- Like I say, the very first time I did this, I was shocked
by the type of anger that people have,
but it's real and it's justified
and it's important.
And generally, it feels really good to be able
to express it in the most powerful ways possible
and to release it
and not let it hold onto you, not let it have hold over you.
Lakshmi, you were gonna say something.
- I went into this exercise very reluctantly.
I have to say the last couple of days, I kept thinking,
"I really like the PRT stuff,
but this emotional stuff, I don't know.
I don't want to go to the inner child
and you know, I've done that and dah, dah, dah."
And I've come out of it exhilarated
because maybe for the first time in my life,
in my imagination sitting there, I stood up for myself
and yelled at an adult as a kid
and told them I would do exactly what I darned well pleased.
- And how did that feel?
- So great. (group laughs)
Yeah, so it's actually a funny little thing
that even many adults have remembered about
me from when I was a kid.
I was 10 or something
and I was cutting an apple into my hand, you know?
But I was very capable, I could do it.
And this person yelled at me
and said, "What the hell are you doing?"
And I threw the knife and apple down on the floor
and ran upstairs crying.
And now I'm saying back to them, "I'm cutting an apple
and I can do it just fine, thank you very much.
You don't need to be afraid."
- Yeah.
And what does that say to that little girl who's you?
How does she feel when you speak to her,
talk to her, care for her?
What do you notice about that?
- The feeling of empowerment,
that to have that confidence and not...
Yeah.
I mean, like I said, I don't usually stand up for myself,
even as an adult, so it was...
Yeah. - I think everyone carries
with them some hurts, right?
That's part of life,
and everybody pretty much knows what they are.
Oftentimes, we're carrying secrets, we're carrying shame,
we're carrying things that people said that we can't unhear,
things that people did to us that we can't unfeel,
things that we've seen, we can't unsee.
It's weird that imagination changes things,
but it does because your brain kind of doesn't know
the difference between real and imagination. (chuckles)
Imagination is like real to the brain.
And you can replace memories,
you can change memories.
And they proved that.
Did we talk about that already?
There was a time back in the '90s, I think, in the US
where therapists were
learning about trauma and beginning to understand trauma
and understand that trauma caused serious...
can cause serious physical
and emotional problems later in life.
And some trauma therapists began to
think that there were repressed memories,
that there was trauma that was repressed.
And the memories, you just...
people couldn't access the memories.
But the therapist started to assume they must be there
because this person is having X, Y, and Z,
all these symptoms, like mind-body problems.
So there must be some reason for it.
And so they kind of assumed
that there was these repressed memories,
And that certainly could be true.
But it kind of got outta hand
and it led to a lot of accusations of adults
to family members or people or to hold...
There was some daycare centres where
all the staff at the daycare centres was being accused
of sexually abusing these children
and it turned out they weren't.
And it turned out you can implant false memories in people.
And Elizabeth Lofton proved that scientifically by studying.
And you can see if you go online, there's some...
You can look for implanting false memories or whatever.
And you can see examples of that where someone will say,
"Hey, do you remember that time when you were younger
and you had the bike and the bike broke or whatever?"
"No, I don't really remember that."
Okay, and then next time you see him,
"Yeah, well, there was this thing and so and so happened
and yeah, maybe I kind of remember that."
And then the next time, and pretty soon they have a memory
of this thing that did not happen.
You can implant false memories.
And it became a big divide and a big scandal
and a whole lot of stuff.
But the point is, (laughs)
is that memories can change
and you can implant memories.
And kind of what we're trying to do is implant
more empowering memories that are healing.
Anyway, go ahead.
- I just want to add that actually we went back
to the childhood, but what it initially started from was,
as an adult, when somebody yells at me,
I have a response to cry.
- [Howard] Yeah.
- And it was empowering to feel
that maybe, maybe I don't have
to cry every time somebody yells at me,
even if it's completely unfounded.
- [Howard] Yeah, right.
- So I guess we could do an experiment
and people could yell at me and-
- Yeah. (group laughs)
Yeah, I mean, what we wanna do, we wanna be brave
and we wanna expose ourselves to the things that scare us.
And if we can do that in safe
and healthy ways, if we can do that in empowering ways,
we can realise that we can change.
The brain is always neuroplastic, so it's always changing.
So of course, you can change that.
And by practising .
You know, we train ourselves to be stronger
by lifting weights.
We train ourselves to have more stamina
by riding bicycles.
Why can't we train ourselves to be more mentally strong
and competent and capable and resilient?
Why can't we train ourselves to do that?
Seems like a good idea.