Summary
A woman comes to Joe with an intellectual question about emotional fluidity and labeling, but Joe senses something personal underneath. When asked what shift would be most profound, she says: “Being able to trust myself again.” She’s been doing parts work and has become so aware of her internal contradictions that she’s paralyzed — every gut reaction is immediately contradicted by another equally strong one.
Joe guides her through several layers. First, that if she thinks she’s making a decision, she’s in fear — because real decisions happen constantly and effortlessly (what to say, how to look, when to blink). Second, that her fear of fear is actually what takes her out of flow, not the fear itself. Third, that she’s been suppressing anger — told it was scary — and channeling everything through sadness, which never fully resolves because the anger underneath it hasn’t moved.
The session culminates when Joe asks her to step into the “abyss” she’s been avoiding. She expects darkness, depression, a spiral. Without resistance, she finds… nothing. Peace. Sensation. The terrifying void was peace all along. Joe’s closing insight: craving is the pushing away. Everything we desperately want, we’re simultaneously resisting.
Key Concepts
- Over-awareness of parts creates decision paralysis
- If you think you’re making a decision, you’re in fear
- Suppressing anger kills your fire
- Craving is the pushing away
- Peace is harder to allow than pain
- We deflect what we crave
- Binary thinking signals fear
Key Quotes
“If you think you’re making a decision, you’re in fear.”
“How do you not trust your intuition? If you’re talking, you’re trusting your intuition.”
“Craving is the pushing away.”
“There’s an abyss in you that you’re avoiding and your fear is that if you go into that, you won’t come out.”
“Offer yourself up to annihilation so you can find out the part of yourself that can’t be annihilated.”
“If you’re crying all the time and it’s not resolving, it’s because there’s another emotion there that you’re not feeling.”
Transcript
what’s the ultimate thing that you’re running from like some sort of spiral effect I’ve seen people I love let’s go there like Spiral into depression or let’s go spiral into madness yeah let’s go there’s an abyss in you that you’re avoiding and your fear is that if you go into that it won’t come out it won’t come out so let’s go welcome to the art of accomplishment where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease today’s episode is a coaching session between Joe and somebody in our community who just completed the connection course and was really ripe and motivated for the work and to explore further and she reached out to us to offer to do a session on the podcast and we really really love it when people are this devoted to their growth and their exploration and we really want to support it so without further Ado here is that session wow you wanted to come in person I did I did I wanted the in-person feel Zoom is a huge barrier for me and for dropping in sometimes awesome yeah I have like a resistance and my mind’s like all those other things that I didn’t want to do before seemed so enticing now that makes sense yeah and Romy Romy Romy is a friend he’s my partner partner all right nice how long have you guys been together uh funny we thought last year was three years and we went to our anniversary dinner looking at photos There Were None So this year it’s three years all right it just feels like longer covet is like a Time accelerator awesome yeah nice yeah cool so what are we here for what do you want to work on it’s okay yeah a lie for me anymore so in the last few days I was trying to figure out another topic and I started thinking about intuition and then this morning I was meditating in a few seconds before my meditation ended I had a thought that popped up intuitively I was like well I guess we’re going with this okay it’s not fully formed all right uh so the ideas around emotional fluidity about um how does labeling our emotions affect the ability for them to transform and change and how does labeling emotions put structure or identity on who we are and how does that affect our transformation and change so I’m happy to answer those questions but I noticed two things that are happening first that’s a really intellectual question and not personal to you and then the second thing is I notice that you’re emotion like because you’re here in person I noticed that there’s actually something personal happening as far as like we’re your emotional body is not having an intellectual conversation with me but whatever just happened was intellectual so I’m wondering if you have something else you want to work on that’s good I feel like I’ve been trying to find this perfect question for you no I don’t really know what that is what’s the thing that’s how about this what’s the the thing that if it’s shifted in your life would be the most profound positive movement that you could conceive of being able to trust myself again okay that sounds like something to work on yeah I’ve been doing so much parts work and now I’m like so aware of all these contradictory parts of myself and trying to acknowledge and address them all with compassion and it’s like just a mess in there right it’s like I see all things has holding Truth at once and there is this like fluidity before before I was more aware of all of these parts that just allowed me to come to conclusions and like live in a flow State regardless of where that took me yeah and now I feel not quite