NotitiesThe Truth
Neil Strauss
The text explores themes of intimacy, shame, and personal trauma, revealing how childhood experiences shape adult behaviors and relationships. It emphasizes the importance of self-love and understanding one's past to foster healthier connections with others. The narrative illustrates the protagonist's journey toward emotional healing and self-acceptance.
The fucking questions. They don’t like them here. It’s because questions are powerful: The right question can expose the flaws in the system. (Page 15)
Lying is about controlling someone else’s reality, hoping that what they don’t know won’t hurt you. (Page 21)
Do you know what kind of people can’t control their behavior, even when they don’t enjoy that behavior anymore? Weak people? Addicts. (Page 24)
Guilt is about breaking the rules. Shame is about being broken. (Page 34)
“What I’m saying is that if you have true intimacy with your partner, you won’t need to seek sex outside the relationship.” She holds me in her gaze for a moment longer, then slowly scans the room. “This is the reason all of you ended up here. If you’re addicted to sex, you’re probably co-addicted to something else, like drugs or work or exercise, and this is because you’re afraid of intimacy and you’re afraid of your feelings.” (Page 38)
“When children experience trauma, they tend to absorb the feelings of their abusers and store them in a compartment in their psyche that we call the shame core. It contains the beliefs I am worthless, I am unlovable, I don’t deserve. Any time you feel one down—or inferior—to someone or you feel one up—or superior—those are false beliefs generated by your shame core. Because, in reality, every person in the world has equal worth and value.” (Page 42)
“Being overcontrolled as a child sets you up to lie as an adult,” she concludes. “So the theory of sex addiction is that when you feel out of control or disempowered, you sneak around and act out sexually to reestablish control and regain your sense of self.” This is where she loses me. “Can you give a specific example?” I ask. “Well,” she replies with what appears to be a touch of condescension, “what’s your story?” Or perhaps it’s not condescension, it’s caring, and my shame core is just flaring up. “I cheated on my girlfriend.” “Strict mother?” “Yes.” “Mom wasn’t emotionally available, so you’re taking out your dick and using it to look for love. And sex is healing the anger at Mom for not being available.” She speaks quickly and confidently, as if my story is exactly what she knew it would be. “So I fuck other women to get back at my mom?” “And to have an emotionally safe way of getting the affection, acceptance, and comfort you never got from Mom.” “I don’t know. It felt like my mom was always there for me.” She strokes her hair, which is as prodigious and thick as Rick Rubin’s beard, and asks a question that will alter my entire understanding of my childhood: “Was she there for you . . . or were you there for her?” (Page 43)
And that’s the last straw for me. I’m not like Charles. I can’t just blindly obey. It needs to make fucking sense to me. It’s like going to a church to be a better person, but then being told that the only way to do it is by worshipping a god you don’t believe in. (Page 47)
Intimacy is sharing your reality with someone else and knowing you’re safe, and them being able to share their reality with you and also be safe. (Page 50)
As a culture, we voraciously consume horror movies about vampires, ghosts, zombies, and other supernatural beings. But people are much scarier than any monster we can make up. It’s not just the acts of horror they perpetrate on each other, but even when they spare the person’s life, they still take their soul, their spirit, their happiness. (Page 60)
I’m not a bad person, I tell myself. I’m just scared of intimacy. (Page 72)
“Fine stands for fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional,” he says. “That’s about right.” (Page 77)
As a journalist, I’ve met a lot of so-called experts. Most are just people with a little experience and a lot of confidence who’ve given themselves a title with which they can fool the suggestible and dim-witted. But every now and then, I come across someone who has the experience, knowledge, and calling to be not just a teacher dispensing information but a guide leading others to themselves. (Page 85)
“Self-deprecation is still self-worship,” she is telling Calvin. “It’s the flip side of the same coin. It’s still about self.” (Page 85)
Note: Zelf
