The Healthy Way

hello there. so much focus in the field of spiritual,mental, and emotional health, is focused on healingdysfunctional relationship dynamics. a dysfunctional relationshipis a relationship where people enter into an emotional contract where they agree to meet each other's needs in ways that end up being self destructive. for example, one person feels unable to take care of themselves and the other feels inadequate, and so they make an emotional contract that if the other persontakes care of them,

they will make them feel better about themself. dysfunctional relationship is a relationship that is destructive instead of constructive. it's a relationship that ends up being powerlessly dependent instead of interdependent. as a result, it is never secure.it is never secure because it is transactional at its core.the relationship is only ever as secure as the ability to fulfil on thesubconscious contract involved in this transaction. the most common form of dysfunctional relationship is the

classic relationship between the codependent and the narcissist. this is a relationship that can absolutely take place in a home where absolutely no alcohol was present. this often happens when the homeis organized around a person who is dysfunctional as a result of perhaps a behavioral issue or some sort of mental illness or personality disorder. but you will see this dynamic most commonly in an alcoholic home. i encourage you to do your own research on the narcissist codependent dynamic and how it creates the dynamic of a dysfunctional home.

there are leagues and leagues of information available at your fingertips in this information age about dysfunctional relationship dynamics. we live in an age today of parental perfectionism. essentially we're aware, more or less, of the fact that it is our relationship with our primary caregivers that creates the majority of the dysfunction in our adult lives, so i don't want this to just spiralinto a place where you're now panicked that you're going to screw your own kids up, but for the sake of understanding what's to come,

it must be said that if you experiencedysfunctional relationships in your adulthood, no matter how healthyyour parents or caregivers claimed that your upbringing was,the reality is you learned that particular dynamic because you were in those dysfunctional relationships or observed them when youwere a child. in other words, you don't know any other way to be in a relationship. the reason i want to do this video today is that i'm going to expose an entirely other dimension relative to these unhealthy dynamics in our relationships. when it comes to dysfunctional relationship, the primary way

that we go about about healing those relationships is by emphasizing the idea of creating healthy independence. what we do as caregivers is to tell people, "you gotta meet your own needs." this very way of approaching dysfunctional relationships and healing from dysfunctional relationships actually compounds trauma. it makes a person twice as likely to never be able to escape from unhealthy dynamics within relationship. when a child is born, that child cannot conceptualize of itself

as separate from its parent. it in fact take some development for a child to even see itself as a separate self, so obviously we canonly be in relationships when we can conceptualize ofthere being something other than usto be in relationship to. therefore, relationships are part of development. part of relationship development begins at the age of separation and individuation.matured differentiation resolves the relational tension between agency and communion.

another way of saying this is that healthy individualization involves both autonomy and connection, wherebyone can be separate autonomous self without being isolated, alienated, or having their needs go unmet. >from a spiritual or moreinterdimensional perspective, babies are in fact born three months premature. this is a collective contract that we opt into as people before coming in. it's almost like we want to get the ball rolling on separation trauma as quick as we can, so we all come into that particular contract. there is absolutely separation trauma that occurs at birth,

especially if you came out of the womb too early, or in a way where you were separated, or you weren't supposed to be separated. for example we clamp the cord before the cord is done pulsing. in fact there's a lot of debateabout whether you should even cut the cord at all,but that's another story. because we are born three months premature, this phase of separation and individuation really begins at about three months old. for the rest of our life we work with the contrasting energies oftogetherness and separateness.

there are several developmental stages where we are particularly focused on individuation.in my opinion, if i were to generalize it, the most fundamental happens from 3 months to 3 years old. we are familiar with this phase because we usually say that a kid has the terrible twos,meaning that they are defiant because at this age they are establishing a sense of what they want as separate from the adults in their life. the second happens when we enter teen-hood and develop independence from the adults in our life within the context of our home.

the third, when we enter young adulthood and develop independence in the worldwhen we leave the home. when we begin this lifewe cannot meet our own needs. our needs are in fact met by other people. and it's the sensation we get as a resultof seeing our needs being met by other people that then gets us curious about meeting our own needs. what you will see is that a child will naturally progress in the direction of meeting their own needs–i should say any being progresses naturally in the directionof meeting their own needs–

in accordance with expansion. it is a progression from powerlessness to empowerment, and this is where developmental trauma comes in. developmental trauma is trauma that affects a person's ability to progress, develop, or mature, in an area that you would normally see progression. for example, you can easily understand developmental trauma through the example of a kid who, say, isn't exposed to adults because they were abandoned too early, and because of that they were never around people speaking.

