Summary
In this coaching session, Joe works with Christopher, a man with chronic illness and pain who wants to stop postponing his enjoyment into an imaginary future. Joe immediately redirects the conversation from the abstract to the present: “How about right now?” — and Christopher realizes he’s already enjoying himself. The session reveals that what pulls him out of enjoyment is running away from himself, specifically the shame around being a “victim” of chronic pain and the belief that his pain is an inconvenience to others.
Joe helps Christopher discover that his pattern of “pulling the brakes” — tensing up, trying to fix himself, suppressing expression — is the very thing blocking enjoyment and potentially worsening his autoimmune condition. When Christopher was a child, expressing his needs and pain led to being shunned, so he learned to suppress. Joe guides him to make the vulnerable request he’s been avoiding: to be held in his pain and told it’s okay. When Christopher allows himself to fully feel the “victim” experience, it naturally transforms into gratitude and empowerment — the very thing he was trying to force by resisting the victim feeling.
The session culminates with Christopher recognizing he’s never told his wife the simple truth: “You’re not gonna have the life you want because I am in constant pain, and that sucks for you, and I can handle that.” Joe offers to do a couples session, recognizing the parallel between Christopher trying to be brave with his pain and his wife trying to be brave about her unmet needs.
Key Concepts
- Enjoyment is available now, not in some future you’re chasing
- Pulling the brakes on self-expression blocks flow and worsens suffering
- Fully allowing the victim experience naturally creates empowerment
- Chronic pain deepens when emotional expression is suppressed
- Prioritizing enjoyment restructures how you think and speak
Key Quotes
“How about right now? How do you enjoy yourself right now?”
“What stops you from enjoying chasing or avoiding? What stops you from enjoying shame? What is the essential thing?”
“You’re a victim, bro. You’re a victim to chronic pain.”
“Notice that when you allow that feeling of victim all the way in and all the way through, it moves to enjoyment.”
“The empowerment that you’re trying to have when you don’t allow the victim just becomes this very natural thing once you allow it.”
“You’re not gonna have the life you want because I am in constant pain, and that sucks for you, and I can handle that.”
Transcript
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 and welcome back everybody today’s episode is a coaching session with a listener named Christopher who recently brought Joe onto his own podcast called do explain Christopher has graciously offered to publish this session without anonymity and I’m really excited to share it with you Christopher wants to stop postponing his enjoyment in life this session opens up an exploration of what can happen when we bring enjoyment into any moment even the experience of chronic pain on that note we want to remind our listeners that this is coaching the conversations we have on this podcast are not intended to diagnose treat or cure any disease or mental health disorder thanks for listening and please enjoy yourself I have um I have a very intense somatic practice that I’ve been doing for a few years now and I’m out of weird stage right now where I feel like I’ve punctured um a thick layer of psychological defense yeah in a way where um stuff is leaking out and it’s very hard somatically to block it it takes a lot of energy like it’s close to the surface all the time and so I’m wondering in this context when I do it myself it looks kind of like an exorcism so I make weird noises and I oh I move and I you know it’s very alien and I’m slightly self-conscious that if we yeah when we work through emotional material here that that’s going to be um should I give in to what I would usually do when I let emotions move and and and my body move or will it be as authentic as possible like like follow your follow yourself and there’s okay there’s nothing you’re gonna do that I haven’t seen and there’s nothing that you’re gonna do that’s gonna scare me and yeah it’s okay yeah enjoy yourself and like let your body do what it needs to do oh that’s scary okay man if you say so okay you could not be yourself that’s fine too would you prefer that no no I like that I like that idea so um yeah what do you want to what do you want to use our session about like what’s what’s going on what’s your biggest thing happening um yeah so I was thinking about how to uh summarize it right before and there are two things that I think might might be very tied together or even basically the same thing yeah and that is I want to stop postponing enjoyment into uh an abstract imaginary future and I want to how about right now how do you mean if I’m enjoying it now how do you enjoy yourself right now yeah I am enjoying it and and uh and the second thing I wanted to get into there is how can I find like how can I do it I I I want to hear that second thing but I want to stick to the first one which is okay you’re telling me that you want to not have enjoyment as an abstract thing in the future and you’re telling me you’re enjoying yourself right now and I see this big smile on your face and I see your and I see your head is confused I see like your your thoughts are like not quite jiving so what’s happening right yeah I I feel like I can get glimpses of it and that I oscillate in and out of it okay are you enjoying saying that yes okay okay yes all right so you’re gonna enjoy oscillating in and out of it mate you can’t you can’t get into it so fast man we gotta hold off on the inside all right okay okay right but okay so let me reframe it how do I how do I find my way back there when I tend to get stuck into you know thinking about the next thing oh oh