The Self-Connection Podcast: S1 E 25 With Leona Gallant Living with No Resistance and Openness

This was one of my favourite interviews to date. I did not need to edit out one second of the body of this conversation and it speaks to the flow that Leona embodies and how easy it was for me to connect with her and have a wonderful conversation.  There is an incredible living wisdom within Leona that I appreciated and learned from in this hour long interview. I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I did. 

Leonie Flamand Gallant is Metis. she grew up in a small French rural community in Saskatchewan. Her mom was French from Montreal and her Dad was Cree and French from Manitoba . She  is the 6 child in a family of ten children. Being Metis was not spoken of in her family, her knowing of her heritage came from being called “half breed “ when entered school.  In her work with Virginia she recovered her heritage both Cree and French. The Metis people of Canada have a very rich and interesting story of how colonialism affected their lives.

Leona made a decision to learn from the masters in the profession of working with people, Virgina Satir and Maria Gomori were at the forefront of her education  working  in the helping field. She was a stay at home Mom raising four children for the first ten years of her adult life, the next ten was working and training in the profession shew anted to be a part of.  In her profession she worked as a drug and alcohol counsellor, a stopping the violence counsellor [ working with historical sexual abuse], from 1992 to 2000 she facilitated a counsellor training program that trained adult learners to work with Alcohol and drug and family development in a Native friendship center Tillicum Lelum  in Nanaimo BC.  Their program was Satir based and every person as part of their training did their own family reconstruction which she facilitated.  In 2000  she created her own business and contracted with Tellicum lelum the Satir part of the training program as part of her business. She is now  still involved with Satir work in her 81st year of her amazing life.

2:14 We begin a meditation

6:41 Leona and Tim begin the interview. Leona talks about living with no resistance and openness.

She describes feeling open and then when she’s around someone who is afraid and the feeling of fear comes in. She gives herself permission to feel what comes up. She recognize that she doesn’t have to go back to where she was but to stay long enough for something else to come so she can see the person to in front of her..

10:26 She describes status quo all the ways of how she learned to be by the family and the culture. Essentially all behavioral patterns. If we allow ourselves to feel then we can have choice. What is present in this moment? Leona consciously chooses not to battle the pattern but to engage it with acceptance and non judgment. 

13:00 Leona notices anothers resistance and then focuses on her own resistance and this leads to connection...touching somehow albeit not literally a physical touch. 

14:20 Congruent is a living word meaning a word that she will constantly learning about them and with them.  Can we treat words as living things.  Leona talks about the importance of accepting one’s experience as human with no resistance.

16:00 Leona talks about her experience of shame about being herself and being Metis in her early life. Virginia talked to her about the wonderful Metis people. The experience of total acceptance from Virginia helped transformed. She describes that she was walking into an energy field where she felt good inside.. ..Virginia felt so warm that it was impossible not to feel warm inside yourself.

“Journey to Self” was the name of the training she did in 1980.

22:00 She did parts party, family mapping, family story and other experiences helped her transform her experience of being Metis as a wealth/resources.

25:00 Leona experienced herself dissociate in the beginning of the training and Virginia had her stand on stool and she connected with her and it helped her land back in her body. 

She noticed that her changing her relationship to herself.

28:00 Leona talks about Family Reconstruction , which is a major vehicle for change in the Satir Model.

31:00 She talks about the counsellor training program she was part of running and the use of Virginia’s work and her various tools. Leona shares that ‘hearing your own story is healing’  

33:00 Leona would work with people to get the story of the mother and the father’s story and sculpt each. What was happening in the world when people were born, growing up, how did ht mother and father learn to parent, how did they meet, what happened in school, what happened in the community they lived in, 

36:00 What did a person learn through the events, histories that are buried deep within the person. The learnings that created the patterns.  This was an opportunity to see yourself and parents in a different light and to answer the question of ‘how come?’ This is the engagement with the wholeness of life, of full humanness.

39:30 Leona talks about understanding of how a person grows up and why you learned the coping that you have learned. This creates a hopeful energy because if you can understand that you learned to do what you; then you can realize you can unlearn the old and learn something new.

41:00 Self and Essence are both the same and different. Leona describes the continual movement of learning to love yourself. To  learn to love period. Leona uses the metaphor of baking bread. That sometimes we bake bread and it falls flat and to be hopeful about the process of learning what went wrong and learning to enjoy what’s there. 

Essence is about enjoying what is there; the total moment. 

