Kristen

Welcome to the Close the Chapter podcast. I am Kristen Boice, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice pathways to healing counseling. Through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories, we will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore. And open the door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode, so be sure to subscribe.

Kristen

Welcome back to this week's Close the Chapter podcast if you're a first time listener, welcome if you're somebody that loves the podcast and comes back again, and again, thank you so very much. Without you, this wouldn't be possible. I cannot express how much I appreciate you sharing the podcast and the fact that you're expanding, learning growing, opening up your heart center. Oh my goodness, that makes my heart happy. So so much. This week's close the chapter podcast is I want to give you kind of a heads up, there's a little bit of cussing, and there is some explicative language, not a ton some. So if that is offensive, I totally understand. If you have little people around probably going to want to not put this on speaker. There's just some elements of that here and there. The guest is very candid speaks truth is very direct, which is done a lot of his own work, worked through a lot of trauma in his own life. And he's very clear about a lot of things. So what uh, just to put that out there, and make sure you are aware if you're listening to this on speaker. So let me introduce you to this week's guest, Alex Boianghu has been a psychotherapist for over 30 years. He specializes in the intersection of East and West psychology with an emphasis on somatic therapy, and EMDR Eye Movement Desensitization reprocessing, which I am also a clinician that practices EMDR. And our whole team at pathways to healing counseling also uses EMDR. We love it. It's a trauma healing modality. And in this conversation, we talked a lot about thoughts, what our thoughts, how they impact us, and how we can heal from people pleasing. Taking on a caretaker role. We talked a lot about the idea of our bodies and the mind body connection, and how it's so important to have a mindset of inquiry or a heart of inquiry to heal. That was the basis of our conversations and how inquiry is the catalyst for healing. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. If you don't want to miss an episode, subscribe to the podcast. And you can get on our mailing list. I only email you once a week with the episodes helpful blog posts. And you can subscribe easily at kristendboice.com/freeresources, you also get a free healing guide with that. So I think this will be expensive. There are parts of the conversation that I would get clarification on because I was like no, what are you saying? Exactly. So stay with it. Stay open, I think you're going to expand in a whole lot of ways by listening to the episode. There's different thoughts here. So my goal with this podcast is for you to look at things in a different way to have a mind of inquiry, which is what this whole episode is about. And to embody different thoughts and ideas and not see it as threatening. See it as expansion and you might not agree with everything and that's okay. Just stay open hearted and see what lands for you in this episode, and then do something take action after you've listened to really change your life. Here's my conversation with Alex. Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast. I am so excited about this episode because we hear a lot about meditation and the healing journey we hear a lot about ways to heal. Both of us Alex and I are both EMDR clinicians. So I love that I love to hear different perspectives and maybe you're gonna get new and fresh information today. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome Alex to the close the chapter podcast.

Alex

Thank you so much looking forward to it.

Kristen

Thank you for being here. Okay, we're gonna jump right on in. What do you find is the most important practice in your life that helps keep you centered, calm and present. myself You mean yourself as a human

Alex

inquiry when I was 15 my first spiritual book was by Gurdjieff. And it was something called on the miraculous something about the miraculous on the first page in the first chapter, it says We are automatons. And when I read that I was so blown away by this, I don't know why it was just captivated me. And so your question is, in order for that centeredness to happen, we have to be curious about what causes our dissatisfaction, suffering, angst, because in order to get to that, one has to understand how one is lost. I want to be away from home spiritually. So unless we know how that happens, it's very hard to have inner peace and inner sense of wholeness, that kind of interesting, the journey begins with being lost. And then we start to understand your inquiry into Hey, why am I feeling this way? Why am I thinking this way? Why do I believe this deep inquiry for me is the beginning of the process of investigation, deconstruction, and then return back to our original source.

Kristen

So let's say somebody, a lot of people with trauma, have fear about inquiry, because they're afraid that they're gonna unpack, they're afraid they're gonna get stuck. What do you say about people that are afraid to inquire

Alex

the reason they're afraid to inquire is it what they know is that when they go internally into the body, they're going to have to go meet the emotions and sensations that were overwhelming in the trauma. So you have to create a loving inner space through meditation. Metta practices, there are many, many somatic practices that create an internal way of meeting Pema children says, welcoming the unwelcome so we start to work with what we have disowned, which feels intense. So it's not that it's bad, it's just too intense. If we create the right kind of internal environment, then the intensity doesn't feel as intense. And we start to have a new relationship that which was intense before, and that's the beginning of change of trauma.

