Episode 37

The Transformative Journey: Discoveries After Purging, Heightened Awareness, Non-Judgmental Listening, Stillness, And Embracing The Inner Self With Barbara D'Amoto

In this 37th episode Alan Carroll interviews psychoanalyst Barbara D’Amoto. The two discuss the act of ‘purging’ and what people often discover after they purge. Barbara discusses how being more aware helps to reduce comforts in reality. We must learn to listen without judgement. When we approach things with stillness we understand to stop questioning things that work for us.

About The Guest:

Barbara D’Amato is a psychoanalyst in private practice in NYC. She has written numerous professional papers analyzing the psychic conflicts of literary characters and their authors, i.e., Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, R L Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Her most recent publication considers the lyrics in Bob Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul” from a hypnogogic perspective. Triskele is her first work of fiction.

Find Barbara Here:

Website

Instagram

Twitter

About Alan:

Alan Carroll is an Educational Psychologist who specializes in Transpersonal Psychology. He founded Alan Carroll & Associates 30 years ago and before that, he was a Senior Sales Training Consultant for 10 years at Digital Equipment Corporation. He has dedicated his life in search of mindfulness tools that can be used by everyone (young and old) to transform their ability to speak at a professional level, as well as, to reduce the psychological suffering caused by the misidentification with our ego and reconnect to the vast transcendent dimension of consciousness that lies just on the other side of the thoughts we think and in between the words we speak.

Personal: https://www.facebook.com/alan.carroll.7359

Business: https://www.facebook.com/AlanCarrolltrains

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aca-mindful-you/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulnesseminar/

Web Site: https://acamindfulyou.com/

Transcript
Alan Carroll:

Welcome back to the mindful U Podcast. I'm Alan

Alan Carroll:

Carroll. I am your host, and today's guest, Dr. Barbara

Alan Carroll:

D'Amato. She has spent most of her life pursuing the

Alan Carroll:

psychoanalytic path journey. works at the Graduate School

Alan Carroll:

faculty in New York City for the study and practice of

Alan Carroll:

psychoanalytic psychology, which would be from the Freudian

Alan Carroll:

roots, the id, the ego, the super ego. And so she has been

Alan Carroll:

teaching others psychoanalytic people, she has her own

Alan Carroll:

practice. And what I really enjoyed about our conversation

Alan Carroll:

today was all the similarities between the mindfulness

Alan Carroll:

presence, managing the thoughts, decreasing suffering, and the

Alan Carroll:

work that she does in the psychoanalytic field of the

Alan Carroll:

body, and the relaxing and the mindfulness and the managing of

Alan Carroll:

the thoughts and what you think and what you project out into

Alan Carroll:

the world are the same thing. And it was a delight, just

Alan Carroll:

having her share her years of wisdom, the clarity of her

Alan Carroll:

message. Very, very, very nice. So I'm excited to bring with you

Alan Carroll:

today. Dr. Barbara D'Amato. And please welcome her to the

Alan Carroll:

mindful you, podcast. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dr. Barbara

Alan Carroll:

D'Amato Welcome to the mindful you podcast. i Well, it's a it's

Alan Carroll:

a privilege to have you. And I'm really excited because you have

Alan Carroll:

journeyed down a pathway in the psychological field. And I've

Alan Carroll:

been journeying down the pathway in the psychological field. And

Alan Carroll:

it looks as though they are actually psychoanalysis and

Alan Carroll:

mindfulness and presence and being in being in the moment are

Alan Carroll:

connected. Absolutely. But I would love for you to first of

Alan Carroll:

all, a little bit of your background and a little bit of a

Alan Carroll:

layman's definition of psychoanalysis. And then we'll

Alan Carroll:

bring up mindfulness and see how the two are related, and how we

Alan Carroll:

can achieve a greater sense of calling consciousness to be

Alan Carroll:

present in the moment. So please bear with us a little bit of

Alan Carroll:

your background and a little bit of understanding of

Alan Carroll:

psychoanalytic theory. Okay,

Alan Carroll:

Barbara D'Amoto: well, to go way, way back, I actually

Alan Carroll:

started my career as a special education teacher. Ah, and when

Alan Carroll:

I was working with in special education, or smaller classrooms

Alan Carroll:

with kids with sort of behavioral problems. Yep. So

Alan Carroll:

when I was working with these kids, I realized that so many of

Alan Carroll:

them were really smart kids, like, why are these kids hear.

Alan Carroll:

So over time, I learned that they had so much emotional

Alan Carroll:

baggage from home, that they didn't have people helping them

Alan Carroll:

to study or helping them to get to school on time. So all of

Alan Carroll:

that impeded their ability to learn. And in the, in the larger

Alan Carroll:

mainstream classrooms, the teachers like Oh, get this

Alan Carroll:

troublemaker out of here, send them to special ed. He's a

Alan Carroll:

perfect most of them are perfectly smart kids. So I

Alan Carroll:

started to become very, very interested in their emotional

Alan Carroll:

lives, which was much more intriguing than teaching them

Alan Carroll:

reading and math. So I started to study at a psychoanalytic

Alan Carroll:

Institute. I wanted first to be a child analyst. But as you

Alan Carroll:

know, as time went on, I had adult clients and it went on and

Alan Carroll:

on and on. And I just became a regular analyst for all groups

Alan Carroll:

of people. I've worked with all ages, all groups, couples, etc.

Alan Carroll:

And the thing about psychoanalysis is that it's very

Alan Carroll:

broad. The technique is very open. And it's really cold, the

Alan Carroll:

talking cure for that reason, the patient comes in, and the

Alan Carroll:

analyst doesn't lead. These are the goals we're working on. This

Alan Carroll:

is what we'll have to do. The analyst really follows where the

Alan Carroll:

patient wants to go, what the patient's ready to talk about.

