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Conversations about deep end meditation, skills for emotional fluidity, and living a life with more authenticity. All grounded in our work and relationships.
- Hello. I'm with Maija Haavisto,
- Hello. [unclear]
writer, therapist, author of two books I
really love, Loving Awakening and
Shattered White-Out. Loving Awakening is a
book on awakening, healing, psychology,
emotions. Shattered White-Out is a book
about dissociation and a parts view of
challenging [unclear] personality
disorders. but yeah, I I'm here with Maija
to talk about all things meditation,
therapy, chronic illness, and some of the
challenges of of moving between those
communities and more. So hello Maija.
Hi. And I would also like to point out
that Shattered White-Out is especially a
book about dissociation in the context of
society, which I think is like and
obviously there are other books on trauma
and dissociation, but I I feel like the
perspective is a bit different.
Awesome. so just to start, I you have a
lot of good writing on Twitter, Medium,
your books. so this is not going to do
with justice, but I'd love to kind of give
a cursory overview of your experiences
with meditation, non dual experience,
therapy and being a therapist and chronic
illness, sort of a high level just to kind
- Yeah.
- of help people get oriented. I know
that's challenging.
Yeah. Yeah, so I I'd been writing
professionally or started writing
professionally back in the year two
thousand, which was also when I got very
ill when I was only in my teens. I got the
chronic fatigue syndrome or more
accurately known as myalgic
encephalomyelitis. And since then I've
developed a huge number of different
health conditions, but that's that's kinda
mostly the main one. then nine years ago I
I used to write more like medical books
and novels focused on chronic illness and
disability because of course those were
very relevant subjects to me. Then nine
years ago I started quite suddenly getting
into meditation, which before that I had
been like, Wow, it's sound that you know
like mindfulness, it's like when people
write this.
stuff on like sunset pictures and that's
very trite and boring and then I got into
it and I was like, wow, this meditation
stuff is actually quite helpful for me and
it's like really, really relevant to me.
And that I I practiced this form called
TWIM, which is a form of loving kindness
meditation using jhanas, which are often
They can be called altered states. And
this felt like really my type of
meditation because it was very focused on
positive feelings and feeling love for
yourself and other people. And from there,
I also started discovering kind of these
psychological techniques that are somewhat
similar
to meditation, but not, or most people
would not.
Them as meditation, such as internal
family
systems and somatic work, and many other
practices.
Nice.
I have
So in the last few years, let's say last
six years, what has led you to write let's
start with Loving Awakening as a book?
Yeah, I I I I felt like there was just no
book that was exactly like mine. And even
when I was writing it I had so many
conflicting feelings because it's like I I
felt like these techniques are highly
beneficial, but already back when I was
writing it I was already seeing that
especially meditation can cause a lot of
harm, both physical and psychological
harm. So then it was like, okay, how how
do I write a book that's kinda like does
justice to the way that these techniques
can be very beneficial and in some cases
they are probably not beneficial and can
even be harmful. And this is a subject
that I still kinda really struggle to like
how to skillfully deal with this.
Because many people find meditation
incredibly helpful and then if you say
like, actually it can also be incredibly
harmful and that's often like leads to a
lot of conflict and people even saying
like
no, that's certainly not even possible.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Good into that a bit more,
even if we don't have a synthesis, I'm
curious to start, how would you describe
the benefits of jhana practice, focusing
on positive qualities, that sort of TWIM
style meditation, or maybe meditation in
general? Like what do you see as sort of
the the positive vision for meditation and
how it's affected your life?
Yeah. For for me it was really like the
like for me it was very easy to access
these positive emotions and it was even
kinda like shocking at first. Like why if
it's actually super easy for me to access
happiness and joy and these feelings and
why I'm not just feeling them all the
time. And This is not the case for
everyone. Many people really struggle to
access these feelings at all or can only
access them like very slightly because of
trauma or other reasons. But for me it
felt very easy and it felt like, it's
making me much happier and it's really
like improving my quality of life. And of
course this kinda led me to be like,
meditation is so great and of course
taking into account that my experience was
also very unusual, that literally my first
meditation session felt powerful. And for
most people it's more like it's definitely
not like that. It's more like you meditate
a hundred times and then you're like,
yeah, my life feels better.
Yeah. And what do you make of that? Do you
have any sort of sense making around what
made it work for you quite early on?
I I feel like it was just that it was all
very close to me, that I I feel like I'm
naturally a very happy person and I was
just living through a very hard time in my
life related to my chronic illnesses
worsening and
some other things. So it it was very close
already.
Yeah. And how do you relate to sort of the
range of experience around 'cause it
sounds like with with sort of a lot of
what you've experienced, there's sort of
these sort of I'm not even sure if there's
the right way to describe it but high
highs and then with the chronic illness
lower lows. I imagine that's not with
equanimity and other meditation qualities,
it's not maybe not experienced that way,
but how do you relate to that and how it's
how that's changed over the years of sort
of the challenges plus the sort of
feelings of bliss and all that all
together in a say in a given day or given
week.
Yeah. Yeah. And it it's a bit funny that
this like loving kindness meditation is
like literally one of the most original
Buddhist practices, but still many people
feel like, you know, it's like too
feel-good focused. You're supposed to like
sit still and be calm and like nothing
happens and that's what meditation is all
about. And if you feel bliss then you just
get like addicted to bliss and you focus
on the bliss and you miss what meditation
is all about. And I feel like there is
like some a little truth to it, but mostly
mostly it's not like that. But it's yeah,
of course it's like it was not just about
joy and bliss. It was also that meditating
every day was definitely increasing my
equanimity. So when
bad stuff happened to my health, then it
was like less less devastating and and so
I I was also reaping the more traditional
benefits, you know, of like inner calm or
inner peace or whatever you want to call
it.
Yeah, so I want to get into
Yeah,
the downsides. before we do, so everything
you just said, I would love to understand
how you view how that might be perceived
both in sort of therapy communities you're
in and sort of the chronic illness
communities you're in. Cause I can already
sort of see triggers or tensions that
arise from what you shared there.
Yeah. Yeah, the thing is that therapy
communities often have a very weird and I
feel like very one dimensional view of
meditation. It's like you do mindfulness
and then you feel like your chronic pain
is reduced and you deal with it better and
your chronic illnesses get better and and
there is some truth to it. Like obviously
they didn't just make it all up. And but I
I feel like it's really not taking into
account that a lot of conditions where
people seek therapy, both physical and
mental conditions, meditation may not be
appropriate in my opinion, or it may might
be that like some ways of meditation are
appropriate and can be helpful and others
might be
very harmful. And then the chronic illness
community basically sees meditation and
mindfulness and spirituality as kind of
like these brainless new age
holier-than-thou people being like, have
you tried yoga? If you just meditate, you
will get better and then you we don't have
to give you medication and you will just
like Think yourself into wellness and
that's seen as a very triggering and even
abusive framework. And I can definitely
see why, because it often is Yeah.
Yeah. Going into more detail, what are for
the therapy side, what are the techniques
that and this might be too specific, but I
guess what are some of the techniques that
might actually be less helpful and or
maybe what's what's sort of a way of
seeing that therapists could have to then
have a deeper understanding? Go to like h
the details of how some techniques can
make things worse. the idea that maybe
techniques can cure these things, but
maybe they actually can't be cured. Like
that sort of thing for therapy. And then
we'll get into the chronic illness.
