Love as Medicine: Dr. Loren Weiner on Shame, Dreams, and Inner Freedom

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Marks. I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation, founded by my late husband, Doctor Bernard Bail. Welcome to and now Love. Hello. Loren Weiner. Hi. Welcome back. Thank you. Loren, as we've said many times, because we love having her here is a psychologist here in Los Angeles with a very busy practice. And we're so fortunate to have her invest so much time and love here with us. And today we're going to talk about change. That's a big topic. So here you go. Right. Big, big topic change. But everybody wants to know at the end of the day we're talking about all of this therapy.

Looking at your dreams, doing everything. What happens. How do you change. What does it look like. So I think we can talk about change in a few ways. We can talk about it on the individual level. Our feelings about it. I think most people know the old idea that we are all very afraid of change. We don't like it. We like things to go along. As we've known them, even if they are terribly uncomfortable. At least we know it. So we can talk about that system of shifting things in someone's life and how you attend to the fear that comes up around that, even though it's why they've come to see you.

I need change. And then we can look at it on the the bigger scale, which is the collective, the whole group of us, the whole world. All of. Us. Well, as you were talking about, what's happening to the individual, I'm thinking I can just point to that all over the world. Right? Right. And then you get a whole group of us together, and we're all afraid to change in our own way. And then you put a whole group of us together. You can imagine. What does it take to get change? Real change. On a big national or global scale. And that's not going to happen unless we figure out how to make some of these changes as individuals.

Absolutely. The biggest piece I think is each person working on change, addressing the blocks to change gets you a step closer to the whole group being able to make bigger shifts. Now not everybody's going to have the luxury to be able to do that. That's okay. Those who can who can go inside look inside. That's where we all need to be going. That's going to help. Everybody will will. You know if some people can't that's okay. Well we just need enough. Some of those people who can't or who don't have the luxury to do that, that may be coming from 33 different points of view.

Maybe you don't have the time and maybe you're so busy with your family, whatever your family is, kids. Maybe you're fighting for. Your rights. Maybe you're fighting for your life. Maybe you just want to put food on the table. That's right. Maybe you don't even have the wherewithal to consider those things for some reason. That's right. But even if that were the case, if someone just was stuck in their box, what's to say in terms of their feelings or their emotions and, and doesn't have an idea that they can expand or change in that realm if they are with people that have changed emotionally, they're going to start to be affected by that.

Yes, I think we all can lift each other up, just as you know, we can bring each other down. There are people around who have the luxury to look inward, spend some time sorting through all of your stuff. You know, looking at your dreams, exploring things as we've talked, keeping in mind there's an imprint and we can talk about that a little again. But to really, if you're doing that and you have the luxury, then yes, you do it and you will lift everyone around you. That energy does transfer, but it also goes the other way, which is why it's so important for us.

So if we are all bogged down right then we are also putting that energy out and it will pull us down. So yeah, you know, you're lucky if you can if you want change in your life and you're lucky enough to have ways to get it. And I'm talking about emotional change here, then it really is important because it does help everyone. This isn't purely a selfish act. So I think people worry, oh my gosh, can I in the midst of all this, can I really be focusing on myself in my own little problems in this corner of the world? And I'm upset about this and this?

Yes, you have to. In fact, if if you're drawn and called to that and you have an ability to do it, do it because you're going to start changing the system one little piece at a time, and it all impacts. And wouldn't there be a reason for us to think that even though we think we've got it all going on, that we're doing everything the right way in terms of our feelings and the way we love and the way we receive love and what we gift to the world or our communities, even if we think we've got it all figured out, we still really ought to, for our own benefit, and those around us still investigate.

That's my preference. You know, I just always think there's something to be gleaned, you know? And a lot of it is we can know ourselves in many ways. You can often be very surprised by what your dreams will show you. You have an attended to. And a lot of that is simply because the unconscious is what it says. It is unknown to us. It is unconscious. So, and the dream is the key to our unconscious, where all our junk resides. Yeah. Freud said dreams are the royal road to the unconscious and being followed up. And really, you know, delved into it as deeply as he could.

And it showed. Yes. Dreams will tell you all kinds of things. Yes, they'll tell you, you know, your earliest traumas. They'll tell you your biggest hurts. They'll tell you where you're stuck. They'll tell you also, is, you know, what has to change in the world, potentially what systems need to die, what's no longer working in you and out there. Right? They may tell you, where your connection to spirit is. They may tell you where you need to be more open to receiving love, where you need to push yourself more. So truly, are unconscious, is connected to everything, and we all connect through it with each other.

That's why you working on yourself impacts other people. You know that happens. And so yeah, if you have a chance to to take a look at your dreams, I know everybody doesn't have a person to go through their dreams with them, but at least if you can, you know, listen to this, listen to the things we talk about. Listen to the way certain people dream. You know, some of the dreams I've talked about go. I think you start to get a sense, oh, my God, this isn't just one small thing happening at night and you don't pay any attention to it. It's the key to unlocking everything about who you really are, what you're doing here, your purpose and where you're going.

Well, who doesn't want some of that, I mean, there's nothing more valuable than figuring that out. Yeah. So it's amazing. You know, I spend my days. Luckily, I'm so blessed. I spend my days delving into people's unconscious and listening to dreams all day. So I can tell you. Yes, they tell us everything you know. Now, am I going to catch every little thing that is a predictor of what's going to happen? Not always. But I will tell you, a lot of times we can go back and say, oh, you know what? Wow. You did kind of have a sense that that was coming or, you know, maybe we'll focus on something because in your own world, the leaders, the rulers, the presidents, the dictators or whomever in your own life have to change, right?