And the problem is . . . When one of your needs doesn’t get met, however big or small, it can leave a wound. These wounds are known as childhood trauma. Each instance or pattern of trauma can create specific core personal issues and relationship challenges—and if these are left untreated, you’re likely to pass your wounds on to the next generation. Since this trauma occurs early in life, it can affect social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and moral development. (Page 86)
Other families adhere to such rigid rules that any manifestation of a child’s individuality is immediately attacked as a threat. All these can lead to esteem problems later in life. (Page 87)
Your oldest beliefs, behaviors, and adaptations have not just been reinforced by decades of habit, but are built deep into the architecture of your brain, which is busy building new neural connections at an astounding rate in early life. As the saying goes, “Cells that fire together, wire together.” So trying to see yourself with any objectivity can be like trying to touch your right elbow with your right hand. (Page 88)
Some of you have a big bag of shit you’re carrying around. And every time you encounter a situation in which you can possibly get more shit to put in the bag, you grab it and stuff it inside. You’ll even ignore all the diamonds glittering nearby, because all you can see is the shit. This shit is known as “the stories you tell yourself.” Examples include generalizations like “I make bad decisions,” “If people saw the real me, they wouldn’t like me,” or, conversely, “No one is good enough for me.” Each of these beliefs can be formed in childhood by, respectively, fault-finding parents, abandoning parents, and parents who put you on a pedestal. (Page 89)
Note: Pedestal
One way to recognize when you’re stuck in your own story is whenever you feel less than or better than others. (Page 89)
Markeren(geel) - Pagina 89 · Locatie 2059 (Page 89)
Any time you overreact to something—by shutting down, losing your temper, sulking, feeling hopeless, freaking out, disassociating, or any of numerous other dysfunctional behaviors—it’s typically because an old wound has been triggered. And you’re regressing to the childhood or adolescent state that corresponds to that feeling. (Page 89)
If you find chemical, mental, or technological ways to numb yourself and your feelings, that’s trauma blocking. (Page 90)
The tough part is to quarantine the virus, and to recognize the false self and restore the true self. Because it isn’t until we start developing an honest, compassionate, and functional relationship with ourselves that we can begin to experience a healthy, loving relationship with others. (Page 90)
“Intimacy problems come from a lack of self-love,” she continues. “Someone who fears intimacy thinks, unconsciously, If you knew who I actually was, you’d leave me.” (Page 95)
Because when a love avoidant and a love addict begin a relationship, a predictable pattern occurs: The avoidant gives and gives, sacrificing his own needs, but it’s never enough for the love addict. So the avoidant grows resentful and seeks an outlet outside of the relationship, but at the same time feels too guilty to stop taking care of the needy person.” “By outlet, you mean an affair?” Adam interrupts. “It can be,” Lorraine says. “But it can also be obsessive exercising or work or drugs or living on the edge or anything high-risk. He will also compartmentalize it because the secrecy helps kick that intensity up a notch. In the meantime, as the avoidant’s walls keep getting higher, the love addict uses denial to hold on to the fantasy and starts accepting unacceptable behavior.” (Page 95)
“The pain and the fear are so intense for the love addict that she often develops her own secret life as well. Where the avoidant wants the highs, the addict typically goes for the lows. She wants benzodiazepines, alcohol, romance novels, shopping till she drops, or anything that depresses the central nervous system. If she acts out sexually or has an emotional affair, it’s not for intensity, but to numb the pain and get away from the agonizing hurt. Soon, the relationship is no longer about love for either partner, but about escaping from reality.” (Page 96)
“A healthy relationship is when two individuated adults decide to have a relationship and that becomes a third entity. They nurture the relationship and the relationship nurtures them. But they’re not overly dependent or independent: They are interdependent, which means that they take care of the majority of their needs and wants on their own, but when they can’t, they’re not afraid to ask their partner for help.” She pauses to let it all sink in, then concludes, “Only when our love for someone exceeds our need for them do we have a shot at a genuine relationship together.” (Page 97)