Yeah. Yeah, I I feel like a lot of mental
health professionals are too focused on
like EBM, evidence-based medicine. So it's
like they read a journal article that
finds that in this group of people
mindfulness helped people with depression
or chronic pain or something. And yeah,
maybe thirty percent of people dropped
out, but we don't have to consider that
because well, who knows what happened to
them and some people benefited. But in
reality it's like no approach works for
everyone and you really like you have to
understand what these approaches even are.
Because mindfulness is basically Buddhist
meditation which was not developed as a
treatment for trauma or depression or
chronic pain or stress. Most of these
concepts didn't even exist back then. It
was developed
for reaching spiritual enlightenment,
which is
not which is very different from healing
depression or chronic pain.
Yeah. And I think what I liked a lot about
your book is that it feels very inclusive
of all of that, like the entire like a
much broader spectrum of the human
experience, including deep pain, mental
health conditions, trauma, in a way that
is sort of worth highlighting as different
from, you know, because within Buddhism
there is, you know, purifications and you
can kind of loosely equate little T
traumas with Samskaras and that sort of
thing. But I'm kind of curious what harms
happen when you don't include these
things? And then what are the how does
practice change sort of in the way you
highlighted in your book when you include
the I the these ideas and these frames of
of chronic
pain, chronic conditions, all that sort of
stuff?
Yeah. I I feel like one of the main things
is that in therapy and in mental health
care, it's often seen like for example, if
a patient says this medication doesn't
work for me or causes a whole lot of side
effects, or like I try to do this
mindfulness thing that you told me to do
and it's making me worse and then it's
viewed like, Well, you're either doing it
wrong or you're just like You have to push
through these side effects and then you
will see the light and will be healed. And
of course, spiritual communities do a
similar thing to some extent. Like if you
complain that meditation feels bad, you're
very often told that you know sometimes it
just feels bad, and that doesn't mean
there's nothing there's anything wrong, or
you might be told that you're meditating
wrong, so you have to do the same.
technique that you're already doing and
just not do it wrong like you're doing
right now. And of course this idea can
have some truth to it, like meditation
causing you temporarily to have a bad mood
doesn't mean that the technique is wrong
or that you're doing it wrong. But it also
if if the person is for example feeling
like that they are approaching a mental
breakdown. And they are told to like,
Yeah, whatever, you just need to try
harder and sit sit with it and sit through
it. It's probably not a helpful approach.
Yeah. What
Yeah, what
is a what do you wish you could tell
meditators or meditation teachers about a
better approach that sort of could be more
inclusive and supportive of people who are
maybe more prone to or just happen to have
closer to sort of the mental breakdown or
challenging experiences that sort of
Yeah. Yeah, I think the most important
thing is to like try to really listen to
the person, like what is going on. And
it's like it it's not really that if
someone has chronic pain they should try
this technique and if someone has
depression they should try another
technique because people are much more
like complex than that. So for example,
when I started meditating I found body
scans helpful for dealing with my chronic
illness. And many people with chronic
illness say, like, no, this is horrible.
This just makes me focus more on my
illness and it makes me feel really bad.
And then the meditation people will say,
like, yeah, that's kinda the goal. It's
making you like see reality more clearly.
But sometimes there's no point in seeing
reality
more clearly if your reality is actually
very bad.
Yeah. And for you, was it the same effect
when the body scans helped? Was it seeing
the reality more clearly? Or did it do
something else that made it more
beneficial in that case?
I I feel like for me body scans were
mostly helpful for helping me relate to my
body in a much more neutral way. Because
many people with chronic illness, it's
like, my body is is a kind of bag of
problems that I just have to carry around
and when it says something it's like it
has a problem and this sucks. And so where
when you do body scanning then you can
notice that Like hey, there's a lot going
on in my body. That's not an alarm signal
that's not saying something is wrong.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's what that brings up
for me is how and I like that you
mentioned, you know, it's it's not that if
you have this problem, do this technique,
if you have this problem, do that
technique. Cause really sort of everyone
has different I guess views. So like or
different like collection of views within
their body mind for one person with one
cluster of attributes, one technique might
make it worse. For another person with a
different cluster of attributes, maybe
that technique actually helps them kind of
more into more right view. so I sometimes
get excited in my mind like, maybe there's
sort of a way to map these views out and
sort of help assess where someone is and
then kind of give a better thing there.
But it does seem like the best thing there
is just to have a wise
teacher [unclear].
Yeah, yeah, and of course as a therapist
my main goal is to, you know, avoid doing
people harm. So if someone is saying like,
I'm doing this meditation and I think it's
making me worse and I'm like, Okay, I I
believe you, this might actually be making
you feel worse and that might be a bad
thing rather than a sign of something good
happening. And generally spiritual
teachers, their view is a bit different
because it's like we're chasing
enlightenment and it's going to be ugly
and awful at times, or it might be ugly
and awful at times. And both of these are
kind of true, but I still feel like
avoiding
harm is the most important thing. Yeah.
[unclear]
Yeah, yeah. What that brings up for me,
I'm curious how you view what the goal may
be or is. And in some ways that might be
too modernistic or sort of too limiting.
It's like I was really one goal and all
that. But if you could kind of maybe a
better thing is what is your view of what
progress is, generally speaking, in the
communities that you're in?
Yeah, I think that's a great question and
I I feel like many people like my when I
started meditating, I'm not sure what my
very initial I think my very initial goal
was to feel better and then I was using
Buddhist methods to feel better and I was
like, Well I guess Buddhism is right and
Buddhism says that if you keep doing this
thing that already makes you feel better,
then you can actually be free of
suffering. Sounds great, I'll sign up for
that. So my goal was to reach
enlightenment and be free of suffering.
And then at some point people started
telling me that this is actually not true.
There is something that's called or can be
called enlightenment. Many of them don't
like the term at all, but it's not
actually going to eradicate suffering. And
then I
was like, Well, damn, I guess it's too
late to kinda
bail out
Yeah. Yeah. So
So I I feel like it's it's it's a huge
problem if there are a lot of people who
are chasing a goal and many people do
believe that this goal is realistic and
exists. And I don't believe this goal
exists. So I see it as a problem to chase
it. Like I see it as a religious goal.
Kinda like if you like accept Jesus into
your heart, you will go to heaven. And of
course everyone is anyone is free to
believe that they will get to heaven by
believing in Jesus. Christ and I don't
believe it's true. And of course it really
depends like if you live your life as
before and ha hold this belief, it can
still be positive even if it's not true.
But if you like if everything in your life
is around this goal and then the goal is
impossible, then it can be a problem.
Yeah. And how do you view I what awakening
is good for, I guess. It's like okay,
great. It's not going to eliminate
suffering in this sort of dogmatic or
ideological view and that there are some
you've had experiences with that and wrote
a book around Loving Awakening. So it
seems like there's something it's good
for. I'm curious how you view that.
Yeah, my view of spirituality is very
interpersonal and it's about connection.
So spirituality is all about increasing
connection and this goes for yourself, so
increasing connection and understanding of
who you are and increasing connection to
other people and f other things, whether
that's universe or God or Mother Earth or
you know, whatever it feels important for
you to connect. And it can also be things
like, you know, baseball or dogs or many
other things.
