Transcription
Guys, you're very welcome. David here again, and we're talking in this video about something I'm referring to as ego algorithms. So, this is going to show steps that predictably come about when we are carrying old trauma. The ego is effectively just a mindset we occupy as a result of having gone through trauma at some point in the past. And the thing is, once we're in that egoic mind, the ego is, it's a device, it's lifeless, it's like a computer program, and it has quite predictable patterns that it follows. And this is really useful because we can actually look at any situation, drama, problem that we're involved with in life, and if we know what that algorithm is, we can find out what point am I at in this? How, how enmeshed in this am I right now? And what is my way out of this? It's almost like we can reverse our way out of that mindset back into the place where healing actually takes place.
So, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to show you examples of this and how it operates. And the first thing I'm going to show you right now is this. This is the sort of, you could call it five levels upon which or in which trauma manifests itself. Now, what we experience in daily life with our problems and our dramas and our, you know, our issues and all these things, problems with people, conflict, that's in the perceptual level, and it's the outermost level. This is where the trauma manifests itself in relationships and things of that sort, and we can often find ourselves kind of stuck in that place.
And then, you know, you can see there that the, the emotional level is a little bit deeper. It goes underneath that, which is why we're always looking for the emotions underneath the the dramas or the stories that we're, we're looking at. So that's a little bit deeper. But, you know, people will often say things like, "Just feel your feelings." And that's true, kind of, but it's not really as simple as that. Because the truth is that underneath the level of emotion, there are the thoughts we're experiencing, and those thoughts are the thing that will influence the emotions and therefore our perceptions. So I don't know if you knew that, but the, the level of thought is actually more causal than emotions. Emotions are a symptom of the the thoughts we're, we're holding. So that's a deeper level still.
And what is it that determines the thoughts that we're having on a day-to-day basis? Well, that's the mindset that we're in. And as a result of trauma, we will find ourselves in this, this computer-like, lifeless program called the ego, which really seems to give us options, but it's a mindset we want to get out of, and we want to find an alternative mindset to that. And at the deepest level, there is the goal. Now, when we experience trauma, the goal becomes, "I have to get rid of the self that has been rejected, and I have to create something else that's going to be more appropriate or more acceptable to other people or the tribe," we could say. And ultimately, when we're healing from this, we have to come to terms with the fact that that doesn't work, and it's all going to be about accepting the personality that I was born with. And some people have a problem hearing that. "Drinking really? My personality has to be accepted? My problematic, broken, not good enough personality?" That is the trauma speaking.
So, what you ultimately find at the end of this, at the deepest level, when you can get down to that goal, or what is it you want? I want to heal. I want to integrate. I want to, I want to start embodying the personality I came here with. I don't want to live out of a false personality or a false self any longer. Okay. So we have our goal primarily, that will determine the mindset we find ourselves in. Do I want self-acceptance and self-expression? Or do I want to hide away this stuff that I feel about myself and construct a false self that will be acceptable? That will lead to the the thoughts we're going to experience, the emotions, and then the perceptions. So these are the levels.
Okay, so that's kind of the theory behind this. It's useful to know that, but now we're going to look at what does this look like on a practical level, in the level of perception, okay? In our day-to-day life, how can we start to apply this? And there actually, because we can know what the sequence is of the trauma, it's almost like an algorithm, we can start to identify what is the path back to healing? How do I get out of the dramas and the stories and back to what's actually going to make a difference?
So, what I'm going to show you here is this. This is the algorithm. This is the ego algorithm. This is the, the algorithm that comes from being in a mind feeling that it's separate and not good enough. So this is what it looks like. Well, first of all, the story. This is what the, the story is before I show you the algorithm. So this is an example of one of the, the stories that a person might be caught up in, right? So this story says, "All I've ever wanted in life was to be loved, and I've had so many disappointments in my life and failed relationships. I don't know why it's been so hard for me. People seem to use my good nature against me and take advantage. A year ago, I met a woman and things were going great. However, recently she has started to become more distant. She doesn't communicate openly about what she wants, and when I bring it up, she gets vague. Why? I can't meet someone who will be honest and upfront makes me so frustrated."
