The Self-Connection Podcast: S1 E 16: Exploring the realm of the Unconscious (Part 2 with Laura Dodson)

 In this wide-ranging conversation, Laura and Tim cover a lot of ground which includes zap experiences, dreams, the iceberg, the transformational process and the value of being connected to the unconscious. Laura personifies the richness of living life with a deep connection to the greater Self and I feel very privileged to know her and to have these conversations about life, suffering, how we might reconcile our suffering by transcending the form of the experience and being connected to the essence of life.

0:00 We begin with Laura leading us in a meditation for grounding and connecting to our Self. 

3:00 We clarify what Laura means by Zap, to understand the transformational process and the process of connecting to our deepest Self.

Laura describes it as being connected to the “golden thread” that which transcends our ego and is a greater energy. She shares her own experiences during of time of grief of receiving an experience that came as an audio ‘zap’ that said ‘The form is not the essence’ Laura describest that this message was like a conversation between the large Self that transcends her speaking to the small self within her. This was a zap of clarity and insight for Laura which she has found to be a universal experience that most people have had cross-cultural around the world

7:10 Laura describes it as an experience of something far greater than oneself. Being aware that there is this Self/Life force energy and paying attention is an important aspect of experiencing according to Laura. Tim shares about his own zap experience that occurred during a session fo holotropic breathwork where had visualizations of eyes and the phrase “The eye sees but it is not what it sees” Laura emphasizes that these kinds of experiences are beyond simply insight but are examples of great knowing “Knowing in every cell in your being” These symbols that come from the unconscious are a comfort because they provide a peace and relieving experience that helps us transcend the events and tragedies that are occurring in time and space. 

12:55 Tim asks “are zap experiences important to transformational change?” Laura does seem them as important and they can come in many forms. In her model of transformational change, this is our contact with numinous experiences (deeply meaningful symbols, dreams, insights, etc.) that help us see life from a completely different and new perspective. We shift out of being stuck and not being able to see where we are and where we are going and we have new light, new insight and hope that shifts us into a new direction. These profound experiences help us disengage from a stuck perspective pattern and we engage and revivify our whole body and being to be free to choose and to move again. 

Laura Dodson’s map of transformational change

16:13 Laura shares her experience with Ian Baker, in Zurich, who was a Jungian analyst and did research at the mental hospital where Carl Jung worked. People had psychotic breaks because of their experimenting with LSD. In the hospital, they were again given LSD, but this time revisited the part of the experience that left them feeling ‘crazy’. They were supported to talk to that experience in a two-chair Gestalt kind of context. To take charge of the experience and to say that they needed the experience to come later in life when they were ready or that they were in charge, not the experience. With this intervention, they were not longer psychotic. Laura emphasizes the theme of ‘taking charge’ as an important element of what is healing.  

18:25 We talk about the iceberg metaphor with the Satir model, which includes behavior which is what is seen and above the water line and other elements below the surface such feelings, feelings about feelings, perceptions, expectations to name a few. Tim explains that he likes to use the metaphor of the iceberg to look and explore what is stuck or an unhelpful pattern of coping, but not to be a representation of consciousness as a whole. In other words, the iceberg is a particular form of consciousness at a moment in time and space. Transformation is the melting of the iceberg so our consciousness becomes fluid, flexible and free and we are able to make choices that are from this empowered place.   

Transformation is the process where we reclaim the energy that is stuck and use it in a different way that is in line with healthier states of being. This includes experiencing freedom, peace, joy and vitality. By incorporating transformation within the metaphor, ice to water, we more accurately represent the process of transformational change. 

21:00 Laura talks about the importance of creativity and choice in Virginia’s work and this exemplifies healthy fluidity. Laura describes the relationship and flow between awareness, communication and action. That with greater awareness we enhance our communication and the quality of our actions enhances.   

Laura provides an example of how open awareness about multiple meaning and interpretations then leads to an expansion of possibilities and choice.  