Awesome. That's also the way I would tend
to answer it. I I have other words as
well. The connection tends to come up as
the thing
I [unclear] as sort of one thing to
emphasize.
Yeah. And of course many Buddhists really
don't like this view and they are like,
Well, obviously that's not Buddhist. And
I'm like, Okay, fine, I think I'm not a
Buddhist anyway, anymore, so I don't have
to like have a Buddhist idea of what
spirituality is. But I feel
- Mm.
- like and and Loving Awakening talks a
lot about how how I feel that many
Buddhists treat Buddhism as a form of
transcendent avoidance. So their goal is
to go into a cave, meditate for ten years,
then you have no problems, no suffering,
everything is chill. And it's like, yeah,
sure you can have zero problems if you sit
in a cave alone for ten years and try
going into
the real world and suddenly you do have
problems.
Yeah. And how does connection
Yeah, and how can I
help with those problems or change the way
you show up to relationships and problems
and people and all that?
Yeah. So of course connection doesn't
always solve problems because sometimes
connection is what kinda makes you see
that avoidance has been helping you avoid
a lot of the problems and now with
connection you actually have more problems
because you're admitting to yourself that
this is an issue and this is an issue. But
I feel like one of the Buddhist concepts
that I do find very helpful is compassion.
Which of course I find deeply connects to
internal family systems. So I feel like
internal family systems is mostly about
compassion. And many schools or some
schools of Buddhism also really stress
compassion and its importance. So they are
on the same page with this. Yeah, one
thing I like a lot about
Yeah, one thing I like a lot about the way
you describe IFS is it's IFS is sort of a
placeholder for just a parts model of the
mind. And I if I'm if I'm understanding
your view correctly, there's less of an
emphasis on, you know, firefighter,
manager, like all the specific sort of
dichotomies than it, but really just sort
of seeing protectors and then hurt parts
as exiles and just sort of the general
parts model of the mind. am I getting that
right?
Yeah, yeah, it's really that our we are
not really one person, which of course is
also also very very much in agreement with
Buddhism. That many people think that
like, I'm this and that and this is my
identity and this is my personality and of
course it's much more complicated because
your personality is wildly different in
wild wildly different situations and
that's completely normal. You are made of
many different parts and many of them are
trauma and when you see it is it's easier
to have compassion for yourself and for
other people and society as a whole.
Maija, I'd love to understand your view of
dissociation and just understanding what
dissociation is in your view.
Yeah. I think it's a pretty important
question because it seems like everyone
has a slightly different definition and
sometimes people are like deciding that my
view must be the same as their view or my
view must be someone else's view which
they find bad and then it turns out that
my view is actually quite different. And
my view is mostly fairly like consistent
with general dissociation research.
nothing very controversial there. So the
idea is that there are two main types of
dissociation. And one is the one that I
think many people think of when they hear
the word, it means that you're kind of
zoning out or you feel tired or confused
or cannot focus or feel like okay I don't
want to go into this topic or cannot
remember stuff. So it could be called
distraction.
And sometimes people are very aware of
when this happens, and sometimes people
experience this basically all the time.
And sometimes it just feels like, I'm
tired and I don't really feel like
thinking right now. And it doesn't feel
emotional or trauma related or anything at
all. And from an IFS perspective, this is
generally considered to be one part. Of
course, a person can have many parts, so
maybe one part is more but confusion and
one part is more about making you tired,
but these are individual parts that really
try to get you away from something trauma
related or what they perceive as trauma
related that's very, very unpleasant or
that they expect you would be overwhelmed.
Yeah, to me it it it seems like to reflect
it back, things that put you away from the
present moment in sort of one general
sense, but really it's sort of things that
pull you away from challenging experience
or intensity in some sense.
Yeah. Yeah. And then the other type is in
some ways quite different, and this is
often called structural dissociation. This
is kind of the official term, and it can
also be called something like
compartmentalization. And from an IFS
view, this is not like one dissociation
part or two dissociation parts. It kind of
means that your whole system is like the
parts are
too separate from each other, or many
parts are
Usually separate from each other and don't
really know what's going on. And the
extreme example is what is known as
dissociative identity disorder, formerly
known as multiple personality disorder.
So, and of course, the movie view of that
is like someone has distinct personalities
and they have different names and dress
differently and and stuff like that. And
this is fairly rare, but the whole
structural dissociation is anything but
rare. And people have a milder version of
this. So they can still have kind of
distinct personalities and sometimes they
do have names and identities and genders,
even if the person does not like the
person may call themselves the same name
and wear
the same the style of clothes all the
time. But
internally they it may feel very
different.
It reminds me of the TV show Severance. in
some ways it's sort of a decent modern
depiction of being the same person, but
sort of split or severed or sort of
disconnected from yourself, or have
different parts of yourself that are
Yeah, and of course this is a very kinda
like a fiction trope that has intrigued
many authors. Like if you think of like
Frankenstein's Monster and many many
different fiction characters have this
kinda [unclear] like good and evil or or
something like that. But yeah. Yeah yeah.
Doctor Jekyll and Hyde. What are
That's that's what I meant. But it's
really like real life tends to be much
more complex and nuanced rather than
someone
having a good personality and evil
personality.
Yeah, and I'd love for you to talk about
that complexity and how that plays into
how we think about personality disorders
in general. It sounds like this informs a
lot of how you frame that and why
personality
disorders itself is not a very helpful
frame.
Yeah. Yeah, and I I do want to add one
more thing, like that when I use the word
dissociation, I normally refer to either
one of these phenomena. And sometimes
people are confused because they're like,
Well, they are completely different things
and of course in some ways they are very
different, but I feel like they are both
similar in some ways. Like the goal is to
distract you from something, not allow you
to sa see something. So I I sometimes call
dissociation that it's that you're not
allowed to see something. And of course
that's very that's kinda
you know, that's just a nice term which
does not like describe a hundred percent
instances of dissociation very well, but
it describes
most of the stuff that I'm trying to point
out.
In what is the spectrum of what it looks
like between sort of more minor
dissociation and structural dissociation?
Like how can sort of
I don't know.
what's a way to sort of map that terrain a
bit more?
yeah, I I feel like that's a very complex
question and kinda hard to hard to answer
in in a limited amount of time. but I I
would argue that most people have more
than a more than mild dissociation. And of
course it depends on our definition, what
is mild, what is medium. Is it about like
how strongly you're dissociated? Is it
about how strongly it impairs your life,
or actually maybe it doesn't feel like it
impairs your life at all. Maybe it feels
like it's
just helping you out, which is certainly
possible.
But I I feel like these can look like so
many different things. For example, some
people who have a very dissociated vibe,
they always feel the same. They just come
off as very distant and like you just
can't really connect with them. Then I
have some friends who come off as very
dissociated to me, and their vibe is that
there's like a different person every day.
Yeah. And this seems like a good segue
into personality disorders
Yeah, so my view is I'm I'm really not
fond of the term for many different
reasons and one is the it's really it the
actual like in a more philosophical sense,
it feels very violent that you're
literally saying that someone's
personality is disordered. And from an IFS
perspective, this is very much not just
semantics because in IFS we talk a lot
about shame and we We talk about exiles.