paralyzed but that there’s so many things that I’m aware of that are like it’s more consciously going into my choices that I’m not sure like I have less confidence in what feels right for me so I know what parts work is but do you want to describe it a little bit because we have people who will be listening to this so what yeah sure uh so arts work the way I’ve self as being comprised of different parts that might be of different ages uh for instance there’s like the inner child which a lot of people talk about but there’s also for instance you could have a protector that you’ve developed in the past as a way to come and make sure you’re okay because you’ve been hurt in the past you can also have like a maternal part that nourishes you and cheers you on you could have a paternal part that’s a bit more Discerning and all of these parts are living inside of you at all times making decisions together usually under the hood and right now for me they’re less under the hood and I’m speaking to them all more directly yeah and decisions are taking much longer and becoming less clearer yeah so what’s you all of it’s me but what’s essentially you like if I took away the protector would you still exist yeah I hear what you’re saying like there’s like an awareness like in essence that’s me yeah and then and what does it think about that you’re made up of Parts the awareness what does it think about that I’m made up of yeah what or what how does it react yeah not think about how does it react right now it feels like it’s been fun like meeting those parts yeah and it’s been like at the beginning it was like a play like a dance and there was almost like a pride in being attuned to these parts like these voices in my head that are constantly there and it feel it felt like having more awareness of them would lead to making decisions that felt more in flow or at least with more conscious intention yeah and now I’m not so sure anymore because I think there’s a reason that some things are left to the subconscious to be uh you know decided and filtered without like the conscious knowledge like imagine if breathing was something I had to think about all the time while at the same time thinking of my heart beating yeah or you know like moisturizing my eyes or you know yeah like so it seems like the construct I I like Parts work I think it’s very useful I’ll use it even sometimes but the there’s a construct that says that there’s these parts like a protector and an inner child or what’s to make it not like a whole different set of constructs what happens if it’s like the one-year-old two-year-old three-year-old four-year-old five-year-old six-year-old seven-year-old or what happens if it’s the you know the Tarot deck yeah you’re the fool is talking to the queen which is talking to the right you know like yeah different hierarchy you know whatever what would happen then yeah totally and this is the other thing that’s been alive for me lately is recognizing many framings is true at the same time yeah now it’s it’s almost like a Multiverse of contradictions right yeah right okay so so the parts thing has brought up something that’s actually bigger which it sounds like and tell me if I’m wrong here but it sounds like what’s happening is that you are starting to see that all your thoughts are both false and true yeah that there’s validity to everything but also a limitation to everything yeah so what’s the problem with that so it brings me back to something I’ve been dealing with for a while involving trust which is how can I trust my intuition how can I recognize intuition from fear or anxiety or projection how do you not trust it how do I not trust it because all these other parts are now speaking up and I’m like well which which one of those things was true what’s the difference between intuition and a reaction or a projection from the past yeah how did you just say that what do you mean oh you just spoke I just spoke how did that happen yeah I guess I’ve developed a mental model from my experience since like being born into this vessel what’s happening right now what’s happening right now all these parts exist none of them are true all of them have some truth and here you are talking how is that work how is that happening I guess it will happen whether I want it to or not yeah yeah it just is yeah so how do you not trust your tuition if you’re talking you’re trusting your intuition huh I guess that’s an interesting way to put it what I’m finding is that I’ll have some sort of gut reaction and then another just as equally strong and sudden gut reaction will come and contradict it and then another one from a different angle yeah yeah yeah so how is that just not fear and that’s that’s where I’m left which is am I making decisions out of fear or am I making decisions out of coming back into my power or feeling more in flow you know like how do I tell the difference yeah how do you tell the difference I don’t know that was actually my original question is how do I tell the difference I mean I’m like some people say it’s how you feel in your body and I’ve been doing this reading about it and some people say if your body is tense then it’s fear and not intuition unless your intuition is about something scary I’ve got another one I’ve got another one for you if you think you’re making a decision you’re in fear um like you just made a hundred decisions in the last five minutes with me what to say how to look at me eye moisturizing all decisions right and they weren’t they they didn’t feel like decisions but then