"A neurosis is a secret you do not know you are keeping" - Kenneth Tynan

Wow I love that!

38:40 Let us all take a moment and give thanks to Heidi’s neuroses and coping mechanisms which led her to making these videos for us 🙏

This video is someone sitting down in front of me and describing me to myself in a calm and measured tone. It is quite the experience.

that awkward moment when Heidi's hypothetical examples apply directly to your life lol

Four reasons why Heidi's videos are truly remarkable:
1) Shared with love, care and often through personal experience...  It feels as though Heidi's primary purpose in being here is to share what she knows so that others can grow (as opposed to others who are primarily here to sell product or show themselves off to get clients / speaking engagements)
2) Shared with both explanations of diagnosis together with invitation to action...  She ensures that she blends ways to identify issues, together with ways to address, grow and move forward
3) Outstandingly clear.... always delivered with a blend of science in clear language supported by anecdotes, self-references and delivered with great care ... as if she truly wants each of us to be able to internalize each topic that she researches, experiences and shares
4) Human...  kind, understanding and open... helping to return us to ourselves

THANK YOU!!!

This makes me realize that avoidant attachment stems from internalizing that it is “normal” to live life in loneliness (due to emotional neglect) and unconsciously dissociating.

I’ve been operating under the assumption that I have to find closure in feelings, or else they will fester and take over. Now I see that sitting with feelings (actually listening to them) can prevent things from festering. The difference is sitting with the actual feelings, and not your judgments and thoughts about your feelings. Wow!

Where was this video 15 years ago when I started therapy? And why the hell can’t the majority of therapists out there, who have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds if not thousands of hours learning it, explain what’s Heidi has in less than an hour?!?! I truly feel like I could have saved myself and my husband so much emotional pain and struggle if we had been taught this from the get-go. Instead it’s taken us 15 years of limping along, breaking down, and struggling to even begin to start this process. Not only do I feel ripped off that my parents didn’t know enough to teach me this stuff growing up so I could be securely attached, but I’ve also now lost another 15 years of my life and money to people who clearly had no idea what they were doing, leaving me to piece it all together by myself. With Heidi’s incredible guidance. Thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart 💜

Neuroticism(mental and emotional pain) - lives in body, registered by emotional system. Fear of life with undeveloped skills to cope with life.-substitute to suffering legitimately. Developmental Blind spot around what is required based on inner state with respect to what is going on around outer environment.
Addiction
Perfectionism
Ruminating thoughts
Compulsive behaviour
Rigid pattern of Thinking and behaving
Limerence thought pattern
Obsession

unconscious - defense mechanism avoided working through the problem.
Repression
Projecting
Numbing out
Doing compulsive activity
Super busy/obsession/problem didn’t make it to conscious mind
Unconsciously avoiding situation that might trigger an awareness of the problem
Misplacing the emotion to other people or object around that problem

Alignment to reality- understand pain and develop ability to associate correctly.
Where emotion is coming from?
How we want to deal with emotion?

Developmental psychology:
Why body feels off and we don’t understand it as normal response to situations. Deeply seen loved and supported might feel like neglect as child we were neglected but never told that was neglect rather as normal.
Lack of emotional literacy.
Shame bound.
Incomplete information leading to wrong conclusion.
Emotional and psychological pain and we don’t know why- keep doing something that might help 70% as not doing it will give 100% pain. Instead deal with underlying emotional disregulation and connect to situation that’s causing and deal with it directly.

Repressed parts related to neurosis. Neurosis gives important information to heal, integrate repressed parts. Need for deep connection with people could be the need. Neurosis is messengers from exiled selves. Sit with ambiguous and uncertain feeling.
1. Notice feelings and work back to thoughts. Underlying emotion behind the thought.
2. Story behind the feeling. Consciously telling myself this is what I feel and I don’t know why.
3. Putting on hold the story making process till I complete next step.
4. Get familiar with feeling the feeling in body. What is the raw sensation of the feeling.
5. Be present with whatever comes up and be open to be surprised. Get to know the feeling without acting on them.
6. Get comfortable with uncertain emotions and messy life until I can attach them more correctly. This helps to learn authentic selves in wholistic ways to understand quirks, traits etc.
meaningful pain is the opposite of neurosis.

Healing from neurosis involves:
- Noticing and identifying feelings: Without attaching them to a story.
- Recognizing neurotic feelings: Understanding they might be misplaced but valid.
- Allowing ambiguity: Resisting the urge to immediately understand or resolve feelings.
- Being present with emotions: Understanding their raw sensations in the body.
- Living with open questions: Allowing feelings to exist without immediate solutions, leading to deeper self-understanding over time.

I get so triggered when I watch these and realize the depth of mental mind maze I have to navigate just to feel “lovable” and worthy.

"We internalize something normal when it's not (e.g., emotional neglect). We internalize something abnormal when it's not (e.g., a distressed parent who says they're fine)."

I want to share something that happened through my 4 years of therapy.

I didn't know why I needed so much time playing videogames and falling behind in life. I stopped playing them and A LOT of suffering came, which I tackled through therapy. It was horrible, but after facing them through a lot of work, my life improved a lot.

Now, I know when I want to play videogames, I want to escape my life and something is going wrong that I need to face.

I'm only about 25 minutes in, but I want to add that not only can we be treated in unhealthy ways and not notice it, we can definitely treat others in unhealthy ways. On my self-healing journey it has been painful to come to terms with my childhood abuse, and it made me begin to feel that any failings in relationships in my life were the results of me picking unhealthy partners as a result of that abuse. It's very, very hard to really accept how much I've contributed, and in some cases been completely in the wrong.

It can be excruciating, but when we notice that we can contribute in highly significant ways to the dysfunction in our relationships, it can prove to be a critical piece to the puzzle. The trick for me is constantly reassuring myself that my unhealthy traits are not proof of the cruel things that were said to me being justified, they are the result of them.

“The way to solve the problem, is not to be less needy,  yet to figure out what vitamins are you deficit in.” Words of gold……….. Thanks Heidi!!!

I hired a therapist a while ago but watching your videos has done infinitely more for me than the therapist ever did

I really appreciate the consistent effort you put into these concise, articulate, and super helpful lectures, Heidi. The hard work shows - the writing and speaking skill you’ve honed really make these complex & important ideas accessible.  Thank you!

"All neuroses are a substitute for legitimate suffering." WOW.

13:00 When you're in a state of distress and your body reacts, it is right. Especially, if you find yourself reacting to a situation in a way that's a bit blown out of proportion for the problem, it is still reacting right because based on the circumstance you were raised and whether you were taught certain skills or not, your body is responding to the situation the way it knows. So in cases where you're hyperfixated on why you're reacting so adversely, you need to think of why deep down and not just look at it and try figure it out surface level.

I want to mention that the skill of sitting with feelings and sensations and not reacting to them is the core of Vipassana meditation.