. Morning Elena, All good. All good. Hello Anna. Welcome everybody. So I can see some familiar faces, And also let me know if you're new, If this is a new session for you. Hello Caroline, Good evening, And good morning. Different time zones, Right? So listen, I'm thinking of, We're just going to start with a meditation. And I'm going to open the window a bit, So we have the sounds from the birds. And after that meditation we're going to move into, You know, A talk about healing trauma through addiction. Which has been one of the talks that I've been doing earlier. And now I'm in this 21-day commitment process. So I'm going to be combining it with addiction talk and how to use traumas to heal. You know, How to use addiction to heal the traumas, How to open that door. But first off let's start with a meditation. I'll just open the window here a bit. You can hear the birds, Right? I can imagine. So let's just close our eyes. You might be sitting on a pillow, A bed. You might be lying down. But just have this intention of relaxing your nervous system, Relaxing your body, Your mind, Emotions. And let's use these sounds from nature, From the birds. Something to focus on, Something to enjoy. Just noticing your breathing, Just noticing if you're able to breathe all the way down into the bottom of your lungs. And also if you're able to breathe to the full capacity of your lungs, Breathing all the way up to the top of your lungs, Underneath your collarbones. Just feeling your breathing, Feeling your body, Noticing whatever is there of thoughts, Emotions. Relaxing your eyes, Having a small smile on your lips. Taking in a couple of deep breaths. And another one. And just use that soothing out breath to transition into a question to yourself. How are you? You know, Really, Honestly. How are you feeling? Just let the answer be from your body, From your emotions. Just wait a bit with the mind. The mind is the fastest one to reply, So just give your body, Your emotions, Sensations some time to answer that question. You can also ask it from inside. How am I? How am I really feeling? And then you can ask your mind for help in order to use one label, One word, Or a sentence to describe how you are actually feeling, Like honestly. And it can be a mix of emotions, And it doesn't necessarily have to be either good or bad. Just being honest to yourself. And also without pulling yourself down, If it's heavy, Just acceptance, Just being with that, No matter what it is. Just loving that, Accepting that. What is? Let's take another two deep breaths before we transition out to another speed, Some more words, Some interaction. And really make it a couple of deep, Deep breaths and long, Out breaths. Relaxing, Relaxing, Relaxing. And just start moving your body, Stretching or. . . Just going to shut the window a bit. It's like 5. 20 in the morning here in Denmark, Southern part. Actually, If I go out, I actually did one morning at 4. 30, You can multiply the sound with like three or four times. It's like a bird rave. It's like a bird party. It's just like having a party. And the sound is so overwhelming. I actually thought of, You know, For me this 21-day commitment is to get up at 4. 45 in the morning. And at some point get up at 4 in the morning. And win the mornings, But also be practicing something that I want to use in 12 years, Because I have this dream of going to a monastery, Probably in Kathmandu, And experience the life as a monk. And that's going to be for a while. And I don't know what a while is. My wife is so supporting that she just, She knows me. So practicing now to do something in 12 years might seem a bit extreme, But achieving something means that we need to do something. And by committing now to 21 days, There's a whole lot better chance that I'm conditioning myself to achieving that, Than if I don't do it, And it's an impulsive thought in 11 years that I want to go. I'm not going to be where I want to be in order to enter those realms, Right? So for me to get up, You know, In the morning means that I'm doing something good for myself. Hello, Peace. I can also see that Diana is there. Good morning. Good morning, Everybody. So for me, Doing this stuff is honestly very difficult. Also because, And my mind says, Because I'm such an idiot that I combine a lot of things. So I make it really, I mean, I just, I now decide the pain that I put upon myself. Whereas before I was experiencing the pain that my traumas were, Were, You know, Putting on me. And what that means is that by doing the work inside with ourselves, I still have unsolved trauma. That goes without saying, I think we all do. But what I'm saying is that when we work, Work, Work on this stuff and start healing and start experiencing that, We become more whole and experiencing more compassion and love towards ourselves, Experience more flow. Then it's like, You know, We, We, We cross a path to where our traumas start becoming our. It starts becoming something that works for us instead of against us. I'll come back to what I mean. So what I'm getting at is, Is that I put myself in many different situations that I choose. And there's a huge difference if you're forced to do something by either inner emotions like binging or smoking or having