So, what we're going to look at now is the, this is the story that this person is caught up in, and you can see that there's a lot of emotions around that, understandably so. But what does the algorithm look like? This is what the algorithm looks like. It's always the same. We can see there in the, the bottom left, that that is a mind that is carrying some kind of unhealed trauma. Okay? Now, we're talking about relationships here. First of all, before I go any further, I'm not one of these therapists that says you have to heal all your trauma before you should be in a relationship. I think that that's, that's a little bit simplistic. And another thing is, there can be a lot of value from being in a relationship. There's no such thing as a wasted relationship if you can learn from it.
So, in the bottom corner, we have the mind that is holding on to trauma. And the first thing we'll notice is that there are four sort of predictable steps that will come about as a result of being and maintaining and keeping that mind place, that that trauma in place without resolving it. Okay? So the first one is, we have Concepts, then we have Strategies, we have Outcomes, and the fourth one there is, we will find ourselves in some kind of a Story, like the one we just described. Okay? So the most important thing to realize here is, is when we're discussing this, this is all with the assumption that the person has been carrying in trauma and is in a mindset to deal with the the trauma, not to heal the trauma, to live with and manage somehow, but while carrying the trauma.
So, with that being said, the first thing you will notice there is, with the trauma, the person picks up in step one, they pick up some kind of a concept. And it could be a concept like love. Now, we're told to go, that that love is this great thing. Everybody's doing it, everybody's singing about it, all the movies are about it, so must be this great thing. So the idea is, well, love, okay, that's something that I'm going to hold as important. Now, we come up with some kind of a strategy around that. And typically, what the strategy will be there, step two, is that, well, I'm going to go and seek to find love. Now, next, we're going to have some kind of an outcome that will come from the strategy. And the outcome, here's the thing with the outcome, the outcome will always be, always, that you will fail to find, we will fail to find the love that we're seeking in some form. There'll be some snag, there'll be some problem with it eventually, right? And that is not by just being unlucky or just happen to be that way. This is the algorithm. This is the way it's set up. It's supposed to happen like this, believe it or not, right? That's what we need to realize.
So, the outcome will always be some kind of a, "I'm seeking to find something or to get something or to improve something, something," but it doesn't work. Okay? And as we'll see soon, there's a reason why it doesn't work. Okay? So there will be some kind of an outcome from this seeking. And finally, we'll find ourselves in some kind of a story about this, this outcome. And the story is effectively the thoughts that we're having about the outcome. So we just looked at the story there. And this story could be, well, "He, she needs to change, or is heartless, or is at fault." And, well, notice first of all, what we have from this story is, we have now somebody in the story is going to be a victimizer, somebody's going to be the bad guy. Now, in this story, it was the other person, but it can often be yourself, ourselves. In this, it doesn't really matter, but somebody has to be the bad guy. It can be guilt about somebody else, or some, it can be your own guilt, but we, we'll always have that in the story, in the conflict or a drama of some kind.
So, we have a victimizer. If we have a victimizer or a bad guy, we need a victim, and we need a good guy. So this could be in the outcome, because of this, if we look at number three there, in this, this outcome, the failure to find the love will make us feel victimized, victimized by the world, victimized by our circumstances. We'll feel an awful lot of lack in that. And again, now we have the victim to our victimizer. There will always be one or the other. Sorry, there'll always be both. You can be, you can be both of them at times, but quite often in relationships, someone's going to be the good guy, someone's going to be the bad guy. This is how it's going to play out. Remember, this is all coming from a traumatized mind, a split mind that sees everything in terms of not appropriate, that's appropriate, that's good, that's bad, that's right, wrong, um, etc., etc. The split, the trauma causes a split in the psyche that everything is, is categorized in these terms. So if there's a victim, there has to be a victimizer. If there's a good guy, there has to be a bad guy.
