I think people get so used to sort of
the toothache of past pain that it
almost blurs out in their mind it's like
that sound the ringing that eventually
your brain stops processing but I think
you have a very good rule of thumb which
is the 18-month rule and I wonder if you
could help people understand that it is
not a suffering that that you have to
take with you like a ball and chain for
the rest of your life there are ways to
release it but it does involve circling
back and producing it through language
yes well what well let's define what
processing means okay so you know let's
say let's say that you had a pretty
painful history of being bullied when
you were 13 and you're still carrying
that with you you carry it with you in
your posture you carry it with you in
your assumptions about people this is
all implicit right it's not explicit you
carry it with you in the form of
resentment and the and questions about
what it might have been and you carry it
with you because you've been demeaned by
it but you know you're not 13 anymore
you're 40 and those those experiences
are not transferable in any simple in
any simple manner to your current
reality so you go back and you think
okay what happened what exactly happened
and what what what happened means is
what were the causal pathways that put
me in that position of vulnerability and
inferiority and you want to specify them
as carefully as possible because what
the part of you that's hanging on to
that wants to know is have you changed
enough so that that won't happen again
and if the answer to that is yes even
through thinking you realize well I'm
not that person anymore or you go back
to the experience and you figure out oh
this is what I did and I could stop
doing that then the the icy hands of
that traumatic experiment experience
will release that you can you will be
released from it because what your mind
wants to know your unconscious mind
let's say is have you resolved this
issue to the degree that it is unlikely
that it will occur again and that's what
it means to have processed it and this I
think is really important for people to
understand that memories stick until you
gain security memory stick to alert you
too dangerous that you're recreating by
avoiding the history so
if you were married you're gonna either
end up usually in the bully victim
paradigm right you either gonna go out
there and say well I'm gonna get them
before they get me or you're gonna go
out there with you sort of shuffling
along staring at the sidewalk
you know slumped shoulders and you're
gonna be inviting more bullies into your
life and so until you figure out the
causality of how you ended up being
bullied
you're gonna gravitate to either of
those two poles as either a fight or
flight mechanism but if you go back and
process and figure out okay here's the
steps that happened that ended up with
me being bullied now I know how to avoid
the bullying situation
then that pain will recede it's there
until you listen it speaks until you're
safe so there's this great scene in this
documentary called crumb which is about
the underground cartoonist Robert Crumb
it's it's it's the most brilliant
documentary I've ever seen and it's it's
highly instructive that documentary it's
about a terribly eatable family but it's
also about the successful struggle of
one of the brothers in the family who
became a famous underground cartoonist
to free himself from that and part of
the documentary details his terrible
experiences as a 13 to 17 year old with
women and he was he was one of these
people that Robert Crumb who was not at
the bottom of the dominants Harkey he
was outside the dominance hierarchy in
the land of absolute contempt and he
made this card when he was about 13 or
14 with a broken heart on it and
described his realization that he was
such an outsider that he would never be
successful with girls you know or period
but particularly with girls but then
that freedom op Bay and he started to
cartoon more and draw more and listen to
old music and he kind of developed his
own pathway and then he became a very
successful illustrator and then he
became very successful with women and so
but but what but he drew this picture to
illustrate what he was like when he was
13 and he it's very self-critical and he
he draws himself it's kind of hunched
over thick glasses really skinny
underdeveloped weak chin bad attitude
poorly presented badly dressed like a
walking walking testament to resentment
and weakness and it wasn't until he
that that that he was playing that part
and that that was also fueling his
rejection was he really able to to move
towards overcoming it and so partly what
you want to do is to go over your past
and figure out okay what stupid things
did i do or what in what manner was i
insufficient so that this negative
destiny was more likely to visit me now
you you don't assume that everything
that happened to you was your fault or
under your control because everything
isn't your fault and everything isn't
under your control but you do want to
figure out okay well if I played some
hand in this and that could be rectified
well then I should figure out how to
rectify it because then I won't be in
this situation anymore you know you
talked about the bully victim who
invites more bullying it's like well if
you've conducted yourself in a manner
such that you've attracted the attention
of bullies and you haven't stopped doing
that then you're still going to attract
the attention of bullies and so your
mind is very alert to such things it's
always looking for where you're weak and
vulnerable and warning you about it and
and and it's just an alarm bell right it
isn't necessarily a problem-solving
mechanism and so alarm bells might be
going off in your head all the time and
that's very unpleasant but the difficult
process of articulating it and thinking
it through can free you from that and so
that's what the past authoring program
is for
Oh
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