24:50 Laura clarifies the difference between communication and action. Communication is the step of simply expressing one’s feelings, perceptions, needs to oneself, perhaps to the person of a therapist which is about finding the voice or expression that fits and then the action being what happens between the person and the people and their relationship they have in the world. 

Virginia would encourage people to connect to their feelings deeply and then together finding a form of expression that accurately expresses it and then ask how it was, how it felt to express it. So often people don’t connect to or say the things they deeply want to say and so to nurture people through that process and help them be aware of what is the embodied experience is very important. 

 27:00 We talk about how people have barriers to communicating their deepest yearnings because they learned in their family rules that sharing such things were forbidden. Transforming the family rules such as “Do not talk about your feelings.” “Don’t be vulnerable or else people will take advantage.” this explicit and implicit rules become barriers to deep connections to Self and others and keep us in defensive coping. 

28:30 Tim asks Laura how we can support one another to look at these old patterns in new ways. Laura talks about ‘lending your ego’ This can be done by encouraging, stroking them, letting them know it’s ok to incorporate new beliefs. That person is affirming and supportive of new learning and taking the risk to practice. 

33:00 Laura talks about her coping through her husband's death and how meditation was an important tool that allowed her to listen to the greater transcendence Self energy that gives clarity moment by moment of what to do and how to cope. Tim suggested that Laura was trusting the greater Lifeforce, but Laura didn’t see it that way. Instead, she didn’t know what else to do. We talked about how moments of great darkness come to the necessity of connecting to a greater energy (light) that transcends the ego.

37:00 Laura shares some of her dreams at different points in her life to illustrate the connection to our greater life force and how this can be expressed and the impact it can have on our lives. She illustrates through her experience of dreams and her life how they directly impacted her perspective and her movement through life. 

39:15 Laura shares a dream that related to George’s death which is a kind of foretelling dream. Laura describes how there are many layers of consciousness and the arena of consciousness that puts us in touch with all things that transcends time and space.  

44:30 Laura describes the utility of dream as a moment of being connected or flooded with light that helped her understand what was happening. Laura comments, “In the depth of our unconscious there is a knowing about everything” It gave her a sense of peace and a knowing that we are connected to universal truths. She adds, “I am a part of the universe. I’m not an isolated being in my body. Sometimes I transcend my body and I’m connected to the Universal Truths.” 

46:10 Tim asks Laura if the dream is an example of a Zap experience. Laura says Zap are conscious waking experiences. Tim clarifies in wondering with Laura what other significance this dream had on Laura. She feels it deepened her belief in the realms of the unconscious. 

Tim asks Laura why is it important to have this connection with the unconscious. Laura affirms that action-oriented therapies have a place. She goes on to describe how Virginia would begin by connecting to various energies systems below, above and amongst that carry wisdom. That there is far more wisdom than what we can be aware of in our minds at a moment in time. To have an appreciation and openness to the unconscious provides many gifts of insight, of energy, of connections. Connection to the unconscious, according to Laura has the effect of “the world gets bigger and the possibilities get bigger.”

50:15 Tim relates this to a trusting of the many complex systems of our bodies that function without our conscious control and appreciating the wisdom that is active within which gives us life (circulatory, digestive, immune, nervous system)

51:15 We explore ways to deepen their relationship to the unconscious. Why value the unconscious realms and how to cultivate that connection. Laura talks about how the connection to the larger plan of the unconscious gives us more information/wisdom from which to make decisions. “We can know much more than we know.” 

54:30 Laura introduces the topic of suffering and our judgements about certain feelings states as being bad versus good. Laura shares her perspective that the goodness is in our ability to be with whatever state is with no judgment. The issue of suffering is more a matter of being able to move through it , to breathe through it. And to keep the feeling states fluid and this an important aspect of growth. To go with the states with curiosity and flow with them and see where they take us.  

57:46 “There’s a me that’s more than my body” We discuss the importance of being able to explore the question of “Who I am?” Who are you beyond your body? This could be used as a reflective question so see the Self that is beyond the physical form. What is the essence in you?

1:00:00 Laura finishes with a meditation

“Brighter than the brightest sun.