So if you say that something is not
allowed, you're only pushing that stuff
deeper and deeper inside where it tends to
cause much more problems.
So of course, in a sense, this this goes
deeper than just the term personality
disorders. It goes into the whole term
disorder and psychiatry and the whole idea
that we have stuff like mental pathology,
a term which I don't like at all. The
personality disorder is kind of like an
extreme example.
Yeah. And what do you wish people knew?
Maybe people who experienced things that
could be described under that label and
people who maybe know people who could be
described under that label.
Yeah, I I I feel like it's important to
really pay attention to the way that these
are actually all of these are common
trauma responses that happen on a
spectrum. For example, we often talk about
narcissism or narcissistic personality
disorder, and most people have some
narcissist traits and parts. These are
very, very common trauma responses. And
then there's the very like to me bizarre
idea of a narcissist, you know, people say
this is a monster, this is barely not this
is barely even a person, this is like a
horror, evil villain, a thingy. And it's
really like no, these are very traumatized
people and
There is I I feel like if you focus on
there that there is a narcissist and then
there's the others, then it makes you
unable to
see that you also likely have narcissistic
parts.
Yeah. And it sounds like that seeing the
common humanity, seeing that shared nature
can just help with compassion and empathy.
Yeah, but it's it's r I I'm strongly of
the opinion that it's not a coincidence
that personality disorders serve some
roles in our society and in the
psychiatric system. In the psychiatric
system they serve the role of is it's a
horrible patient I don't like to work
with, so they must be bad. And in society
as a general it serves the role of like,
my parent was fundamentally different from
me, my ex was bad fundamentally different
from me and I'm not saying like you know
horrible abusive relationships happen they
are hor horribly abusive parents but still
casting people into a role of evil and
then calling the evil personality
disorder. I see why it happens but I
really don't think it's helping anyone.
Yeah, it sounds like and to be clear,
'cause you're
not defending the behavior that happens
here. I
- Yeah.
- think you've actually often been a
vocal, you've been you have been vocal
about behavior that can be seen as
narcissistic and abusive. so
Yeah, yeah, and I mean I have quite the
[unclear] a lot of experience of I I've
had an abusive parent, I've had abusive
friends, I've had an abusive partner. So I
I've seen a lot of very, very problematic
patterns. I've seen physical violence and
other types of physical abuse. So it's
definitely often people think that, you're
defending them. No, I'm I'm not defending
any behaviors that harm others. I just
feel like this is not helping anyone, so
you call them personality disorders.
And additionally, I also feel like it's
very important that I believe that abuse
is generally a result of dissociation. So
for example, in narcissism, the abuse is
not caused by the narcissistic parts as
such, the abuse is caused by dissociation.
And this is why, for example, what
sometimes gets called borderline
personality disorder, which is an equally
horrible term, but their dissociation.
also plays a huge role and there are many
people who would not fit the criteria for
either one of those and are still abusive
or treat their loved ones badly and I
believe that's always because of
dissociation.
And this is of
- And
- course not a very mainstream view, but
this is also not only my view, as in my
book I also cite some, for example,
forensic researchers who believe in this
or have a very similar theory.
Yeah, and the reason this view is helpful,
one, separating the behavior from the
person, that alone is very useful and
freeing. But two, it sort of outlines a
path for healing for people who experience
these challenges or experience these these
conditions. or you know, conditions is
probably not appropriate, but sorry, they
experience these this these set of
characteristics in some ways.
Yeah, and I mean I I work with people. I
work with for example I work with people
who have got been had problems with
domestic violence on both sides. I've had
worked with people on both sides of sexual
assault and things like that. And It's
actually quite easy for me to be
compassionate even though I also have
these kinds of experiences of these kinds
of things committed towards me that I fa
find it very easy to be compassionate
because I see where it's coming from and
that these people are not monsters or they
are not evil. They usually are really
struggling themselves and they feel
horrible about having these kinds of
parts.
curious if there's anything else you'd
like to
share around personality disorders or
dissociation.
Yeah, I I think I I said most of most of
the stuff that's important. I'm I'm
working on an article about this topic,
but it's really like most of what it will
be in it is already in my book Shattered
White-Out.
So connection and compassion are clearly
really helpful for healing, for having a
sort of more beautiful, rich life. And as
you mentioned, it can kind of surface more
problems in a way. It can surface more
tensions, it can surface the ways that
avoidance is actually helpful, that trauma
is actually helpful. what makes connection
so triggering, like sort of
intrapersonally and interpersonally?
Yeah, I I feel like most most trauma is
heavily related to avoidance. Like
dissociation is also a form of avoidance.
And I posit in my book that the whole
society is built on dissociation It's
founded on dissociation. And of course
this is a very bold claim that I can't
really like fully defend the in short
length. So anyone who's like, that is
completely outrageous, I recommend reading
my book. It's completely free. So you can
read it.
And then you can decide for yourself
whether this makes sense to you or maybe
it's still outrageous. And in the second
case, I would really like to hear from you
and we can talk about this.
Yeah. And we'll have a bookmark to how
connection compassion relate to chronic
illness community. And again, bookmark of
non-dual awakening and some of the
problems that it causes. But I'd love to
kind of get into some of the stuff with
Shattered White-Out of the way that sort
of once you take this parts model of the
mind seriously, and the fact that many
parts are sort of trauma responses and
come from trauma, and how that sort of
emerges into behavior in society. it's
it's a pretty compelling argument and I
think I want to get into some of that.
Mainly around What
All right.
sort of is the core thing for why
dissociation is helpful or sort of how it
like what allows it to give society
structure? Or that's one, yeah, yeah,
let's go with that. I have another
question that just just came up.
Okay, I actually want to go a bit back and
add to the like I I feel like yeah, the
parts model is very important for
understanding yourself and understanding
how why other people are behaving in ways
that may seem like why are people so weird
or bad or wrong and it's parts. But also
it has helped me a lot with like living
compassionately in the world that I don't
see like, there's so much evil and bad and
I see it as trauma and I feel like I feel
a lot of compassion. So I I feel like this
helps me a lot in in dealing with
difficult situations and you know, the
world is burning and war and climate
change and we have a lot of stuff going
on.
it helps a lot that I don't like feel
crushed by it all or that like my god if
there's so much evil this is what helps a
lot. And then we can
- Mm.
- go back to your actual question. Great.
Great. Thank you. Yeah, that's that's
great to emphasize because it gives you
there's sort of the seeing of it, but
there's seeing it can be a lot without the
sort of compassion and care for yourself
and others
that can kind of balance it out, it sounds
like.
Yeah. Yeah, and as for the society being
built on dissociation, I I really feel
like it's kinda like it it allows
traumatized people to live together and
like the way that the world is burning in
so many ways, but mostly it also works. It
works kind of surprisingly well. Like sure
people
Yeah.
are dying of preventable causes all the
time, but People are also like, we are
still here. Humankind is still here. E
even if dissociation, I I believe
dissociation has caused almost all of our
problems, such as wars and racism and
stuff like that. But dissociation also
helps to like when people are not able to
invoke enough compassion, dissociation is
kind of
what allows them to live in a world that
feels wrong.
Yeah. It's the thing that both causes it's
the root of the world's suffering and it's
sort of the way that we can kind of push
away that or like live in function
somewhat functionally with all that
suffering.