there’s like these big decisions that come up or they feel big yeah and as soon as you think there’s a decision you’re in fear well how do I get out of that false what would make you want to get out of fear okay where do I go from there first the question what would make you want to get out of fear I think I have this story that if I’m in fear I’m not in flow because fear is something that maybe it’s my resistance to fear that actually takes me out of the moment but I feel less connected Less in the moment for instance if I have a thought okay so how do you explain like mountain climbers base jumpers all those people who induce fear to get into flow how does that work I think because they’re not resisting the fear so maybe what I’m recognizing talking to you right now is the thing that takes me out of flow is fear comes up I resist the fear and therefore I dissociate from my current state right and what makes you want to resist fear that’s scary what makes it scary I know it’s a it’s an annoying question but let’s get to the base like what is the actual problem with the sensation of fear for me I think it’s about attachment to outcomes that I’m scared I’m not going to have this thing that I’ve now find myself yearning for and being attached to okay so now now it’s all everything you’ve got all these parts you’re aware of all this stuff but what what’s actually happening is that you don’t know how to interpret them to get the response that you want exactly okay yeah it’s just it’s like being in a town hall there’s a lot of people standing up and shouting and I’m at the front being like okay like I hear you all now what yeah so what makes you wanna again an annoying question but what makes you want a result hmm it feels like if I was to say to you you get to determine all of your results or you get to determine how you are as a person which are you going to choose probably how I am yeah yeah so then what makes you care about the results hmm yeah that’s a great question I have this is another thing I I have these attachments to outcomes and I’ve been wanting to lean more into the want so if I find myself now like scared and I’m like oh what if I don’t get XYZ I’m like well what do I want out of this right leading into the want yeah yeah so I think it’s great to be aware of what you want but that doesn’t mean that you’re attached to the outcome no I’m still attached to the outcome and I think maybe I’m trying to use leaning into the want as a way to maybe dissociate from how attached I am to the outcome or to bypass it right yeah but it’s the without without that attachment it sounds like the fear is gone or it’s not resisted excuse me yeah exactly yeah yeah so what’s the what’s the core like right down into it what’s the reason that you care about the outcome there’s usually a if you’re gonna be who you’re going to be and the outcome is going to do what it is what it does what what makes you concerned yeah recognize that usually when these fears come up and these attachments come up there’s fear of a loss of something that is a value of mine and what do you mean a value like um fear of a loss of connection or fear of a loss of authenticity or Integrity something that uh I have that’s all in how you are yeah exactly like I can be connected if everybody’s spitting on me and I can be disconnected if everybody’s loving me that’s true that’s a good reminder that it doesn’t have to be a two-way street like I can feel connected to someone without them being connected to me or my values or my Integrity or any of that stuff so much easier said than done what makes it yeah that’s what I’m trying to figure out what makes that hard what makes it hard to focus on how you want to be rather than the results if you folks in my life have been working with me on just saying the scariest thing that they can think or ask me what’s the scariest thing and like saying it to me and seeing how it lands yeah uh in order to get past the fear to say okay if I felt the fear all the way through will that go away again what makes you want to have it go away how can one live in a constant state of fear and still I don’t know how do you do it I don’t know how do you do it I mean you’ve been doing it how does it work for me you’re resisting the fear it’s a constant state if you’re embracing the fear then other things happen um yeah it manifests in my life if you look at like a fight flight freezer Fawn I’m a flight I’m like oh I’ll go somewhere else I’ll do something else I’ll go and find for instance that uh value of connection of bi-directional connection which is apparently how I’ve defined it somewhere else yeah also you do it in your you do dissociation also the flight also happens in dissociation into the thought structure that also is happening and then it sounds like also the flight of away from yourself into caretaking others uh awesome oh totally yeah yeah all of those are yeah like leaving myself to be in someone else where I can feel a value of service in connection with them yeah so what’s the ultimate thing you’re running from what is it that makes it hard to be that doesn’t make that the the thing you’re focused on another way to ask that question is what are you actually running from and on the deepest level it feels like sitting with myself you meditate every day they do so how does that work yeah I meditate every day and it feels really good to just relax into what is myself yeah this physical somatic cells yeah yeah I love it when you said that it was the first time your smile went away you know I