any other addiction that you feel as a victim to. It's horrible because it's like we cannot control ourselves. But when we start choosing it ourselves, Which is one of the core elements in what we're talking about today, Which is a three day method in order to be healing trauma through addiction, When we start feeling that we are the ones making the choice, Everything changes. Because it's our decision either to do or not to do. We're starting to move from below the line drama, Contraction, Being a victim, Being a villain to ourselves, Hearing ourselves by doing our addiction, Whether it's something that is behavioral wise, You know, By pleasing or or having anger or having power or, You know, Doing different specific actions in order to feel that we, You know, Relieve ourselves from stress for short term, For a short while. Or whether it's something that we do, You know, Consume, Whether it's cigarettes or food, In my case, Food, In my case, Lots of, You know, Candy. And when I say lots, It's like it's diminishing. But what I'm getting to here is also we need to start becoming a lot more honest to ourselves and a lot more loving and caring and a lot more vulnerable. So when we start this, We started this meditation this morning with, You know, Tuning into how we are actually feeling. And I just noticed my shoulders going down when I said that when we start tuning into that, It's like, You know, It's like a love relationship to ourselves. We tend to be so much out there and so little in here. We know so much about the world. We know so much little, So little about ourselves. So by changing that, You know, That beam of light inwards and starting to find out how am I actually feeling? How am I, My dear loved one, You know, And start to really be honest, Right? And for me, Vulnerability is such an important door into authenticity. And authenticity is something that we've lost in early childhood when we've been in situations that were traumatic and that created trauma inside of us. So two things according to the very, Very skilled and, You know, It's a human that I really love without really having met him. It's Gabor Mate. If you don't know Gabor Mate, It's really a person that I would love for you to check out. I'll just write his name right now. Gabor. Exactly. Thank you, Elena. I don't need to write that. So Elena also love Gabor Mate. So Gabor Mate points out two things is that what we experience in losing is our authenticity, Which means the connection to a deeper self ourselves. And we we we we lose the attachment. We lose our connection to ourselves and connection to other people from a deep, Deeper level. So we can find ourselves creating self images, Finding validation outside, But having this emptiness inside that we then need to fill by buying stuff, By eating stuff, By doing stuff, Or in any way try to fill up. But it's it's it's a deep black hole, Right? Because no matter how much we eat, How much we buy, How many experiences we have, How successful we are, That detachment, That unauthenticity is still there. Makes sense. Please do use the comment field if you have any questions or if you relate or anything like that. So so I'm going to be honest with you. You guys that know me know that this is just my path. It's it's been at the edge of knowing and not knowing, Not putting myself on a pedestal. I'm just I'm just like you. Despite all the years of training and practice and experience as being a psychotherapist, I still have all my issues. Just like you. So. I've had a long process now in regards to practicing this three day method, And I've also had relapses into, You know, Starting to eat a lot more again, Starting that down, Spiraling, Not feeling good about myself. And then I know myself well enough to know that it's OK. We will have periods that we are doing well, That we are actually able to do what we want to do, And then we will have. Relapses that will just means that we will go back to the old patterns, But not entirely because we still have this this process. And that's why it's important for me and important, I think, For many people to have, You know, Something that we're working towards. And that we it's not necessarily that we change for the better, But but that we become more comfortable with what is. So. For me, Vulnerability is important, And I've had a long period with many things that I've been, You know, Very successful achieving, But also means that when I'm much out there, I'm not that much in here. So I now use my addiction to notice whether I'm actually too much out there. Because then I lose connection inwards, Then I lose my my, You know, My my connection with myself. And then I start becoming, You know, More contracted. I start reacting more. I start going more below the line into either victim, Villain or hero. And my point with this is that often when we do that, We are not aware of what we are actually doing. We just keep on contracting. We keep on pushing people away or, You know, Reacting in ways where we feel that, You know, Somebody's just criticizing us or that we need to do more and be more. And, You know, That hamster wheel feeling. So for me, This these last two weeks have been really, Really beautiful in the sense of me reclaiming