“I’d be willing to bet that after the high of the intensity, there’s a comedown, and you feel not so great and you need that next hit of intensity,” Lorraine responds coolly. “So ultimately, you can live your life like a hamster on a wheel, chasing after the next hit to keep yourself spinning. Or you can realize that ultimately it’s all a distraction to avoid the harsh reality that you are not connected to yourself.” (Page 98)
“Life’s not worth living if you’re living someone else’s life.” (Page 98)
“She wants a monogamous relationship with you. So when you’re in a relationship with someone else, you’re being unfaithful to her. And if you don’t take your emotional life back, you’ll be in a relationship with your mother until the day you die.” (Page 103)
And all of a sudden I collapse into tears. Fuck. “What are you feeling?” Lorraine asks. “I haven’t been connecting with Ingrid.” The tears come harder. I can’t believe I’m bawling like this. Again. “Every time I have sex with her, I’m thinking about some random woman I didn’t have sex with. I’m not letting her in.” I’m crumpled in my seat now. I can hear Calvin and the other guys crying. I feel the support and encouragement of all the sex maniacs in the room. “It’s not fair to her.” “Do you know why that is?” “No.” “Because your mother has taught you to fear women. So you avoid intimacy by not being present and connected when you’re with Ingrid.” Before I can process that concept, she has me yelling, “I’m not letting you scare me away from women anymore, Mom. I’m going to love who I want, and you can find someone else to be your confidant.” It’s preposterous, but I really feel like my mom’s sitting there and I’m telling her all these things. Tears pour down my face. Until this moment, I’d maintained a small reserve of skepticism about the concept of emotional incest. But now there’s no doubt. I feel the truth of it in every cell of my body. “I’m not going to be afraid of intimacy for you anymore, Mom!” (Page 104)
I can’t remember the last time I saw the truth. This is more cathartic than any drug experience I’ve ever had. All my anxiety and fear and guilt have peeled away, as if they were layers of clothing I didn’t know I was wearing. I thought they were part of my skin the whole time, but it turns out they were someone else’s hand-me-downs. So that’s what they mean by my false self. (Page 105)
Real intelligence is when your mind and your heart connect. That’s when you see the truth so clearly and unmistakably that you don’t have to think about it. In fact, all thinking will do is lead you away from the truth and soon you’ll be back in your head, groping with a penlight in the dark again. (Page 105)
“Now that you’ve re-parented your inner child, you’re going to protect him and look after him—and let him play with Ingrid’s inner child,” Lorraine instructs. She gives me a few moments to imagine this, then gently says, “You can open your eyes when you’re ready.” (Page 105)
need to hold on to the golden cord that, right now, is connecting my brain to my heart and illuminating the path to my authentic self—or, as the singer and poet Patti Smith once put it, “the clean human being that I was as a child.” “You look like you’re floating on a foot of air,” Calvin tells me. Technically, this process is called post-induction therapy. Others call it ego-state integration. Joan calls it feeling reduction work. And Lorraine calls it an experiential. But those are euphemisms for what it really is: an exorcism. An exorcism of childhood demons. (Page 106)
“It will wear you out if you don’t live your authentic life.” (Page 106)
The problem with time is that it doesn’t go backward. Every word, every step, every action is irreversible. If we step in front of a moving car, if we sign a contract we haven’t read, if we betray the person we love, the best we can do is try to clean up the mess. But no matter how hard we scrub, the stain on reality will never come out. (Page 109)
Note: Wat een openingszin weer
Instead of glimpsing anonymous individuals hurrying by, I see different archetypal products of bad parenting. (Page 109)
Suddenly there seem to be very few adults in the world, just suffering children and overcompensating adolescents. (Page 109)
Before leaving, I stopped by Lorraine’s office to get her contact information in case I needed to get in touch with her in an emergency. She gave me an hour of good advice on reentry into my relationship, explaining, most importantly, that in order to be emotionally free to commit to Ingrid, I need to limit contact with my mother. (Page 110)
I notice another side effect of rehab: I am no longer attracted to or turned on by random women; instead, I am triggered by them. It’s the same thing, but being attracted is a natural human impulse; being triggered is an unhealthy plunge into the addiction cycle, into compulsive behavior, into the charts and diagrams hanging in Joan’s office. (Page 111)