Kristen

So how does someone be able to tolerate more intensity in their body,

Alex

you start to titrate, you start to bring awareness into the body by just experiencing everyday, you know, sensation, then everyday emotions, and then you titrate, slow titration, then the person starts to be like, Wow, that's really intense. And you create either there's two ways, either more groundedness, or more spaciousness. So for different temperaments, you either go more grounded, or more spacious. And so the more grounded is the earth element, that we create an internal space, because it's like, when we feel more earth element, so the Earth can hold the water to go through, we create the ground. So we create a somatic experience of like a holding environment, and then the emotions and sensations can rest on that somatically. This is not in the mind, than the body. Some temperaments like space patients notice why because like a bird Platt passing through the sky, it never changes the sky, or the clouds moving through the sky, never change the sky. So some people love that quality where they are infinitely spacious. And then experience comes through and doesn't move them from that stable viciousness. One of my teachers from the realization process, Judith Blackstone talks about fundamental consciousness, when we learn to attune to fundamental consciousness, which is the ground of who we are, we become an unmoved by experience. And this all takes time is all training on the somatic, this is not in the mind, this is not a thinking process. And that's hard

Kristen

for people, because they think, if I just could change my thoughts, I mean, this is kind of what we've been told, if we just change our thoughts, then we'll change our experience. What do you say about that? What are your thoughts

Alex

about that? Change the embodiment change the thoughts there or the wrong way?

Kristen

Okay, so how does someone begin to become more grounded and embodied? Where would they start,

Alex

you need a practitioner who's a somatic practitioner to guide you, you I mean, you can start on YouTube and things like that, and do embodied practices. But when we're talking about the healing journey from a therapeutic perspective, and you want someone who specializes like myself in embodied somatic psychotherapy, because if you go to a person who is not specialized, and it's talk therapy, you can't get to that. You just can't, it doesn't work. 100%. So I mean, we can spend a lot of time on what the embodied movement looks, but you have to experience that. So let's talk about what is one method, so the earth elements, so what you do is you have a client or a person doesn't matter who it is, sit down and have their feet flat on the ground, and feel the contact point, like your body right now, wherever you feel contact points between your body and something else. That is the earth element. That's density. What when you start to experience that you start to feel embodiment, you're like, oh, there's a president there. I'm against this couch. And I can sense that. And for some people, that's actually just the first time they're like, Oh, I never pay attention to my back touching the couch. What's that feel like? Well, that's interesting. That's weird. I've never really experienced that. Oh, but then that feels good. So we begin these slow inquiries adventure into the somatic because we're in body Korea. Choosing trauma creates a slit between the psyche and the body.

Kristen

I like that definition. I've not heard that one. That's the first time I've heard that definition of trauma.

Alex

The word trauma in Greek means rupture. So there's a chasm between embodiment and ideas of self. So in trauma, a sense of self is created in order to deal with it. This is an important way to say sense of self. It's not my actual who I am. It's the creative force having to create an idea of myself to get through this, unfortunately, that when the trauma passes imagined self that was used for protection, we start to align as though that that is who we are now. And that's part of the suffering that happens afterwards.

Kristen

How do you create more of expansion? You said, Some people want spaciousness and expansion. How do you create that? You don't create it you experience? How do you experience it for someone that's like, I don't even know what he means by that.

Alex

Okay, so I'll do it with you. So this way people can start to hear it. But remember, all of these are just introduction into the semantic field, which a person has to really be in the room to do, you can close your eyes for me, and I want you to notice your right hand. Now notice, how do you know your right hand is there without looking at it? What do you sense?

Kristen

I sense the heaviness of my fingers?

Alex

So that's a density element that heaviness right now go further, what else is telling you that your hand is there,

Kristen

a connection to my arm, I can feel my connection to my arm all the way up

Alex

in that connection without looking at it. You can tell that it's energetic, there's a sense of energy, there's an energetic field. Now you just said you feel the heaviness right of your fingers. Is that heaviness, dense and solid? Or can you feel movement within that movement? Exactly. So therefore it's not solid. Okay, now, now go deeper. Now, feel that movement. Notice the energy, we call this energy, the movement. Now notice that movement is happening within the spaciousness of your hand internal and your whole hand is simply just spaciousness. See if you can notice that and energy is the movement within that yield. I feel that exactly, then we will take that and expand that throughout your whole body. Got it?