Yeah. And I
Yeah.
also would like to add that I have no idea
how it would work out if the dissociation
was not there. Like there's this like what
if our world was a real paradise then and
there would be no war and we would all be
happy and treat each other well. But I o
also don't know what would happen. Like
it's probably for a reason that we live in
our current iteration of the world. And
example, some aspects of society might not
work when or when like if we had this
highly
hypothetical world with very little
dissociation.
Yeah, yeah. It's like if if you could snap
a finger and have everyone not have
dissociation, it sounds like you probably
wouldn't do that because it would just
lead to too much chaos or too much
disruption than what it's potentially it
almost too much short term disruption that
just wouldn't be
Yeah, I mean if if it were to happen right
now it would probably be like a complete
disaster. But if you ask me like what if
we could exist in a world that never had
dissociation, then I have no idea because
I
have no idea what that world would be
like.
Yeah. It in some ways it feels quite
analogous to a person. Like if you could
snap a finger and there's some person in
front of you on the road, you
Yeah. Yes.
exactly. It's yeah, could you talk more
about that?
Yeah, yeah, I was actually going to bring
it up because I I've I work with many
people who are frustrated by their
dissociation and sometimes they have parts
that go like, can't we just like fix it
now? Like I don't want to dissociate
anymore, let's just like get it over with.
And like, yeah, even if I had some magic
wand or technique that could do this, it
would like to be a very bad idea.
- Yeah.
- And I also also think it's what actually
happens to some people who meditate and
experience horrible stuff. For some
people, dissociation gets worse, and for
some people the dissociation suddenly is
greatly reduced and it's very
destabilizing.
Yeah. And I think I I I'm really
interested in that messy middle and sort
of the problem of healing too fast. I have
a couple of friends who've had some really
big challenges with that. and maybe the
better phrase is trying to heal too fast,
but sort of or like the working on
healing. I'm not sure exactly what it is,
because if it is true healing, it's like,
what is true healing? There's there's all
this sort of stuff there, but some some
background. I've I've, you know, been in
meditation circles for a while. I've
worked at a psychedelic therapy company
that did le that does legal psychedelics
work in Oregon in the US. so I had
experiences with all these healing
modalities and sort of there's lots of
claims of 10 years of therapy and one day
and you know just solve the suffering now.
And of course these things are really
great. Like it's it's it is definitely
much better, I think, to live in a world
that has things like MDMA and
Loving kindness meditation and meditation
retreats and IFS practitioners, then a
world without those things. and I've seen
sort of firsthand how those things have
caused people to go into psychiatric
institutions and just feel a lot of pain
and all this sort of stuff. So I would
love to kind of explore what the what
problems happen when someone tries to heal
too fast or sort of loses the ability to
dissociate for a while and like what that
looks like and how they relate to that and
just your experiences around some of that.
Yeah, I personally like using the word
speedrunning for the
Mm.
attempt to do that. And I work with people
who have a try to do that and for example
people who have multiple therapists or try
to you know they are like I'm doing IFS
and next I'm doing Alexander technique and
then I'm going on a retreat and then I'm
doing yoga and I try to remind them that
you can't speedrun this and that's not to
say that it's not helpful to use different
techniques but I feel like especially it's
a male tendency to you know be like I will
try
All my money at this, I will throw all my
time at this, and then I will be better
very soon. my own experience I because the
thing is, I had a very traumatic few years
from 2018 to 2020, and then I had a lot of
acute trauma, which was because I was not
I didn't know how to dissociate. So the
trauma was very raw and it was almost like
ever present. So of course I also had this
like, this really sucks and I have
effective techniques. Let's just get this
over with.
And for me the kinda the there was soon a
realization that my chronically ill body
could not handle this, my mind would have
been able to handle this, but I have an
illness that's heavily tied to the
autonomic nervous system. And trauma
healing is also tied to the autonomic
nervous system. So it was like no, I
cannot actually do even two sessions of
IFS per week.
Yeah. Yeah. I would love to get into that
because on one hand, it's clear that
techniques like IFS like are in a lot of
ways more helpful than talk therapy. and
it sounds like what you're highlighting is
that it can be more helpful, but there's
sort of an inherent limiter that each
person may have in a way that too helpful
can actually be unhelpful. sort of a dose
Yeah.
dependency on this stuff. And What are
ways that you think people can sort of
find that sort of speed limit themselves
in a way that they don't speedrun it and
sort of stay within sort of appropriate
measures? Because the other side is sort
of not working on maybe not not sort of
attending to oneself in a way that is
helpful and sort of staying with chronic
patterns and dissociation in a way that
could actually have been healed a bit
more. how do you think about sort of
navigating that and kind of
Finding a middle way that's appropriate.
Yeah, I feel like like with a lot of
things, for many people a solution is in
parts because of course even this desire
to speedrun things, it comes from a part.
And like all parts, the part is trying to
help you, but it doesn't mean that it's
actually helpful. So and these parts may
also, of course, the goal might just be
that this part feels like, my god, life
sucks. I want my life to not suck. But
sometimes parts also have like more ego
related goals. For example, I'm a person
who's good at inner work, so I have to
like
finish this all in three months so people
see how.
great I am.
Yeah. Yeah. I think the challenging thing
is like, okay, if it's all parts, what if
I just do a lot of parts work? But that
desire itself comes if it's fueled from a
thing that's adding more tension or it's
coming from dissociation, then sort of the
parts work is done in a frame that can be
more challenging. And this is sort of my
interpretation. Feel free to push back,
but that's kind of how I'm hearing it.
Yeah, yeah, and very often like even in
people who don't have the speedrunning
tendencies when they attempt to do IFS
there's a part that's like, okay, let's do
IFS, I will do this IFS thing because I'm
great at it. And the of course the goal in
IFS is to not have any part doing it
because parts cannot do it. traditionally
IFS is done from the self, that is outside
of any part. And that's a bit of a
simplified idea, but generally you can't
like have a
Mr. Master Healer part to like just fix
everything.
Yep. And what are some of the remedies
there? Cause what's coming up for me is
seeing how, you know, jhana-like practices
or finding bliss, finding ease. you have a
few free guided hypnosis videos that I
think are really helpful useful there. But
it sounds like that could be one way to
sort of support some of this stuff. But
curious when when someone's in a position
like that, what are some remedies or ways
they could move to something more
beneficial?
Yeah. And of course, I also want to add
that it is not just a problem with
speedrunning, because obviously therapy
and meditation, they don't just like work
like linearly, that if you do an hour of
IFS every week, then you heal the same
amount of every week. Obviously not.
Sometimes you can have a breakthrough, no
matter which technique you're using, and
sometimes it actually goes very easily,
and sometimes it can be very hard, and it
can even take months to integrate. So even
if you're like very chill and not overdo
anything, you can still end up in a
situation where it feels like I healed too
much too fast. What now? And I feel like
two of the main things for integration are
social interaction and physical movement.
And of course with chronical chronically
ill people, you can't just like
necessarily prescribe someone to go to
yoga class or dance class or go swimming.
Because I work with people who I might
tell, like, can you roll over in bed
today? And maybe you can't do that today,
maybe you can roll over in bed tomorrow.