The women you’ve slept with, the ones you never did but primed for a future encounter, the ones who seemed interested but then suddenly stopped texting: Unless you do something horribly wrong, they never completely disappear. A lonely night, a cheating boyfriend, a sudden breakup, an attack of low self-esteem, an attack of high self-esteem—anything can, out of the blue, send them scrolling through their address book looking for validation, for security, for conversation, for adoration, for the fantasy of you filling some empty space in their life. (Page 114)
They say that a man is as faithful as his options, and in this moment I know it to be true. So I switch the phone off. It’s too much. Even Jesus had only three temptations. (Page 114)
In other words, on top of everything else, half the lobes and circuits of my brain are fucked up. “Do you think there’s any truth to the saying that a man is as faithful as his options?” I ask, hoping for a small reprieve. “I don’t think that’s true,” he replies adamantly. “You’re as faithful as you decide to be if your brain is healthy. If your brain is not healthy, then you’re as faithful as your options. And we’re going to make your brain healthy.” (Page 131)
But now, everything I once thought I liked about myself has been turned into a symptom of something wrong with me. I’m told over and over by addiction experts not to trust anything I say, think, or feel. They tell me I need to build self-esteem from within. Yet in order to do that, I have to accept that I’m broken, shattered, stigmatized, diseased, and traumatized—and all that does is make me want to throw myself off a rooftop so I can start all over again. (Page 136)
Then again, no matter what your point of view may be, you can always find someone with a Ph.D to support it. (Page 144)
“If you’re indeed going to follow through with your decision,” she eventually says, arbitrating, “I’m going to ask you to solve a mystery.” “What’s the mystery?” “The mystery is whether the path you’re embarking on is authentic or you’re operating out of a wound.” (Page 149)
“Remember,” Lorraine urges, as if reading my thoughts, “anything that doesn’t bring you alive is too small for you.” (Page 150)
Loneliness is holding in a joke because you have no one to share it with. (Page 175)
For most men, what’s tougher than breaking up is the moment when their ex finally falls out of love with them and lets go, perhaps because it triggers a childhood fear—a psychological terror—of losing the first woman whose love they needed: their mother. And so, as Sheila would recommend, I let myself feel the pain, the loneliness, and the fear, using all my strength as the days pass to keep from giving in and reaching out to Ingrid. (Page 187)
But if sex becomes just a service to be traded, that’s not freedom. It’s commerce. (Page 228)
Some people live in an endless on-and-off relationship with control. Either they’re trying to exert it over their lives—by getting obsessive about a diet, a belief system, a phobia, a hobby, a need for order, a twelve-step program—or they’re completely out of control, making a mess of their lives. And it sounds like Charles is on the verge of a mess. The shadow he’s been repressing has broken loose. And I can relate: So has mine. But as any good Jungian therapist will tell you, you’re not supposed to repress the shadow in the first place. That’s when bad things happen. The goal is to integrate it. And I hope that’s the path we’re both ultimately on. (Page 230)
It is spiritual because it’s a release from ego, a merging with the other, a discorporation into the atoms vibrating around us, a connection to the universal energy that moves through all things without judgment or prejudice. (Page 240)
Deep in our nature, we are foragers. And life is a process of gathering the resources we need from a large, connected planet. It’s all out there: every color, shade, flavor, and mutation of life and experience. Whatever we are looking for, we will find—if it doesn’t find us first. However, the result will not be what we’re consciously looking for, but what we’re unconsciously seeking. And so what we want will never be anything like what we expect. It is the forager’s law: You can find the berry bush, but you can’t control its yield. (Page 244)
I used to think that a good relationship meant always getting along. But the secret, I realize, is that when one person shuts down or throws a fit, the other needs to stay in the adult ego state. If both people descend to the wounded child or adapted adolescent, that’s when all the forces of relationship drama and destruction are unleashed. (Page 246)
