- Okay, I wanna show you one or maybe two videos,
maybe just one showing me working,
doing this work with somebody about a situation
with his brother.
So remember, realign and repair.
That's the overall things that we're looking for.
Realigning is changing the power relationship
from being submissive, and hurt, and abused,
to being, having agency, having autonomy,
being able to speak, being able to stand up.
And repair is going to see if there's some ways
to have connection, and sometimes very little connection.
Just walk away, I'm through with you.
Sometimes a lot of connection.
I care about you, we can mend, we can grow,
we can love each other again.
And that all depends on the context.
Okay, so Kevin,
you've been talking about the neck pain that you've had.
And we talked about that,
how that can be due to stress and emotions
as opposed to an injury in the neck.
And all the evidence points to that, right?
- Yes.
- And we're working on that
to change the neural circuits in your brain.
- Exactly.
- But also, we wanna maybe look at some of the genesis,
what some of the origin of where the stress
and the emotions come from in your life.
And one of the things you've talked to me about has
to do with your relationship with your brother.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, tell me about that for a moment.
- It was pretty rough growing up with my older brother.
I put up with a lot of bullying from him.
He would break my toys intentionally.
He would grab me around the neck
and rub his knuckles into my head.
- Yeah.
- Twist my arm to kind of gimme an arm rash,
that kind of thing.
- Yeah, yeah, and is that still going on in some way, shape,
or form now that you're grown?
- Yeah, it is.
- Yeah, tell me about that, what does he do now?
- Well, family gatherings are always extremely difficult.
Even as a kid, family gatherings were difficult,
but as an adult, it's been the same.
He finds ways to kind of jab me verbally.
He'll slug me in the shoulder a little too hard,
grab me by the back of my neck, that kind of thing.
- Oh, man, even as a grownup, yeah.
What does it make you wanna do
in terms of the family gatherings?
- It adds a lot of anxiety and tension,
and most of the time I don't wanna go.
- Yeah, did you ever happen to notice
that your neck starts hurting in anticipation
of a family gathering by chance?
(both chuckle)
- Yeah, yeah, I do, I do notice that.
- Yeah, well, our brain is sending us messages.
And if your brain is feeling you're gonna be in danger,
it's gonna send a message.
It could cause anxiety, fatigue,
certainly can cause neck pain, we see that all the time.
And your brain's just trying to protect you, saying,
your brain's message is, don't go, don't put up with that.
Don't put up with that bullshit, right?
- Right, yeah.
- And so it's sending you a warning.
It can't tap you on the shoulder and say,
"Kevin, by the way, your brother's an a-hole."
(Kevin laughs)
- Yeah.
- So, let's see would it be okay with you if we started
to do a little work to identify some of the emotions,
some of the underlying emotions that are being brought up
in this relationship you have with your brother.
And see if we can deal with them
instead of kind of just kind of avoiding
the family gatherings, and shoving it in,
and not thinking about it,
trying to avoid feelings of anger, or guilt,
or fear, or sadness and hurt.
Because when those just kind of get shoved down,
that's what happens,
neck pain can just continue and continue,
if that makes any sense.
- And it does make sense.
Yeah, I never thought of it that way,
but it absolutely makes sense.
- So let's do this little mental exercise, okay?
- Yeah.
- Just sit back, close your eyes.
- Okay.
- And just think about, kind of put yourself in the position
of being in a family gathering now,
and your brother starts to act up,
starts to slug you, or grab you,
or make snide or mean comments, right?
- Mh-hm.
- And when you put yourself in that situation,
what feelings come up,
what's the first feeling that kinda comes up within you
when you imagine this situation right now?
- Anxiety and fear.
- Yeah, yeah.
Of course, 'cause your brain is saying,
"Don't go there, it's dangerous."
So everyone would be afraid or feeling anxious.
Of course, you could get neck pain, et cetera, even, right,
of course.
Is there any hurt, or sadness, or?
- Absolutely, yes, yes.