have my happiness filter that many of us have developed in this Society yeah yeah yeah yeah it was the first time that it actually was like that that mask went away was when you were actually thinking about being present in meditation hmm yeah there’s I feel like a sadness bubbling up or there’s like a motion behind the eyes yeah yeah is that what you’re running from the sadness it’s an interesting question I feel like two years ago what just happened I’m intellectualizing I’m in my head now dissociating from it I’m not saying anything you’re doing is bad I’m just asking what happened there was there behind the eyes yeah and then you yeah then I asked you an interesting question yeah yeah I have a yeah a really deep well of sadness uh and sometimes often lately I love it and I’ve like fallen in love with like wailing like you’re crying it’s like wailing that’s so good and it’s like it’s not even just sadness it’s like anguish and it’s like yeah sometimes they get stuck yeah and maybe like sometimes like now I’m like oh well I’m with I’m with Joe in his Studio I can’t cry it’s not appropriate so let’s go into something else let’s distract him by telling him he has an interesting question I don’t know any place that’s more appropriate but yeah yeah so when you whale is it usually by yourself or with someone you really know it’s usually one I really know a close friend or a partner and there’s some permissioning in the relational connection we have if someone says like I love your sadness or it’s okay to be down it’s okay to cry and I’m like yeah yes right here it comes so how do you feel that same way towards fear you’ve you know what it’s like now to the Embrace of the emotional experience and how it transforms your life what what makes fear any different I guess I can’t remember a time where anyone told me it’s okay to be scared it’s okay it’s okay to not know what to do it’s okay to not know what to do I’ll go even further it’s okay to be completely helpless we all are yeah I was raised by immigrant Chinese parents who came from a really hard life to an equally but different hard life here in the states yeah and there’s this Pride around resiliency and yeah being stoic and being strong yeah yeah I remember the first time I lost my job I was so scared to tell my parents and it’s happening and intellectualizing it a little bit I know the story is great and our viewers the listeners are like oh wait I want to hear that them yeah yeah so the idea is that if you allow yourself to feel helpless you’ll be less resilient um it feels that way yeah yeah lesser is a word that is floating around in my head it’s lesser in general right so I I want to bring some I know this is a weird time to do it but what’s happened to all the parts I just noticed spacious and Far More spaciousness in you now yeah it feels more like my breath feels more like when I’m meditating and it feels there’s like a sinking into this moment and where are all the parts when you’re here not sure and how about the um what you are essentially yeah it feels more like back in just awareness space with the emotional experience with the emotional experience there’s a lot of sadness yeah yeah it’s like oh it’s almost like coming out of the closet I have to admit to everybody I’ve been scared my whole life I have to admit to everybody I’ve been scared my whole life yeah of so many different things yeah it’s like finding reasons to be scared like looking yeah yeah that’s how you stay safe in a really hardcore environment like your parents yeah grew up in looking for what’s going to go wrong next yeah because there’s something right that’s the feeling of like change is the only constant yeah and if you’re scared then you like assume that some change will be threatening yeah yeah there’s actually more efficient ways to go about that but that’s the way that most people find to survive why is that or what makes that the way that most people adopt I don’t know for sure but I think it’s a neurological feature that we have where we remember what goes bad more than we remember what’s going well and so you’re looking for what’s wrong more than you’re looking for what’s right yeah is it like a biological thing where those monkeys that look for what’s right probably got eaten by a tiger or something probably yeah I know I know neurologically they’ve proven that we look for what’s wrong makes sense more so we don’t look for the opportunity so instead of like oh everything’s changing there’s opportunity where is it it’s everything’s changing oh what’s the next thing to come and mess with me yeah it’s it’s interesting like I wanna like and I’m like am I leaving myself to go into a question or a statement but I yes yeah you just did okay but I also in that question you did before that you did okay the second guessing yourself this is the second guessing yeah because I am a glass half full kind of thought person often yeah but now it’s like oh what about this opportunity oh is that just like from my ego is that from scarcity is that from greed is that from fear and I’m like second guessing my desire for this opportunity to see how that could I don’t know reflect poorly on who I am uh who who yeah it’s like going back to what you said already like what what would you rather have the ability to yeah who’s the authority that you’re checking with I want to save myself and yeah yeah probably those around me these days a lot myself so then how is it a question is that greedy like it’s it’s the question you’re doing this opportunity because I’m greedy