So, so if we look down now, this is where it gets really interesting. The first two steps in this algorithm are super important. We saw there in strategy, in our strategy, that well, our, our primary strategy here was to seek and find love. But the thing is, remember the split mind comes in two counterparts, the two opposites. If we're seeking for it consciously, unconsciously, what we're actually trying to do is get rid of something. So, can you, can you guess what we're trying to get rid of every time we, with, with trauma, we're holding a concept like love? What are we actually trying to get rid of with that? The answer to this is that with a concept like love, conventional love, we're trying to get rid of guilt. This is guilt. Another term for that that I often use is the defective story I'm carrying about myself. There's something wrong with me. So this is the secret strategy with love, conventional. Assuming that we're traumatized or we're carrying some kind of trauma from the past, something unhealed from the past. So it's important that we realize, "Oh yeah, love sounds great conceptually, but actually, if I look at the flip side of that concept, there's going to be a lot of hidden guilt that I'm going to be motivated to get rid of because I'm carrying it about myself. There's an unworthiness, there's shame and guilt."
So the strategy becomes, secretly, I'm going to try and get rid of that. Now I'm going to go and look for it. I won't find it, and someone's going to be made to be the good guy or the bad guy in the situation, but the guilt will be gone, rid of it's projected away from the, the self. So what do we do with this, right? This is, this is how the algorithm works. You could put any nice-sounding concept there at step one into that mind, and this algorithm will play out, assuming it's the traumatized, egoic mind that we're in, the mindset.
So, what we do? Well, we go back to our sort of our theory here. And if we're looking at number four there, the story, we find ourselves in the, the drama we find ourselves in is our perception. So we're going to work back down from our perception, right back down to the goal here. Now, these are the steps that we take when we're trying to heal trauma. So, first of all, what are we going to notice consciously? Where are we? Where we're in the story. So the first thing we need to do is to get out of the story as quickly as possible. And that means somebody here is the victimizer, someone is the bad guy. And what we have to do is realize that the, the problem we're feeling, we're going to feel a lot of anger in that. We're going to start to realize that the other person, the bad guy in this scenario, is not the cause of the anger that I'm feeling. This is called responsibility.
Now, quite often, you'll be the bad guy in the story, okay? So in that case, it would be, "I am not the reason for the anger I'm feeling." Or another way to put it would be, "That person's behavior or my behavior is not the problem, really. This is all, remember, fundamentally a problem in the mind." So it's not a behavior problem, it's not about different individuals in the story. To take responsibility means it's not this that's causing it. So we're actually reversing our projections. We're taking our focus off the, the other person or the, or yourself in this, in this story. That's step one. So we're just reversing projections.
The next thing that we will do, and this is now when we're talking about the outcome, and we're feeling like the, the victim of the scenario, maybe now we're working on our emotions. What we're going to find when we're feeling like we're a victim in a story, in, in an outcome, is that we feel an awful lot of emptiness and lack. Okay? So we may feel fear sometimes in that as well, but the idea is that we're going to start doing body work. Now, if we're here, we're realizing, "Okay, I've reversed the projections. I'm just feeling an emptiness. I feel victimized by the scenario." And really, what we're going to start to do is feel a lot more into the emotions that I'm feeling. Because underneath those emotions, there are actually a whole bunch of other emotions. And if we can feel into the emotions and doing some body work and start to identify where the pain is in my body, for instance, that's going to start to bring us down into the next level below that, which are the level of thoughts.
So, from the body work, we start to be able to say, "Well, what are, what are the thoughts that are leading to these emotions?" And now we can start to look at inquiry. If we can hear what these thoughts are, they're, they're, they're, they're kind of in the body, you could say. These thoughts, we can start to do some inquiry or discernment, it's called, which is kind of questioning some of these thoughts that are leading to these emotions that I have started to listen to in the body work. And in inquiry, we start to ask questions. Well, the strategy is, "I need to go out there and find love." Well, we start to question, "Is that true?" We start to ask questions like, "Is it possible to find love out there? Uh, is it true that I have to get rid of, or a relationship will make me feel better? Will it make me get rid of these, these feelings that I've been carrying inside of me for so long?" This is the step of inquiry, and we start to question some of the, the strategies that we come, that, that have been in place leading to these difficult emotions.