That comes right along with the anxiety
and the stress of.
- Frequently underneath the fear, underneath the anxiety,
or other feelings like hurt and sometimes anger,
we'll get to that in a second,
but if hurt comes up right now,
what does that feel like in your body?
If you kind of just allow yourself to feel that hurt,
that kinda sadness that comes over you,
can you feel that from a bit?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, what does that feel like?
Where do you feel it?
- In my chest.
- Yeah, yeah.
- My gut, and my shoulders, my neck.
- Yeah, exactly.
Put your hand over your heart for a second.
- Okay.
- Just allow the feeling.
The heart is the place of sadness,
heart's also the place of love.
But if you allow the sadness to be there for a moment
without blocking it,
you can see that that's a true and honest feeling.
Who wouldn't feel hurt when a relative,
especially a brother who's supposed to be your big brother,
care for you, look after you, right,
is treating you that way?
So there's a lot of hurt there.
Do you feel that you deserve to be treated this way?
- Sometimes. (laughs)
There have been times when I felt like it was deserved,
but most of the time, no.
- I mean, when you were a little kid,
maybe you bugged your brother, maybe you annoyed him, right?
I'm sure that happened.
And a lot of times,
kids feel guilty about how they're being treated.
But certainly now, for him to treat you this way,
this is not your fault.
You're not doing anything wrong,
you're just showing up at the dang family gatherings, right?
- Yeah.
- And the hurt is there because you care.
You care, and you're caring actually about yourself.
If you're feeling sad for yourself,
it means you care for yourself.
And if you care for yourself,
how would you answer this question,
do you deserve to be treated this way by your brother?
- No.
- Not really, do you?
Not at all.
And if you think about the fact that you don't deserve
to be treated this way, is there any other feeling
that comes up in addition to the hurt?
Is there any resentment, annoyance, anger,
anything like that?
- Resentment, kind of.
Yeah, some anger too, yeah.
- Yeah, hurt, and sadness, and anger are important emotions.
Everyone has those, they're normal.
Anger is something that helps to protect us.
We need anger.
If someone's attacking us, anger is an appropriate emotion.
But when in family gatherings,
your brother is ragging on you, and punching you,
and whatever, you can't be angry, it's not appropriate then.
Right, and you shove that anger down, you get neck pain.
But right now, you can allow yourself to feel healthy anger.
You can allow yourself to feel that anger, are you with me?
- I am, yeah.
- It's there, right, it's there.
- Mh-hm.
- And why don't you,
let's see if we can go to that feeling now as well, okay?
- Okay.
- Take your hands
and make your hands into fists for a moment, okay?
- Okay.
- Yeah, and see if you can allow the anger
to come up within you.
See if you can picture the situation with your brother now,
and allow the anger to arise.
If you don't block it, if you don't censor it.
See if you can feel that anger, that healthy anger,
that protective anger that everyone should have
and you deserve to have.
You don't deserve to be treated that way, but,
and you deserve to have that anger to protect you.
Can you feel that anger a little bit now if you let it rise,
if you don't block it?
- Yeah, I can.
- Yeah, what does that feel like
if you let it grow within your body,
if you allow yourself to feel this protective
and healthy anger,
even rage or whatever that you actually feel
toward your brother for treating you so unfairly,
so unjustly?
What does that anger feel like in your body
if you allow it to rise up, Kevin?
- I just want to shove him away from me.
I feel like fire.
- Yeah, now let's in its imagination.
Now, what you're going to do now in the next minute or two
is not what you could do, should do, or would do.
But what the anger would like to do,
and you're gonna do it in your imagination right now,
but you're not gonna hold anything back, okay?
- Okay.
- You're gonna let it all out,
'cause holding it in leads to harm for you, right?
- Right.
- Letting it out in the safe and healthy way allows
you to free yourself and go from there.
So now what I want you to do,
I want you to let that fire rise up within you.
And whenever you're ready,
you're gonna let it explode onto him.