Kristen

Yeah, because for some people, this is a new concept.

Alex

For most people who are Westerners, we're disembodied. This is a whole new training, which requires what I call subtle knowing, not gross knowing. In the West, we use gross knowing, or dense knowing, or knowing of subjects and objects, and dualities name and form, which is an abstracted way of knowing, in order to really fundamentally know who we are, it requires a very subtle, it's like being able to notice the wisp Enos of the wind, not the gross wind, but like that subtle when that moves inside the body and pervades all of beingness it's quiet. So it needs quietness of the mind.

Kristen

How quickly are you able to quiet your mind that you got me curious,

Alex

it's let the mind that becomes quiet. It's the engagement with thinking that becomes quiet. Mind is just the stage for all the activity of thinking to happen. So quietness doesn't mean there is thinking when no thinking quietness means non fabrication, elaboration and doing something with thinking it's about leaving it to come and go because thinking is impermanent, there's nothing solid about thinking, I don't need to do something with that comes and goes.

Kristen

it eludes me a little bit. I'm following you. And then I get that part just lost me. So do you

Alex

believe in your thoughts that they're real? No. What are your thoughts made out of?

Kristen

That's a great question. What are they made out of?

Alex

I'm asking you, yeah,

Kristen

I don't really know. We've been taught they come from your brain,

Alex

just the images on the screen. When you look closely, go ahead, investigate thinking, go closer to it. Is it something you can grab? No. So what makes the thought so powerful and real, is that the thought itself?

Kristen

It's almost like the experience attached to the thought.

Alex

It's the story in attached to the actual thought, which then makes the thought carry the story, which is what the issue is. So story convictions, then give life to particular kinds of thinking, which we say then is the issue. No, it's the core fundamental views about ourselves, which exists in the body that then creates the thinking process. But when you investigate thinking itself, you see that there's just images on the screen that's like clouds floating in the sky. You don't take them to be real. You relax, and then you're at peace. When you say how fast how fast has to do with how fast you realize that thinking is nothing but clouds passing in the sky.

Kristen

It sounds easy when you're saying it. And yet there feels like a challenge to it.

Alex

It's just a matter of training. Do you think the great meditators throughout history did what? No, they said on their asses and meditated 1000s of hours and reprogrammed their whole internal and makeup. We're so lazy. We want change and just fast, quick and magical. A is an inner journey that requires daily committed exploration.

Kristen

So what does that look like for you your daily journey of committed exploration?

Alex

The same thing we've been talking about. It's a commitment to my wholeness, a sense of inner being. And being, in what ways there is a stepping away from that, a sense of feeling that there's a grasping onto some illusory sense of self, seeing it, letting that evaporate, coming back to wholeness. So it's a constant dance simply a wholeness pervading, recognizing when there's a grasping, letting go of grasping, coming back to wholeness, it's just a dance. And then over time, one has been doing this a long time, when then abides more naturally in their spiritual home, sort of say, and we don't leave it as often.

Kristen

How did you find meditation? Like, how did you discover meditation for yourself?

Alex

You know, I was just so curious teenager about this, I call it the Inner Engineering. And I knew it was just a knowing I think it's karmic, I just knew that meditation was going to be a journey. And the thing is, is, I want to say something about that meditation that meditation is not a technique. It's a way of being, and it's a way of inquiry. So it's not some technique that you do for 20 minutes every day. And then you check off the box and you live your life. Meditation is a meditative life, meditation, the in Tibetan, the word meditation, which means gone, that correct translation means to remember. So what are we remembering our true nature, not our fictional imaginary creation? It's our truth. So meditation is about coming back to truth. That's the correct way understanding well, how do we do that? It's like learning a skill, you start to play tennis, how long does it take to learn to get your forehand that you can then start to beat opponents, and then higher and higher levels, what people commit to that? Well, how many people commit to the inner journey of well being,

Kristen

I just think people don't even know where to begin. I mean, I really do, I think,

Alex

begin with suffering, dissatisfaction, and exhaustion, from the same old say, I give up, I've had enough, Somebody, please help. And then go find a teacher, a therapist, a guide, a coach, somebody who knows how to start working on the path, where it must begin with, with just being like that. There are many people who live their lives, who don't have that point, it's enough and live their lives, their whole lives, never investigating. And for them living within the relative world was exactly what they did in this lifetime. They went to work they had their families, they existed, they were happy with it. And that's it. It's unquestioned. Who's to argue with any of that, but when we speak about different depths of aliveness, there's living and then there's our life. And I'm greeting everyone, all on throttle, alive. And I think I knew that as a child, like, I don't want it just to be like, living this below living and just getting by living a life minute.