42:24 Leona connects the word self to memory and identity and essence as beyond memory and understanding...that is the transcendent.  She describes playing between the memory and the essence and the wholeness of the separate and connected as a whole.

45:00 Tim reflects on his experience of connecting self and of essence being with Leona and his appreciation of her.

46:30 Leona talks about Brian Swimme. “We live in the context of the universe” How big is our learning capacity when we consider the vastness of the universe?

49:00 Words are important. Words are pointers to the essence and are like doorway into the vast meanings of the word.

“We’re not caught up to Virginia” Leona says.

50:50 Leona’s wish for growth and peace in the world is in our ability to be with fear in a non-destructive way with myself, with family, with community.  Fear has a face a feeling, a power. How to be with that power that brings forth love and not more fear. “How can I embrace fear with love?” Leona asks. 

I can learn to be with my fear. This is a skill that can be learned.  Maybe the fear yeast for some growth. IF we can encapsulate our fear with love , we can grow and learn. 

Towards Congruence: Integrating the Hierarchical Model with the Seed Model

Virginia Satir, the master therapist and the 'grandmother' of family therapy based her work on what she called the Seed model. She would teach the seed model in contrast to what she would call the hierarchical model, or threat and reward model. I have attempted to expand on this discussion by exploring the relationship between these two models and see if they can fit within one picture which i call the tree of life model. I believe in order to move towards we must be able to account for the needs within roles and the dominance hierarchies that we are all situated within. However our roles can be based in a foundation of essence, our Self, which is our basic human dignity and worth. When we can meet on the basis of our universal value as human beings, we can have difficult conversations about our differences and create peace. A presentation recorded by The Virginia Satir Global network https://satirglobal.org/

Virginia Satir, the master therapist and the 'grandmother' of family therapy based her work on what she called the Seed model. She would teach the seed model...

The Self-Connection Podcast: S1 E 24 With Laura Dodson and Russell Haber : Virginia Satir's Family Camp

Summary Laura Dodson and Russell Habor were both facilitators of Virginia Satir’s family camp, which was called Virginia’s great experiment. It was a chance to create a community among families to learn about congruent communication and genuine connection. Both Laura and Russell share about their experiences, lessons learned and passions for camp in this interview.

01:00  Laura describes the context of how Virginis’a family camps began 

Several therapist were requesting that Virginia work with their families and the idea came to work in a camp setting with hiking.  

Family camps began in 1976.  

Laura started leading the camps in 1984 up until 3 years ago. 

5:30 Virginai called her camp an experiment. If a week a year, could create change that could last.

6:00 Russell talked about meeting Virginia running a conference of 60 people

Russell noticed that people were ‘hooking up’ and having relationships although they were married and that he felt this was not promoting family. Virginia told him about family camp which was effort for the therapist to learn with their families.

7:40 Laura describes the celebration of life transitions, births, marriages, the beginning of relationships. Camp was a place to practice open communication which nurtured and strengthened family life.

9:00 Laura describes the use of talking circles between teens and parents.  The outer ring were focused on holding a space and listening (e.g. the teens) and then to engage with each after hearing the inner circle conversation first.

11:30 there was a camp committee that was formed which took the pressure of running the camp off the facilitators.

12:30 Laura describes the committee meetings that occur 3 times a year which were also very supportive element of the camp as a whole. 

14:30  People would do a piece of work in front of the group as part of a demonstration. Thereafter people could help support that person regarding that piece of work during the daily interactions of the camp.

16:15 Laura describes the ingredients that made the camp a nurturing community. People became attached and members would become part of the leadership.  Russell talked about it’s focus on congruence, growth , self-esteem, communication. The community would support people having difficulty (e.g., how to not use physical fights). Meditation and community meetings help them feel in touch with themselves and to feel seen.

19:20 The work done in front of the group create a strong intimacy throughout the camp which is unusual for other camps. People would connect through the vulnerability that they witnessed and they would share their own vulnerability.

People would request time to sort through some challenges they were having.

21:00 the camp would start with a temperature reading.  People could say what they felt and really wanted...e.g. Appreciations..hopes and wishes...complaints...

22:00 There were teen groups, womens,/men’s group, parents , young adults... These were various spaces for people to share and process their experiences.

Evenings was a time for the whole group to gather and to have leisure time together.

24:40 Tim asks what elements of Virginia’s work were taught explicitly. 

The campers would learn about the five freedoms, the coping stances. They would make use of the tools : parts party and elements of family reconstruction.