Alan Carroll:

Most people will come in, I had a wonderful childhood. I mean,

Alan Carroll:

three or four years in, we start to peel back, what their

Alan Carroll:

childhood was really like, and what they're carrying and what's

Alan Carroll:

getting in their way. So psychoanalysis helps people to

Alan Carroll:

sort of peel off these protective layers, or defenses

Alan Carroll:

they've built up to get to the real person who they really are.

Alan Carroll:

So in connection with mindfulness, mindfulness till

Alan Carroll:

Live in the moment as who they are, and not to keep living with

Alan Carroll:

the demons that they grew up with, that they're carrying,

Alan Carroll:

that they keep finding in the world today that are not really

Alan Carroll:

there. They're kind of living inside of them. So

Alan Carroll:

psychoanalysis, I think, from the way I understand it, and the

Alan Carroll:

way I practice it, is to help people be who they are today to

Alan Carroll:

resolve what happened when they were growing up, and to be more

Alan Carroll:

present with who they are today. And it's very simplified, very

Alan Carroll:

simple, right?

Alan Carroll:

The concept of the demons within are then projected

Alan Carroll:

out. Correct. And my understanding is that if you

Alan Carroll:

wanted to handle the demons without their, like illusions

Alan Carroll:

created by the thoughts within and you're saying by the talk

Alan Carroll:

therapy, of releasing the pressure, all these pressure, so

Alan Carroll:

I like that one releases the pressure that allows a fluidity

Alan Carroll:

and a cleansing and a cleaning and an aeration and an openness

Alan Carroll:

and a purging of something. And then once we've purged what's

Alan Carroll:

what do people often discover, when they have tasted that space

Alan Carroll:

of less, less repression and more openness?

Unknown:

It's a good question, I think what really happens for

Unknown:

most people is their behavior starts to change, their behavior

Unknown:

in response to other people starts to change. They're not

Unknown:

responding to say, their boss, who's very strict, and they hate

Unknown:

this woman, because the woman acts just like their mother did.

Unknown:

And the relationship is already now antagonistic. Over time,

Unknown:

they start to realize this woman is asking me to do something

Unknown:

different. It has nothing to do with how cruel my mother was,

Unknown:

this woman is just sort of tapping into a sensitivity I

Unknown:

have, so that they can see that they can respond differently to

Unknown:

this boss, and make that relationship lesson to

Unknown:

agonistic. And use that energy for something more productive

Unknown:

somewhere else.

Alan Carroll:

You say the words, Barbara, they have to see, they

Alan Carroll:

have to become aware, they have to become more conscious of I'll

Alan Carroll:

call it the internal world, is that what you're saying?

Unknown:

Are they internalized objects, the parents as the

Unknown:

objects that they've they're carrying inside of them? Yeah.

Alan Carroll:

And I think of the word in my mind and mindfulness,

Alan Carroll:

we have this sort of level you achieve of awareness called the

Alan Carroll:

observer, or the witness, or the let's see observer witness.

Alan Carroll:

There's another one, I can't think of it right now. But it's

Alan Carroll:

the ability to be able to see something and not get hooked by

Alan Carroll:

what you see, for example, thoughts. You're having thoughts

Alan Carroll:

about my mother having thoughts about the horrible things that

Alan Carroll:

happened to me and being able to notice, oh, I have these

Alan Carroll:

thoughts. Okay. Good. And but not be seduced, right by the

Alan Carroll:

thoughts, right leads to which leads to that what you mentioned

Alan Carroll:

also, the difference between responding, let's talk about the

Alan Carroll:

difference between responding to the event that's happening in

Alan Carroll:

front of you, versus reacting to the event that's happening in

Alan Carroll:

front of you take that one for a ride. This

Unknown:

is a very painful and difficult process to get a

Unknown:

person from point A when they're projecting to point B, where

Unknown:

they're saying, Oh, wait, this is reminding me of my mother,

Unknown:

I'm having a really bad feeling. But Mrs. So and so is not really

Unknown:

my mother. Right? process works. According to Freud, you know, we

Unknown:

studied many, many other analysts. Besides Freud, Today,

Unknown:

modern analysis is much more eclectic. We don't just rely on

Unknown:

Freud. But Freud was the pioneer. And his idea is one

Unknown:

called transference where the patient will ultimately in

Unknown:

treatment project that bed those bad internal objects onto the

Unknown:

animist. And that's where it gets resolved. The patient

Unknown:

starts to believe the analyst is that bad mother, you're treating

Unknown:

me so mainly, you're doing this, you're doing that. So the

Unknown:

analyst then responds differently than the mother did

Unknown:

the mother's like, go to bed? I'm gonna beat you. The analysts

Unknown:

Tell me tell me how I hurt you. Tell me what I did when I said

Unknown:

that. And over time, repeated repeated incidents like this.

Unknown:

The patient starts to say, Yeah, you're really not like my

Unknown:

mother, you really are a nicer person. This is not an easy one

Unknown:

time snap. This takes years of building up trust with the

Unknown:

patient. years with the patient being brave enough to say you

Unknown:

are really being mean to me, which is very hard for patients

Unknown:

to do until they know you. That's the thing that cures to a

Unknown:

cure is a strange word. That's the thing that helps the patient

Unknown:

See, I'm bringing this to my Self, I'm carrying this and it's

Unknown:

holding me back, I have to see the world more clearly. It's a

Unknown:

very long process. And

Alan Carroll:

if I can see the world more clearly, then my

Alan Carroll:

ability to make appropriate choices, based on the

Alan Carroll:

observation without the distortion of the past in front

Alan Carroll:

of my eyes gets better and better and better, probably

Unknown:

written better for the person, the person makes better,

Unknown:

better choices, the the internal feelings never go away, patients

Unknown:

will say to me, when is that person going to stop reminding

Unknown:

me of my mother, probably never. But you're going to know there's

Unknown:

a difference, that's the thing that's going to change, the

Unknown:

feeling may remain the same, but your behavior, you now have

Unknown:

control over this feeling. And you can change your behavior.

