Summary
In this coaching session, Joe works with a man who describes himself as highly emotional but trained to suppress his emotions. He’s living with his parents again, feeling isolated, and asking how to accept himself and reconnect with his inner child. Joe identifies that the man’s primary pattern is dissociation—leaving his body to avoid feeling—and that this requires enormous effort to maintain.
Joe guides him through a powerful exercise: first intensifying the dissociation deliberately, then releasing it and letting the body “slingshot” back to embodied presence. The man experiences a visceral return to himself. Joe connects this pattern to the “stone-faced baby” experiment, explaining how lack of attunement in childhood teaches children to develop a stone face of their own—masking emotions as a survival strategy.
The session’s breakthrough comes when Joe distinguishes between dissociation (leaving the body to see yourself from outside) and non-personal awareness (seeing yourself from outside while staying in the body). The man discovers that the same mechanism he uses for protection—the outside perspective—becomes “refreshing” and sweet when the body stays engaged. Joe frames the healing process not as forcing change but as patiently sitting with the scared inner child, like his daughter spending three weeks getting a feral cat to eat from her hand.
Key Concepts
- Dissociation has a gift when the body stays engaged
- Non-personal awareness is dissociation without leaving the body
- The stone-faced baby experiment shows how suppression is transmitted
- Healing is patient presence, not forcing change—like taming a feral cat
Key Quotes
“You’re isolated right now, bro. You’re isolating the sadness that’s happening right now. Like in this moment, you’re isolating your sadness.”
“Your head can’t know who you are. What happens when you just allow that?”
“Not listening to your body is the dissociation which is all the effort.”
“All that dissociation has an amazing gift in it if you keep your body in the game. Dissociation without the body is one thing. The non-personalness that dissociation—that’s the protection—is the non-personalness. But if you do it with the body in the game, it’s refreshing. It’s quite sweet.”
“You don’t need to. You get to. My daughter, she had this cat. It was a mangy-ass, living in the compost pile cat… She spent three weeks getting the cat to eat out of her hand.”
Transcript
Feeling all of our feelings is something that’s really hard for a lot of us these days. And in this coaching session, I’m working with somebody who’s become very dissociative. They feel isolated and very alone. So, if you’re feeling that way, this would be a great video for you to watch so you can discover what’s actually going on beneath that. Um, I got a lot. Um, I don’t even know which one to choose, but um, the one that the rest hinges on. The one that’s scariest to ask, the one that’s making you almost cry right now. I mean, h how do I how do I love myself and express my emotions properly or learn to express my emotions? I What do you mean properly? Um, I don’t know. I’m a very emotional guy, as you can see, but I’ve always been told and taught to not let my emotions uh shine through, and it’s a bad thing. And, um, you know, I should just let my emotions roll off my sleeve and not pay attention to them. Um, and I did that for so long, but it’s it’s not really who I am. Cool. Yeah. So my answer to your question is how do you do it properly is to not listen to any of that shit I’m trying. I’m trying. Well, it doesn’t sound like you need to try. What makes you try? Just trying to It’s happening right now. The the trying is trying to stop it from happening right now. I mean, that’s what I’m looking at. Yeah. Um I mean, I I I live a lot of my life in my head. Um, you know, I’m a very introverted person and I’ve kind of been isolated through a lot of different aspects of my life, which, you know, I’m learning. You’re isolated right now, bro. Yeah. You’re isolating the sadness that’s happening right now. Like in this moment, you’re isolating your sadness. What just happened? What the fuck was that? She’s Did you Did you get that? Yeah. What was that? Acceptance. Understanding. Yeah. Can you do me a favor? Is your is your is your like uh is your backdrop like is it like horribly ugly or something? Can we turn off because I’m I’m getting like effects and so I don’t I don’t have a clear view of you. Yeah. Let me I don’t even know how to take that off to be honest. There you go. Oh, shit Looks great. It’s a childish room, you know. I’m living with my parents again. Yeah. So, what’s the what’s the question now? How do I how do I accept myself and and reconnect with my my inner child, you know, and and not listen to all the people throughout my life who have told me, you know, I’m worthless or this or that, you know? That’s great. Um, I want you to really try to disconnect with yourself in this moment. I want you to really, really, really like do your best disconnection. And I want you to 10x that. Go even more disconnection. That’s some good shit right there. Cool. And I’m gonna talk, but you stay disconnected. Don’t don’t change it. Stay in that trans kind of space. Awesome. And in a minute, I’m going to ask you to let it go to stop all the tension that you have to use to do this. Don’t do it yet. There’s a lot of tension in your system to be able to do this. I’m gonna ask you to let it go. And then without thinking about a word for it, I’m gonna ask you to go in the exact opposite direction of where you are now. So you’re on one end of a spectrum. You’re going to let it go. You’re going to hit the middle and then you’re going to go all the way to the other end with zero effort. Because if you’re in effort, then you’re not going in the opposite direction. So stay in that totally I am. Okay. Now let it go and then go in the the total opposite direction. Don’t think just let your body do the work. It’s funny. You’re highly emotional, but your system is so subtle. Tell me what happened. Kind of uh just kind of looked at myself in a in a third person perspective. Yeah. um as I dissociated and you know like you said released that effort and it just kind of felt like a slingshot back into my my point of view my my personal view. Yeah. Yeah. And is that also how much of it was you were leaving your body and then back into your body? It might not be that. How accurate of a description is that? I’d say it’s pretty accurate. It It felt like my uh Yeah. everything kind of came centered. Yeah. Do you