Verbally, what the anger might wanna say verbally,
and what the anger might wanna do physically
to protect you.
- Okay.
- Out of love for you and out of protection for you.
Are you ready?
- Yes.
- Okay, so just, three, two, one.
Let the anger rise out of you.
What would it say if you don't hold anything back?
(Kevin exhales deeply)
- Get away from me, I hate you.
- Good, keep going, what else?
- Leave me alone.
- Good.
- Stay out of my personal space.
- Good, how does it feel to say that?
- It feels different, it feels good.
- It's probably gonna feel good,
but you may feel a little bad at first time being angry.
But allow yourself to be angry.
Say this, Kevin, my anger is justified.
- My anger is justified.
- You don't need to feel guilty about being angry
'cause your anger is justified.
You're not doing this in real life.
You're not doing anything, but you're imagining it,
and letting the anger come out in a safe and healthy way.
Say my anger is justified.
- My anger is justified.
- I have no guilt about being angry.
- No guilt about being angry.
- Good, now let's go back and let the anger come
out on him without holding anything back.
What would the anger say to him?
Keep going.
(Kevin exhales deeply)
- Fuck you, man.
- Good, keep going.
- You have been torturing me my entire life
and I'm done with it.
- I'm sick and tired of it.
- I am sick and tired of it, I can't take it anymore,
and I don't want it.
- Good, and what would that anger wanna do to him
if the anger came out in physical form?
What would the anger, what is the urge
or the impulse that the anger would wanna do?
Not what you could do, or would do, or should do,
what would the anger wanna do physically to him?
- I want to hurt him, I want to lay hands on him,
I want to punch him in the face.
- Just picture that.
Let that all out.
Take your time.
Anything that anger wants to do, push, shove, hit,
whatever the anger wants to do,
let it all out in your imagination right now.
- Okay.
- Don't hold anything back, take as long as you need.
- Okay.
- Just let it all out, let it all out.
Good.
And just tell me when you're ready to walk away.
- I'm ready.
- Okay, take some deep breaths.
Just imagine walking away.
How does it feel to let that anger out in this way?
How does that feel for you?
- It feels powerful.
It feels satisfying.
- You're standing up for yourself, aren't you?
- Mh-hm.
- Maybe for the first time.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
It's something everybody needs to do,
everybody needs to learn how to do.
And you're doing it in a great,
in a safe and healthy way, as I said.
Is there any guilt about having that anger?
- A little, but not nearly as much as I had.
- Yeah.
Well, the fact that you feel guilty about yelling
or hitting him, it shows you're not a psychopath.
It's a good thing, you're a caring person.
But the anger needed to come out in this way.
And now you can let it go.
You don't need to hold onto this anger.
You can always come back
to it whenever you need to in the future.
But for now, see if you can take some nice deep breaths,
and with each breath, letting the anger go.
Letting the anger go, good.
Your anger is justified.
You don't have to feel guilty about being angry,
and now you can let the anger go, you can let it go.
You can always come back to it if you ever need to,
which you probably will. (laughs)
(both laugh)
How does it feel to let that anger go now?
- It feels good.
- Can just relax.
- Feels like a weight has been lifted.
- Yeah, when you hang onto anger,
when you hang onto these emotions,
it's emotional baggage, it's heavy.
No question about it.
So let's go back to that sadness.
Can you put your hand over your heart again?
- Yeah.
- Let's go back to that sadness again.
It's sad that you have to feel like you need
to beat up your brother, right?
- Yeah.
- Sad you need to be yelling at him, pushing at him,
hitting him, right?
- Yes.
- And that's sad, that relationship has suffered,
has ruptured in a lot of ways.
And the thing that's gonna help you at this point,
now that you've taken that anger out.
You've identified it, you've expressed it,
and you've released it.
Now we wanna go back a little bit to that hurt,
because the hurt is caring, is compassion.
Standing up for yourself is being compassionate to yourself,
is protecting yourself, taking care of yourself.