myself. When we lose ourselves, It's contraction. It feels bad, Right? When we start reclaiming ourselves, Re-loving ourselves, We start feeling more flow, We start becoming more calm. We stop, You know, Using that addictive behavior in order to stress relieve ourselves for a short period of time. And just by me saying this, I can feel that my energy, You know, Comes down. And the core of the three day method is to practice compassion inwards, Practice being loving yourself despite your addictions, Despite your behavior, Being open and vulnerable towards yourself, You know, Holding on to that small step towards something that can be healing. And also by taking away the addiction. And this is what I want to this is an important part for me to share with you today. By by taking away the addiction consciously, By our own decision, We start opening the door up to that trauma that initially, Initially created the need for the addiction. And that's what I mean about, You know, That I put myself in situations where I, I inflict the pain or not inflict, But I open the door to the pain that is already there, That I'm trying to numb with certain behaviors. Does this make sense? Let me know if it makes sense or not. And also, If you have any, You know, If it if you can relate to it, If you're in if your mind, You know, Pops up with words or situations that you can relate to, You know, You either consuming to numb or you deciding not to consume to open up. So I've had and I call them sets. Three days is one day with, Yes, Doing the addiction, But really opening up with love and doing it from an understanding, Compassionate side. Second day is no, Where I decide not to do my you know, My thing, Having my addictive behavior. And third day is a maybe day where I can decide to do it or not to do it all three days. Have the components of, You know, Open, Loving heart. No matter what happens, I accept it. So those three days I call sets and I've had like four sets of being able to do this. So I'm entering yesterday. I really entered, Entered the the pain zone. And the weird thing was that I it's when I have periods where I don't cry, I know that something is wrong. And though it appears, You know, You might say, Why? Why would you want to have you know, Why would you want to invite crying into your life? Well, Crying is such a stress reliever, Right? Crying is the inborn natural stress reliever. Instead of, You know, Eating something or doing something or buying something, Stress opens up for all the emotional connection inwards. It's it's such a bad thing for us humans that we tend to think of pain as something bad, As something that we should push away. And tears are something that we should not use. It's a very cultural thing. I know some cultures more than others, Right? But but, You know, Embracing those tears yesterday, I cried myself to sleep and it was wonderful. And the crazy thing there was actually I was you know, I'm a Catholic on my mother's side and atheist on my father's side. So I'm I'm here where I believe that everything is and I embrace whatever help I can get. So yesterday I was praying to God, Which for me is some higher intelligence, Not a man in a chair or a woman in a chair up in the sky. I was praying to God. Please, God, Let me help me open the door into my traumas. Let me feel the pain of my traumas so I can heal. Why would I do that? Because I've come to understand that if I don't do it, It will dictate a life of fear, A life of contraction, A life of not feeling good. Do I want that? No. What happens if I don't do anything about it? Nothing will happen. Who will I pass it on to? Probably my kids. You know, Things tend to go transgenerationally. Looking back seven generations in family systems, We can see how things are passed on. It's shame, You know, Love, Connection, Disconnection, Alcoholism, Incest. All these things tend to be passed on regeneration. So what's our responsibility right here? And it doesn't matter whether you have kids or not. But taking that responsibility means that we've decided not to pass it on. We've decided that we're going to do our share of work. And, You know, Healing ourselves means that we will enable our kids or other people that we talk to to heal. Let me just write here or read exactly that. Being vulnerable is one of the most difficult things to do. Feels impossible. It feels impossible, Right? So the super interesting part here is who is feeling, You know, Who is it that feels that it's impossible? So there's two things my mind is reminding me. One thing is. Come on, Mind, What's her name? It will come back to me. But the second thing is that that we tend to have certain feelings that we're not willing to feel. And that's also why we go whenever everything, Something feels uncomfortable, We will move ourselves away from it. That's how we ride horses, Right? The reason why horses do as we want them to do often. Now, They're always is that they move away from the pain. So when we use the foot here or use the whip there or pull here, They will move away from the pain. It's the same with us humans. So we move away from the pain. But this is where we can start connecting our, You know, Think of ourselves as four levels, The physical level, The