26:50 Congruent communication, family systems/maps, were some of the key teachings in the camp. 

28:30 Being in nature and away from technology is an important ingredient of camp for people to focus on themselves. 

30:00 There was a representative from each group: young adult, couples, elders, youth...they would report what the facilitators would need to know about the dynamic within these subgroups.

31:10 In the beginning, Virginia did a lot of the leading of the camp herself. There was an important transition from her leadership to a committee. 

The values of the camp were congruence and communication. That each person had to earn their own power. To be in charge of your own growth.  

35:00 Mentorship. Russell describes how mentorship took place within the camp.

38:20 “Becoming a peer with your parents” as a point of maturity for the teens and young adults in the camp.  The children had to find a way to grow that was not dictated by the parents, that the children would own their own voice. 

39:00 Each person was encouraged to have their own voice especially with their parents.

41:00 We discuss how people balanced role function with connection to Self. Everyone took on jobs to create a sense of connection and equality among all people. The focus was on making camp work and that all needed to contribute.

44:00 Laura talked about how camp supported her family and the growth of their communication.  Russell talked about his experience of having his family as part of the camp and the memories that were created.

47:00 Russell feels that family camp is the best expression of Virginia work where people could practice what she taught.

49:00 Tim asks about boundaries as facilitators with their family among the larger group.

Russell talked about how living together in camp took away from the role of therapist and being seen as a fellow camper. 

54:00 We talk about the missing element of community and the opportunity that the camp gives of feeling known and seen. Laura describes Virginia’s vision that raising consciousness and the creation of community were related and parallel goals.

57:00 Laura talks about facilitation meetings. 

59:20 The expansion of consciousness is related to the expansion and enriching of our communities. 

The Self-Connection Podcast: S1 E 23 With Laura Dodson The Process of Transformational Change

Laura shares her work integrating the transformational change of both Virginia Satir’s and Carl Jung’s models. This chart enabled her to look at larger systems of cultural transformation as well as individual and family transformations. Laura lives with a deep connection to her Self and the larger life force. In listening to her, I experience her wisdom and felt directed to connect to my own wisdom.  I felt inspired to trust my unconscious and life more continuing to seek, explore and grow.

Here’s one quote from Laura Dodson:

“Transformation is a change in the entire way of being; how your relate to life. The transformation relate to changes in attitudes that live deep inside of us like: compassion and connection to our common humanity.”

2:30 Laura shares her experience of Virginia was that she was able to distill complex ideas with simple words and movements and sculpts that transcended specific cultures. Virginia’s aim was to change the consciousness in the world. Her aim was to be understandable and useable. 

Carl Jung moved from Freudian model to a more growth model. He saw symptoms as a block in the flow of growth that we all encounter. Virginia saw things this way too.

5:50 Carl Jung had a deep respect for each individual as did Virginia. They respected the unique individual and their ability to adapt, grow and change. 

6:40 Tim asks what is the difference between a family therapist and a Jungian analyst.  Jung was interested in the unconscious of the individual. Jung was not looking at family systems the individual developed within. Virginia saw an individual embedded within multiple layers of systems: family, cultural, history of humanity.

8:30 Tim asks what each thinker would have benefited from the other. Laura feels Jung would’ve benefited from systems’s thinking and Satir would’ve come to the spiritual aspects of being which she got to eventually. She recognized the spiritual base in the 80s.

9:30 the cycle of death and rebirth comes from Jung. Virginia didn’t look at death as much as she looked at birt.  The movement towards integration and wholeness come from Virginia’s work.  Laura didn’t feel that Jung walked us through the steps of transformation. Virginia clarified those steps. Eg., we had to tell the truth without blaming., have courage, have humility, compassion for self and other.  Jung talked about increased consciousness.  Focusing on what one had learned and practicing, forgiving.  Laura found that Virginia emphasized the importance of forgiveness for growth that was not in Jung’s work. 

12:00 Jung took what came in dreams and followed that. He didn’t clarify steps like Virginia did

To help us move from survival coping to growth.  Laura said that she was much more connected to her unconscious and her dreams which helped direct her life. Laura describes there being riches in the unconscious. 

14:00 Change is an ongoing process that never ends throughout life. Our hope is that we can move through the circle more rapidly.  Foreign elements are bound to happen leading to crisis.

Dismembering is the feeling of being pulled apart, which comes Jung’s thinking. 