So but any any physical activity can be
very helpful. It can kinda help release
something that is trying to work its way
out,
but it's still kind of stuck in there. And
- Yeah.
- social interaction is more for the like,
okay, I healed a huge pattern of mine and
now I'm like who I even who am I right
now? And then talk with other people and
then it's like, yeah, I'm still me. I'm a
little different, but still me.
Yeah, what I'm hearing is just
Yeah, what I
I think when there's there's sort of a
meta systematicity that's required here.
Sort of like it's not just, okay,
dissociation, clear it. It's like okay.
And then and then it's like the second
system is, too much, then do exercise. but
if that's too much, then do it, just
there's a lot of things to sort of be in
balance and there's sort of an ecology
here. and what I'm hearing as well is sort
of a a gradualist view can be really
helpful. It's like, hey, sometimes
movement can be as little as rolling over
your bed. And sometimes even that can be
too much, depending on where it is. and
sort of this concept of too much and too
little, it just seems really hard to sort
of sort of state is from a top down
external perspective. It really sort of
comes emergently from a person. And
ideally, if there's a one on one
relationship that person has with someone
that has some view externally, maybe
community
Yeah.
seems like a way. Like that's that's those
are some of the
- Yeah.
- things that I'm hearing from that.
Yeah, but it's also like of course parts
who really want to control things are
taking a lot of notes right now. But
healing is also not really a process that
you can fully control. And like I already
mentioned that when I was really like
working acutely on my acute trauma some
years ago, for me it was really like I
would feel physically exhausted for days
after a single IFS session. And of course,
I tried like, if I do this differently, or
if I try that. And then it just turned out
that this was how it worked for me.
me because of my physical health and for
other people it may or may not work like
this. But sometimes healing may make life
suck
more and there's nothing you can do about
it.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think especially on
Twitter, you sort of have a people with a
range of systems and body minds describing
doing some of the same stuff with sort of
widely different effects. So someone might
genuinely just get a lot from kind of
going like all the way or very quickly, or
sort of like, I I combined these
psychedelics and did these practices and
did these many hours of IFS. And I really
just feel great. And like that's sort of
in some ways an outlier kind of thing. And
if someone else just looked at that and
was like, let me just do all these things
without sort of seeing however they
currently are, that actually could lead to
a lot of challenge and trauma and or then
sort of then say, these techniques are bad
and these are really horrible for people.
And they can be. so it's sort of like a
cautionary tale of just the the sort of
the more the thing to emphasize is sort of
like where one is and and like you said,
even this whole discussion could sort of
be
done like seen or perceived in a very
managey sort of like control sort of way.
And that control itself can create more
tension. it's quite f some of the paradox
of of doing all this stuff, it seems like.
Yeah. So I would kinda distill this
message into that healing is complicated
and messy and unpredictable. And that
doesn't mean that we cannot try to apply
the best practices to make it as safe as
possible. And like it doesn't like we're
not trying to make it more unpleasant than
it has to be.
Yes.
Sometimes it will be unpleasant. And
especially also if meditation practices w
might present even if you are doing
something that's not harming you, which
can be hard to tell, but there might be a
lot
of unpleasant stuff and that's how it
goes.
What I find interesting about this is that
there's so many middle ways here. There's
sort of like, no, unpleasant but not too
unpleasant. Or it's like, and you know,
fast but not too fast, this and like and
with with all any of these, any particular
person may actually have very similar
views, but almost be on the opposite side
of the middle way, sort so to speak,
compared to you or to me or to anyone. and
that's what can actually make it feel
quite complicated because it's it they all
seem to be there's all these tensions to
to work with and to balance and the things
that certain people emphasize can sort of
seem contradictory, even though there's
sort of a similar territory. that's that's
another challenge here.
Yeah.
Yeah. And the last thing to get into is
the value of somatic work for support in
this whole area. I think we've often
referenced IFS as a a sort of a thing that
can help and you know, the parts frame,
but I think a key distinction is the value
of a somatic approach to IFS or just parts
work in general. and that's sort of more
of the way you work. It's closer to
somatic parts work rather than off the
shelf IFS or other things like that.
Yeah. And of course, so somatic work is a
bit hard to define, but it generally works
with the body and bodily experiences. For
example, where different emotional
experiences are located, and it can use
components like movement, but it's not
necessary. So from a somatic perspective,
you might see that I have a part that's
located in my shoulder and it feels feels
like a tight black rope or something. And
then you can work with part with IFS, you
can talk with the part or you can work
with it as if it was real black rope,
which is fascinating to me.
And it's of course it's hard to even
people who have done this work with me for
a while, they often have parts that are
very skeptical because they cannot
understand like why would working on a
black rope that doesn't even exist, how
could it possibly be helpful? But the
thing about somatic work is that it's
often very helpful for the autonomic
nervous system. example, when parts are in
fight or flight, as parts very often are,
or when parts dissociate with somatic
work, we can focus on that better than
with IFS.
also with IFS sometimes parts get very
triggered if we try to approach emotional
topics and with somatic somatic work we
can often do things that are very helpful
but they are much less triggering.
Yeah, and they're less triggering because
they don't activate sort of the ideas or
concepts of the thing. They actually get a
bit more into underlying physiology and
the experience of those things.
Yeah, but I I feel like also somatic work
has a lot of a lot in common with dreams.
So if you think this whole description
sounds very weird, it's kinda like taking
images that you could also have in dreams
and but we're in the awaken life and we
can actually modify these images or modify
dreamlike imagery.
Awesome. Yeah. I would be curious about
now going into the ways that non-dual
experience and sort of awakenings have
kind of caused challenge for you. and we
kind of got into that around the nervous
system and how that's related to the
autonomic nervous system as well as how
chronic s symptoms are, but would be
- Yeah.
- curious if you could talk about that.
Yeah, so I feel like the most common ways
meditation causes harm to people and some
of this is temporary harm and kind of
normal and some of this can be much more
dramatic and longer term. Most of the
stuff that people get is trauma related
and so called dark nights or dark night of
the soul, which are also generally
somewhat related to trauma. And so these
are psychological stuff. And I I've had my
share of dark nights, but it never felt
like or if it was like overwhelming, then
it was overwhelming for three hours.
So it was not a big deal, but
unfortunately it seems like meditation has
interacted with my physical health in a
number of very damaging ways. And this
actually originally started back in 2018.
But back then I was like because everyone
around me was telling me that meditation
might actually heal some of your chronic
illnesses. Meditation is good for you.
It's normal if you feel bad. was like,
okay, I guess this is how it is. Now I
will
feel bad and in the future I might feel
better.
Yeah, and what would you tell the twenty
eighteen
my god,
version of yourself now? And how would you
relate to some of those experiences now if
you were sort of there w in a coaching or
therapist relationship with yourself?
Yeah, so it really started for me there
was a weird period of insomnia, which made
no sense because I was literally the least
stressed I've ever been in my life. And I
just couldn't sleep. And already back then
I figured like okay, this is probably
meditation because I I literally cannot
figure out any other reason for this. And
then I started getting a lot of migraines
and I had been having chronic fever for
many, many years, and the chronic fever
actually disappeared because of
meditation. So this helped me feel like,
okay, I'm actually having a lot of
migraines, but this fever went away. So
maybe it is true, you know, that this will
heal my body or heal some of my issues.