animal level, The emotional level that we have together, You know, With the mammals, The mental level where we are the only living species that is so evolved and the spiritual level, Which means to start understanding why you are here, What it is that you want to give back to the world. Right. So by starting to, You know, Addiction is in the lower levels in the in the physical level with our nervous system and our autonomic nervous system that is reacting because it needs to survive. So it's having certain behaviors together with the emotional part. Right. So by starting to do conscious work, Like using the three day method, Committing to change, Reading books, You know, Understanding more, We're starting to connect the emotional, The mental, The physical and the spiritual level. So when I talk about, You know, Seven generations back and seven generations forward, I'm tapping into the you know, What am I here for? How do I want to give back? How can my life make a change in this world? Right. So by by starting to notice what feels impossible. Like, For example, Debbie, Is there part of you would like to be able to be more vulnerable, Just a little bit more vulnerable? Is there a part of you that would love that? Let me know. So, Barbara, I find crying purifying is the best medicine. You know, It's the best stress relief. It's crying or laughing. Christine can relate. I love your openness. Thank you so much. It's just my path. I'm not alone, But I can feel also willing to give into the crying. Yes, It's overwhelming. Everything is either hard, Difficult, Overwhelming, Uncomfortable to begin with. I mean, How many of us have had more than, Let's say, 100 hours of being taught how we function as humans? How many of us have had more than 100 hours of being taught what emotions are, How to deal with relationships, How to deal with uncomfortable feelings? How to love ourselves? How many of us have been at love school understanding what love is? Right. How many have had 80 hours of practice, 50 hours, 20 hours? So my point is that that we become good at what we practice. And this is not something that we learn in school. We learn it from our parents, Which is something that's been given on generationally. Right. And often we tend to end up in situations where we feel that we are wrong. We are no good. I can't you know, I'm no good. My self-value is low. Everything is bad. And the only thing that is wrong is that we haven't been taught how to. And then we expect to be able to follow. So there's a 10, 000 hour rule to become good at anything, Really talented. But if we haven't even practiced 10 hours or 100 hours, How can we expect to know, You know, How we function? How our brain works, How our mind works? Right. Christina, I have a hard time understanding why family members choose not to talk to me and how to accept it. Hmm. Well, There's there's different parts to that, Right, Christina? There's a part of you having a hard time understanding. And then there's the part of family members. And then there's the part that they choose not to talk to you. Then there's a question of how. And then there's a question of accept. So if we break, You know, Sentences up that we write down ourselves, We can start understanding that they can also there can be an inner conflict and they can be something that could be potentially an outer conflict. I'm a very I'm very, Very fond of starting with with in here. So turning this around and putting. I in front of it. I have a very hard time understanding why I choose not to talk to me and how I can accept that. So what what does it mean how I can talk to me? There's probably some emotional layers that are difficult inside of you. Well, That goes for everybody, Right? I could have said that to anybody and they would say, Yeah, That's right. So I'm a bit confused in regards to what to do, Because it's a super difficult thing when we have an assume unless you know that they've told you, Christina, That we don't want to talk to you. Is that the case? Let me know. Have they have they told you we do not want to talk to you or is it something that you pick up, Something that you, You know, Assume? Let me know. And that's what I love. And also me, I'm going to check out the four agreements. If you have something, A book or anything like that, Please write it in the comment field. We're here to inspire and be inspired. Right. So Debbie, Maybe a part wants to be vulnerable. Sometimes I envy those who wear their hearts on their sleeves. Yes. So start with that part and start with yourself. So, For example, These 21 of commitment for me is all about, You know, Getting up very early, Quarter to five in the morning, Putting myself in this position, Sharing with you guys stuff that is vulnerable. And I could feel inside that I had to like build it, Build it up. But I know from experience that that you are helping me heal my traumas. Isn't that crazy and beautiful? You right now, All of you are helping me heal my traumas, Because in my life I had to be seen. What I told myself was that I was not wanted. I had to be something to be chosen to, You know, Have love or to be accepted. There's so many different narratives in there. Right. So by me being able to close my eyes and