Alan Carroll:

And that is a big step. Huge, huge, big step,

Unknown:

big step and take a lot of work from both parties to

Unknown:

tolerate because very bad feelings have to come up in

Unknown:

order to get past them.

Alan Carroll:

And, and the. And to get past the bad feelings,

Alan Carroll:

there's something you're gonna have to take me in because

Alan Carroll:

you're more professional than I am. But as far as the ego, I

Alan Carroll:

look at the ego as your conceptual identity, made up of

Alan Carroll:

all the concepts you consider yourself to be, and put a circle

Alan Carroll:

around that put barber up on top. And that's your ego. And

Alan Carroll:

that's your conceptual identity. And the purpose of the mind is

Alan Carroll:

the survival of the things you've identified yourself to

Alan Carroll:

be. So if I've identified myself to be a victim, for me to let go

Alan Carroll:

of being a victim is somehow psychologically I use the word

Alan Carroll:

suicide, I'm giving up something that I consider myself to be and

Alan Carroll:

so I'm, I'm holding on,

Unknown:

absolutely, I'm holding

Alan Carroll:

on No, that's not the no, really holding on to

Alan Carroll:

something.

Unknown:

We call that resistance, the patient is

Unknown:

comfortable in their suffering, because it's familiar. decades

Unknown:

and decades and decades, they've been holding on to this image

Unknown:

that you've just described. So that's where it's very, very

Unknown:

difficult, and it's painful to patient be frightened to let go

Unknown:

of being a victim if that were the case.

Alan Carroll:

Right? Boy, that's a that it's so valuable to to

Alan Carroll:

say it again, because it's a it's really valuable for people

Alan Carroll:

to hear. I

Unknown:

can give you an example from my novel, there's a

Unknown:

character in the novel who have a new novel coming out. My new

Unknown:

novel is coming out try scout. Nice, yeah, wonderful. There

Unknown:

isn't a character in this in the novel who's been abandoned

Unknown:

early, early in life, sexually abuse were pushed around from

Unknown:

foster care to foster care. Now she's a very promiscuous artist

Unknown:

who gets herself in all sorts of trouble. She gets ordered to be

Unknown:

in therapy. The therapist is a psychoanalyst. So she's

Unknown:

something there's some connection that happens. She

Unknown:

likes this analyst, she's different than the other social

Unknown:

worker, she has been to say, you have to do this, you have to do

Unknown:

that. This person is just there to listen to her. So they make a

Unknown:

connection. And over time, she starts to report what has

Unknown:

happened to her, particularly people who've been sexually

Unknown:

abused, it's very hard for them to talk about it. They they

Unknown:

blame themselves, they feel tremendous shame. So eventually,

Unknown:

she gets there. And she starts to talk about it. And then she

Unknown:

starts accusing the analyst of wanting to abuse her. So in this

Unknown:

process, the analyst sort of accepts that says, of course, I

Unknown:

would never do that to you, but bla bla bla bla bla. And in that

Unknown:

process, the patient's ego, as you described, her sense of

Unknown:

agency gets stronger. So that's kind of an example of what

Unknown:

happens, the patient has to relive the trauma, the

Unknown:

emotionality of it in the room with the analyst in order for

Unknown:

them to work through it together. And it's not an easy

Unknown:

thing to do. And patients will spend years avoiding it. And the

Unknown:

analyst doesn't push them until they're ready. Because if you

Unknown:

push them, they'll leave, they'll just leave treatment.

Alan Carroll:

People who are not able to do the psychoanalysis in

Alan Carroll:

the four or five years and, and even, you know, people who can't

Alan Carroll:

really do a lot of mindfulness work, what are some of the

Alan Carroll:

things that you would say, you know, if there's one or two

Alan Carroll:

things you'd become more aware of, it probably would reduce a

Alan Carroll:

lot of the discomfort that you are experiencing in your

Alan Carroll:

reality. Oh,

Unknown:

that happens all the time. I think the fact of going

Unknown:

to a therapist of any modality and being listened to is the

Unknown:

most therapeutic thing that can happen to anyone. Because most

Unknown:

kids have not had the experience. They were deeply,

Unknown:

deeply listened to. And preparing sometimes you can't

Unknown:

you got a number of kids, you're busy at work and you're a single

Unknown:

mom, you can't sit down and have deep, deep conversations with

Unknown:

your kids. So that I think therapy is an enormous gift. And

Unknown:

it's ego building first I want to speak with that whatever they

Unknown:

want every single week and someone listens and kind of

Unknown:

asked you questions like they're interested in the most boring

Unknown:

thing you might talk about, that in and of itself is curative.

Unknown:

And as people get stronger, then they're able over time to look

Unknown:

at the more difficult things.

Alan Carroll:

When it comes to mind is a quote from Eckhart

Alan Carroll:

Tolle. And he's written several books power, the now being the

Alan Carroll:

largest one. And he talks about the greatest gift that you can

Alan Carroll:

give another human being, is to listen. absolutely have to say,

Alan Carroll:

Absolutely. And it seems like, Well, yeah, but when you

Alan Carroll:

actually look at people's conversations, there's not a lot

Alan Carroll:

of listening Gong going on. And when you can be when you can be

Alan Carroll:

practicing listening, and listening to me is that there's

Alan Carroll:

a distinction between agreeing with what the person is saying,

Alan Carroll:

and allowing what the person is saying to exist. Right. And most

Alan Carroll:

people my observation, Barbara, think listening has something to

Alan Carroll:

do with, I have to agree with what you're saying. And I can't

Alan Carroll:

open up to include something that's a threat to my identity.