Kristen

So let's keep going. When someone says, Okay, I want to live a life of inquiry. I want to live that life, self awareness. When you've hit the suffering, you feel like, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to live a life of inquiry. They don't even know where to find a teacher. They're just so where do you begin to seek out someone that's going to guide you, so to speak.

Alex

Look, with the internet, now. It's exploded the field of spirituality, self healing has exploded. It is everywhere. It's there so much of it. There's so much abundance of it. There's workshops and centers, and I mean, it is everywhere. And the best way to start with that is you kind of start somewhere. And you see intuitively Well, that didn't work. Okay. All right, what else then you read a book or something. So you know, people begin, they read a book or they listen to a podcast, they're like, Ah, interesting ideas. And they go and that's how you begin, you just begin the journey and the path is not going to reveal its full on revelation to you. When you begin. It's kind of going to have a momentum and a building. You got to just stay with it kind of be hungry. You go on Psychology Today, you find a therapist, you live in New York, you go to Paulo or a mega, and you take a workshop there, you live in a big city, go take a Holotropic breathwork take a yoga class, take a shamanic healing, you want native, I mean, like go to something,

Kristen

but it's been the most life changing teacher experience you've had maybe the most impactful

Alex

if I'm honest, I would say it's been like that he drops in the bucket for me. Some people have that kind of existence along this journey where they get these big, like boom, you know what I mean? I haven't had that kind of karma. Mine has been this steady drip different teachers different interactions have been drip. And with each of those trips, more of a letting go more of a clarifying more of a letting go more of a clarifying that's been my journey, and I'm actually really glad a lot of people think it's going to be this like big mystery ecstatic experience it can be. That's not been my journey. Some people get these big, profound openings, realizations into the nature of the universe, and then they don't know what to do. It messes their minds, or it begins a beautiful journey. But then they can be captivated by that, then they're trying to return back to that. If you listen to Jim Carrey, he really speaks about, he speaks about having a couple of major our hands into the workings of self and universe. And they have been the cornerstones of guiding and going forward. So he's had those, and people will have sometimes like that one moment that a second or two or three, sometimes longer, where the whole mechanism of the construct just collapses. And there's this view into the mystical into the numinous ontological space of being. And then they're like, Wow, that's possible as a live way of being. And they begin. So for me, it's been 45 years of steady dropping eautiful. Absolutely. I wouldn't change it had amazing teachers have teachers who are just beautiful beings, and it just continues to deepen that way.

Kristen

What do you do about your own defensiveness? There's parts of you that want to protect yourself from her pain, suffering.

Alex

Defensiveness is of the best ways as a reverse mirror and taking a look where there's still some grasping to a sense of separation. That's all there just invitation to see where there still may be a belief that I can't be my full, authentic self, or I'll be hurt. So it's just a remnant from childhood. So you recognize that, oh, yeah, I can't be myself under all conditions. And no one can take that away no matter what they do. So it's a conviction that there is no longer a need to create structures for me to be myself. Let's make sure Kristen, I need you to behave a certain way as then I'm going to be authentic. No. When we finally go, No, Christian, I'm just going to show up being me. You can be you, you like it don't like it and so forth. That's not on me. So if I still have structures where I'm like, Oh, I Christian Needs to behave a certain way. That's going to be defensiveness. You see. So defensiveness is simply the inner agreement to how much we feel we can be authentically ourselves. And trauma, of course, basically says you cannot be your authentic self. So therefore, the boundaries are much thicker, and more agreements are needed. You need to talk this way, be this way, act this way. Everybody's got to be like this, and then maybe I'll come out and play,

Kristen

because then I'll feel safe enough to come out and play. Correct. That's where the safety play into that, right. So

Alex

things what I just said, safety is still the agreement that I'm gonna get hurt in my authenticity. But when we abide north into 3d, we realize nothing can hurt us. There's no such thing as something can hurt us. If we are hurt than what we're still hanging on to it's some kind of MIS identification. And then what do you do with that you sleep through it. And it's not

Kristen

accurate. It sounds easy. I mean, this is a struggle. I mean, people listening are probably like, This sounds easy, but I struggle.