You have to stop idealizing them. You have to stop treating them as though they are your parents. Right? That's what we do. We make all of our leaders into our parents. And then, like children, we let them do anything they want. And you don't question that at the. Question, you know, you don't question it. So we may interpret that meaning, talk about it on a personal level. Because for that patient, that person, that's what they have to do. But that doesn't mean that isn't also a dream describing what all of us do, that we all go out there and take however we were treated as young children, whatever our imprints were.

So these pieces of negative information we received that dictate how restrict our life is going to be. Am I allowed to be happy? Can I be loved? Can I be successful? Should I stay alive or kill myself? Simple messages right? So depending on what those are, we then bring that and and our relationship to our parents and how we had to just think that our parents were like gods. So we take in the messages from them and then we go live them. Because of course, this is what God told me to do. But we then do that with our leaders that, you know, so then we're moving from the individual to the group.

We do this as a group, and this is why we have people all over the world, politicians who get to do whatever they want. Basically, yes, we vote for them. Yes, we can vote them out. But often, what's the complaint? Corruption. There's corruption. And somebody leaves office and even you, you thought they were a good person, lady, you find it? Oh, corruption. Right. But in the moments too many people, because of their individual histories, their idealization of their parents and their imprints, so they've taken their suffering and made it a good thing so that they can tolerate it.

And something you do not question. Something you don't question. This is just me and how my life goes. But that then lets us not argue and and push back on politicians and demand that they actually serve the people. No, you don't get to enrich yourself. You work for us, right? But we don't all demand it in in a strong enough way. Now, occasionally it rises up. You get a rebellion. But we sort of many of us, most of us are unconsciously programed just to walk the line, just to remain still rather than speak. What we know deep inside of us might be a truth we should profess.

Yes, and hopefully there is that spark inside of people, you know, that still allowed to commune. I don't know if that something about that doesn't feel right to me now. Maybe they don't then act on it. But yeah, we want to say to people, you know, now you have to get that in the right spot because sometimes the imprint, sometimes the messages we got have so distorted who we are. See, if I'm not to have love, then I might really think that any politician who's giving something, not loving, meaning some plan that is not good. But I might think, well, that sounds great because I'm not to have love anyway.

So this completely lines up, right? And I will tell you, this feels right to me now. Okay. You know, and that if this is not a political party specific, this is anywhere, you know, this could be the rules in a company. This could be the way you set up the rules in your family. Right? If you were not to have love, rules that don't support love will probably feel okay. And then we have to go in and sort of surgically explore that enough, see if it's true, and then set about putting it in the right order, getting your feelings in the right line. Sometimes that means, believe it or not, actually resurrecting your feelings.

Because if you are in a situation where early on you're told so many times via an imprint, via the way you're treated, that your feelings do not matter, you're not really to be a human being. And this isn't a matter of a parent literally saying that to you, right? It's it's just what you come to know by their feelings, their reactions, their lack of seeing. You and how much they are allowed to have feelings. Right? You know, oftentimes it's it's yes, it is quiet. This is not people beating you that happens. But most of the time it's quiet. And your mother or father don't know anything else either.

That's what they developed as their comfort zone, this little arena where I don't really have to love or be loved. I if I stay here and I don't break that shell, I'm going to at least be comfortable. Yeah, I might be uncomfortable, but comfortable in that. What I'm not doing is pushing against any of the very early rules that were laid down by my parents about how my mind is allowed to function. Okay, but. That's so representative out in our world. I mean, it's it seems to me that's what we're all well, not all, but so many of us are doing right now is just, you know, not bursting that bubble, not even poking a hole in it.

Right. We're not pushing to change. So that's right. And that's why I want to talk about change. This is this is so important. It's so important in treatment. I think any anybody who's been in treatment or is a therapist knows people come wanting change. Nobody comes to your office because everything is going great. You may wrestle with somebody over changing for a long time, you know. So I'm always looking now. Also, some people come in, they want to please you. So it looks like they've changed. They have learned how to be really smart, really good patients.

Oh yes doctor, everything is now. I did exactly. You know, you said this, I, I do this, you know, you have to. It's part of the reason you try to not give people any advice because it's very easy. There's. Oh, I did exactly what you said. But then they don't ever have to think. They don't have to feel what is right for them. Can you, as someone who's been doing this for so long and see that in a patient pretty easily, or. I mean, sometimes, yes. But some people are really good at it. So what do I do? I can only go to the best tool I know, which is I have to see what you dream.

Because that will show me what's really going on. And this stance that these individuals can develop with you and say, I understand, I get it. That's coming from their unconscious. I'm sorry, the same place that their dreams are coming from. Yes. So you're always I think you want to go to the source right. And and look, let me say a lot of times part of the learning, you know, is you might take something in intellectually meaning, you go, okay, now I get the lay of the land. I'm starting to understand the things we've been talking about. Then the the big piece and where you're where things actually have to change is when they go from the head to the heart.

So when we are moving things from our masculine intellectual side into our feeling receptive, feminine side is where change happens, right? And so we are really looking to first say, okay, you know, can you get these ideas. All right. Good. And now can you feel them now. Oh wait a minute. But feelings are tough because your feelings were to be truncated and shut down. Okay. Then we have to work to release that. Open it up and then see what, who and what you are. Once your feelings come back online, right? Because people think, oh, but I feel, what are you talking about?