- Mm.
- that then in twenty twenty two when af a
few days after I got into full
non-duality, my autonomic nervous system
started acting in really weird ways and
this star started developing into heart
symptoms. And this was This was really
scary. And this was not like palpitations
or something. This was angina which could
last for more than 24 hours and was very
intense. And I was like, okay, this surely
cannot be a good thing. And still people
around me were trying to minimize it. They
were like, Well, that's pretty just
anxiety. And I'm like, Well, anxiety isn't
not something that physically stops you
from walking or standing up.
Hmm. Yeah. So it sounds like it just that
sh it's is the it was the like the last
non-dual shift, like the big non-dual
shift is what sort of happened to or it
related to that, just the heart conditions
emerge after that.
Yeah, but it's it's really like because
for example when the migraines started
getting really bad and this is actually a
common experience, like I know so many
people who have got well we often call
energetic migraines because
- Yeah.
- it it feels they are very heavily
connected to energetic stuff. And of
course many people like, well energetic
stuff, like if we're we're talking about,
you know, energy body and chakras and
kundalini. Many people think, well my
bullshit detector is is really like
running high. That's not real. And I
totally understand that because I would
have never believed that it was real. I
was a science writer. I was writing
textbooks on receptors and molecules and
peer-reviewed studies. So it has been a
huge, huge paradigm paradigm shift that I
that I had to like, it was very hard for
me that this stuff that I didn't used to
believe even exist is now causing me
physical health issues.
Yep. And the challenge too is that we even
within the field of energy, a meditation
teacher told me when I asked him about it
was there's not really a definitive guide
to matching energy with the body. Like for
constipation, is the physical causing the
energy block or is the energy causing the
physical block? And it's hard to know and
there's not really a way. I know the
teacher Ken McLeod, who I I don't have a
relationship with. I like his books a lot.
Has talked about having sort of like
twenty years of sort of physical
challenges from energy work first. But
there's sort of this yeah, it sounds like
so I think the Tibetan traditions tend to
sort of talk about it a bit more, but
there's this sort of
like ignorance that sort of we kind of
have as a species around how energy works
with physical stuff. yeah, and it sounds
yeah, yeah. Curious if you
Yeah. And yeah, especially also me coming
from the chronic illness community, it's
very hard to discuss this because people
think that, well, this is absolute
bullshit and like this is way too tied
into like Like this sounds like me
effectively saying that if energy can make
me sick, then energy can heal all of you.
And I mean I certainly hope that this
someday turns out to be true, but at at
least for now, nothing like that really
seems to be true.
And it's it's just been so disorienting
and bizarre in so many ways. Like
especially a few years ago when it became
clear that this stuff is extremely serious
and it can actually kill me. And then last
year I developed heart failure. And even
though I kinda had an idea that this could
happen, it was obviously it was
devastating and it was so bizarre. And
what makes it even more bizarre is that I
have a good friend who also has heart
failure and chronic migraines and several
other conditions I have from this. it's
really like every single day I think that
you know this cannot be true. This is way
too bizarre, this makes no sense. And I
try to there are parts that are like this.
doesn't make sense. It cannot be true. We
will somehow fix this, we will figure it
out. Yeah. And of course I've I tried like
I've tried a lot of mainstream medications
which you kinda they are kind of
unavoidable when you have heart failure,
but I've also tried like You know, people
tell me this is a good energy healer, they
did this and that for me, and like
whatever, I will have to try something.
And unfortunately, they have not been able
to fix this. And I'm sure that after this
episode airs, there will be people telling
me their favorite energy healers, and
maybe there is one among them who will be
the one to fix this. And maybe not.
Yeah. Sort of There are a lot of reasons
why people would want to just block out
the sadness from this because it's sort of
just like this lack of control, lack of
predictability. It's just it just feels
scary.
Yeah, and I I mean I totally understand
everyone who's like telling me that like
you're insane this is physically
impossible or you're making stuff up. I
totally get it because yeah, this does not
fit any any normal explanation of how
human bodies work. But I honestly my
background is in science and medicine and
I would not be saying this stuff Which
also has a huge personal cost to me
because people may label me as insane or
whatever. I would not be saying this if I
was not certain that it's actually true.
Yeah, because I think sort of even like
way earlier in the conversation for
lighter stuff, it's sort of I think a lot
of people say it seems like a lot of
people will invalidate your or one's
experience when doing so it just feels it
it just keeps them safe. It allows you to
sort
Yeah.
of allow someone to sort of stay in that
version of reality of, these things are
good, these things are this, this is that.
And I think To sort of allow for someone's
experience means sort of letting go of
some of
that certainty and knowing Which is all
very scary.
Yeah. Yeah, and I mean like one of my
biggest issues with the spiritual
community even long before these severe
health issues started was that many people
and it was almost all men, there were
women too, but mostly men who were just
constantly telling me that I'm meditating
wrong. And of course now people are
telling me that, well you did it did this
to yourself. If you had not meditated
wrong, this would not have happened, which
also means that this other person And who
is not meditating wrong will never have
this issue. And this, of course, is called
a just world theory, that everything that
we experience is, or everything that other
people experience is something they
brought upon themselves. And of course,
it's possible that I did meditate wrong in
a
way that allowed me to attain full
non-duality.
allowed me to attain a lot of benefits and
I still messed up and caused myself a
deadly illness that is possible that the
people who are telling me I did this to
myself they also don't have any solutions.
- Yep.
- So if if someone is has a solution
that's like you're doing this wrong and I
know what you should be doing, yeah sure
I'm I'm interested.
Yeah. I think the challenge to all
Right.
that sort of has a lot of self-view around
like should and blame and wrong and right
and as if those were sort of all primitive
con like concepts that are actually
underneath all of it. But it seems like
just a lot of things happened and there
were some things that many things that are
kind of beneficial and other things that
have forever cause and conditions have
caused all these challenges, which is just
I think there's just to me the I don't
know if this is the word. The more
appropriate response is just sadness and
compassion, versus sort of judgment and
yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. And one question
people ask me very often, especially my
clients who are aware of this, they ask me
like, Okay, how can I meditate in a way
that I'm not pr like at risk for these
kinds of severe issues. And I say, I don't
know, because my understanding is that
these physical issues are energetic. And
all meditation that actually works or is
not completely useless does in my
experience and belief activate the
energetic body. So I believe that it's not
possible to meditate in a way that's
Risk-free in this sense. Obviously, these
are very rare issues. But it's like there
is the thing that I feel like it's
important is that I was chronically ill
when I started. And my friend who has
these issues was also chronically ill. So
if someone had told me that chronically
ill people have a much higher risk of
running into severe physical issues. I
probably
would have been. Yeah. Let's not do this.
Yeah. And there's the other side of it too
where meditation makes someone accident
prone to non-dual experience. And in some
sense, it could have happened. It's likely
that it wouldn't have happened without
meditation in practice, but for some
people that is just a thing that happens
as
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So the thing is like
my main beliefs about meditation safety
are that if your health is already very
poor, if your physical health is already
impaired, it's really like do you really
want to do this? Because if I had a choice
again, I would not But then there's the
more psychological risk and there I
believe that there is much more like
something that we can do to mitigate the
risk.
