Excerpt from a YouTube relationship session (Inspiring Love Relationship Part 7) featuring facilitator coaching two participants (Justin and Jody). The main excerpt records Justin acknowledging emotional withdrawal, closed-heartedness, and irritability; the facilitator coaches him to name and expose his defenses, connect with underlying longings, and bring self-compassion. The segment closes with mutual encouragement toward greater peacefulness and loving presence.
I think I. I'm trying to like, because the energy is here now, but, you know, a day from now it won't. It might not be. So I'm trying to think about times when, you know, we get in a pattern of where she's sharing about something in her process and I'm feeling irritated and I kind of freeze up where I'm not able to access my heart or my vulnerability or even if it's my anger. I'm not really there either. But I feel like there's like I withdraw or I remove myself from the situation like through feeling just annoyed or hassled. And I'm not sure what to do when I'm there exactly.
Alright, so just going to start the echoing of that and then maybe you continue it as best you can. So from now on, as much as I can be aware of Jody, I, Justin, am going to start to acknowledge this place that I've just mentioned. Can you listen to me now? Can I take over right now and just go into my experience and then I'm presuming you're going to say yes. I'm freezing up right now. I'm withdrawing. I'm withdrawing. Here you are, another woman trying to take over. I'm withdrawing. My heart's closed. My heart is really closed. My heart is not accessible at all right now. I'm shut down. And I want to just acknowledge how shut down I am and just continue to expose. I'm nowhere. Don't have any illusion that my heart's open to you right now. I'd much rather go out and have some fun, go out and play some sports, go out and play some poker, go out on the beach, hang out with friends. This is really a burden to me. This is really a drag to have to listen to your feelings one more time. How many times do I have to tell you that this is going on? This is really a drag. I just really want you to know. My heart's completely shut down and I'm withdrawn. Now what you're doing is you're trying to stay with the illusion that your heart can be open. You're not even close to open. What you need to do is be as closed as you are, as withdrawn as you are, and to be able to directly convey to Jody that this is the state you're in. And at first it will look like you're judging her, but the real thing that's going on is you're exposing your closed heart. You're exposing your own frustration. And underneath that, if you get far enough you'll be able to get to what it is, the longing is or the wanting is, that's underneath that withdrawal. And so you're saying I don't know what to do. Well, what to do is be as you really are, which is, I am a withdrawer at that point. I am a closed heart at that point. I am inflexible. I am intolerant. I am irritable. I don't like this. It's like the little toy truck. I don't like this. I don't like this. And I get to be as I really am, which up till now I've kept as my shadow side. And I haven't even revealed to myself how intolerant I can be, how withdrawn I can be, how superior I can be, how much my ego structure has made me believe that I'm the even one. And I don't have faith that any woman could possibly be like some men can be and not look at the fact that the men in general aren't really exposing their own defense structures. They're not really exposing how withdrawn they are. They're not really exposing how frustrated they get. They're not really exposing how inadequate they feel when they're doing that. They're not really exposing the beauty of what you just exposed earlier, which is, you know, I really don't know how to feel, which is actually a form of really delicate, vulnerable inadequacy. Feelings. You're not recognizing it as a feeling, but actually you were in a deep feeling state and the tears were forming, you know, a real sadness, as you said, for yourself and for yourself is a key word. The sadness really is for you. And actually all these feelings, if you look deep enough, are for you. The frustration is for you, because you really want something deeper to happen for you in that situation that you're not getting to. You're withdrawing because something's not happening the way you want it to be, which is to have more of a peaceful exchange or whatever. Now, some of the times you're just in a bad mood and you're just being, as you said to Jody, you're just being a narcissist. And this withdrawal and this equanimity and this self image of a superior race of men is our narcissism. And we all get to see that we're at one level narcissists, that we at one level have an ego, and that we're going to have defenses that are going to do things like withdraw and feel superior or from a more classically feminine side Just be emotional and stay emotional and not be able to recognize that we can be in a calmer state. So you get to be as defensive as you really are. That's what you get to do. It's both a get to and need to, because you get to in the sense that you get to be center of attention. And you need to, because you need to see your ego structure. You need to see that the woman isn't the only one that has an ego structure that's very active and very dynamic on a daily basis and almost always an hourly basis and pretty frequently on a minute to minute basis. And the more we can see, oh, right now I'm withdrawing, my heart is closing down. We are starting to really witness ourselves the way we really are. And then the question is also, can we have some degree of kindness as we're seeing ourselves? Because what happens is you're saying, well, my heart shut down. What the real problem is is you're judging yourself for your heart being shut down and you don't know what to do. What really needs to happen is, oh, my heart is shut down. Oh, I'm withdrawing. Oh, I feel powerless down deep that I can't find a way to actually impact this moment, to have it move in a direction like I wish it could go, and that there's some kind of self compassion or some kind of tenderness or warmth that comes towards the very insight that you're having about your ego structure. So the essential nature is the one that has the capacity to see, but is seeing with great kindness towards what the ego is doing at that given moment. So you get to see, oh, I'm withdrawing. And I get to bring that to Jody.
I get it.
At what frequency level do we get it?
I'm not sure, but it felt a little calming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It feels like even a relief for me.
So maybe look and see if either one of you has anything that you particularly want to say to each other or you want to look into more or anything.
Well, when you ask me if I need to vent or if I need to talk about something, rather than just say no, I'll at least start with, I'm not sure how, but I'll try.
And I want you to know that I don't know if you've noticed already, but I'm trying really hard to paint more peaceful and loving in that way. And I know I'm not very good at it, but I'm trying.
And I want to just say to the two of you, I think you're both doing beautifully at starting from where you are and really moving in the other's directions. I think you really are clearly looking for this space of peace inside yourself. And I think you've really demonstrated today your wantingness, not only willingness, your wantingness, to feel where you are in the moment and to bring that for yourself and for the relationship. So I celebrate that.