Purer than the whitest snow. 

More subtle than either is the Self.

  I am that Self. That Self am I 

I am that Self, that Self am I . 

“Brighter than the brightest sun.

Purer than the whitest snow. 

More subtle than either is the Self.

  I am that Self. That Self am I 

I am that Self, that Self am I .

The Self-Connection Podcast: S1 E 15: A “Zap” of insight with Laura Dodson

Laura Dodson, a former student and eventual colleague of Virginia Satir joins the podcast today. Laura shares her wisdom through the telling of her own healing journey of shame and describes her experience working with Virginia and her own family of origin issues as essential to healing and finding peace. I found my conversation with Laura to be deeply enriching and hope that her passion, heart and wisdom shine through in this podcast.

0:00 Tim provides a brief introduction to Laura Dodson. Laura did her first training with Virginia in 1963 Laura Dodson was a close friend of Virginia Satir and was by her side as she died of Pancreatic cancer in 1988.

In addition to her extensive training with Virginia, Laura is also a Jungian analyst and did her postdoctoral thesis integrating Virginia’s work with Carl Jung with her insights.

Laura is one of the key leaders in sharing Virginia’s work with the world. She has travelled to many parts of hte world including, Russia, Lithuania, and Thailand to offer training and workshops and has been doing so since the 80s.

2:50 Laura does a meditation:

6:00 Tim offers a brief commentary to transition into the conversation between himself and Laura.

7:23 Tim asks Laura to share her own experiences of “Zap” . Laura shares about her early experiences of being a teacher and quickly transitioning to becoming a social worker as she was more interested in connecting to the inner lives of her students and family life and supporting growth at a deeper level. In this way, her life parallels Virginia as they both connected to their students' families to help support them with their learning. Laura wrote letters to the top family therapist of the time and Virginia was the only one to respond inviting her to train with her and offering something for her mind, body and soul.

12:20 Laura talks about her first impressions of Virginia. She was present and expressive of what she felt and thought and Laura found this to be very exciting. She listened carefully to others. Laura worked in an adult inpatient mental health facility and she invited Virginia to come to teach, do demonstrations, and train the staff there two or three times a year over nine years.

16:50 In this work, the emphasis was with families and creating community and the demonstrated successful outcomes over 5 year follow up.

18:10 Laura shares that Virginia had a deep respect for others and did not allow for any blaming or shaming to occur in her work. Laura learned from Virginia to see the problem as one of coping not as one of pathology residing within a specific person which would foretell blame and shame. The intervention at the level of family and community created a sense of community around the problems that were occurring and the presenting problems could then resolve or lessen as a result of working in this way, that is, systemically.

19:22 Understanding logically the futility of blame and understanding family of origin issues, and approaching emotional and family life from a stance of learned patterns and behaviors. Laura talks about Virginia's preparation in meeting a family, putting aside her concerns and agenda so she can be present and meet the individuals of the family with a sense of awe at the miracles they each are. She differentiated between peoples behavior from their essence. “We are all miracles. And I feel I am about to meet a miracle. So I feel respect and awe of that person. “ From that attitude, she would make contact and often physical touch contact to meet people. She wanted to join the family to explore what was happening and to explore choices of what other things could happen.

Virginia approached people with a detective hat (sometimes literally!) , which symbolized an attitude of curiosity rather than blame. Virginia talked about blame being our first attempts at trying to understand what's happening and we don’t have in our minds a broader way of looking at it. Seeing people and situations beyond blame is central to understanding how Virginia worked.

Laura shares her view that people’s intention and goals is not to hurt, unless its revenge for the hurt that they feel they’ve experienced. Revenge is not inherent in our nature but rather a reaction to pain.

24:40 Tim asks how Virginia was able to have such confidence in the essence of people beyond their behavior and patterns. Virginia talked about each person have the seed of creativity within us. A problem is a block in energy. We are geared towards growth.