Alan Carroll:

So I have to resist it. Whereas the therapist, I suspect, you

Alan Carroll:

are definitely you're in the you will allow whatever they say to

Alan Carroll:

exist, without judging it does that. Talk about that a little

Alan Carroll:

bit, being able to listen without judging.

Unknown:

That's a hard thing to do. And I supervise young

Unknown:

analysts who are starting just starting to practice and they

Unknown:

get very caught up in this moral question. If the patient wants

Unknown:

to do something that doesn't sort of meet their register of

Unknown:

what's good and bad, they want to intervene, because they think

Unknown:

that's what I'm supposed to be doing. So that's a very hard

Unknown:

thing to learn to do. person wants to divorce their husband,

Unknown:

that's up to them, you can explore why and what they want

Unknown:

to do afterwards. But you can't really have a position. And

Unknown:

that's a very hard thing for analysts to learn to just let

Unknown:

the patient talk to you. But shouldn't I be helping them stay

Unknown:

with their husband? No, the patient has to decide for

Unknown:

themselves if they want to remain married or not. The only

Unknown:

time the analyst ever has to intervene in a moral way, is if

Unknown:

the patient is suicidal, or actively homicidal. If they're

Unknown:

going to hurt somebody or hurt themselves, then the analyst has

Unknown:

to say I need to call 911. We can't do this. That's the only

Unknown:

only time and that's a way way. Rarely, that hardly ever, ever

Unknown:

happens.

Alan Carroll:

Sure, sure. Sure. I find that when I did my

Alan Carroll:

therapy work with children, and in public schools, I was part of

Alan Carroll:

the Special Education team. So how you doing? You're a part of

Alan Carroll:

that team.

Unknown:

I knew I liked your part of

Alan Carroll:

that team. And they, we we always, we always

Alan Carroll:

enjoyed the opportunity to talk to the parents. And most of the

Alan Carroll:

teachers were afraid to talk to the parents. And I you know, I

Alan Carroll:

would just listen, I would just because the child had some

Alan Carroll:

results on a test and I had deliver the news about the test,

Alan Carroll:

especially the psychological test of intelligence test, a

Alan Carroll:

bender test, those types of tests. And all I and all I was

Alan Carroll:

able to do because I wasn't married, I had no children. So

Alan Carroll:

what am I doing family therapy for? But I just could listen, I

Alan Carroll:

just listened. And boy, you could see the finally somebody

Alan Carroll:

has heard the and it's it. I remember my mother had a

Alan Carroll:

pressure cooker. And it was a pot with a pressure thing on top

Alan Carroll:

eventually cook. I forget what you'd cook it into. But but but

Alan Carroll:

to release the pressure here. And the pressure is released.

Alan Carroll:

Right? It's almost like you see, listening seems to release a

Alan Carroll:

pressure. Right? And boy, that is so important. So so

Alan Carroll:

important. And so I hope people are listening to our

Alan Carroll:

conversation and just look at the possibility of increasing

Alan Carroll:

your listening statistic

Unknown:

to the listener to be listened to. I mean, Anna Oh was

Unknown:

the first Cycladic patient and she talked about the power of

Unknown:

she called the chimney sweeping that she could just talk what

Unknown:

she could release to a person who wasn't judging who wasn't

Unknown:

condemning, who wasn't directing, just listening. Just

Unknown:

let that steam out. So you don't blow up. Because there's a lot

Unknown:

of things in life that can cause us to have steam. Plus the stuff

Unknown:

we're carrying.

Alan Carroll:

You also mentioned the word position. You come into

Alan Carroll:

the conversation and there's an event happening in front of you

Alan Carroll:

and automatically based on your history. You got

Unknown:

to position. Absolutely, absolutely. And

Alan Carroll:

so what has to become aware of one's position,

Alan Carroll:

yes, no,

Unknown:

absolutely. That psychoanalysts have to remain in

Unknown:

supervision and psychoanalysis themselves. Most of them do this

Unknown:

throughout their life, because the patient will arouse your

Unknown:

position. But she's doing this to her father, her father, blah,

Unknown:

blah, blah, they so the analysts themselves has to release the

Unknown:

steam to their supervisor and their analysts. So they can back

Unknown:

can go back to the patient and be neutral. That's the patient

Unknown:

steam, let it come out. You don't have to direct it or close

Unknown:

it down or do anything like that. So the process, it starts

Unknown:

in motion and everybody, yeah,

Alan Carroll:

I love the word neutral. Neutral is that you are

Alan Carroll:

able to be present. The observer is neutral, the witness is

Alan Carroll:

neutral, does not have a position, about what they see.

Alan Carroll:

It's just thoughts, passing through their mind positive,

Unknown:

said humans do have a position. So the analyst has to

Unknown:

be trained, keep that to yourself. You might have you may

Unknown:

have your feeling that you don't like what the patient is doing.

Unknown:

Keep that to yourself. It doesn't help the treatment, it

Unknown:

doesn't advance the case. That's the hard part for people who are

Unknown:

in training to keep your mouth shut.