Whenever people idealize their caretakers, chances are pretty good that the opposite is true. Sometimes this illusion is created by the parents, who insist in godlike fashion that they’re perfect and that the child owes them obedience because they’re responsible for his or her existence. Other times the illusion is created by the child as a survival strategy, disconnecting from reality in order to avoid the pain of growing up in a toxic environment. (Page 249)
Just as some people have a drug or sex addiction, she has a word addiction. She builds a wall of words to protect herself from uncomfortable feelings. (Page 249)
It’s these damn feelings. They’re to blame. Why is it that as soon as they descend on someone, they bring ownership with them in the passenger seat? A piece of relationship advice Lorraine taught in rehab rings ominously in my head: “Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.” (Page 255)
Life is a learned skill, but instead of teaching it, our culture force-fills developing minds with long division and capital cities—until, at the end of the mandatory period of bondage that’s hyperbolically called school, we’re sent into the world knowing little about it. And so, left on our own to figure out the most important parts of life, we make mistakes for years until, by the time we’ve learned enough from our stumbling to be effective human beings, it’s time for us to die. (Page 266)
A criticism Rick once gave me flashes through my mind: You create the image that you’re a good person as opposed to actually being a good person. (Page 275)
For me, the best way to understand what actually transpired in any given situation is to write about it until the truth emerges. (Page 280)
I’ve seen love as a padded cell designed to take away my freedom. And that’s because my “long-suffering” mother used love to exert control over me, which she enforced with guilt. In my relationship with Ingrid, I think as I sit illuminated by the beams of six expectant eyes, I interpreted her love as control and resisted it. First through cheating, and when that got shut down, through resentment, fantasizing, and emotional distancing. My whole life, I’ve been fighting against love for my freedom. (Page 291)
What if, what if, what if . . . It’s the ambivalent’s mating call. (Page 295)
I once dated a woman who always said she wanted to marry someone rich. She ended up marrying a flat-broke musician. His name was Rich. The universe listens—and it gives you not just what you want, but what you deserve. It’s the forager’s karmic law. (Page 323)
She listens without judgment. When I finish, she responds, simply, “I would recommend becoming a scientist of your own lows.” “What do you mean?” “If you’re in pain of the heart, enter into the pain and try to find its source rather than letting the pain drive you, or trying to escape from it or overcome it.” (Page 328)
“Just remember,” she adds soothingly, “that the only people who can be abandoned are children and dependent elders. If you’re an adult, then no one can abandon you except you.” (Page 328)
The success of a relationship should be measured by its depth, not by its length. (Page 334)
He tells me about a book he recently read called His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley, a clinical psychologist who writes that a man needs five basic things from his wife: sexual fulfillment, recreational companionship, physical attractiveness, domestic support, and admiration. “I don’t think she’s meeting a single one of those,” Adam says. “What does he say a woman’s needs are?” Adam explains that a woman’s five basic needs are affection, conversation, honesty and openness, financial support, and family commitment. (Page 334)
In her book Mating in Captivity, psychologist Esther Perel advises that the way to keep romance and sex hot in a relationship is through separation, unpredictability, and fear of loss. (Page 335)
Try is the critical word here, because managing feelings is like taming lions. No matter how successful you think you are, they’re still ultimately in control. (Page 342)
Sex is easy to find—whether through game, money, chance, social proof, or charm. So are affairs, orgies, adventures, and three-month relationships—if you know where to look and are willing to go there. But love is rare. (Page 350)
“You’ll find that being committed to your authentic life supersedes the intensity.” (Page 358)
For a love avoidant, I’ve done a good job of constantly having some sort of girlfriend for the last eight years. Maybe that’s because there’s no better place to hide from intimacy than in a relationship. (Page 358)
“In life, we are born innocent and pure, beautiful and honest, and in a state of oneness with each moment. As we develop, however, our caregivers and others load us with baggage. Some of us keep accumulating more and more baggage until we become burdened by all the weight, trapped in beliefs and behaviors that keep us stuck. But the true purpose of life is to divest yourself of that baggage and become light and pure again. You’ve been searching for freedom this whole time. That is true freedom.” (Page 359)