So, if we start to do that, then we're really getting somewhere. And now we're moving down. We, we're dealing with some of these thoughts. And now we're going to start to deal with the, the mindset question. And the mindset question is, "I start to look at these concepts that I've been holding that has led to this story of conflict." I start to question the entire concept of love, or conventional love. Now, we're not getting rid of it. It's not true to say that you're going to live your whole life without carrying an idea of of love, or or wanting, or finding, or or having, experiencing love. It's a more of a, a reinterpretation. See, the concept of love we've been holding in this scenario has got two sides to it. It's love, but guilt. Someone's going to be guilty, and someone's going to be loving. And we start to look and question this entire way of conceptualizing what love is. Love has no sacrifice. Love has no guilt. Love is unconditional. Love involves acceptance of another person the way they are, and acceptance of ourselves also. So we can start to do that. And now, that's really what we're doing with that is, we're realizing, "I don't like the concept of love that I've been holding. I, I want to reject that concept, and I'm going to find an alternative, a reinterpretation." And that's the mindset that I'm going to choose. It's a much more liberating mindset and a liberating concept of love to hold. Love is not something that can be found outside ourselves, effectively, is what we, we note. But once we realize that, love tends to show up externally as a result of that.
But the last step here is, we'll notice, okay, we're really questioning deeply this whole concept of love that I've been carrying. We come back into the goal. The goal initially I had in this relationship may have been to get through life while carrying trauma, and maybe the relationship will help me with the trauma. Effectively, what we're going to do now is realize, "Every relationship, maybe I won't get into a relationship at all. I'm going to focus on healing. That's all I want. All I want is to connect with myself again and live authentically and express myself from my authentic personality." Or, if I am in a relationship, I'm going to use the relationship for the purposes of healing myself and maybe healing the other person too, but primarily ourselves. It becomes the, the, the prim. Relationships can be a fantastic way to kind of speed up our, our healing process in certain situations because there's nothing like a relationship that's going to bring up those emotions, right? And we will, we will look at them if that's what our, our goal is. So we're really back down to, "What do I want? Do I want to continue to live with this trauma and have it play out in different stories and dramas, or do I want to use it for healing myself?"
So, guys, it's always the same. I'm just going to recap what we've covered here. We start off with trauma, and then the algorithm is going to be, well, I'll pick up Concepts, Strategies, I'll experience Outcomes, and I'll have a Story. And that's all so that we can have some kind of a victim, victimizer, good, bad, right, wrong, dynamic going on externally, all as a way to kind of not deal with the underlying trauma. So, if we really want to get to terms and get the grips with this, is we, we follow these steps back. We start working on reversing projections, developing more emotional awareness, doing body work, start to inquire into some of the thoughts that we're having that are feeding into those negative emotions, start to really question deeply about, well, what mindset am I in here? What are these concepts like, and how have they been serving me, and have they not been serving me, and is there an alternative to them? And then finally, we come down to, "What is it that I want most of all?" Do I want this love, this conceptual love that society and everyone else has been telling me is so fantastic, even though it's hurt me? Or do I want nothing other than to heal and to embody my own authentic personality and be myself, be the self that I was born to be?
So that's the algorithm. You can put any concept into that, and it's going to work the same way. And I'm going to talk about other concepts and how it plays out using this exact same algorithm. And, uh, I hope that's useful. Hopefully, you can see maybe where you are. Maybe if you're in a story right now, it's going to be okay. I got to work on reversing some of the projections here. If you're feeling a lack, if you're feeling victimized, if you're feeling angry, you may be looking at some emotional, uh, awareness or body work. And then it's, it's the starting to really figure out what these thoughts are that are feeding into that negative emotion, starts do inquiry, then we reinterpret, and then we set the goal for ourselves once again.
So, guys, I hope that was interesting and helpful. And again, thanks as always for being with me, and I'll see you again soon. Bye for now. [Music]