notice myself calmly share vulnerable stuff with you means that I'm reconnecting to something authentic inside of me. Something that does need to work and perform and be something in order to feel, You know, Inner love, Inner acceptance. We can be so, You know, We can be so caught up in needing that validation from outside. I had to understand what it meant to start feeling validation, Love from inside. So by you there be starting to open that vulnerability door, Committing to seven days or two days or three days of meditating on vulnerability, Because I'm then asking you to meditate on something that you're not willing to feel. But by you choosing to do it, It's a completely different game than me asking you to do it or somebody is saying, Why can you not be vulnerable? Right. So, So by you choosing, Let's say that you choose to commit yourself to meditate for seven days on vulnerability. You make that decision. The reason why it's difficult to be vulnerable is often that it triggers emotions from our pasts, Which which is something about don't do that. You know, You're going to be you know, There's something happened that's going to make you feel even worse and push it away. That's what I'm talking about, That we move away from pain. So before we move on, We're finishing like 10 minutes. For those of you who want to know more about the three day method. Check out there's the Golden Circle, Which is a circle we have where there's so much beautiful stuff in there to read, To be inspired from in order to start taking steps that can be, You know, Opening. Being honest is the first step, Right? Acknowledging yourself that you do have an addiction or addictive behavior. If you're also understanding that there's addiction is just a word that means that we are imprisoned like we're slaves of something. And Gabor Mazzi talks about the addictive word being an old, You know, As far as I recall, The Greek word Greek work, Addictus, That means to be slave to something. So let's break those chains and and let you know, Have free that slave through using this three day method. Next week, I'm going to I think that I'm going to spend some more time explaining in the next weekly session, You know, Going more in depth because there's some really important steps, Including meditating on resource persons. That is such a beautiful and important part of reconnecting to ourselves by the inner spiritual work with resource persons like in my case, My mom and dad. It took a while before I could have them behind me. You guys as resource persons as well. Having my brother having Dalai Lama Nelson Mandela, Having Carlos from Chile, Lago Franco, Having, You know, Vivek from Ladakh, Northern India in here as a resource group of persons that are here to cheer on me and help me in different situations. David Goggins, Which is a person that is also a resource person for me, A different completely different person, More focused on a physical level, Achieving that right. So one thing is checking out the Golden Circle, Also checking out all your recordings that are called healing trauma through addiction. It's a three day three day thing, A three day thing, Three day workshop that we did, And, You know, Listen to that, Check out what's in the Golden Circle, Click follow and then you'll get notifications. And if it's something that you you can relate to, Then my my recommendation and my challenge to you is to try out three days, Find out if it makes sense for you. I'm now understanding after the 70 something of working with the three day method, What it actually means to heal traumas through addiction. But that's because I tend to, You know, With you guys reflect and then these doors open and then I just go for it because there's something to it. Right. It's like having a hunch. And then now I start getting, You know, What it really means to be healing those trauma through addiction. And that's what I'm translating to you. And by doing so, I understand more. And hopefully you understand something right. Before we finish, Let me just read here, Christina. My brother has said it. My uncle choose to say nothing to me when I try to connect and my aunt has disconnected with me and told me she's mad at me. But I felt she has changed a lot from a trusting person to not. Overall, I try to connect, But they choose not to. I do feel my brother expects me to say yes all the time to him, But I've learned how to how to have. Boundaries and how and had to say no to a money issue. OK, So what family, You know, There's the complexity. One thing that I would encourage you to do, Christina, Is to to meditate on, You know, Because there's some I think that there's so many layers. But I would I would take, You know, If I had different objects, I would place them, You know, As a mother, Brother, Father. And I would place them on a table and I would use myself. And start figuring out who is the most important, Most important person to start working on with you, Who would you love to start working on? And then choose that one person and be meditating on your relationship to that one person. So so by you meditating and relating to that person, You're starting to do the work. If you if you start taking whatever you think they are thinking or