26:00 Laura provides an example of someone suffering with Schizophrenia saying "people in this family never liked me|". Virginia would thank them for sharing and ask when they first felt that. They would go into the past and that’s when the creative energy started to be blocked, the energy to solve problems was blocked because the solution or formulation is somehow they are ‘wrong, bad, dirty, evil, stupid or crazy’. Virginia would explore how differences were handled and talked about. Were they labelled as "bad". Then she would offer a new perspective, “What if we called your difference your uniqueness?” She worked to take blame and shame out of the conversation. Shame is particularly difficult because with shame we feel we should just disappear and not exist. She worked to help people see themselves as she saw them, as a miracle of life.

27:42 Tim asks what Laura’s experience of Zap. Laura describes growing up feeling shame about her body being tall and very thin. Laura was different in being attracted to people’s emotional life which was very unlike those in her family. Laura recalls noticing tension in the family and taking on the blame and responsibility for that. “It’s because of me. I did something wrong. I’m not loveable anymore. It must be my fault.”

31:55 Laura recalls Virginia doing a sculpt with Fritz Perls (the founder of Gestalt therapy) role-playing her father and sitting his lap. Virginia said to her “You know something more happened to you when you were 5, something more than having long legs. You need to go find out.”

Laura questioned her mother and finally found out that her father had an affair. Laura realized that what was happening in the family was not her fault. She explains that she felt relief. This was one example of a Zap moment for her.

36:00 Laura shares that she had learned that shame was a reaction to anything wrong. She expanded her possibilities of how to react when something was wrong; beyond what a child would do, thinking “It’s all my fault” Realizing that she was not the center of the universe as a child would think.

Laura shares that her defence of pulling back and not talking, not being seen, was rooted in the shame of “I’m not ok” Before her work with Virginia, she couldn’t become a woman and integrate her sensual side.

39:50 Shame disconnects us from our Self, or Life force. We can apply the ideas of unravelling shame to healing from cultural trauma. Laura talks about her work in Lithuania as an experience of a nation experiencing shame. “Healing of shame applies to all systems.”

45:25 We talk about Virginia's incorporation of the body, breath, movement. Tim asks Laura to share what she learned from Virginia about the importance of the body in the work of growth and healing. Laura relates her experience of Virginia dying and having an insight of what to do that came from meditation that was preverbal and body-based.

49:20 Laura also shares another experience training with Virginia working with a woman who was in a car accident and walks us through the bodywork that occurred in her process of healing. “Leading by following a half a step behind.” is how Laura likes to work and how she witnessed Virginia working. She helped to help make conscious that is unconscious and almost conscious. She recalls Virginia stroking her hands and asking “if your hands could speak what would they say” so that she could come to her senses more and more.

There is a relief when you can place in time and space the feeling tone that you carry within a particular context. Laura describes this as comforting and making sense of her pain. “To become familiar with that part of life that she had repressed”

Virginia was very mindful not to interrupt the individual's process and encouraged her to experience her experience for herself. She was present to help Jackie find what her body was remembering. There is an art to staying out of the way and being a guide. Laura describes the importance of creating that bond between therapist and client before being able to go deep into bodywork or any healing process.

58:50 Laura talks about how thrilling it can be to have a partner doing the work together and not getting in the way of it. Laura describes Freud's use of the couch with the patient lying down and facing away from the therapist as a way of doing this but analysts were not trained to show they care and to bond and to journey together was not present in Laura’s experience of analysis of the time.

1:00:00 We talk about the connection at the level of Self being the essential ingredient to transformation. That an overemphasis on method and technique can lose sight of this.

1:01:30 We talk about the use of touch in therapy. Tim appreciates Virginia's use of the whole body and Self in therapy and Virginia’s fearlessness in doing so. Laura talks about the important risk a therapist must take to speak the unspeakable, to bring to light what is felt but not yet said. The risks that a therapist takes an important ingredient according to Laura of what makes the work therapeutic and not just a casual conversation. To make the hypothesizing together and not needing to be right is an important part of being able to grow and learn in relationships.