Alan Carroll:

I hear you, I hear you the going into the

Alan Carroll:

mindfulness conversation. One of the major ways of achieving

Alan Carroll:

mindfulness is an eyes closed relax your body becomes still

Alan Carroll:

time during the day they call it a practice. Any practice you

Alan Carroll:

talked about different passive psychology, different ways of

Alan Carroll:

exploring it, but mindfulness it's the same thing. There's

Alan Carroll:

lots of people have lots of different definitions of it, but

Alan Carroll:

becoming still Yeah. Once a day. Can I use that? I did show it to

Alan Carroll:

you I think people get it get get agitated. I'm holding up a

Alan Carroll:

bottle with with silver things inside. And Bitcoin when you

Alan Carroll:

become still everything becomes clear. Like you settle down. So

Alan Carroll:

big fan of how are you going to manage your position? We

Alan Carroll:

position is stirred up of thoughts. Can you spend some

Alan Carroll:

time during the day just with eyes closed? Is that part of the

Alan Carroll:

approach that you use?

Unknown:

It's interesting. The more you talk, the more

Unknown:

similarities I see between mindfulness and psychoanalysis,

Unknown:

the classic psychoanalyst and I'm, I'm not a Freudian

Unknown:

psychoanalyst. I've studied Freud and I use his ideas. Use

Unknown:

the couch, the cyclonic couch. I mean, you see the Woody Allen

Unknown:

movies and everybody laughs at it. But psychoanalyst use the

Unknown:

couch, the patient reclining on the couch, they're still the

Unknown:

musculature is at ease is no movement, except they're, and

Unknown:

they're facing away from the analyst. So whatever my facial

Unknown:

expressions are, when they're telling me I did this, and I

Unknown:

stole a pack a pack of gum, and I'm gonna steal some cookies.

Unknown:

You don't they don't see my face. And I don't have to see

Unknown:

them. And they're just sort of centered on their thoughts that

Unknown:

they're putting into words only. So yes, lying on the couch,

Unknown:

makes the nervous system still is no movement. There's no

Unknown:

distraction. Quiet. And let's talk.

Alan Carroll:

That's great. That's great. I never looked at

Alan Carroll:

it that way. You always see the pictures in Hollywood of the

Alan Carroll:

person on the couch, right? don't realize there's a reason.

Unknown:

Absolutely. onto your face. Oh, you're mad now, when

Unknown:

you're not because they're carrying these projections. So

Unknown:

that's removed, they can talk more freely about what's going

Unknown:

on inside.

Alan Carroll:

That's great. I like the idea of becoming no

Alan Carroll:

vibration. Stillness is like no vibration, there's no there's no

Alan Carroll:

agitation, right? And so you are relaxed. And when you relax, it

Alan Carroll:

releases tension. When you release tension, it opens up the

Alan Carroll:

orifice, the holes become bigger, and there's a flow that

Alan Carroll:

would not be available if you were constricted, right? And so

Alan Carroll:

part of the theory is if you can unconstrained your physical

Alan Carroll:

body, it helps the flow of thoughts and access to that

Alan Carroll:

unconscious mind.

Unknown:

Absolutely. When you're sitting up looking at someone,

Unknown:

it's much more conversational, you're not going in deeper,

Unknown:

you're kind of thinking of the next way to connect. So when

Unknown:

that's removed, that person really has to go deeper. And

Unknown:

people resist that too. Oh, I don't I don't want to use I will

Unknown:

be able to see you. That's the point.

Alan Carroll:

That's wonderful. Boy, I'm really excited that

Alan Carroll:

there. It's a you're sharing things that are are similar,

Alan Carroll:

similar to the to the idea of mindfulness and the idea of

Alan Carroll:

becoming present in mindfulness, they'll call it the ability to

Alan Carroll:

become aware of the voice inside your head is not who you are.

Alan Carroll:

Right? It's That voice is the past conditioning, a judging and

Alan Carroll:

evaluating telling you what so interpreting everything that you

Alan Carroll:

see. And but as I become more present as I become more

Alan Carroll:

mindful, and I realized that, oh, it's like a tape inside me

Alan Carroll:

it's like a tape from from the past. And I love closing my eyes

Alan Carroll:

and relaxing my body and becoming aware of any tension,

Alan Carroll:

any tension at all with my body and stored up tightness and do

Alan Carroll:

what I can to relax the tension in my body which forces me to

Alan Carroll:

direct my attention from the thoughts that I'm thinking to

Alan Carroll:

the physical body that is, that is the thoughts are bubbling up

Alan Carroll:

from

Unknown:

right, it removes your your mind from that take that

Unknown:

place that this is happening because of this reason when when

Unknown:

it's not something else might be happening. Yeah. And

Alan Carroll:

that starts building up that observer, the

Alan Carroll:

witness, right part of you, which is that big step lightly

Alan Carroll:

that we talked about. Right. I couple of questions that I would

Alan Carroll:

love to hear you explain that we have the word it. We have the

Alan Carroll:

word ego. And we have the word super ego. Yes. And when I did

Alan Carroll:

my Freudian work, whatever that was the big thing. Well, if you

Alan Carroll:

understood something about that, you pretty much understood what

Alan Carroll:

the guy was talking about. I would love to hear you briefly

Alan Carroll:

just define the three. So people would never hear about those

Alan Carroll:

words, they have some idea of what it is.

Unknown:

Sure, there's, I mean, there's a number of theories of

Unknown:

the mind. And this was one of Freud's theories, and some

Unknown:

people reject it, and some people like it, some people use

Unknown:

parts of it, but I think the words are useful. I think Freud

Unknown:

understood the EDD as that sort of unconscious, smoldering

Unknown:

drives and passions. We all want to eat good food, we want to

Unknown:

sometimes hurt people who hurt us. We want to sort of have sex

Unknown:

with a lot of people, that sort of pushing drive. And the ego

Unknown:

develops as the child start as the infant starts to grow, when

Unknown:

the mother starts to help the child know what their feelings

Unknown:

are baby's crying, mommy's like, you're tired, you're hungry, so

Unknown:

the child and starts to be able to identify its feelings. So the

Unknown:

ego is now that sort of the reality, which is in touch with

Unknown:

reality. You really want to eat all that cake, but you

Unknown:

shouldn't, because you'll feel sick. So that the it has to slow

Unknown:

down and can't eat all that cake because it'll make me sick.