Nobody's walking around like a robot. You'd be surprised how the dreams will show that even somebody who looks overflowing with feeling may not be able to utilize feeling, actually, even though it's spilling out, they may not really on a day to day basis, be able to use their feelings to guide how decisions are made. Those feelings that are spilling out may or may not. Also be their own. Often we take in the feelings from people around us, mostly our parents, but certainly siblings and aunts and uncles and others. We use them like they're ours.

We have opinions that seem to show we have strong feelings about things, but often those really are just things we have had to put on, not us also. So there's a lot of digging now. Each time you let go of something that isn't yours, that's a change. But usually because change is fundamentally scary because at the root, every time you change, you're really saying, mom and later, dad, these imprints, these rules that you gave me to live by, I'm going to start to not do that. Now. You get when you receive this set of rules, it is a very traumatic, very painful, completely unconscious.

I want to say that again, completely unconscious method way that happens. So you don't know what's happened, but your unconscious self is very busy going, oh my God, we were just completely invaded and wall it off. Seal it away. Don't ever. That's radioactive. 20 walls of concrete. Don't go near it. We need major protection. Major, major now. And we put it out of sight. We completely repress it. We get rid of it. Now, it doesn't mean because that's. That's a psychological trick. It doesn't mean it's actually gone. It is still, in fact, completely guiding every single thing we do.

Okay. We don't know it because, like, what are you talking about? What imprint? What set of rules? We don't know it. Give us a simple example of what one of those things might be that we wall off. That still rules us. Yes. So if we take a really simple, very, very common imprint, I am not to be loved. I am not lovable. Okay, now, you don't know you've gotten that. You might feel that somewhere deep inside, right? You know, and this doesn't mean it's oh my God, nobody will talk to me when I go out in public. But it just may mean you're carrying this feeling.

You know, some people are going to label that, oh, I might have a little low self-esteem, but there's a root for that. There's a reason you have low self-esteem that didn't just come out of nowhere. So something like that. Now you don't realize, but you've got this imprint that is saying, I'm not I don't really feel lovable. Now guess who you're going to go pick when you choose a partner, right? It doesn't matter. You know, a woman, man, whatever you're choosing, you're going to find somebody who in some way will validate that fundamental feeling in some way.

I've done that, okay. Most people have done that. It's almost like you're you find this individual who's, you know, very much like you obviously in that particular arena, and you invite them into your little bubble and then you still don't pierce that bubble because you don't need to now you. Right, right. And this just confirms. Right? Okay. And it's a tough relationship. But I know this person loves me well. All right. So unconsciously you've got a very distorted definition of love. Sure. Right. You know, it is just you pay attention to me, you call me, you say you want to be with me.

You may be loving ish towards me sometimes, but often I'm. I'm so frustrated. I'm so disappointed. Right. So the imprint that walled off piece, that message of I am not to be loved is dictating who you've picked and and how you feel about it, and that you hold it in place that you don't go, you know, this this person is really just not so great. And I think actually I've hit my limit on this and nothings, yes, it may happen down the line, but but it takes a while and you're wrestling with it. Oh it's so you know when people say, oh my God, my friends broke up ten times and they keep getting back together and we all can see this is not a great relationship, but it suits my imprint and I will not change.

I will not let that go because that means I have to know. I have to push against what's hiding in that concrete room, and that it almost killed me the first time it came around. I have a walled it off. If I go back to touch that again, I might die. Yeah, no thank you. I can't take that. So now you know why change is scary. Yeah, I might die. That's. There's nothing scarier. That's part of this is sitting at the root of why we have all these defenses. You know, they're all designed to hold that toxic bomb in place. So we're scared, so we don't want to change.

All right, so now we've got an entire world population that is afraid to change. Now, the other piece you might do the other way, this controls you without you knowing it is if somebody loving does come along, you might say, I'm a. Yes. Oh, looks really good on paper, but, so clingy, calls me so much. Wanted to send me flowers. Just it's too much. It's just too much. You know, I need that one. Who says they're going to call and doesn't, and then I wait all night, and it's so exciting because maybe they're not going to call. Oh, maybe they don't love me.

Maybe they do. Right? You know, you can see how everything gets turned around. Right now. I am no longer attracted to somebody who might give me love. And in fact, I will. You know, I might push that person away. If I'm with somebody, I may provoke fights and arguments because I think I'm just, you know, I'm so irritated. So this. But maybe what I'm really saying is, hey, you know, you were too kind to me this week. I better really throw a wrench in this. Let's get some good fighting going. Yeah, right. Because I don't know what to do with that other stuff.

It's awful. Yeah, right. It is. So you can see what it does. What? It scrambled everything all right now, how are you clear thinking if we've got a piece hidden that you don't know about, that is scrambling how you feel and how you go out in the world. And this is a problem. And we're missing out on so much. And we're missing out on so much love. On so much love. Because most of the time, these imprints keep us in a negative place. You know anything good. Doctor Bill and I had some conversations. I think originally he said no, an imprint is completely negative all the time.

There's. That's it. Later he changed his mind. There are some, you know, there are good things, but they don't give us trouble. So it isn't that we don't interpret good things. We celebrate good things. You know, any time there is a change, I think that's to be celebrated. Pat yourself on the back because that means you were incredibly brave. Whatever little big change, you have to have a bunch of little change until you get to something big. So celebrate it. Rejoice, because that means a part of you was brave enough to go. You know, I, I, I can tell this isn't serving me, and I'm going to do whatever I can to shift.