how can that be a question if the authority is you it’s like checking in with myself like am I motivated by greed am I motivated by scarcity uh and then this this the story comes in of do I want to be someone that is motivated by scarcity and it is being motivated by scarcity or like how does that like what path does that lead me down and then there’s like these layers of questions that all of that is binary all of that is fear yeah binary in the fact that it’s like oh isn’t it isn’t it okay to be motivated by scarcity 50 of the time or 20 of the time ten percent of the time five percent of the time so that immediately there’s binary thinking it’s either I’m that or not that hmm but if you’re all of that yeah I am all of that yeah so then how can you second guess yourself that’s a question I’m not trying to convince you not to yeah yeah I think what happened is I’ve been hurt a few times in the past for wanting things or going after things yeah and now I’ve I’ve put myself like in a box like a friend the other day saw me for the first time in a few months and he just said where’s your fire You’ve Lost Your Fire and I recognize I’ve been like making myself small to feel safe that who I was before with my wants and my desires and going after them in the world ended in a place where I felt like hurt and perhaps a bit like what got hurt what got hurt ah the way I can explain it now is it felt like there was a reality Schism where I thought I was in connection and could trust someone or someone’s that’s that’s how it happened I want to know what got hurt I just watched you be coming from your place of essence it didn’t seem like there was any hurt there so what is it that got hurt ah I’m like speaking from this like tightness that’s somewhere between my chest and my throat right now and I got hurt yeah I got hurt ever that means I got hurt right right yeah and what just happened when you said it what happened in your system felt like a little bit of a fire kicked up yeah yeah and that’s the thing it’s like and now the second guessing is like oh like in what environment is is my fire safe because what if it was my fire that got me hurt my desire is my drive what if it is what’s the problem with that what’s the problem with getting hurt yeah that goes back to my my fear of fear I mean let’s take it a little bit more slowly than that which is like you’ve got you got hurt you got hurt we know that it’s not the essential you that got hurt but I like the anger that came with it so it’s like yeah you got hurt them blah blah blah blah that’s great but the part of you got hurt there’s this um Buddhist saying that says offer yourself up to Annihilation so you can find out the part of yourself that can’t be annihilated like what’s wrong with the hurt what did it do besides clarify anything what did it do besides if you weren’t avoiding it yeah how to do anything besides clarify Who You Are yeah if I weren’t avoiding it right you weren’t avoiding it yeah that that is what would happen if I weren’t avoiding it I’d be like okay great like that Avenue is closed moving on now I know which way not to go uh no if you weren’t avoiding it it hurt say that again if you weren’t avoiding it it would hurt it would just hurt all the way through instead of to about two inches in yeah let’s see what happens like let the thing hurt someone broke your trust someone couldn’t accept you someone projected their stuff on you to not take it personally didn’t seem hard at all so I’m like it seems like taking it personally is much harder as soon as you took it personally yeah I did yeah in so many ways yeah that’s the whole thing about hurt is it it clarifies all the parts of you that are taking it personally there’s a like a worry that’s coming up that what would it mean to feel this all the way through what what would that mean for the clarity yeah what would I lose that’s in this like you yeah that’s why they would lose the thing that you said got hurt that’s what would be gone hmm like let’s not pretend otherwise hmm I’m scared the hurt will turn into anger I hope so I’ve recently been told that my anger is scary and so I haven’t been angry for a while yeah and I thought there was a way around it I thought I could find the root the fear behind the anger and like process it as sadness because sadness is like safe for women in society so I’ve been like yeah I’m gonna cry all the time yeah if you’re crying all the time and it’s not resolving it’s because there’s another emotion there that you’re not feeling there’s this kind of a theory that’s like oh under every all your anger is sadness or hurt or something like that it’s true and it’s not true it’s true in the fact that yes all of the anger is underneath all the anger is hurt but it’s also true and underneath all the hurt his anger yeah I was so hell-bent on like proving to my coach I didn’t have anger that I found a neuroscience article about this about how sadness counteracts anger and maybe it can be felt that way and she just responded with like what part of yourself needs to prove right now that you’re not angry yeah yeah when you suppress your anger you lose your fire you lose your determination you lose your Clarity that’s how it works but you don’t have to get angry at people it’s not like you have to like start yelling at people yeah I think I’m at a point where I know I’ve been making myself small and detaching from my fire because I know that when I feel it I will take action yeah do things and then things will be different yeah and that goes back to