Alan Carroll:

It's putting a rain on the on the head a little

Unknown:

bit. Absolutely. Because the it has no rain, the

Unknown:

head wants what it wants, when it wants it. I'm mad, I'm gonna

Unknown:

punch that person. Whoa. But if you punch that person, they

Unknown:

might call the police, you could end up in jail. So the ego sort

Unknown:

of mitigates, okay. The super ego is develops around the

Unknown:

parents, the morality and the judgment and the right and wrong

Unknown:

of the parents. That gets interjected, you can't run

Unknown:

across the street, Jimmy, you can't do that. So eventually,

Unknown:

the kid tells himself, you can't run across the street when the

Unknown:

cars are coming. So that's the super ego. Now that can become

Unknown:

too severe, that can become too loose. So the ego is sort of

Unknown:

mitigating between the super the super ego that's saying no, and

Unknown:

the other saying yes, yes, yes. The ego is like, well, then this

Unknown:

reality, what is it better to do No, right now? And wait? Or is

Unknown:

it better to do? Yes, and maybe get really big, big trouble. So

Unknown:

that's the way these three very simple basic level levels

Unknown:

interact.

Alan Carroll:

So the super ego is the one of the ways I look at

Alan Carroll:

it is everybody is different, because everybody was raised in

Alan Carroll:

a different garden. Right? And so the fruit of your tree, same

Alan Carroll:

family, but I don't care. It's a different garden, because you

Alan Carroll:

got different experiences. And to me, the primary programmers

Alan Carroll:

have what that super ego, if I remember correctly, was was the

Alan Carroll:

mother, and then the father would be number two. Right? And

Alan Carroll:

so is that true is that it's the is the moral? No, you should not

Alan Carroll:

do that. Because that comes from the the grandmother probably,

Alan Carroll:

and the grandmother's grandmother things passing down

Alan Carroll:

from generation to generation. I know it's true. I don't know if

Alan Carroll:

it's true. So how do you become a decider? Once again, you

Alan Carroll:

become aware of the thoughts and you realize, oh, that was a

Alan Carroll:

thought my mother told me. Oh, maybe true may not be true,

Alan Carroll:

right. I'm more observing what's going on rather than I'm living

Alan Carroll:

my life by what my mother said. Right?

Unknown:

So you sort of learned to say, is that working for me?

Unknown:

Is that super ego that plays in my head? Don't you ever do that?

Unknown:

Don't Don't you ever fly in an airplane you will crash don't

Unknown:

you? for flying an airplane, there are patients who can't

Unknown:

find an airplane because their parents scared the bejesus out

Unknown:

of them. Maybe I maybe would like to try to find an airplane,

Unknown:

see, you know, I think this might work because I really want

Unknown:

to go to Italy, or wherever you want to go. So that's, again, a

Unknown:

simplistic example. But that's the kind of thing is that

Unknown:

working for me now that

Alan Carroll:

with this, spend some time on that one. Because

Alan Carroll:

most people have moral values. Correct. You live their life by

Alan Carroll:

moral values, there's a right, and there's a wrong. And what

Alan Carroll:

you're saying is that it works, or it doesn't work, is a better

Alan Carroll:

way of looking at the behavior that that that you're doing

Alan Carroll:

right now. So if it works, what would that look like working?

Alan Carroll:

And if it doesn't work, what would not working look like?

Unknown:

Well, this is a thing called the repetition compulsion

Unknown:

that Freud talks about that these interjects that get laid

Unknown:

into us from our parents, we just keep repeating them, and we

Unknown:

never question them. So in order for a person to change, they

Unknown:

have to start questioning does this work for me? And they

Unknown:

really have to explore. If I don't do it the same way. If I

Unknown:

don't ever take an aeroplane? How would I do something

Unknown:

differently? So they have to explore maybe step by step, how

Unknown:

they might change that, what the consequences of that might be,

Unknown:

will something terrible happen. But if you just went to the

Unknown:

airport, what if just one thing if I looked at some planes in

Unknown:

the sky, and see if how many of them crashed, I mean, that kind

Unknown:

of that kind of thing, that the patient has to talk about the

Unknown:

change behavior for a long time, because it's frightening. This

Unknown:

is what I was told works. And in my family, this worked, but I

Unknown:

don't like it. I want to do something else. But I'm too

Unknown:

afraid. So talking cure again, you just talk about all sorts of

Unknown:

possibilities of what might happen. And this could take a

Unknown:

year, this could take two years. And then eventually the patient

Unknown:

says I think I'm gonna do this. And they do it. And it works.

Unknown:

And there's ego boosting. There's I'm so much more

Unknown:

powerful now than I was before. I taken away some of that loop

Unknown:

that plays in my head that says, Don't do this ever. Which has

Unknown:

been closing my life and restricting my life.

Alan Carroll:

You bet. It limits it's like being in a mental

Alan Carroll:

prison. i Why, why is it that way? Because my mother said it

Alan Carroll:

was that way. Have you ever opened the door and looked out?