tomorrow I’m gonna do this and then I kind of rush through the day to get there or in a week from now or when my paints are gone or you know um I I think that’s the the major thing I I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time there come again is that is it or what you’re saying is like how do I get back to enjoying myself when I forget to enjoy myself is that what you mean like what do you what exactly are we talking about so you have this moment I get the fact that you have a moment and the moment is you get caught up in some sort of future which may or may not be enjoyable they’re getting caught up in and then the next thing you know you’re rushing through your day forgetting to enjoy yourself right so what I’m well so let me let me ask it this way is there anything about rushing through your day that can’t be enjoyed is there anything about my day that can’t be enjoyed rushing through my day rushing through my day is the issue that the rush prevents enjoyment or is the issue that you forget to enjoy yourself that that’s some some version of that is what I’m asking I mean oftentimes I feel like I’m I’m even running away from what is going on right now even more than chasing what’s coming uh so wait run it but what’s going on right now is enjoyment what are you running away from uh okay so so last time I spoke to you I mentioned that I have chronic illness yeah a lot of pain and uncomfort yeah and so I’m sorry I don’t remember I’m just sorry that that’s the case for you yeah the thanks man yeah um yeah and and that is something that I I don’t remember how it was before then at this point but now yeah a lot a lot of the time it’s uh yeah it’s it’s a part that wants to get away from that for sure gotcha so in this moment right now you’re feeling some sadness and what would stop you from enjoying the sadness I noticed that you’re breathing or something to try to get into yourself and I’m just curious what happens if you just enjoy what’s the sadness I think I’m okay with but there’s probably a a hint of uh self-consciousness there or not wanting to appear like a victim or or something like that you’re a victim bro you’re a victim to chronic pain I feel really ashamed about that what does it say about you that you have chronic pain that makes you ashamed I shouldn’t be like this what what for what reason because of an inconvenience to people yeah it’s not fun to be to be around it’s not uh it’s draining for people how much of that is a projection there’s this thing there’s this weird thing maybe like 10 times in my life I’ve I’ve met somebody and within like five or ten minutes I’m like you’ve been a caregiver to somebody haven’t you I you you’ve like stopped you put your life on hold to care for somebody haven’t you yeah and they’re like yeah how do you know and I’m like because your heart is so soft because there’s such an openness in you like there’s a way that somebody who’s given care for somebody for years and years and years it softens them right and in fact a lot of parents are softened by The Experience if they’re doing it consciously so I don’t know what so you might be responsible for softening people so how much of it is a projection how much of it is that you’re assuming your experience for the other person who’s apparently inconvenienced yeah I mean it feels hard to say because I feel like shame is such a um such a relational feeling and it’s such a strong element of projection in shame or at least it is for me yeah um and if you had to guess what would you say how much of you you feeling like an inconvenience to somebody else is actually you feeling like an inconvenience to yourself probably a lot of it yeah okay so you’re feeling the shame what how would you enjoy your shame I mean I feel like uh when I embrace it I I can I mean people can’t see it right now but you can see that my body is uh kind of moving like uh grass in the wind kind of I feel like I’m letting it move in a way which feels kind of nice and right now how would you not enjoy your shame convincing myself that I shouldn’t feel it or that you despise me for it like believing that story so what is it that stops you from enjoying your experience exactly that’s a shame but you were talking about like going back you were talking about oh and then next week I’m chasing something or I’m avoiding something what stops you from enjoying chasing or avoiding what stops you from enjoying shame what is the essential thing that’s I’m running away from myself maybe hmm okay let’s explore that so right now run towards yourself and see if more enjoyment happens and now run away from yourself and see if more enjoyment happens or less enjoyment happens yeah yeah so you had a second thing you said I had two things I don’t want to forget the second thing what’s the second thing um yeah so the second thing is I want to I want to have a really really deep and empowered trust in myself and my ability to to deal with things uh as and when they actually show up instead of yeah preparing a lot for something that might never happen and worrying about it and what should I say and you know yeah so how how are you not doing that now listen this was this is definitely I’m sure whatever it is you prepared for in our conversation is not what’s going on right now you even said it you’re like wait hold on like we’re not supposed to jump into it this quickly right right so and so your preparation didn’t happen and here you are prepared and trusting yourself so tell me what what am I missing what do you want that isn’t happening no I think you’re right I think I do think that I’ve uh oh no I’m not right I’m asking a question what what is it yeah you’re saying okay so I think right so I I think it’s true that I do have already quite a deep trust in myself um I think there’s still a small part left that doesn’t think so and thinks it’s the whole of me or something like that and uh