know about the stonefaced baby experiments? No. So, if you have this baby and the baby is crying and you attune to it, the baby moves its emotion. And it gets back to embodied connection. And if you don’t attune to it, if you just respond with a stone face, eventually the baby also has a stone face. You can look it up. It’s the stone. It’s disturbing as shit to see. But somehow that’s something like that happened to you. I’ve been very good at masking my emotions. Yeah. Yeah. So your question was how do I accept myself? What’s the self you want to accept given that experience? It’s so hard to answer cuz I feel like I I don’t know who I am truly anymore. Um you’re right. Hold on. You don’t you can’t know intellectually. You cannot know who you are. You said you spend a lot of time in your head. And what I’m saying is your head can’t know who you are. What happens when you just allow that? Let’s say I’m not full of shit for a minute and just allow that in like, oh yeah, I can’t actually intellectually know who I am. What happens in your system? kind of scared and anxious. How did you know that? Just my body. So, your body knows who you are, knows where you are, knows what what’s going on with you. So, just trying to listen to my body more. trying. We’ll just try neglected. Try not to listen to your body right now. There you go again. I’m not going to let you go all the way there, but that right boom. And that’s the effort. Not listening to your body is the dissociation which is all the effort. just scary. What was it? What was it about? What were your parents scared of? What was the thing that they were scared of that had them teach you how to dissociate? Um, God, I don’t know. Um, losing me. um me not being it’s not you. It’s not about you. What were they scared of that made them the kind of people who didn’t weren’t able to attune to your sadness or your anger or your needs, your body? I mean, my dad is a an emotionally scarred man. He’s had a hell of a past and I don’t think he knows how to express his emotions properly. Yeah. And uh my mom is overly emotional and you know the loss of my grandmother really threw her for quite a roller coaster of a few years. Great. Perfect. So this all of their activity wasn’t about you. It it wasn’t personal. I think deep down I know that. Yeah. Let the rest of your body catch up. Something in your body knows it. Now we’re just letting all the rest of the body catch up. Let it like literally seep into every cell of your body for a moment. What’s the truth of who you are now that it’s updated for a minute? I’m I’m a big ball of love and and wonder and uh just wanting and learning. Yeah. Just feels so unnatural to feel things this way. It feels so natural, you said, or unnatural. Unnatural, but it feels good. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Put your hands together like this for a second and then go like that. And now do it the opposite way. No different, but one definitely feels different, right? Yeah, that’s what’s happening. So, just one more step. I just I see one more thing that we may be able to to look at which is um this is going to be a little strange but uh that place where you disassociate where you see yourself from the outside I want you to go there but with no effort so stay in your body I don’t I don’t no you’re not dissociating you’re just seeing yourself from the outside so it’s seeing yourself from the outside without the dissociation. Okay. Yeah. What do you see? You know, strong, skillful, lovable, interesting guy. Yeah. But I also see a lot of anger and resentment and fear. Yeah. But what I notice is you see it in a non-personal way. All the judgment that you usually hold for all that shit and all the talking why aren’t you and all that’s gone from that outside perspective. You can see it as is, not as a commentary. Like you’re getting the news as a blurb instead of like MSNBC or Fox News and all the shit commentary, right? You’re just getting like, oh, this is the state of affairs. Yeah. Yeah, we’re not we’re not done. We’re almost done. Yeah. So, there’s a way of looking at yourself with all the personal. There’s a way of looking at yourself in the non-personal. And without going into dissociation, see what it’s like to just live in the non-personal for a minute. You don’t have to be outside of yourself. It’s just non-personal. And even like looking at everybody here, looking at yourself, don’t cut off. You’re cut cutting a little bit off of your core. Like don’t don’t you’re using a little bit of the dissociation in your core. See what it’s like to just let the core be completely open while you do this. Yeah. What is that all about? But it’s refreshing. Yeah. Um, I I know I hold on to a lot of trauma from when I was younger of just uh uh judgment and and bullying and a lot of that. And it’s not who I am anymore, but it’s just so ingrained in much of my life that it’s hard to remember that people don’t see me that way anymore and I’m a different person, but it’s refreshing to open my body up to that perspective. Yeah. Yeah. The reason I’m saying this is because all that disassociation has an amazing gift in it if you keep your body in the game. Dissociation without the body is one thing. Dissociation or the non-personalness that dissociation that’s the protection is the non-personalness. But if you do it with the body in the game, it’s refreshing. It’s quite sweet. It is. Yeah. It’s like a like a wave of warm honey almost. Yeah, that’s it. But why do I why do I feel so scared of it and and resistant like I because when you were a kid and you felt it, you got the stone face. you got rejected because of it. And so you’re just it’s takes like time and patience. Like imagine if you had like a little kid who had had that trauma and you’re teaching it that it’s safe. Do you do it by saying you should be different? No, you just sit in the presence of it and it’s going to be scared and it’s going to release that fear and you’re going to sit in the presence of that too from that non-personal space. So, as I disassociate with my body in in mind and in tune like I need to sit with all those emotions that arise. You don’t need to. You get to my daughter. She had this cat. It was a mangy ass living in the compost pile cat. And it became a part of the family. She didn’t pick it up and say, “I love you and squeeze you and hug you so much and why aren’t you different?” And D. She spent three weeks getting the cat to heat eat out of her hand. You get to you get to be with that like amazing cat. Thank you. You’re welcome. Thank