the like change is the only constant change is scary and threatening what’s the next thing to be scared of yeah and it’s like this box I’ve made myself is familiar now yeah yeah so how’s that working for you terribly yeah terrible what makes you keep doing it this is like it’s like the I don’t know if this is true for others but there’s this feeling that’s like this is the hurt I know this one is familiar and that there’s a resistance to change even if I think it’ll be quote unquote better or something because this is just familiar okay so resist change you can it’s no right now resist it feels like change is happening there’s no doubt you’re hormonal state has changed your heart rate has changed your emotional state has changed so resist it so much tension in my body trying to even conceptualize resisting it don’t conceptualize it now start looking around to see which one of these this change that’s happening is dangerous so that’s how you’re living okay now do all of that keep doing it keep doing it you’re resisting change you’re looking around now stick a smile on your face yeah yeah it checks out that’s that’s most days yeah yeah so if you feel it all in a moment that’s what it’s like now just feel the opposite of that don’t think just feel you don’t need to be looking for anything there’s no need for Focus hmm a little voice that’s like if you stop running like you’ll die or they’ll get you or whatever animal instinct we have to keep going or else great what what why resist that that’s part of the change that’s happening right now so right now there’s more pleasure in your system than there was a second ago how much of whatever is left is just resisting the pleasure so from this space of not resisting the change or all that stuff what’s the fear what’s the ultimate thing that you’re running from like some sort of spiral effect I’ve seen people I love let’s go there like Spiral into depression or let’s go spiral into madness yeah let’s go there’s an abyss in you that you’re avoiding and your fear is that if you go into that won’t come out you won’t come out so let’s go can you find it oh yeah yeah so see what’s like to just step in the middle of it so I got I noticed the resistance to change crop that up so there’s like am I doing it right yeah that’s the resistance yeah okay so this is just being open to the change just the opposite feeling of that um and into the abyss you got quiet you’re making it the enemy again don’t make it the enemy programs want to run it’s like oh this is a program that’s worked in the past like that would like satisfy what you’re asking me right it would never it doesn’t work ah and so you’re jumping in and finding the experience pleasurable not sure I know what I’m looking for anymore then like whatever I thought was the abyss was maybe something else why do you think it might have been just felt like sadness it’s more I don’t see you as sad right now what do you see me as right now irrelevant I’m saying it just so that you can check with yourself so is it really Sadness the abyss is like you jumped in and without resistance what was it oh interesting I think the sadness was this like resistance to it yeah so what was it when you didn’t resist it what is the thing that you’re currently avoiding In This Moment by thinking about it instead of being in it it’s like no thing there’s nothing yeah just and what’s the experience of your body right now is this pleasure is this peace is this yeah it’s just it’s just sensation what if this is what you’re avoiding what’s what if this is the scary thing peace huh it was this big scary Abyss that was going to eat you alive and dark spiral of but as soon as you went to non-resistance it was peace makes sense that you’re resisting peace hmm it’s funny it’s like the thing I crave and when I meditate there’s this everything We crave we push away yeah there’s like a subtle agenda for peace but knowing that if I Orient toward peace I won’t find it because it’ll it’ll be a want then right everything We crave we’re pushing away at the same time right hmm what makes us push away What We crave craving is the pushing away huh your whole body relaxed when you when you’re like huh like you got it that’s funny we’re funny yes yes we are yeah is it my one of my favorite quotes is uh well Tara he says uh comedian or God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh um does feel like so much of what we do is to try to wake ourselves up to go back to this piece and we’re like trying to push the boundaries to feel all the things until we’re maxed out and unable to feel all the things anymore and we just yeah so this topic is apparently what we were talking about was how do you trust yourself yeah so from here how do you trust yourself how does the question even make sense exactly it’s like what is there to not trust yeah wow yeah what is there not to trust I really love that Arc from the intellectual question to the emotional experience to the essence of who we are and I really want to thank this guest for really going there today bringing your vulnerability and for really showing up and asking for this and lastly I want to thank all of our guests for listening and I’m really looking forward to the next one take care bye-bye thanks for listening to the art of accomplishment if you enjoyed what you heard today please subscribe and rate US on your podcast app we’d love your feedback so feel free to send us questions or comments you can reach out to us join our newsletter or check out our courses at Art of accomplishment.com