It takes more than advice, books, meetings, therapy, and rehab to change. It takes more than even a powerful, unwavering, full-bodied desire to do so. It takes humility. (Page 359)
The underlying cause of most unfulfilled lives is that we are simply too close to ourselves to see clearly enough to get out of our own way. (Page 360)
once your desires are fulfilled in your imagination, the need to live them out in real life suddenly doesn’t seem so urgent. Once the brain’s reward center has gotten its hit of dopamine, it doesn’t need another one—at least not for a little while. (Page 361)
generally, good parenting will promote better oxytocin and vasopressin systems in the long run, and these are linked with more closely bonding individuals when it comes to romantic relationships. (Page 363)
“A messed-up childhood makes it hard, and it gets even more complicated as you get older, but it’s not set in stone. We haven’t found anything that’s completely genetic. Not even these really hurtful diseases like autism and schizophrenia, or things like intelligence. There’s still some sort of environmental factor involved. So you get to change things.” (Page 363)
“I don’t really know. Actually, that’s my answer. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m studying these things—to understand why I feel the way I do myself.” (Page 364)
The person who is too smart to love is truly an idiot. (Page 365)
“It’s time for you to get your life back,” Lorraine announces, rising in front of us in a green-and-brown dress like Mother Earth herself. “Your childhood is a terrorist and it’s holding you hostage.” (Page 365)
“So don’t you think”—and here Lorraine holds Adam’s genogram in front of him—“ that it’s time for someone in your family to make a stand and take care of their own needs for once? Look at your parents: Your mom is unhappy and medicating with romance novels and pills while your dad walls off and keeps busy. This is a behavior that’s been passed down for generations. And it only takes one courageous person to stop the cycle of silent suffering and sacrifice.” “But how?” He seems genuinely stumped. “By being true to yourself. People always ask how supposedly good German people could have been complicit in the atrocities of the Nazi regime. And one part of the answer is: the family system. Children in that time were taught to be obedient to their fathers, that Father is always right, and that they must make sacrifices for the parents to whom they owe their entire existence.” She pauses to make sure we get it. “And then what happens? The government demands loyalty, obedience, and sacrifice, until you have a nation of people violating their internal value system for the Fatherland.” (Page 366)
“I’m passionate about what I’m doing,” she continues, “because I believe that functional parenting is the secret to world peace. And the only way to make functional parents is to heal psychological wounds with the same urgency that we heal physical wounds. (Page 367)
Lorraine turns to us and says, not with the anger we were expecting but with acceptance and empathy for Adam, “Do you see how strong this is? How trauma can destroy individuals and nations and generations?” More than our relationships are at stake here, I think. The future is at stake. (Page 368)
“Your problem is that you want unconditional approval and admiration from women,” she says bluntly. “When you’re with someone you pay for or a young helpless dependent, you get that. But in a healthy relationship of two people with equal internal power, sometimes your partner doesn’t agree with you or support your behavior. And that’s where the real relating begins.” “So I’m supposed to date someone who doesn’t like me?” Calvin asks, genuinely confused. “No, you’re supposed to grow up emotionally so that when someone you love doesn’t constantly worship you or do what you want, it doesn’t cause your entire sense of self to crumble.” (Page 368)
“Then let me ask you”—here it comes, the verbal aikido that will use my words to topple my beliefs—“ is it possible to live your authentic life if you have inauthentic people around you?” (Page 369)
“Think of yourself as Tarzan,” he suggests, repeating advice that Lorraine once gave him. “You can’t hold onto the vine behind you and the vine in front of you forever. At some point, you have to let go of the past to move forward.” (Page 371)