Alan Carroll:

Oh, it's dangerous out there. Right? Well, touch the door. To

Alan Carroll:

door, there you go. Turn the knob. All right, you're still

Alan Carroll:

alive. All right, you're still alive. Okay. The door. Sure,

Alan Carroll:

that's great. That's guy I love talking to Barbara, this is,

Alan Carroll:

this is a fun conversation. For me, I had

Unknown:

a wonderful process, I find the work to be so

Unknown:

gratifying. Because when you see a person actually change, and do

Unknown:

something differently, it's tremendously gratifying to say,

Alan Carroll:

I hear you, I hear you, I'm in the public speaking

Alan Carroll:

business. And when you watch people who are uncomfortable

Alan Carroll:

doing public speaking, and you're able to coach them with

Alan Carroll:

this, a couple of things to do, and watch an immediate shift.

Alan Carroll:

Perception. And what I focus on is that there's a there's this

Alan Carroll:

sound that you make, and there's this sound that you make, and

Alan Carroll:

between the sounds. There's nothing. And if you can create

Alan Carroll:

the sound and create the nothing, you have control with

Alan Carroll:

the timing, and control of the timing, you have control of

Alan Carroll:

choice, and he asked yourself for who you're speaking for. I'm

Alan Carroll:

speaking from my identity. Well then if you can control the

Alan Carroll:

tongue of the identity, then you control the tongue of the ego.

Alan Carroll:

And so now you can now you can consciously say I love you, and

Alan Carroll:

build a positive with even if you don't believe it, it doesn't

Alan Carroll:

make any difference. I break the air with love and love will

Alan Carroll:

appear in the movie that you're watching.

Unknown:

Yeah, that's wonderful. It's it's empowering to me and

Unknown:

probably to you to see someone else feel empowered.

Alan Carroll:

Oh, yeah. It's like your purpose on life kind

Alan Carroll:

of thing. It's like what are you here for? You're here to be of

Alan Carroll:

service what kind of service you know what are you gonna do

Alan Carroll:

something that will make people suffer less? Right

Unknown:

and equal they are you want you really want to public

Unknown:

speak but you're terrified to do it. Find a way to get there

Unknown:

because that's what you want to do. Yeah.

Alan Carroll:

Well, before we go, I do want to know more about

Alan Carroll:

the book that you written where people can get it. What's it

Alan Carroll:

about? Well, you shared a little bit what's that about? But there

Alan Carroll:

might be some more things that you could you could share about

Alan Carroll:

your your your novel

Unknown:

Okay, tricycle is my first novel.

Alan Carroll:

Let's spell it right, tr i

Unknown:

or i skele tricel.

Alan Carroll:

Now, what's the title? I mean? A very

Unknown:

good question. A tricycle is an ancient Celtic

Unknown:

symbol of three interconnected spirals, they're interconnected

Unknown:

from the middle and three spirals come out of it. Okay?

Unknown:

Three is this sort of sacred number. So there are three

Unknown:

characters in the book try scale, who are intimately

Unknown:

connected, but they don't know it, they go through life, and

Unknown:

they end up meeting each other. And they have a tremendously

Unknown:

powerful effect upon each other. So that's sort of the premise of

Unknown:

the book. One is a psychoanalyst. And the other two

Unknown:

are siblings, who were separated early in birth because of family

Unknown:

dysfunction. And they end up randomly in New York City. And

Unknown:

they both have a relationship with the psychoanalyst. And then

Unknown:

you'll see what happens if they don't want to give anything

Unknown:

away. But there's a powerful unconscious connection, drawing

Unknown:

them together. Now, the unconscious is not a word I've

Unknown:

had mentioned so far. But psychoanalysis rests on the

Unknown:

belief that there are unconscious drives we have deep

Unknown:

in our ID that get expressed, and express through our behavior

Unknown:

and our actions. And the more we know what those drives are, the

Unknown:

better we are at making conscious choices for ourselves

Unknown:

that are good that are good for us.

Alan Carroll:

The love low I, I told you early on the sort of a

Alan Carroll:

young Indian guy, he calls it the collective unconscious, so

Alan Carroll:

that we have this space that we're all connected to an ego is

Alan Carroll:

like this thing on the surface. But there's a lot more to the

Alan Carroll:

iceberg than just what you see on the surface. Exactly. And

Alan Carroll:

that to me is the the idea of I'm interested in diving down

Alan Carroll:

and exploring, right that that realm of unconsciousness, right.

Alan Carroll:

So

Unknown:

at an unconscious level, these two siblings really

Unknown:

wanted to reunite and through all sorts of circumstances they

Unknown:

were unable to. And somehow unconsciously they both ended up

Unknown:

in New York City. Is that a coincidence? Freud would say no,

Unknown:

I would say no, as well, since I made up the story. Right?

Alan Carroll:

So there's, I would also say, No, I, I look at

Alan Carroll:

that we're all we're all connected. The illusion is that

Alan Carroll:

we're not correct. And yet, the analogy that I use Barber is the

Alan Carroll:

electricity and the light bulb. All the light bulbs look

Alan Carroll:

differently, but the electricity is the same. Right? As you get

Alan Carroll:

into the body, you get into that electricity, you tap into that

Alan Carroll:

universal awareness in which there is no resistance to what

Alan Carroll:

is right. You are you're in love with. There's no judgement,

Alan Carroll:

right? You don't get a longer judge you just love and

Alan Carroll:

appreciate and, and your physical body is relaxed. As you

Alan Carroll:

look at these things. You're not you are here. But I'm 75 years

Alan Carroll:

old. I've been practicing and working on it for a long time.

Alan Carroll:

And I just am 2121

Unknown:

All right, yeah, the unconscious is a powerful force,

Unknown:

that we communicate with each other not knowing it sometimes.

Unknown:

Not that it's voodoo, or any weird stuff. But there, there

Unknown:

are connections, emotional feelings we get from each other,

Unknown:

that are not at the conscious level that we're not aware of.

Unknown:

So it's a powerful for us, I believe.