Okay? Imprint put on notice. You don't get to rule everything. I recall in my conversations with Bernard, when we were starting to talk about my parents, who I, you know, thought were the most fabulous parents a person could have. And, you know, there's nothing but love. And and they did some wonderful things. He he let me sit with this and talk about this. And when he finally got me to a place where I could think about that, well, what if what I say they are isn't the real picture? I allowed myself to say that that was already huge. What if what I've believed for five decades is not my truth?

I mean, that's a big deal. That's a big deal. And then once I honored that statement, I began to see things differently. And it's not that all of a sudden I put my parents in a bad light. Like, I have to dislike these people or hate them. It wasn't that for me. It was more like, this is the reality of the situation and this is what you have to deal with. What are you going to do now? Now that you know this door has opened and it's a risk, am I going to go through that door? I have no idea what's going to happen to me if I give away some of what I have thought is important for me to carry in this life, right?

So you're just saying, oh, I let the truth sneak in. I let it come in just a little bit, and that starts to make a space and that will shift who you are. Yeah. So just as you were saying, just a little bit felt very worthy even even for me to say to myself. You know, just step away from what you think is reality and then also write about that same time. I started to think about that in terms of relationships that I have with other people in the world and what I listen to in the world. And why do I have to assume everywhere that what I'm hearing is the be all end all right?

Yeah. You start to question, get curious. I mean, some of what that does is really allows your mind to become curious. You get the space to reassess things. And I think that's a really important idea. You know, again, it doesn't mean where oh, that's it. You know, people worry, well, you want me to hate my parents, hate your parents or don't hate your parents? That's entirely up to you. What I want you to see is how you actually feel. Right? And you had two human beings as parents, so chances are they weren't perfect. Now, what we have to see is, are the parents inside of you strong enough to tolerate you?

I should say flexible enough to tolerate you looking at what kind of emotional things went on in the family as you were growing up. So by that, do you mean that just within yourself, without having a conversation with your parents, you challenge the imprint? Yes. Fundamentally you're challenging the imprint, but this is just even, let's say, a first step where you are starting to see. Right. You had there was enough flexibility inside some way. They were just flexible enough that they led a new idea in then. Then we have to see all right, how much can it trickle down?

How much space is it allowed? Are you allowed to start, as you said. Right. Oh, and then I maybe I get curious about this. Maybe I can get curious about that. Maybe suddenly everything is up for questioning. Right? Because what you perceived to be reality was not right. So where else have you gone? Sort of astray. Yeah. Where else did I idealize or have to make perfect. Right. Well my, the people around me whose parents are perfect, nobody's you know what. Even if they were doing their best and completely aware and knew about the unconscious, I mean guess what.

They're still human beings and somewhere they're going to hurt you right. And unintentionally high clearance. That's right. You know, this is part of being a human being. So it isn't so. And then you have to be perfect. No, it's really just saying you just want to be aware. You want to be able to to be open minded enough to question, to look, to see and to know what you feel, the truth of what you feel and the truth of how it really went get. You had to get your mind right. If you don't, everything will be skewed. So we're talking about change kind of in a smidgen of a roundabout way.

If we were to start with the individual and say, what is the path to making a first step toward change, what what would we be doing? We'd be looking at our dreams and we'd be taking a look. And if somebody is not helping you do that, then you're sitting there looking at them and sort of saying, what's this feeling in the dream? People like, oh my God, I had a nightmare. Oh my God, I was being chased, I was drowning, I was locked in the closet. I was frozen as a statue for 20 years. All kinds of things that most of the time are telling us something about our emotional state.

You know, you didn't make that up out of nowhere. There's a connection between you and the affect, the feeling in the dream, and we want to chase that down a bit. Get curious. All right. Well, that was an interesting dream. People go, I don't know, there's it makes no sense. So I better you know, that's it. But it doesn't have to make logical sense. It has to make emotional sense. And really every dream is, is showing you something inside your unconscious. I mean, it could be something that you just even wake up and go, well, that was about the stupidest thing I ever thought of.

Where let's say you're trying to open a box of mints and you can't find the corner to start from, and that's the whole dream. Wouldn't you just forget that? Well, not if you're a person who works with dreams because you say what? Right? You're telling me something. What can I not get open? Should be simple. This should be very easy. I'm not allowed to open it. And there's something good inside. Potentially, we think. Right. See, you know, if one likes mints. Okay. So that it could be that mom's favorite thing was a mint. Or it could be something about the coldness.

They're cool. Right? Mints are typically cooling, you know. So these these are at least the questions that start coming with they cover up bad breath. Right. Are they to cover something up I mean, you know right. We have all kinds of questions. You have to see what comes to the person's mind. So each of us, if we. That's not a dream I had, I just made it up. But if that were a dream and you wrote it down, and as an individual, I just asked myself all the questions you just asked, some of them would resonate. I'd be like, that's right. My mom love mint or dark chocolate over those mint, whatever it is.

And there would be some things that you would, you would. You might. Miss. See, you know maybe this isn't just nothing right. My mind isn't wasting time. Minds don't waste time. They're efficient. They're going to give you a message. Now how ready, how free you are to hear the message may tell us how disguised the dream has to be, right? Yes. You know, people say, well, what if it wants to tell me about my mom being cold? Or, you know, that she was unable, you know, couldn't you couldn't open my mother up. I'll just go along with your your example.

Right? I couldn't get in. I could not get in. Right. Okay. We're just looking to see now, why might you have had the dream? What's come up recently? Does that resonate with you? Why would you need to know that? Why would you? You know what just happened? Where the idea that something was really hard to access is now in my dream. Even if you know. Right, even if we don't get to winter over there. Mints, maybe. But maybe it's just. Something was hard to access. What was it? Yeah. Okay. I have two questions before I forget them. First of all, I just threw that out there.