Alex

Well then commit to someone for 510 years as your teacher and let them work you over and see how you feel after five or 10 years. The longer you marinate a piece of steak, the tastier it is, a couple of days later,

Kristen

do you find you still have defenses that want to come up? Yeah,

Alex

just stolen last week that came up. But at this point, when they come up, I smile and moment of MIS identification with something. It happened last week, there was one that came up during an interaction. And afterwards I was like, No, I just I went home and I sat with the whole process and I inquiry and deconstructed it all the way down to its original root source came back home. You tended to it? I tended to Yeah, of course, I didn't externalize it or say that it was somebody else. So therefore, nothing that was completely the arising of that. Not that it belonged like I did, it was just an old remnant of a particular I am. You know what I mean? The Buddha said, we're going to live with our most predominant I am for the rest of our lives, and he called it Mara. And so like Pema children, we create a different relationship with that same particular I am, which at first felt very real and it's who I am to finally it's just a whispery cloud in the sky and you recognize that's not who I am right? There's a shift from the response to trauma as who I am to I am that was behind the trauma that was always there.

Kristen

So people think in order to have love value and belonging I have to show up be a certain way. It's all bullshit. This is the conditioning we're functioning under in so many ways to abortion.

Alex

Sorry, quite bluntly. Oh, stop. Stop pretending and acting. Everybody. Stop pretending and then so why do we pretend an act that still goes back to the same old space that I just was talking about before the pretending and acting is hoping we manipulate and massage everybody so that we can make them think that we're nice though. we're manipulating them to get good values from them. Because we don't feel fundamentally good about ourselves. So it's a temporary pseudo manipulation that I get a good like, Oh, you're so wonderful for a moment. I'm like, Oh, I'm so wonderful followed by like, I really feel like a piece of shit down inside. So it never works is it's just a damn manipulation. And you know, we think that we're doing it for the other person. We think we're getting something but you know, it's abusive to ourselves and actually toxic with everybody else. When we are inauthentic with ourselves, and we are inauthentic with others, it causes a lot of harm.

Kristen

And do you think we're trying to get needs met that we didn't get met? Absolutely.

Alex

Yeah. Because listen to the needs weren't met. And we learned by the way, so the alcoholic father, if I am a good athlete, my dad's gonna love me, the alcoholic father, son, now all of a sudden, I grew up and I've got to be a good athlete with everybody. And then I go out, and everybody has to see me as a good athlete. So I go out. And that's the identity that's going to get me love. But I can feel inside. That's such a limitation for myself that I identify myself only as an athlete, how about the rest of who I am, my sensuality, my power, my love, my truth of who I am my clarity and wisdom and my spirituality, where's all that I become a cardboard cutout of something, then you see, then I'm working with that athlete then ruptures their Achilles heel, and comes to me, because now all of a sudden, they're depressed, shooting up heroin. True story, because now all of a sudden, who am I?

Kristen

Yeah, that's the truth. Because I think and then we seek partners, that we feel like we'll meet these needs, I didn't get that. And then they get pull the curtain back and like, Oh, you don't have it to offer.

Alex

That's the imago relationship suite, we will pull someone who unconsciously supports us not dealing with our stuff, and then not dealing with their stuff. So we'll just we'll make an unconscious agreement. Like you don't touch my smelly closet, I won't touch your smelly closet. Yet. Of course, that creates a hot mess in relationship.

Kristen

So when we look at these unmet needs, that drive a lot of thoughts, behaviors, shame, the way we feel, it's a journey of inquiry is how you would answer me? Am I guessing that's what you would say in journey.

Alex

One, you have to understand what you really feel you need, you have to really understand what you need. The thing is this, it's very dangerous than to say that somebody else is going to meet that need. Yes.

Kristen

Because you're just putting that on to somebody else. And then if they don't meet it, then why

Alex

to me, because inherently in our true nature, I'd say love. One can really feel a tendency within a lovingness with oneself with internal like, oh my god, like so deep. But what happens if we don't feel that then we're gonna put pressure on the other person like, love me? Love me? Why don't you text me? Why don't you call me? Oh, you were the prime minister. We just tried to squeeze that person into something else. And then they want to run.