whatever they say and put them on top, It's like not having time to to really do the process because you all the time disturbing that process of of, You know, Connecting with yourself and with this one person. I think that I'm going to do next week. I'm going to do, Christina, Based on what you're sharing here is family issues. I think that I'm going to make a title called Family Issues. I think that we all you know, We are all struggling in some way. I've shared what I've been struggling with specifically with my brother earlier and also shared how to how I, You know, Created that process with him. That is not in a particularly good place. It's not in a bad place either. But I'll share more about that next week. We're about to finish off, Guys. The last name I mentioned, Alan. In the resource person, You mean that is David Goggins, If that was the one that you meant. Yeah, David. Yeah, Exactly. David Goggins. He's written a book called Can't Hurt Me. I mean, I just get the goosebumps by just saying that. Let me just write it here. David Goggins. Can't hurt me. It's, You know, It's a very different book in the sense that it's just hardcore doing what you need to do. You know, Putting yourself accountable is such a direct focus on just achieving what it is you can because you have the potential. So when I when I get to, You know, To I can't do anything and I'm, You know, What do you call that when you start? You start, You know, I don't know what to call it. You start using so much time or just feeling so sad and so self something. I don't remember the word. Then then I I start listening to David Goggins and he will tell me to, You know, Get the fuck up. You know, Stop, You know, Shut up. Yes, You are this. You are that. And so what? What are you going to do about it? Do something, Right? So so so check him out. And also, Please, Everybody else, Please pitch in if you have some. I've had books in here, You know, Recommended that I really love. Yeah, J exactly. We're not three hours. We're going to have to schedule three years, Right? We all I still have family issues, But it's so important to start distinguishing things. What is the transgenerational family stuff? And what is me if we have an addiction, Which is to I am the victim, We can be addicted to being victims. Right. So so by by starting to to, You know, Understanding that that, Yes, I can have part of it, But that's that's like 10 percent of the family structure. And there's always in family structures. That's what you call the the combined psychological mass of the family and the roles of being giving. You're the good child. You're the bad child. You're the good parent. You're the bad parent. You're the you know, The bright one. You're the stupid one. So that happens in all families, Not because we want to have that as a part, But it just happens. So if we take that label and put it on us and ourselves and we think that that is true, Then our life is pretty much conditioned. Right. So let's wake up the honesty to ourselves, Look at what addictions we have, Let's start understanding why that addiction is there in the first time. You know, First off, Why is it there? What is it that I can start healing by taking away my my what I put in my mouth or what I buy or whatever I have? Start opening the door at the door to that trauma and start healing. Start reconnecting, Start reclaiming, You know, You know, Making ourselves free from those chains of addiction and, You know, Reclaiming our authenticity and our connection to ourselves and to others. I'm going to leave you guys with that. Thank you so much for being here. If you just came in, I'm doing this on a weekly basis and I'm challenging myself to do in it, You know, Every if like now tomorrow is a holiday. But next week, I don't think that we have that many holidays. I'm going to be doing this. I think that is every day next week because I'm challenging myself, Committing myself to change. Right. I'm committing myself to if I want to change something, I got to do something. So that's what I'm doing. And I hope that I inspire you to do something good as well for yourself. Have a beautiful weekend, Everybody. Thank you so much for being here. Lots of hugs. Thank you so much for that donation. For some reason, I cannot see, You know, How many donate and stuff like that. But but thank you so much for the donations and also the donations that you guys have given before. I'll share next time where that goes. Thank you. Love you, Too. Thank you, Guys. Bye bye. Thank you, Everybody. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much for that session, Guys. I'm really means so much to me to feel this this opening of my heart, Opening, Opening up the vulnerability, Opening up of everything that I want and need in my life. And you guys are helping me with that. I hope that I'm giving something back to you as well. Please do send me keep on sending me those messages, Those emails, Letting me know how you guys are doing, Asking questions, Sharing. It's all a big cycles of, You know, Of love. So thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye.

Reviews

Really beautiful and helpful. I loved the way it was delivered interactively. It was also so gentle and encouraging. 🙏🏽 🙏🏼