Did I really just throw that out there? Well, you have to tell me. I mean, do we just throw things out or does everything come from something? Well, I think it all comes from something. Yeah. I mean, I don't think you have to live your life completely freaked out. Like, oh, I better not say anything because I'm just going to read my mind. But, yeah, we can only look. We can really only be everything that's inside of us. Right? There's nothing else. There's nothing else for each of us as individuals. That's right. And look, that I mean, I'm jumping back and forth between the individual and the world, but this is a really important piece for the world.

We can only be who we are inside. So if we are complaining about the systems of government, we have, then the place we have to change first is not the government system change who you are inside you? Then you will create a good government because you are now. You are the change person. Yes, you are a person who can now be ruled by love, open to love and give love and create systems of government and laws from love. And be brave enough to speak from love. Although then that's not even bravery, it's just kind of organic. Yes, that's right, you can't not do it.

The more in touch with it you are. But so that's a really important piece. And I'd stop there because it makes me think of that, that if we're really going to, you know, again, I've said it before, but if you want to change the world, do not start out there in, in, in. Everybody go inside because we can only make what we are inside. You might imagine something big, but you know, it's. And what you were saying before. Oh now. Right. What system of government could I make if my parents had to be perfect in my mind? Well, you might make one. But if there's a problem, you're not going to be allowed to see it.

You're going to have to go along with it because parents are perfect. So you had to make a system where the leaders are perfect. Yes. If you can now start to question, you might go, well, it wasn't all perfect. You know, it wasn't all perfect. All right, well, that might shift. Now, what you can create, what you can envision, what you can imagine. And I feel a bit like we have a society now who is just waiting for somebody else, you know, to speak their truth from their place of love. And once enough people do that, I'll be braver and be able to speak to.

But to your point, if we're all understanding that as individuals, we're needing to get to that base place of love, then we're going to be those people speaking up for what we know is right based on a loving world. The more people can be in touch with love, real love, not hurting anybody, not saying I love you and then doing crazy things to the person. Not saying this is for the good of the people, but writing a bill that takes away rights or funding and if everything is focused on money, money, money, that's never going to be the right system.

You know, we've gotten way off track. Money money money money money power power power. Okay, well, that doesn't do human beings any good. Fundamentally, that doesn't help us evolve and grow and change. That just lets us stay in the same thing, will shift the money to you, shift the power to you, will fight you and kill you to get it back. We'll move it over there. We'll do all these things. No change, no. We do better. And nobody feels better. And. And we've got so much money. And yet we've got people, you know, suffering. Right? You know, they don't have enough.

So how is that loving doesn't work and it won't work. And what it will is it won't hold. That doesn't hold together. That eventually crumbles and falls apart. But back to your question. Do we say things that come from nowhere? No. It all comes from who we are inside. And that's why the we've gone everywhere else. We've gone to space. They want to go live on Mars. You know you want it out, out, out. Okay, but how about the final frontier is really the within the deep. Deep within its own vast universe. Enormously vast. I mean, I think vast beyond anybody's wildest imagination.

Everything's in there. So we want to change. Now, if you're working with somebody, what does it look like when they start to change? Obviously, change is incremental. We get little pieces as we go. So you will start to see things like the house I grew up in and I went back and all of a sudden in people's dreams. So they'll tell me, oh, in my dream, I flew back home, I drove out, you know, the house is way out in the country. And I look, oh, all of a sudden I noticed construction workers were pulling it down, beam by beam. That's right. The treatment is now pulling apart the old foundational pieces of your mind, piece by piece.

But you will show that in the dream. So that tells me I don't just have to say my patient is a good patient and saying, oh, yeah, you know, it's better at home with my husband now, and I have to go, well, I'm not there to listen. Maybe. Right, but now I can see it because your dream tells me something's happening. And I have seen and I think most people who work this way know you have to see it in the dream before you will see it in the outside world, in the patient. So the the patient has to have a new idea, a new feeling that grows deep in the unconscious space.

It has to get worked out there. Then it emerges up to the conscious, and the person can do it with the family or out in the world, and the life can get better, let's say, not be as difficult. Sometimes you see it for a long time in the unconscious, and you're sitting there going, wow, this person's all right. Progress is kind of where is it? Where is it? Right. And then you have to look and see what where's the internal saboteur. Right. Or the person's enormous fear of changing. And why aren't they letting this new self be seen. Right. What are they afraid of?

So, you know, change is a very interesting thing in treatment because you have to be very open to looking, you know, you're listening to to people tell you what they their complaints, what isn't going right. And then you have to see, after you've been working for a while. All right. Well what's happening? What does the knowledge go in. Does the infer can you take the information. And you know, so you'll see the house getting pulled down all right then I know. All right. We're on to something. Something's happening. Okay. But for that individual going home to that comfortable place and getting there and seeing this happening is devastating.

Perhaps. Well, perhaps, you know, I think that that's when you have to enlist the patient in giving you their observations, feelings and associations to the dream. How did it feel when you arrived? Now one patient might say, oh my God, I started crying because I love this place. And somebody else would say, oh, good riddance. That thing was a termite ridden torture chamber. I'm glad it's coming down. Very different. Right? Relationship to it. But that's why you don't ever interpret a dream in a vacuum. I can't tell you what that dream means. Until I hear something from the patient.