I was pursuing control, power, and self-worth. I was either acting like my mom or making someone into my mom. But rarely was I actually myself. Because, as I witnessed on ecstasy, the feeling that I’m not acceptable as I am is so fucking overwhelming that I’m terrified to let go and just be myself with anyone. I’ve been the benevolent dictator of not just everyone else, but also my own fucking self. As this last insight hits home, I dissolve into a puddle of tears. Lorraine waits as I wipe my nose on the back of my hand, then she speaks slowly and gently: “All the things you’ve been trying to get from these relationships—freedom, understanding, fairness, acceptance—are exactly the things that you never got from your mom. So every time you load all that unfinished business onto your partner, you’re setting yourself up for another disappointment. Because as an adult, the only person who can give you those things is you. (Page 373)
“How will I know I’m truly ready this time and not one of those love avoiders who wants to be in a relationship when he isn’t in one, then wants to be free when he’s in a relationship?” Lorraine responds cryptically, “Do you know the story of the Prodigal Son?” Adam nods his head vigorously, melted ice cream dribbling down his face. He knows his Bible well. Lorraine tells us her version of the story anyway: “A father has two sons. The older one is a good son. He does everything he should, pleases the father, and stays on the farm to take care of it. The younger one leaves the family, spends all his father’s money on prostitutes, doesn’t stay in touch, almost starves to death, and then, finally, returns and begs to be allowed to take care of the farm with his brother again. “When the father throws a huge celebration to welcome his youngest son back home, the older brother asks, ‘What about me?’ And do you know what the father replies?” “He says that a Christian should always be merciful and allow someone to repent?” Adam tries. “Perhaps. But I like to believe he also said something else: ‘You worked on the farm because you felt like you should; your brother came back to work on the farm out of choice. And that is the more meaningful of the two.’” She pauses and lets it sink in for all of us. “Love is something about a person, some connection with them, that makes you willing to change.” (Page 374)
“As you peel away the layers of the false self, you’re going to start feeling the pain inside that it’s protecting you from. So you’re going to get very raw and uncomfortable before you get better. (Page 375)
Lindsay Joy Greene is trained in a therapy called SE, or somatic experiencing, and she’s been locating trauma trapped not in my brain, but in my body, and releasing the stored energy. (Page 376)
Though I feel a pang of guilt as I scoop them up and toss them in the trash, I recall Barbara McNally telling me that this kind of guilt is a good thing. It means that I’m finally doing the work of separation. (Page 377)
How you feel during the process is the least important part. So you can feel good to the extent that you’re doing the work to learn about yourself and you’re willing to look at the feelings that come up. That’s the part to hold on to.” (Page 377)
There are, of course, experiences that I can’t access: preconscious, early childhood, and forgotten imprints. And surely a great deal of the damage is done in those crucial first few years. But when I ask about it at a weekend workshop just outside Los Angeles run by a trauma-healing center called The Refuge, I’m reassured that what I remember is a window into what I’ve forgotten—that the patterns likely stayed the same, that a narcissistic parent was always a narcissistic parent. (Page 378)
realize that I made a mistake by equating variety with freedom. (Page 381)
I used to think that the term inner child was a ridiculous metaphor invented to remind responsibility-burdened adults to lighten up occasionally and just have fun. But it turns out that the inner child is very real. It is our past. And the only way to escape the past is to embrace it. So before going to bed that night, I put the photo in a frame and place it next to my bed. And I vow that from this day forward, that child will be protected. He will be loved. He will be accepted. He will be trusted. And all this will be given unconditionally. He will not be taught to hate and fear. He will not be criticized for failing to live up to unrealistic expectations. (Page 386)
It’s somewhat pathetic that at this age, I need to properly learn how to be an adult. But if the problems I have in relationships are the result of developmental immaturities, then by nurturing these stunted parts of myself into a growth spurt, perhaps I’ll finally attain the happiness and stability that have eluded me through them all. (Page 386)
Where before I was anxious, frenetic, and nervous, now I’m more present, still, accepting. I’m hardly a Buddhist monk, but I’m more at peace with the world and with myself. (Page 388)