Yeah. How likely or how possible might it
have been to sort of meditate enough that
sort of supports on one level and then
sort of stop before it gets deeper sort of
support to the level of maybe helping
reduce the fevers, not that you
necessarily even had any in direct
influence or control over that, but to
kind of go about it in a way that's sort
of sort of just enough dose that it leads
to some benefit, but not too much.
Yeah, I I don't believe it would have been
possible for me. Because it definitely
feels like kinda once you open the
energetic Pandora's box, it's out there.
Yeah. It sort of
And that's of course of course not to say
that someone else someone else might be
able to do it, but I don't think I would
have been able to do it. And of course
we're talking about because so many people
I've met have been due to meditation and
my literal day job is something I would
not have if it wasn't for me starting
meditation. So of course it's impossible
to say what my life would be like if I had
never started meditation. It's all
speculation. But I am very sure that I
would not have heart failure. Yeah.
Yeah. And in some ways, all we can do is
rely on our intuitions. there's really no
and again, any kind of science around this
can I think can be helpful. And I think
there will be more good science and data
and sort of, you know, the role here is
like a general guideline of if you have
chronic illness, be very, very careful
about meditation. Seems really useful. And
for any given person, only they can decide
should I do a retreat? Should not do a
retreat? How do I do it? Like There's no
top down guidance and it's sort of like
the principle might be go slow, start
steadily, work with a work with a
community or teacher. but again, balancing
recommendations with fundamental, who
knows?
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's complicated and of
course therapy also has its risks and it's
possible that therapy can also have these
energetic effects and that is something
that kinda troubles me even though it has
not been an issue in practice in my work.
But I don't know w what can actually
happen like what is possible. Yep.
Yeah, in some ways it reminds me of that I
think it might be Chögyam Trungpa or some
another teacher. better not start once
started, better finish. which
- Yeah.
- is sort of apocryphal and I'd say I
still don't like the phrase, but I in some
ways in this stage of my relationship
meditation, I'm really exploring what that
really means and what that's like. Because
to me it doesn't feel resolved. It's like
it's sort of a thing that a lot of
practitioners hear and sort of like, yeah,
ha ha, but then like. It's like it's
actually taking that seriously is actually
quite scary. You're sort of like what
implications does that have on meditation,
communication, and teaching and all that
sort of stuff. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean I c I kinda have similar
feelings about the phrase, but I I kinda
feel like it's true in many ways and also
like yeah, if I had stopped when I had
started developing these physical health
issues, it was probably way too late for
me and might have led to even more
problems.
Of course I have no way of knowing.
Yep. and one thing, so
[unclear]
switching gears a bit, I'm curious which
related, I know that you moved to you
mentioned you moved to Bulgaria mainly for
spiritual reasons. so I'm curious how
location and has sort of maybe played into
some of this stuff for you.
Yeah. Yeah, for one I always b had a kind
of like a curious relationship with places
and by places I usually mean like entire
countries or large regions rather than
like, my grandma's backyard is a special
place. And this in a way started when I
was a child. I got really interested in
India and really like, India is super cool
and I want to go there and Indian food is
and Indian culture and this and that. I I
still never been to India, so but I've
I've had like a similar relationship with
many places. I lived in the Netherlands
for a long time and it's a very, very
special place to me as well. And nowadays
my special place is the whole Balkans
region. And it actually feels much harder
to explain. Like if I if people ask me
like why did she move to Amsterdam?
And it's something I can explain very
rationally and like in a way that makes
sense to most people. And when people are
like, why are you obsessed with a region
of Europe that has is poor and has a
troubled past of wars and dictators and
all kinds of things and it's like, yeah,
that's a good question.
Mm. Yeah, what's sort of if that's hard ev
even if it's hard to answer, I'm curious,
what's it been like now in ways that you
like?
Yeah, I mean obviously this is a very,
very different country and it's a very
different culture which is not entirely
Western even though it's it's kinda
Western. And when I moved here it was very
like, okay, I don't the language is hard.
I don't understand the culture very well.
They back then they were not in the Euro,
they were using like, you know, they are
not even using the Latin alphabet here. So
it was definitely scary. Like am I doing
something completely insane? Like I I'm
doing something that I don't fully
understand. And what if it's a terrible
idea? But I also I felt like I was getting
so many signs, like that it like in a woo
sense that every every possible signal was
saying that like trust your intuition and
So far it has been pretty great. But I I
still don't really like if people ask like
what do you mean by spiritual reason? Like
then
it's it's very hard to define. Yeah. The
only
Yeah. Yeah.
way that I can really define it that it's
it's not really like in a sense it's Sofia
where I live and in a way it's Bulgaria,
but
in in in many ways it's their whole
region.
Yeah. I'm
And I I also like of course people often
ask me, like, do you believe in past
lives? Do you believe that maybe you live
there in a past life or or whatever? And I
don't personally believe in past life but
past lives, but who knows? I don't really
have a better explanation either.
Yeah. Well, we're about at our time. I'm
Yeah. But we're about time.
curious what other topics or anything else
that feels useful to share or things you
want to sort of talk about before we stop
the recording.
Yeah, I would just quickly like to add But
like since I drifted farther and farther
away from Buddhism, which relates to a
whole bunch of different things, both my
issues with actual religion, as it was
created thousands of years ago, some of
which relate to the spiritual community
around it, some of it relate to my
experiences with meditation, and so my
spiritual
practice and spirituality is nowadays very
It really revolves around this region, for
example, Balkan music. And people, it's
kind of hard to explain because this is
not like a thing. I cannot send them all
into like a Wikipedia page for Balkan
music as a spiritual practice that does
not exist. So it's It's it's weird for
other people.
It's honestly quite weird for me, but
currently
Mm.
it's working out for me. I have no idea
what's like what's next or how do I feel
about this later or but I guess I will
see. [unclear]
It's interesting how there's a there's
sort of a non-conceptual knowing around it
and a following of that intuition that
Yeah, it's sort of I'm I'm hearing sort of
a sense of just like following what seems
appropriate and who knows what that may
lead to, but that's sort of what's
happening.
Yeah, but it's it's certainly it's of
course been very complicated and it's
because of my poor health and moving to a
different culture when you're in very poor
health is not like just a thing you can
do. It's it's certainly been full of
complications, but I'm currently very
happy that I did it.
Nice. Awesome. Thank you, Maija. so people
can find
you on Twitter. How do you pronounce your
handle?
you can pronounce it DiamonDie. It's my
old
DiamonDie. That's
IRC nickname from nineteen ninety seven.
Nice. So yeah, Maija's on Twitter at
DiamonDie. she has a couple books, Loving
Awakening and Shattered White-Out. both
have subtitles that I don't have in front
of me that sort of explain what the books
are. They're both free. and you have many
other medium articles that are wonderful
about a lot of this stuff and more, other
books you've written in the last 20 years.
And yeah,
anything else you'd like to share before
we close?
Yep, I also have a lot of other things,
like I have a lot of poetry online. Some
of it is actually explicitly about the
things like spirituality or Buddhism or
meditation and most of it is not. But I I
feel like it also all of it closely
relates to everything we have talked
about.
Awesome. and you're also open to new
clients.
Yes, I am. All right.
Awesome. All right. Well, thank you,
Maija.
Thank you so much. It's been a great
conversation.