And see if you can breathe in some kindness for yourself.
Now, take a deep breath in and breathe in kindness.
Can you do that?
Breathe in, take a nice deep breath,
and breathe in caring for yourself.
And breathe in compassion.
You're standing up for yourself,
you're taking care of yourself,
you're showing that you care about yourself.
Everyone needs to do that.
In a lot of ways, bullying, when people get bullied,
they learn not to care for themselves.
They learn to beat themselves up sometimes,
and you need to reverse that.
How does it feel to breathe in this caring
and kindness for yourself right now?
- It's very different
than anything that I've experienced before, and I like it.
- Yeah, good.
We have to figure out how you're gonna deal
with family gatherings.
Are you gonna go, are you gonna not go?
What are you gonna say to your brother?
Are you gonna say something,
are you not gonna say something?
And there may be ways that you can figure out how,
and I can help you figure out how to deal with this.
But you're gonna come to this from a place
of caring for yourself, and a standing up for yourself,
and being assertive for yourself, if you see what I mean.
- I do.
- You may choose to never,
one option, you can never talk to your brother again,
you can totally cut him outta your life.
That's certainly possible,
and that may be the right thing depending on how he is.
But do you have any positive feelings towards your brother
at all when you when you look back?
- There were some good times.
When we were younger especially,
watching football games together too,
even when we got older.
We usually rooted for the rival teams, but. (chuckles)
- Right. (chuckles)
- But yeah, there were some good times.
- I mean, the fact that you felt some guilt
about having anger toward your brother shows
that you do have some caring for him.
And it's gonna help you to care for yourself, as we said,
but it's also gonna help you to care for him.
Because when you deal with him, when you talk to him,
you wanna come to him with a sense of caring for yourself,
and not taking that crap anymore.
But also showing him that you care for him,
if that makes sense,
if you have some caring feelings for him.
- Yes.
- And if you can do that,
there's a better chance that your relationship can improve.
But improve in a way that you're actually not taking
that kind of abuse, putting a stop to it.
And we can talk about how to do that.
- That sounds great.
- And how does that feel for you right now,
having kind of gone through this stages
of dealing with these hurtful feelings,
the angry feelings and the compassionate feelings?
- I feel more relaxed.
The tension in my shoulders and neck are noticeable.
And I feel like I learned
something about caring about myself
and dealing with my feelings
instead of just pushing them down.
- Yeah, yeah, why don't you open your eyes?
It's pretty good job there, buddy.
(both chuckle)
I'm proud of you.
- Thanks.
- It takes courage to face your feelings,
'cause we're taught to shove 'em down and ignore 'em.
Takes courage to do that.
And in life, it takes courage to stand up for yourself,
and that's part of what we had to do.
It took me a long time to grow up as far as I.
(both laugh)
Time to learn that one. (laughs)
Anyway, all right, well, good job,
and we'll talk again soon.
- Thank you so much, Dr. Schubiner.
- Bye-Bye
- Bye.
- So as you can see, there was approaching the situation,
there was fear.
It came up first, and I just kind of deflected that
and said, "Let's look for what's underneath."
And then there were other feelings, there was hurt.
So there was a hurt, we went to the hurt,
the sadness, the caring.
And then some guilt came up that maybe he was at fault
or he did something wrong.
And then we deflected the guilt and saying,
well, did you really do anything wrong?
And then, did you deserve to be treated that way?
And then we got to the anger,
and then we allowed that anger to grow and be expressed.
And then helped him to let that go
and go back to the compassion,
standing up for himself, caring for himself.
And then seeing if there was some way to repair.
Was there any room for repair
or looking for positive feelings toward his brother
in addition to the negative feelings toward his brother?
Because if he can in his life,
he can begin to approach his brother
with being more assertive and standing up for himself
and also saying, "Hey, I care about you."
There's some good feelings there as well.
So that's an example of EAET.
We also, of course, do it for things in the past,
to go back in time, to rescript memories.
We'll talk about that this afternoon.