Alan Carroll:

Could you talk a little bit about Jung's

Alan Carroll:

archetypes as the major components of that stuff going

Alan Carroll:

on underneath the surface?

Unknown:

I guess archetypes relate to universal experiences

Unknown:

that people have and can relate to. I mean, I think one of

Unknown:

Jung's overarching themes is that life is a series of

Unknown:

separation and individuation. And that's so true for all of us

Unknown:

whatever archetype calls to us, or that we stem from, we are

Unknown:

sort of all universally going through this experience of being

Unknown:

born, growing older, standing up straight on our own, and then

Unknown:

eventually dying, which is a lifelong experience of

Unknown:

separation. So his idea of the universal universality of

Unknown:

people's traits and characteristics and things that

Unknown:

overlap. I mean, we read young in my institute, we accept a lot

Unknown:

of what he says his work on dreams is enormously an enormous

Unknown:

contribution. So there's a universality of all of our human

Unknown:

experiences, as you said, the electricity is the same. It just

Unknown:

pops up in different visuals for people and in different

Unknown:

behaviors. And as

Alan Carroll:

you one of the probably I keep mentioning on my

Alan Carroll:

podcast, everybody, I just got that I'm doing the Course of

Alan Carroll:

Miracles. Written by a professor from the University in New York

Alan Carroll:

City, it was it was written by it was, well, you call it cheap,

Alan Carroll:

it came through her she didn't Write it just channeled, she

Alan Carroll:

channeled it. And it's 365 lessons. And you do one a day.

Alan Carroll:

And I'm two years into it, I haven't finished yet. So I'm not

Alan Carroll:

doing my one today. But the very first lesson is to just look at

Alan Carroll:

the world around, you look at the room around you look at all

Alan Carroll:

the objects and things in the room and tell yourself, it

Alan Carroll:

doesn't have any meaning. And immediately, you say, oh, no,

Alan Carroll:

everything has a meaning. But that creates that the, the

Alan Carroll:

thought that it doesn't have any meaning. And lesson number two

Alan Carroll:

is now look at everything and realize that the meaning that

Alan Carroll:

you see comes from you not from the object that you're looking

Alan Carroll:

at, right? That does that anything from your point of view

Alan Carroll:

can is that sort

Unknown:

of like black and white thinking people think it's this

Unknown:

way, or it's that way, if I don't, if a person bothers me,

Unknown:

and I don't scream at them, I just have to be quiet. Well,

Unknown:

this gray area, there's something in between, you don't

Unknown:

just have to be silent and suffer or scream at them and

Unknown:

kill them. There might be something in the middle that you

Unknown:

can do some gray area, not sort of black and white thinking this

Unknown:

is what's going to happen. So I can't do that. And then you're

Unknown:

paralyzed, sitting on all these bad feelings, when you could

Unknown:

say, you know, excuse me, but that kind of hurt my feelings

Unknown:

when you said that. It's very, very different than patients who

Unknown:

will say this frequently. I didn't want to go off on the

Unknown:

person. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend going off on anybody.

Unknown:

But it would be nice if you could at least discharge your

Unknown:

feeling in an appropriate way that they could hear. So that

Unknown:

that reminds me of that, that it's not just this way or that

Unknown:

way. There's a whole gray area in between, I want to try

Alan Carroll:

and discharge it in a way that they can hear it.

Alan Carroll:

So discharge it I find discharged. But did they hear

Alan Carroll:

it? Right? And to me, part of the part of it is the vibration

Alan Carroll:

that you discharge that vibration, either it's one of a

Alan Carroll:

loving vibration, or it's our it's an attack thought,

Alan Carroll:

defending the ego, man, to me is a big difference between between

Alan Carroll:

the very people speak, you know, most of them are defending their

Alan Carroll:

opinion and their and their position. Right. And that's

Alan Carroll:

creating.

Unknown:

Right and I ask people, What is your goal? Do you want

Unknown:

to kill that person? And the relationship? Or do you want

Unknown:

explain what you need for the relationship to continue? What's

Unknown:

your goal?

Alan Carroll:

I love it. Well, thank you, Barbara. How do we

Alan Carroll:

get a hold of you? How can my audience where can they buy the

Alan Carroll:

book? And where can they go and find more about you? You

Unknown:

can buy the book and learn all about the on my

Unknown:

website, which is B D'Amato dot com. You can buy the book there.

Unknown:

It's on Kindle. And I have a paperback version. And all of my

Unknown:

contact information is there. And websites got a lot of

Unknown:

information.

Alan Carroll:

Wonderful, wonderful. And all the

Alan Carroll:

information will also be included in the show notes. So

Alan Carroll:

when the podcast goes out, all that information will be there.

Alan Carroll:

Well, I want to thank you very much for sharing yourself with

Alan Carroll:

our audience today. Real, just really, really illuminating

Alan Carroll:

because you have so much experiential light to shine on

Alan Carroll:

the subject matter that it makes it a very bright conversation.

Alan Carroll:

So thank you for bringing brightness into our in our life

Alan Carroll:

today.

Unknown:

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Unknown:

Your ideas are very simpatico I've really enjoyed it.

Alan Carroll:

Well thank you very much, Barbara. Bye bye for

Alan Carroll:

now. Bye bye

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Alan Carroll

Alan Carroll is an Educational Psychologist who specializes in Transpersonal Psychology. He founded Alan Carroll & Associates 30 years ago and before that, he was a Senior Sales Training Consultant for 10 years at Digital Equipment Corporation. He has dedicated his life in search of mindfulness tools that can be used by everyone (young and old) to transform their ability to speak at a professional level, as well as, to reduce the psychological suffering caused by the misidentification with our ego and reconnect to the vast transcendent dimension of consciousness that lies just on the other side of the thoughts we think and in between the words we speak.