The Self-Connection Podcast: S1 E 13: Feelings as Resources

Show notes:

What are feelings? Why are they so tricky and difficult to cope with sometimes? 

Sharon and Tim explore some definitions of feelings as it relates to Virginia Satir’s experiential model and we explore ways of relating to and coping with feelings that are healthy, constructive and positive.  The healthy relating to and coping with feelings seems to require at least three elements: self-connection, responsibility for the emotions, and relating to those feelings with an appreciation for their underlying resource and wisdom. 

0:00 meditation connecting to feelings building awareness 

5:00  We begin exploring definitions of feelings, how we work with them personally and professionally. Sharon talks about the idea of ‘listening profoundly’ where you listen from your heart your spirit and your presence that says “I’m here for you and I’m not making any judgments’. I’m working to understand you and I accept you. “ Listening to feelings allow feelings to expand and elaborate and increases their capacity for growth. Feelings are energy. 

12:00 Sharon describes that there are feelings about feelings and that there are primary and secondary emotions. 

14:45 Emotions are an aspect of experience or consciousness that we try to discuss independently albeit artificially so that we can try to come to understand what is unique and distinct about feelings. “Feelings fire first” They are fast and could be tied to unconscious and implicit beliefs.  We feel emotions based on a particular way of thinking and physical sensation. Emotions are preverbal. These patterns of relating were established based on family or origin become recurring emotional patterns throughout life. 

16:17 We acknowledge that there are cultural or family rules that resist the experience of feelings and talking about feelings. Virginia talked about emotions being the ‘juice of life’. 

17:10 Emotions put us into motivation. Our emotions both positive and negative are resources that help us being fully motivated in life.   

The way that we utilize the energy of emotions requires us to use resources like intelligence, compassion, wisdom, honesty and awareness.  

18:20 “To be disconnected from our emotions is to be disconnected from the life within us. It would be the same as being cut off from oxygen.” Being stuck in emotional states creates behavioural and relational patterns that leave us rigid and unfulfilled. 

19:20 Violence can stem from the identification with another person’s behaviour being a comment on a person’s worthiness.  Not being served well at a restaurant. I can feel unworthy and it doesn’t mean that I am worthy. 

20:00 the way that our emotions are related to by others when we are young becomes the way that we relate to our own emotions later on.  We learn as a child which emotions are forbidden and we can either suppress them or project them, but any emotions that are forbidden can not be processed in a healthy way.   

21:00 when we relate to our emotional experience positively, lovingly, constructively then we open up new possibilities that create deeper connections and creativity.  

22:00 Sharon describes 4 primary emotions and an additional 2.  These are angry, fears, sadness and joy.  You could add shame and excitement as other primary emotions based on the research on primary emotions.

23:00 We discuss the importance of just being able to be with emotions without trying to change or get rid of it immediately. To be with emotions in this way we need to make a few decisions about what we believe to be true:

1. I am responsible for creating and maintaining my emotions.

2. It’s to appreciate the resource and wisdom of the emotional response and responses that occurred and are occurring.

3. I can relate to my emotions openly, constructively if I am rooted and connected to myself. (That I am worthy) not that if I feel bad, that I bad.

27:45 Without the connection to our emotions and it’s honest expression to those we care about, intimacy can not take place.  The difficult, negative emotions are challenging and the initial temptation is to avoid them and not talk about them, but when we are in touch with our higher goals of genuine connection and the valuing of our relationships; feeling the feelings and conversations about them can result in a greater connection. 

29:28  The root of the word encourage has to do with courage and the courage to express what is deep in your heart. Some people believe that feeling vulnerable emotions makes a person weak so they hide from that, but the opposite is true. Expressing vulnerability is an expression of courage and strength. 

31:45 Courage, truthfulness, love and awareness are meta-resources and values that help us process, move through and transform our emotions. 

32:50 You can not change the event, but you can change the impact that is occurring inside of you. 

33:30 we discuss the inevitable occurrence of loss, trauma and death which will erupt negative and difficult emotions. We are all capable of building our resource to contain these experiences, to express the emotions and our ability to ask for help.