you’re defining Yourself by a characteristic that arises at a smaller percentage of the time than the rest of you arises is that what you mean usually you trust yourself sometimes you don’t but you’re defining Yourself by the part that doesn’t instead of the part that does right yeah or something like that okay and an example of that would be um like speaking in front of people like for instance I have a new job right now and like right now there’s going to be at least 10 000 people who listen to this so yeah okay nice there we go yeah yeah okay right because Okay so I guess somatically I still have kind of a stress response yeah before I’m supposed to speak even though I usually when I get into it I feel fine and I don’t get bothered by what you said right there as much as I would uh starting the podcast or thinking about it beforehand or okay so so what how does this stress and enjoyment relate to each other or this stress and losing yourself and not losing yourself or running towards yourself or running away from yourself how do they relate interesting it seems like yeah running away from myself is tied to the stress response okay so let’s let’s let’s be stressed for a minute and see what it’s like to run towards yourself during stress because stress happens whether you’re running away from yourself or not running away from yourself there’s going to be moments of like somebody saying something that’s hard or everything going wrong or some timing issue so how do you how do you run towards yourself in the time of stress yeah I’m not sure so right now there’s some stress in you because you can’t come up with the answer to this okay so how do you enjoy that just a little bit more yeah yeah so you just did it how did you do that I mean I got I got in words uh kind of a an eternal voice saying it doesn’t matter stop stop pulling the brakes or something like that oh that’s that’s amazing so the way that you leave yourself is pulling the brakes is that is what am I is that what you’re yeah yeah I feel like I’ve had that experience a lot where I feel yeah I’m really afraid of being judged and it feels phenomenologically like an actually pulling a handbrake or pushing down a brake pedal uh all the time and those moments when I when I uh release that it’s so effortless and it’s so easy to be charismatic and to just be uh loving and open you it’s easy to be you oh yeah yeah right so I’m curious about something this is kind of a strange one um the chronic illness is it autoimmune it has elements yes okay okay cool so how how does pulling the brakes relate your chronic illness and I’m not trying to say causal cause or effect I’m saying when you pull the brakes with your chronic illness what happens or how is your chronic illness a form of pulling the brakes or how do they relate yeah my initial response when you said that was that I mean if the if the stress response is always activated when I uh pull the brakes and this is kind of a stress disorder then then that makes sense um but also I’ve I’ve kind of nailed it down to uh it’s been a way to stop me from expressing my needs and wants that’s a long story there but I so no it’s super apparent if you’re the inconvenience for having it then yeah so you can’t even express your needs when you’re in chronic pain because that’s an inconvenience and I see it right so I’m asking um let me also ask a question so you’re hanging out you’re feeling good and then all of a sudden the chronic pain kicks in mm-hmm how do you pull the brakes in that moment what do you say to yourself if if anything what do you say to yourself that is a form of pulling that breaks when you experience the pain I think I get really stuck in what interventions I need to make to be free of the pain and that takes me out of the enjoying the moment that we spoke about okay hey so the pulling the brakes is that I have to fix myself okay and so what would your chronic pain look like if you didn’t pull the brakes I mean just to be clear you could think about what to do to relieve your pain and not hold the brakes and that’s very clearly yeah yeah absolutely yeah no that’s I I can differentiate between those two fundamental logically as well when I’m just like okay planning out something reasonable versus just ruminating and yeah yeah escaping yeah yeah so what does your pain look like if what happens to your experience if you don’t pull the brakes when you experience pain now I want to say I enjoy myself but there’s something that feels scary about that too yeah I’m curious how how often have you just cried out in pain you’ve had the full expression of the pain more so lately but but the first eight years or something very rarely yeah yeah and the more you allow the expression of the pain to exist what what changes if anything maybe nothing I mean there’s definitely more spaciousness around it and there is there’s much more uh joy and and love and nice emotion it doesn’t feel nearly as bad as I thought so there seems to be one one form of the breaks and maybe they’re the same thing as okay how do I fix myself because I’m broken and one form is don’t express the don’t let my body be in the anguish fully yeah I mean it feels it sounds kind of obvious now when we’re laying it out but I feel like at some some uh nervous system level there’s still some resistance to that or yeah what happened when you expressed your needs or your pain when you were a kid yeah I got shunned kind of yeah let’s go one step forward what what do you think it would be like to have your to ask your wife hey next time I’m in pain I want to just be in anguish I want to express the anguish I want my body to have its full expression and I want you to hold me and tell you tell me that you love me and that it’s okay that I’m in pain and it’s okay to express my pain yeah I mean it would be lovely man we have uh a little bind there however because she she yeah there’s some