what you will see essentially is that this particular child will lack the ability to speak in their adulthood because they were never exposed to language. you can think of a person as a garden.each aspect of our lives are like seeds that then grow into a tree. when we experience trauma that we cannot find resolution for, it halts our development in the area that trauma affects. so if that portion of our cells were a seedling growing, when we experience that traumathat seedling stops growing

and stays a seedling even if the rest of us matures. for example, say our self concept were a seedling, if we experienced our parentrepeatedly shaming us, this self concept seedling would stop growing. our need to feel good about ourselveswas not met and we couldn't meet it ourselves,so that aspect of our life halts in its progression.we progress into adulthood with an underdeveloped self concept, and no way to create healthy self-esteem in and of ourselves because we have no reference for it.

why is all of this so important to understand? because when it comes to dysfunctional relationships, dysfunctional relationships are caused by trauma that occurs during the separationand individuation phases of life. individuation trauma that is experienced between the ages of three months to three yearscreates the bulk of what we are seeing in dysfunctional relationships in adulthood. of course it is repeated separation and individuation trauma that creates the very worst of elemental damage.

let's dive deeper. the very earliest form of separation and individuation occurs when a young child, potentially even a baby,can conceptualize of the fact that mom or the caregiver is separate from itself, but at that point it has no capacity to meet its own needs, nor, here's the key, does it have the desire to meet those needs. it has the desire for those needsto be met by others. if there is trauma at this particular phase, then what we see is dysfunctional relationships in adulthood -

essentially, dynamics where the adult can't meet its own needs or feels like it can't, and then tries to find somebody else to meet those needs because in fact there is no desirefor the self to meet those needs. it is trauma experienced in this phase that creates the biggest problems in adult relationship and causes things like personality disorders, attachment disorders, and codependency. when we experience a trauma at this phase and thus experience a developmental delay, like a very small child we experience ourselves as being unable to meet our needs even as an adult,

but what's more than that we do not even feel the desire to meet our own needs,we feel the desire still for someone else to meet those needs. this is why we enter into a dysfunctional relationship in the first place, with someone who has likewise trauma. in fact, we find the whole idea of meeting our own needs traumatising, because it is a mirror of the original trauma that we had. we couldn't progress forward because no one met those needs for us. that is the unmet need. that's why that asset for ourselves never developed

to the point where we could meet our needs. essentially it is traumatizing because it's a mirror of the wound we received growing up when we were expected to separate before we were ready, or experienced the consequence as a result of trying to individuate with an adult that found our individuality threatening. here is an example of how this can go: mary is two, and she is just now learning how to say the word 'no'. to her, the word 'no' is a wayof asserting boundaries, meaning that she is beginning to sense that she has a will

separate from her mother's will.this is healthy and normal. but mary's mother finds this threatening and invalidating, so every time mary says 'no', she is shamed for it and put in a time-out. this is a trauma involving her sense of autonomy. because her exploring individuation from her mother is met with the punishment of isolation, she stops becoming autonomous. her desire for autonomy in fact becomes suppressed. she learns that she cannot have her autonomy and have connection

with other people at the same time. for more information about this dynamic watch my video on youtube titled i can have me and i can have you too. to continue, as a result of suppressing her need for autonomy she only experiences the need for closeness.she becomes very clingy. as mary grows up she experiences separation anxiety and hates to be alone,and fails to experience herself as someone who can take care of herself. she then gets into relationships based onthe needs transaction -

the transaction of 'if you take care of meand never leave me alone i will make you feel neededand appreciated all the time.' there are so many traumatic situations that can then become these developmental delays that progress into our adulthood, but what's the most important thingto take forward with you from today is the fact that dysfunctional relationship is in fact the byproduct of developmental delays, developmentaltrauma, that occurs as a result of your experiences with individuation/connection with other people. it is trauma involving needs. we do not know how to meet our needs

involving autonomy or involving connectionbecause no one ever taught us how. when people with developmental trauma and therefore developmental delays go into self-help, or go into spirituality,or go into therapy, so often what they are told is, "you have to figure out how to become independent, how to meet your own needs, and definitely it's not okay to get those needs met by other people because let's face it, that makes you completely dependent. unhealthily dependent, in fact. but this does damage.remember that aspect of that person who is essentially a seedling, a seedling that is stuck at the phase

where it does not experience being able to meet its own needs or even wanting to? if you were coming towards that person with an attitude of, "guess what! it's time to meet your own needs before you're ready!", you are in fact skipping a phasein development which you cannot do. and remember that the real trauma is that even though that little seedling self wanted someone else to meet those needs,that person wasn't meeting those needs. this is why there is no progressionor no development of that particular aspect of self.there was no one there to even give them a reference for what it looked like for those needs

to be consistently met. this means the aspect of them that is stuck as a seedling is not developed enough to desire autonomy much less have it forced on them by someone's independence building technique. if we ask them to skip a step in their development that cannot be skipped,in order to reach maturity, it is like asking them to build a house on a wet foundation. so what must we do to heal from a dysfunctional relationship pattern in our own lives?what we have to do is to go back mentally and emotionally in time to find that child self

who is halted in it's delay because those needs are not being met, and we need to meet those needs. we need to create resolution to that particular trauma. i've developed a process for this, called the completion process. to understand more about this process you can buy a copy of the book i wrote about it which is available for purchase as of fall 2016. you can watch my video on youtube titled how to heal the emotional body, and alternatively you can sign up to my newsletter and contact a completion process facilitator who can walk you through the process.