I can guess, but I need to know. People will also dream about adding rooms onto homes, you know, or buildings or I live here and I suddenly this happens a lot. And I think it speaks to what you were talking about. A new idea occurs. All of a sudden they'll say, I lived in this apartment for 20 years, and all of a sudden there was a door I never knew was there. And I opened it and there was another room. Most of the time, what that is telling you is the mind is starting to expand. Okay. So that tells me, oh, good. I know something's happening unconsciously.

That might just be so fascinating for you. You know, just selfishly speaking that to to see these happening for other it's actually not selfish, but just to say, oh, it works. The whole thing works. It's gratifying. You're really happy, you know? Yeah. You try not to do the end zone dance. Yeah. Sometimes you do. Yeah, I there are times, especially if somebody has really been working and struggling with something and, you know, and you just give clap because because you see it and you feel it, you know, right there something changed. And when you see what it takes to get something to really change individually and globally, oh my God.

Right. We do. You just celebrate it. So yeah that's a that's a really nice thing. And hopefully your patient is celebrating themselves right. You know that you're not the only one. So I mean obviously if if they're not you've got other work to do to, to figure out why. Not sure because maybe opening that door and there's another room is I didn't want to I didn't want a door. I don't I don't want to go in there. Right. You have to see I mean, usually you don't get that unless you've done enough work that you're ready to have a door there. I see, but have a look again.

You have to go in open. You have to go in. Not assuming that what you think about a symbol is the way your what you feel about something is the way the patient's going to feel about it. Yes, you always have to, you know, and part of it, that's why I can't stand up and clap and cheer right away. I've got to sit there and give somebody space to feel whatever the person's going to feel. Because maybe we're not cheering today. So the so those symbols in our dreams are unique to each of us. Yes. We can't assume that that door is the same for everyone.

It's not like, oh, there's the catalog and this door always. Mean, right? I mean, typically, yes, a door opening on to something, I mean, makes sense. I think we'd all sort of get that imagery. Might you not feel excited about it in any given moment? Sure. You know, as you said, oh, am I going to pop that balloon? Am I really going to do it? Well, you may do it. And feel terribly guilty. Oh, I opened the door, but my sisters and brothers don't. They couldn't do it. And one died of an overdose. And, you know, and like, oh, then, you know, so there's a bittersweet piece in that that you may have to attend to.

Now, the here's an interesting symbol is sometimes they just paint the whole house. Hum. Right. So what do we do with that? Because it is surface might mean change or it might mean I paint it over something or whitewash the whole place and all the feelings, and. That it's. Something I might. But you have to weigh it, you know. And again, this is, this is when you have to take all of these little variables. How what mood is the person and what have they been dreaming about? What's happening. Because sometimes we don't know what that means or which way the person is going to go with it.

Just upon first examination. The other piece that happens, and I have a dream I'll share today about that is sometimes change is happening and big change might be happening. And because we are still human beings and we are still terrified of what the first contact with the imprint felt like, that it felt so awful to us, unconsciously, unbeknownst to anyone that was going on, that we we don't want anything that gives us a hint of being near it. I'll tell you this dream. So the patient has been working in treatment for quite a while and is has made a lot of changes, I think.

And and not just changes that the, the person you know that the therapist is looking at it and jumping up and down because we do often see things and we go, okay, we know down the line that's going to show. And so you're really excited even if the person isn't there yet. And that could take three weeks or three months or who knows what. Right. But this is is objectively this person felt yes, this has changed who I am. So this person was far left along in treatment and had seen the changes, lived them, appreciated them, had incorporated them into their being, so to speak.

So this is not a person who had shied away from changing. So here's a dream. I met a place that seems to be run by the woman who ran the ceramics studio where I used to work. It's like a hospital, and suddenly I hear very strange noises coming from the drain. In one of the rooms. The drain starts to back up with water and sewage. I run into the next room to some friends and the dirty water starts to rise. They don't seem alarmed, it only goes up about an inch, but that's enough to get on some of my things. I tried to tell people so they could bring their stuff up onto the beds, but it happened fast and I didn't have time to get everything off the floor.

Then whatever caused this to happen is fixed and the water recedes and I start trying to figure out how to wash all my stuff. There seem to be parts of this building where you're on high ground and sleep, and then there are lower levels as well that are almost like channels. I realized that the water must do this periodically. Okay, so I'm listening to my patient, and the patient says, okay, the the woman who ran the ceramic studio is kind of got like an earth mother vibe. So that's one association. The next is to the hospital reminded me of a foreign place, maybe in the Middle East or Spain, but it was clean and comfortable and there were all kinds of people staying there and many coming and going.

People were socializing, playing games, and generally the mood was happy. Now, if you do this long enough, you're also listening, going, okay, you're staying at a hostel. Right. Interesting word. So you have to think right? Maybe. Does that have a meaning? Is there a feeling that's that's being talked about even though everything is happy? You don't know. But your question it right before the water came, there was a banging noise as the water was starting to flow, but it was really rattling the pipes and it scared me. And I started to run around and warn people and tell people to move their stuff.

As soon as I noticed the water. I suppose at the end of it all it was not a huge problem. But the sound really scared me as I'm listening to it. One of the things that stood out was that. But this place seemed to be a place where there was a it was bustling. There was a lot of life happening here. People were coming and going and talking and all right, so I'm trying to square this with what is happening now. The day before this stream, the patient also had a dream that was sort of saying the game was up, basically, that all of the stuff that the family had been doing and everything had been sort of aired and brought into the light.

And it was it was done. Game was over. And you get a dream like this, or what do you do? So as I'm listening to the dream, basically what became clear as the person talked and I saw the person's emotional state and how they responded and what they were giving me, that this was really a dream about coming to life. But now we've got the noises of life and those noises of life, a free life. So reminded the person of the noises of getting the imprint that it terrified the person. And all of a sudden this became a scary dream coming to life. Finally, this is what we are working for.