15:50  We begin with a sense of equilibrium, calmness, centeredness.  A foreign element comes and it separates us from ourselves. We feel abandoned, wounded, betrayed. It’s inevitable.  Disemembering occurs.  

Then liminality occurs. You can’t go back but you don’t know how to move forward.  You feel confused and afraid. 

We fall into defensive mechanisms. For example denial as a coping is adaptive initially and unders certain conditions. Projection, denial, depression, suicidal...it’s the experience of deflation of energy. Deflation is a loss of sense of who you are. Loneliness and feeling lost.  We are barely coping.We are in the dark night of the soul.

What is required for change is the numinous experience, the experience of light. Something that would allow you to see things from another angle. 

21:32 “The wonderful thing about the unconscious is that it wants to break through; it wants to give you light. There’s something inside you that wants to give birth to a new way of seeing.

But it’s frightening because it’s giving up the old way. Letting go. Surrender to what might come next. “

22:10 dreams and talking with a friend that can add light or shift your perspective and help you see light in the darkness and experience hope. Some of Virginia’s processes helped give people insight that freed them from the inside. A new way of seeing.

What Virginia created in sculptures and pictures on the outside; Carl Jung followed dreams.

26:00 People come to therapy at the point when they have fallen into the unknown and are seeking an experience of the numinious, of light and a wish for hope. 

27:00 Becoming conscious of our defense mechanisms allows us to have more choice and to 

Let go of unhealthy coping. 

28:00 Laura talks about the importance of hope and how the therapist holds hope. Laura describes the therapist usinge x-ray vision that sees the higher Self and the young vulnerable part saying “all i want to be loved”  Connecting to the essence, the deep spiritual essence of the other person.

31:15 Laura is confident that the unconscious will show them a way. The therapist is listening with them for guidance of where to go. The therapist needs to be willing to be surprised. 

Laura provides an example of listening to a client who had a dream which pointed a direction to go.

36:00 you need someone to hold a space and listen and believe in you as you find your way. 

37:30 Laura talks about step of courage, commitment, and truth telling, facing the reality of things.  Allowing ourselves to mourn for ourselves and with compassion. Joining the human race with our frailties.

We walk into what we were defending against and the resources of responsibility, mourning, commitment, truthtelling (without blame) , curiosity, humility, and courage all help us walk into what we were defending against. 

Facing what we fear...what we hate...Our trauma/hurt....

Courage is the first step, then truth telling,, humility to join the human race.

Commitment and focused on the path..

Mourn what wasn’t and what isn’t.

Laura talks about Virginia’s direction of being more curious than blaming and using our detective hat.

41:15 Increasing consciousness and compassion as you move through transformation and rejoining the human race and forgive yourself. You increase your connection, congruence and compassion with Self and others. 

Your self and your higher Self

42:40 Foundational attitudes as a way of being with our experience that allows us to move through experience. E.g., commitment to become more conscious.

44:30 We begin to integrate what we were falling apart about in crisis and the energy transforms. 

Jung used the word energy for God. Virginia used the words “Life Force” The transformation comes upon you. You can’t make it happen. This is the rebirth.  It comes upon us as we do these things.

46:30   Energy is in constant motion. Your attitude to change allow you to walk towards it. As you walk towards it, you become more conscious of the new learnings and that brings a transformation.

You can move towards light, but you can’t make the energy transform.

“Transformation is a change in the entire way of being; how your relate to life. The transformation relate to changes in attitudes that live deep inside of us like: compassion and connection to our common humanity.”

50:30 Laura shares her experience of her pain. “I am not that pain; i am having that experience. I am more than that”  She is aware of her connection to life being bigger than the pain. My existence is more than to pain. Laura describes her pain as her ‘teacher’.  “I have to learn to breathe and move with it.  I will learn in relation to it.”

55:00 Laura talks about cultural transformation. Our culture has been inflated and ‘superior’. She talks about corona virus and some of what is going on in the world. 

We talk about the resources in the transformational wheel as an anchor of how we can move through these difficult times.

59:15 “There’s a new energy that’s alive in the world today and I am part of that energy.” Virginia Satir said in reference to the evolution of consciousness and her belief in a tipping point. 

“To the god in me and to the god within you” we can connect and transformation can occur.

The Self-Connection Podcast: S1 E 22 With Howard Kahn Communicative Intimacy

Howard and I have a warm dynamic conversation about Virginia where we experience what his perspective of psychotherapy is by reflecting on our awareness of himself, me and each other. 