the second thing you must do is to follow a basic formula. 1 - we have to realize and recognize the pattern of dysfunction in our relationship. 2 - we have to become completely aware of what needs we are trying to have met through this dysfunctional pattern. 3 - instead of meeting that need in the way you normally would, the way that causes destruction, find a way to meet that need in a different way that is constructive.to do this, we must meet ourselves wherever we are in terms of our delay of development,

not try to skip a step, and to meet the need we have directly so that development can beginto progress again. the main reason that any form of therapy is remotely successful is the fact that often when a person enters into therapy, their relationship with the therapist is in fact their first experience with a secure relationship, and it is the security of that connection which in fact heals so much of the individuation trauma and the connection trauma which we went through as we were young. so essentially what's happening in the therapeutic relationship, provided that it's actually a good one, is that we

are beginning to get that need metand thus we are beginning to mature into a space where we can be there for ourselves, where we can be there for other people, where we can develop these kinds of relationships outside the therapy setting. we must begin to meet our unmet needs.i really want you to understand more about this, so what i want you to do is to watch my youtube video titled, meet your needs. the reason that we cannot get outside of our dysfunctional relationships is the fact that we fear that if we end that dysfunctional relationship pattern,

we won't get our needs met, and we will lose connection with the person who we want to meet those needs. how are you supposed to know how to meet your needs? have someone teach you by first meeting them for you. ask directly for those needs to be met by people in your life instead of going around the back door to try to get them. for example, ask for appreciation directlyinstead of becoming a nurse so that people will appreciate you. there are some very interesting new therapy techniques

that are being developed currently which assist people to meet their unmet needs and also address their unhealed development trauma. they go so far as to simulate experiences where people can be in the womb who were born prematurely, or for example for someone who was weaned too early, and whose need wasn't met in that capacity can actually go get breastfed. and when you have needs that are not needs that can be met by you autonomously because they involve other people, look for healthy ways to get those needs met too. now i know that when i just said that some of you were we just like, "w-wait! that just totally undid all my programming

that says that everything you need is inside yourself, and that there is no need that you can't meet on your own autonomously." but here's the reality. we need each other. there are a whole plethora of emotional needs that involve other people that you can't actually achieve independently, so expecting yourself to be completely independent and deny those needs isn't going to take you very far. so instead, you've got to actually become present to those needs you have that involve connection with other people,and actually go seek

getting those needs met. a funny thing happens when you consciously meet a need that is perceived as an immature need -that need matures. the aspect of self that is developmentally delayed begins to develop because this is an alignment with expansion which you don't need to work on, it's integral to people. this means a person will eventually gravitate towards progressively healthier and more autonomous ways of meeting the needs that they can meet,and finding healthier ways of meeting the needs that they cannot meet alone.

i am becoming more and moreconvinced that therapy modalities that involve somatosensory healing is in fact the way to address developmental trauma. the reason is that we go through developmental trauma, the bulk of it and the ones that really cause damage to our adult life, most primarily before we actually had the capacity to think. i mean our brain was not a thinking brain yet, it was mostly a feeling brain, so all of the memory stored from thatparticular point in life is stored schematically. so for this reason if you feel like you're really struggling with the developmental delay, i would love

for you to go explore any kind of somatic therapy that appeals to you. how are you supposed to know what a functional relationship looks like and how to create one if you've never seenor experienced one? that's right. you shouldn't expect that of yourself, so stop. so what do you do if you want to learn spanish? you seek ways to learn spanish, and peoplewho can teach you about spanish. it's no different with functional relationships. you simply set out on a path to learn about how to create them. developing a healthy sense of self, your wants and needs, your likes

and dislikes, your values and priorities,along with developing the capacity to connect with other people will inevitably lead to healthy relationships that are not dysfunctional.i encourage you to watch my videos on youtube titled how to develop healthy boundaries, andhow to connect with someone. the time has come for us to recognize and begin to heal developmental trauma in ways that actually work. we need to see that it is the root of so many of the adult disorders we are seeing in the world, and we need to see that it is the root

of dysfunctional relationships. we need to meet the needs that people have that correspond directly to the age of developmental trauma that a person experienced, rather than seeing an adult before us and expecting that their mental and emotional self has matured alongside that body enough so that we are now perfectly okay to require adult functioning relative to emotional and mental needs of that person who's in front of us. so that there is some food for thought. have a good week.

subtitles by the amara.org community