Kristen

So let's take teenagers right now. Just take a look at that. Because I see this right now in teens, they look at social media, they feel less than they feel. They're not good enough. They feel unlovable, they don't feel like they belong, or important or matter, etc. Where do we begin

Alex

to parents get their kick fucking kids off the goddamn internet? Seriously, you want to start simple. Get your kids when we were growing up, thank God I grew up at a time where we can go and be with people and play with people and learn social skills instead of now that can't even got them talk to the person at the coffee counter and order a coffee. And and I'm get crazy with this up parents. The problem is that the teens, the problem is the parents.

Kristen

Let's say they're already on the internet, let's just say this out. Because some of them like

Alex

why Yeah, then you're asking me to deal with the problem. So then they're gonna live that life and until they play that out until they're exhausted with it, and then they will deal with it? If not, they're just gonna have the consequences of delaying every learning skill possible, because that,

Kristen

do you feel like here's throwing this out there that the new addiction is the internet is social media, it's the new addiction, okay? And until they get sober from it, or give it up, then the healing can begin or can someone heal while they're using that?

Alex

It's like a slippery slope of asking an alcoholic? Can they drink once in a while, right. So it's very difficult that transition point with how much you can actually use whatever it is that you're using. It's a slippery slope. Some people can intelligently use the internet, and know when that is causing them suffering. So for example, let's say the person comes home, and they're exhausted, and they had a fight with their co worker, and they want to come home and their partner is waiting for them when they go to the computer to avoid the fact that they had a fight with a coworker. Well, that's just an addiction being used for not dealing with something, you know what I mean? So once again, inquiry really is at the base of this right? My phone is the piece where I really commit try to commit more and more in my life where it's not next to me. Do you know what I mean? And if I'm picking it up, that I asked myself, What is my intent for picking it up? I asked myself, is it a distraction? Am I restless? Am I bored? Like I want to be honest with myself for it. And if it's not for a really like purposeful reason, I try to really not touch it. Do you make a commitment to yourself but doing that with a 20 year old or somebody in their 20 to 30? Like, it's like that candy? Are you kidding me? It is.

Kristen

It's interesting to see what it's doing to kids brains, because we're giving it to infants, while they're at the restaurant, they're giving them a phone and watching things. I mean, I the human interaction, and mirroring am astonished

Alex

by the amount of times that I've gone out to dinner, an entire family is sitting on their phones, and no one is interacting, then they're surprised their kid has difficulties at school, or getting a job, or making a phone call to deal with something. It's crazy.

Kristen

But I think we're gonna see a fallout mental health wise continuously for generations. I do because of it. It'll be interesting, but I definitely think there's no shame, I'll stunting this, we don't have this mirroring, we don't have this emotional attunement, presence and acknowledgement, which is exactly what's necessary for human development. I agree. So when we look this inquiry, and someone begins the journey of inquiry, and they commit and set an intention for inquiry, and they have these parts that feel stuck. What does someone do with the stuck parts, they're like, I'm aware, this is my five year old self, I'm making this up. But whatever they kind of, but they're stuck, do they have to have a therapist to work?

Alex

It's hard to understand those stuck parts by yourself. So there are ways to work with these, what we call parts work or ego states. There are many ways there's many methods to understand it from a non dual perspective, it's not that it's a stuck point. It's a point of non integration with my true nature. So there are different ways of entering into the energetics. And I don't really, really like to call them stuck points, but their density points that show where my whole self can't walk in, it's almost like, let's say a friend walks through the door and they leave an arm out, and they come in without their arm, that would be called a stuck point, their arm being out because the start point, which means that they somehow believe that they need to leave something out of this interaction, right? So let's make it practical. I'm known as the friend who does everything for everybody. But now I'm exhausted, I'm tired. I'm not feeling well. My friends are calling me and I keep going to do that. Now I'm gonna start to resent and feel stuck inside, but I'm like, Why am I feeling stuck is because I'm gonna take care of myself. stuckness is not the best understanding. It's like crystallized consciousness. That is a doorway back to Reclaiming my arm at the door.

Kristen

Yeah, this is a deep rumbling for many people. Like if they find people pleased to get their needs met. And they think, Well, I'm gonna give that up, then what? I mean, people think that, like, if I don't do that, then how am I going to be loved? How am I going to be seen? How am I going to be liked?

Alex

Well, you'll have people around you who are going to love you for not having to find and you're gonna be loved being whole not part.