Howard Kahn is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, where he teaches a yearly seminar in Family Therapy and supervises psychotherapy. He has also been a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School (2012). Dr. Kahn has maintained a private practice of Clinical Psychology in New Haven since 1970. He is a graduate of City College of New York (1961) and of the University of Rochester (PhD,1970)

Howard explains his journey into therapy and transition into an awareness of the humanistic psychologies.

Lou Ferman had people who were teachers of humanistic psychology. Virginia Satir was one of these trainers. Howard shares about his first experience with Virginia Satir 1969 and described her as someone who cared about your experience and only that.

5:00 Howard learned from Virginia that there was a way he could be that was consonant to his being. Virginia was novel in her approach with family and how engaging communicative therapy.

7:10 Howard had an experience with Virginia during a demonstration where fell into a trance with her. She asked and cared about what she was feeling. This resonated with Howard as a way of doing therapy.

10:22 Howard said his connection with Virginia helped him grow his energy for intimacy. He felt supported for who he is.

12:00 Howard shares about how Virginia helped him overcome his fear of public speaking.

14:00 Howard said Virginia paid attention to what was going on with people, taking responsibility for themselves, how to be in relationships, but she did it in an interactive way.

15:33 Communicative intimacy...Helmith Kizer”? There’s a universal symptom he called ‘duplicity’ people were not congruent with thoughts and feelings. He promoted encounter. When my thoughts feels and actions are in line we are congruent. When we are paying attention to each other’s experience. My awareness of me, my awareness of you; your awareness of you and you’re awareness of me.

We communicate and share these levels. It’s the attitude of I’m fully aware and interested in you. It is a readiness and willingness to provide the full benefit of your being and to connect with someone.

17:40 What empowers us to be more connected? Howard shares to be in the present and to be in a flow together. Howard reflects on his own awareness of the present experience, his feelings and also our conversation. He describes it as an immediacy of experience with Virginia.

21:00 the freedom to be yourself and to emerge is a healing experience. The collection of healing moments is therapy. Therapy is a part of natural life.

22:51 the way we are in therapy is our natural form. That’s when we are at our best.

Howard shares about seeing a kid, his neighbor, who got hurt and how he went over to him. He describes the moment of contact.

25:00 Our ability to accept our feelings and the moments. Howard describes his experience of being present with the boy.

28:00 Howard talks about embodying theory. He talks about having an inherent valuing system (that of acceptance and compassion). This leads you to be curious and to be engaged. He talks about focusing not on fixing anything but being present.

33:00 Howard reflects on the experience of the interview so far as a demonstration of being present and engaging with communicative intimacy and how important this is for healing.

34:00 Howard asks Tim about his experience. We have a moment of connection.

36:20 Howard describes Virginia as awake and full of love.

39:30 Virginia said “I’m everyone you admire” Useful and nourishing other.

You’re the agent of your own action and experience. You never felt like Virginia was going to fix you. She helped you come into your own power.

42:00 We live our lives in fictional finalism. Quote by Alfred Adler.

45:45.What’s kept you connected? Howard shares that he feels energized by meeting people.

47:00 “I think you can be judicious and not judgmental” Howard shares that he gives people feedback based on his own experience.

“I want to love you without clutching, appreciate you without judging, join you without invading, invite you without demanding, leave you without guilt, criticize you without blaming, and help you without insulting. If I can have the same from you, then we can truly meet and enrich each other.”

― Virginia Satir

52:00 We talk about Self connection and self-esteem. There’s a transcendent , a communion...that is something bigger than an individuals self-concept, or feelings and thoughts about themselves. Howard talks about how we deal with the spiritual all the time. He describes the connection he felt being in the delivery room, with his wife, his baby the doctors.

58:00 Self-esteem is the outcome of Self-connection..

Being in a dynamic living process with each other or with life in general.

1:03:00 You are a manifestation of God’s will. You’re experiencing and expressing yourself is transcendent work, god’s work...

“I’m not here to meet your expectations and you’re not here to meet mine.”

Howard shares the last line “if we don’t it can’t be helped.”

“If you embrace one life, you create a universe”

1:09:09 Howard trusts that people will let go of their symptoms when we focus on connecting in the ways he is expressing (of being present, listening, being yourself) Something of what we want emerges in therapy.

1:13:29 Howard sees himself as a teacher of humanism. The processes that Virginia highlighted are part of the natural world. They are not specific to people or ideology.