This person is really, you know, saying, I am ready to be my fullest self. And even there, the imprint and the terror around it is so strong. It works its way into the dream and there's a banging. This banging must be the imprint. But there's no evidence that that's really where the person is psychologically. So that's why you're always you can't take a dream out of context. It's always got to be connected to the person where the person is, what the person says and what the person's feeling. And the other dreams surrounding this were. Before and the other dreams surrounding this.

Right. You go, okay, the game is up. If the game is over what are you going to do. Yeah. What's next. What's next. Life. So then when you and this patient walked through this dream. Yes, they're far enough along to understand the fear and the imprint. Absolutely. The backstop to this. Far enough along and happy relieved to say, oh, good, I thought I was backsliding. Oh, good. I thought I was like, you know, the game is over and I have to bring all the sewage water back and I'm not allowed to change. You know, this was simply a person who did change.

And yet still, you know, this this is why I go back to because change, even when you've done it, it doesn't mean you may not push through some very scary feelings. You may even, well, my God, am I going to die? I think I'm going to die. No, you're changing. That's a good thing. So sometimes you have to help patients with that too. In that dream where the patient is trying to warn these other people that are making the space busy about the sewage, and they're not really caring as much as she is. Right. You would be the internal saboteur did a good job here because it's very easy to make an interpretation that says, well, all right, you're back with your family.

You were trying to sound the alarm. Your family wasn't listening. They were going on playing their games and doing things and and settle down. Yeah. And I don't think anybody would argue with that interpretation if you didn't know where the patient was in their mind, in their own unconscious and the work the patient had done and the dream from the day before, you could make that dream and nobody would argue, but it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be right. This was a reemergence into life, a fuller emergence that just carried the residue of getting the imprint.

Just to show you how scary getting that imprint is, and why it has shut down change for all of us in our own lives and as a group. So as an individual with dreams aplenty and without someone like you, we can give validity to our dreams. You better. Yeah. I mean, I. Think act as if for the. Moment. The big idea here is. Your dreams. Matter. They are telling you important things. No matter how trivial you think they are, they are important. We may not always get them. I don't get every dream. Sometimes I have dreams. I have what? Where? What are you trying to say here?

Sometimes my patients primary dreams. What are you trying to say here? They're not. You know, sometimes they are hard to penetrate. And I might have to come back to them. Or I get a piece. And the resistance is so strong, you know, you're not. You're not supposed to be able to understand it. And you have to free up some other things in subsequent sessions, and you can. Oh, well, all right. Look at that. Now I can see what's emerging, you know. So they're tough. I don't expect people at home without help to get every single thing going on. I think this is just to say, if you had any doubts, they do have meaning.

And and it is really our task to figure out what they're talking about and get busy. People need to get busy working this intimately with their own unconscious minds. This should be with everybody. If you have the time and the space and you sleep. If you sleep, you dream. And if you can even catch, they go. But I only caught a snippet. Great catch it. Write it down because it's elusive. It will crawl away from you so. Fast, so fast. And then just live with it a little because you're living with yourself. This is from you. You made this. This is.

From no other. Place. An alien didn't implant this in you. You made this for good reason. And as you start to think about these dreams, or maybe write them down, whatever the process might be that allows you to retain them, you can start to think about it in dreams, sort of sequentially, or think about today's dream and think about, let me remind myself what I was dreaming last Friday and Saturday. What what did I ultimately come away feeling? What was the thing in that dream? After I asked myself some questions about what I saw, what resonated, and what did I feel?

What else have I felt along the way since then? Is it all the same kind of feeling packaged in different scenarios? Am I feeling things differently now because I felt that thing then and and I think you can really start to see some paths and perhaps present yourself with some little clearings. Yeah. Places to investigate further. Right. So I'm having this feeling in my waking life, I didn't know I ever felt like this, but this thing in my dream made me think about the way I walked through the flowers, which made me think about why I was walking through the flowers and what kind of weird thing was I know, whatever it is.

But yeah, then you you can start to investigate where those feelings come. From, right? You're starting to pay attention to feeling right. You're starting to just get acquainted with, you know, and and not just these big feelings. Oh, I got so angry when that person said that. I mean, sure, that's in there, but. Right. But there's always feelings, you know? And if there aren't. All right. That's interesting too. You know, some people say, well, I just feel numb. Okay. Well, that's intriguing to me. You know why? What? Why might someone imagine that that's become the state of being probably all kinds of good reasons.

So whatever it is. Right. We're just saying you're starting to say, oh, the task is to now start to really connect to myself, figure out who I am, who am I given my history, where I was born, who raised me, what happened in my family, you know, and and if one can also think, oh, and I got an imprint. I got an imprinting the way geese are imprinted by their mothers that says, follow me, do it my way, and you'll learn to fly. Well, and. We all know that's science. That's right. And they need to do that. That's how the next generation learns. We're really no different.

It's just that what comes with ours is this piece. You get a lot of good things that say, here's how you walk and talk and present yourself to the world, but you also got a big hot ball of toxic material on processed, really intolerable parts that were too painful in your mother that she unknowingly, unknowingly, unintentionally passed to her offspring. And you took it because mommy gave and we take. This is, of course, survival, right? I mean, at the base, it all comes back to survival. What do you have to do to live? Well, do you take this in?