Kristen

Have you seen that in your own healing journey where people no longer that connection point when you grow? You're almost

Alex

the truth is all of life, I've come to realize that 55 This idea of relationships forever, all of them, right? Is it really an misunderstanding? People walk with us on the journey for different amounts of times for different reasons, right. But each one is an invitation as a mirror, or our own separation and wholeness. That's all that's going on. As we embody our own wholeness, then what we can do is we can partake in those relationships, and really enjoy them on the physical level, on an emotional level, on the heart level, on the intellectual level, because there's less game playing trauma bonding. It's like, Hey, I'm in my film this year, and your fullness, let's go play. That's what hopefully is the potential for each one of us.

Kristen

When you think of your journey that you've been on, what's been the hardest part? Has there been a hard part? What's been the hardest part?

Alex

I would say the I think archetype of the caretaker due to Holocaust survivor, multi generational trauma. So carrying that and then coming to an understanding that I no longer have to carry that there was a definitive kind of process of being like that it's not mine. And I no longer have to carry that. And then it was joy began to be something that I learned it's possible for myself, and I've really been enjoying joy. It's been amazing. So joy is part of my true nature. I just didn't, I couldn't access it due to the collective unconscious trauma. So and then working through that now. I have a lot of joy.

Kristen

That's amazing because it's hard for many of us joy is hard to access.

Alex

I actually believe that it's hard to access it for Westerners as a whole.

Kristen

Yes. Do you think your caretaker role from the embedded just generational trauma blocked you from the joy? Of course, yeah,

Alex

I was carrying somebody else's baggage. I'm not interested in it and where

Kristen

that's huge. I mean, this is your like, you're free yourself. I mean, that's the whole idea. Talk to me about judgment, judgment of yourself judgment of others, where does it come from? Judgment is

Alex

a critical voice that was used towards you, that you internalize towards yourself than simple, then you use that towards others. Yeah. So you internalize it towards yourself, and then use the towards others, it starts to feel and it's almost like you start to use it towards yourself as a way to correct yourself believing that you need correction that way. Amazing. It's like having a stallion, you're gonna beat it to get it to go somewhere, instead of loving it to get it somewhere. It's amazing. The judgment, the violence in an attempt to get to mean met. Absolutely. I

Kristen

don't think anyone heals under judgment.

Alex

Never actually, that has to be put down very early on in the healing process very early. So I do a lot of embodied work around the heart chakra and tenderness towards oneself a lot of repair work that way. As the person does that, then they realize, oh, can pet the horsey to go on a fun little ride here? We can go for a joyride.

Kristen

Yeah, I like that. As we kind of close up. What are any thoughts that you want to share? Or just anything that comes through to you that we missed that we didn't talk about that you feel is really important.

Alex

I've always had this one sentence that has been there through my entire life. Change is possible. Nothing is static. Whatever you've been through whatever conditions you've been through, whatever belief systems you have, everything is workable and changeable. No one is doomed to their psychology. No one.

Kristen

I agree. 100%. Yeah,

Alex

I've worked with touch trauma of people such trauma, or trauma, rate, trauma, abuse, trauma, addiction, trauma. And I have seen transformations that are just think

Kristen

it's amazing to witness

Alex

people ask me why I do what I do. Because I get to watch people like a diamond coming out from the earth and coming through all the layers of the mud and the rock. And then it just goes, I get to watch that process. It's like a flower coming from its seed. It's amazing. It's like you want to do like, Ah, you put it in a cup and you get to watch that process. It's such a beautiful process to watch a flower come into its flowering. It's the same thing with spiritual process. It's a flowering. I'm there to witness it. I'm holding it in whatever ways I can. It's beautiful. I really think it's the most amazing gift to be able to watch them. It's like watching birth. Um, they're like, Wow,

Kristen

it's amazing. Truly, where can people find you if they want to learn more about you?

Alex

I'm in outer space on Mars most of the time. My website journey to wholeness dot health. So if you can just put that there and be great. It's a great website. Yeah, I love it. Beautiful. That gives all the information. Yeah, everything that they need. And they want they can Yeah, My telephone number is on there if they want to reach out, not a problem. So it's great. Thank you. Thank you for the great questions and the heart building inquiry and hopefully this is a benefit to all the people listening and may they start a journey of inquiry.

Kristen

Yes. And journey of inquiry. Thank you for your heart and sharing today. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoyed this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share with a friend or family member. For more information about how to get connected visit kristendboice.com. Thanks and have a great day.