discomfort on her side with that but yeah that’s and my I mean that’s also what I’m noticing in myself this whole um I told you that I was very afraid of coming across as a victim and yet I always have this nagging sense that when I feel these things I really want to say it and I want someone to just say exactly what you said there you know it’s okay to be in pain I love you anyway no it still makes pain the bad guy right if I said that I apologize I don’t know what I said but yeah no I don’t think you said that I don’t think you said that yeah yeah what do you think makes your wife um uncomfortable with your pain our entire relationship has been very shaped by me trying to get out of it and resisting it and uh it’s limited her options a lot so her discomfort might not be your pain your her discomfort may be watching you try to escape your pain maybe yes yeah it might be and I also think she’s afraid of um not getting her needs met and not getting the life that she really feels she wants and needs because of my illness yeah and how would it feel to you to hold her while she had the big emotions around I might not get the life that I want and not try to fix it but actually just hold her and be with her in that anguish I I’d be willing to pay her good money to do that so that you could do that I would actually yeah love it but she she’s always trying to be so brave um like you yeah how’s it different you trying to be brave with your pain and not be the victim and her like what how is this different at all that’s a good question yeah but that’s I mean it feels like that’s it becomes this weird Twisted thing where if you’re if you’re really hold on fully and I want to hear everything you’re about to say and I want you to enjoy saying it all right see what happens to your thought structure when you prioritize enjoyment yeah so it’s a twisted thing is how you started yeah yeah no I get I get more Curious and get more uh Wonder straight away and I feel like I um I don’t choke up my voice as much it’s easier to speak yeah so notice if it felt like in the long pause there uh it seems like the uh expressing whatever want I have or like if I genuinely feel like I want to express the anguish and the pain and uh squirm and squeal and ask for help in that I think that’s much much less um hard for people to deal with than some kind of Mr in between where it’s uh the want is squished by the shame and the you shouldn’t feel this and then it becomes this awkward energy kind of like when someone does something and feel really embarrassed and then people get embarrassed rather than just oh oh I farted oh look at that and nobody cares right yeah people right absolutely people that don’t want to sit with other people’s shame like even if you see somebody when they ask oh this is what I want they’re much more likely to get a yes than if they say this is what I want and it’s full of Shame yeah and much more likely to get it now people just don’t want to be around each other’s shame also so I want I want to try something if I can Joe yeah of course because uh you always say that the vulnerable thing is to say the scary thing yeah and so uh the scary thing that’s true yeah to you yeah yeah would be if if you would uh if you would feel comfortable if if you felt like you could hold space Oh yes oh yes and say that you you love my pain and my anguish and let me be a victim for a little bit oh yeah absolutely I can do that yeah but you gotta look at my face you gotta see that I I actually do love your pain and anguish and for me it’s not even holding space it’s a privilege and an honor to be with it shit sucks to be in pain all the time and I hate it fuck I hate it for you I’m not even experiencing the pain I expand oh shit and at the same time I feel so grateful that I get to be here at all and I get to be here with you right now and it’s I’m so grateful for that see notice what just happened notice that notice that when you allow that feeling of victim all the way in and all the way through it moves to enjoyment yeah notice that as you ran towards yourself which was being in pain and being in anguish that enjoyment showed up yeah we’re scared that if we allow the feeling of the victim to be fully there that will end up being a victim forever yeah but what it actually just did is Empower you right the empowerment that you’re trying to have when you don’t allow the victim just becomes this very natural thing once you allow it yeah it’s not a push anymore right it’s a yeah it’s an it’s a natural flow yeah that’s such a shitty um uh bind until you get it yeah then it’s easy it’s like oh that’s it now all I have to do is allow yeah right and so most likely something’s happening in you where you’re feeling your wife’s anguish and feeling responsibility so you can’t fully just be there with her in it yeah and if you can be there fully with her in it this is what’s on the other side for her too even if it takes a couple weeks yeah you’re not gonna have the life you want because I am in constant pain and that sucks for you and I and I can handle that wow I get goosebumps when you say that yeah I don’t think I’ve ever said that to her yeah thanks Joe what an awesome awesome pleasure thank one other thing uh I don’t know if your wife is a private woman or not but if she ever wants to do a session with the two of us I think that’d be super fun oh wow so we could yeah if she wants to do it we could work on this together it’d be really fun wow okay yeah yeah I will and I understood if she doesn’t want to do that yeah yeah yeah I uh yeah I hope I get to talk to you again on the podcast it’s always too short yeah awesome loved it awesome have a nice day bye wow that was fascinating thank you Joe and thank you Christopher if you want to hear more from both of them check out their conversation on Christopher’s podcast do explain 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