But then you've got to do mental gymnastics to tolerate it so it doesn't blow your mind apart. And live your life. You wrap it up real quickly and hide it. That doesn't stop it from giving signals about all of the things contained in it. That's why you say to yourself as an adult, yeah. Yeah. And some people will say truthfully, they'll come out and say, listen, my past was just too hard. I don't want to go there. I don't want to open it up. I have great respect for that. Then don't only do what you want to do. That's okay. You know, again, maybe everybody isn't going to do that.

Doesn't have the luxury, doesn't want to do that. That's okay. Enough people who can if they do it, you lift everybody. And what we're really trying to do is clear out enough of the toxins, relax the restrictions enough that people are able to love each other and receive love from each other. Both very simple, really big ideas that are not happening enough in the world. A lot of people think they know how to love. I will tell you, when you start looking at dreams and seeing how they interact with each other, often they don't. They don't treat each other nicely.

They think they do and they don't. Or so much toxin was in there that even in their best efforts because yeah, there's a lot of good people out there, you know, and they're working hard. They're trying to be good citizens in the world and, and loving family members. And they don't realize that stuff just slips out, you know? And it doesn't even mean somebody will be passive aggressive or something even that much. It just unconsciously gets delivered when you don't mean for it to get delivered. And so that's why we have to go in. No, we have it and start disarming it and pulling it away so we can truly, truly come from love and take in love.

And that's how we change ourselves. Change your cities, change your countries, change the world. If we can all have a lot more love in our hearts and work from feeling not just money, money, logic, logic. Then you can actually bring about systems of of government that work for the people, work for the people. So the people are not saying, well, it works for you because you've got money. But I'm social, you know, I'm out of love. Nobody's happy and nobody's happy right now. People aren't happy for a whole lot of reasons, but but that's one of them, right?

I'm unhappy because I took my imprint and turned it into a government, and now I live under it. Yeah, well, that's an awful way to go. Hey, humans, that's an awful way to go. No wonder everybody is in some way unhappy, you know? And even if you're not unhappy, look at your neighbors, you know? And in this lifetime, maybe you're in the lucky group. Guess what? The next lifetime, you might be in the unlucky group. So you know, none of us, we're all shifting and moving and in this lifetime or the next, if one is allowed to, you know, one believes in that, you know, you've come here to learn something.

So you this isn't one and done. And I got in the lucky group so I don't have to think about anybody else's problems and let me move along. Well, I mean, that's a nice fantasy, but it isn't how it works. There's another generation coming after you. Well, there's also another generation coming after you, you know, and if you you only care about yourself and you're safe. Well, what about your kids and their kids and their kids? So yeah. Okay. You had clean drinking water and clean air to breathe. Should we let everybody that pollute the earth to the point where we don't and children's children have nothing had it?

That's not loving. No. And who wants their kids to turn around and say, gee, thanks a lot, Mom and Dad. Right. Thanks for the big pile of steaming junk you left me. What do you want me to do with it? But. But I have to do something with it, like an imprint, or I'll die. So, you know, these are big things. If we can get everybody to be more loving, more loving, you know? And even if. If you can't get fully into your unconscious, you can at least start thinking that. I'm not saying be a doormat or a martyr. Be loving, think about love. Try to come from a loving, compassionate place and understand that you don't know everybody's story.

You don't know what happened this morning on the way to work. You know that we can all have a lot more grace for our ourselves and other people around us, and we can start to love ourselves, treat ourselves well. And that grace that you allow yourself to have give to yourself, then allows you to have grace for others who have, who have different opinions. And you. That's right, that's right. Different ways of living, different everything. Speak different languages, right? In every way. Okay. But we can be loving and you can't destroy each other.

We have to come from love. You don't run around shooting each other. Well and coming from love. What sort of not allow you to do that? It just wouldn't be in your. You don't. Right? Or you could say to yourself, gee, that impulse is there. But I it doesn't get to rule the day. Something else gets to rule the day. Let me go to my heart and see what I feel. Let's see where we can work this out. So, you know, I don't want to be naive. Obviously there are there are all kinds of things in the world. But I think if we don't start doing this, then I guarantee there's going to be bloodshed.

There's going to be more and more bombs and wars and every government will come in and get overthrown and empires will fall because the system isn't built on the right thing. The system is built on power and money and riches, and it is not built on love. And until it's built on love, it is not the right system. It isn't. And again, nobody, even the people who are never satisfied with the amount of money or power they have, are not happy. They're not. But it's not the thing that is bringing joy to anybody. Right? If if it work, they would all be amazingly happy people.

They would, and we'd probably all be in the same boat with them because they would be giving and. It would be great. Right? You know, I mean, it may be that once people switch over to using love, thinking about love, using their feelings, they more feminine. You know, make the shift to a feminine paradigm that, you know, I don't know. Will money exist? I'm not sure. I mean, you know, and I say that right? Wait, what do you mean? Imagine things like that, you know, where everything you've known and the way we've always done things just cease to be the way it's done.

Because they don't serve the goal. And the goal is to be loving towards each other. Which is the way we can lift each other up, even those who are not yet prepared to do that individually. Right? Right. But we get enough people. You get critical mass. Yeah. You lift everybody up. So let's do that. Okay. Loren. Thank you, thank you. We could talk again I mean again now. Well, we will talk again, but we could talk now for hours. Of course I know, but there's a little close to your family. Thank you. But it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for letting me talk about these things.

As you can tell, I, you know, I'm very passionate about this. It is a pleasure. And I always learn from you. Always. Thanks a million. Thank you all for listening and watching. And please continue to watch. It's super important. We really want all of us to be operating from our best loving selves. Follow us, ask us questions and join us next time.