Why Trauma Could Be Costing You Millions in Business | Brian Yang DSH #743

There are three stages to all relationships.

This is the easy one.

This is where it's fun, the honeymoon stage, right?

So, this is where you're having the most fun.

This is where you're having the most sex, the most dates.

It's a good time.

It's like the best high.

When you get into stage two, when the expectations are higher,

when you're able to, when you feel more like you're threatening each other's well-being, what that cycle is going to look like, I call it the relationship loop of doom.

All the stuff that you never knew was even there comes boiling up to the surface.

The stage two provides the foundation to do the inner work to then get you to stage three.

All right, guys, got Brian Yang here.

We're going to talk relationships.

Everyone needs to learn from you, man.

Thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

I'm excited to be here.

It's my favorite topic and I think it's quite honestly one of the most important topics of anyone's life.

Absolutely.

Cause we all engage in relationships, whether it's dating, friendship.

You're parental.

There's always something.

It's good business relationships.

Absolutely.

And those are a tough one.

Business.

That's honestly one of the harder ones for me.

Yeah.

I mean, basically, any relationship where there's like a threat to your well-being, a perceived threat to your well-being, that's when it's going to stir up your emotions and insecurities the most.

You feel like you're dependent on them for your sense of well-being.

Oh, yeah.

Big time.

So, what's your take on business relationships and friendships?

Do you ever mix the two?

As far as business and friendships,

I do have one that's, I guess you could say, is mixed,

actually.

He's my executive coach, right?

He works for me and my my um my business and he's a friend and he and we spend time friend time together and he is um you know employee essentially that works for me so i think the main reason why it can work though is that we are super conscious of our own insecurities and fears and and and traumas because that's what really breaks any relationship down you're just unconscious to your own insecurities and traumas and you're just dumping on each other right and you just

get into arguments and then you

fight and then,

you know, you, you are making assumptions and it just falls apart.

But we're super hyper aware of ourselves and we're willing to communicate.

That I think that's exactly why

it works.

Yeah.

The trauma stuff is fascinating because my girl, we were talking before, we've been dating seven years, told me I had childhood trauma.

And I would, I would always push it off.

I'm like, nah, like, I grew up middle class.

Like, I don't think I did.

And then I got a brain scan and it showed up on the scan.

Yeah.

So I was like, you were right this whole time.

I need to work on myself because it's affecting the relationship.

Yeah.

But what was she, what was she pointing out to you that, that, that she was using as an exam,

sorry, I mean, coming through my own words, as an example of the childhood trauma.

I think I ran away from my emotions as a child a lot.

Yeah.

So that would come up in dating.

Like I wouldn't be as affectionate as she wanted.

I wouldn't react the way she wanted emotionally.

That's probably the biggest one.

And then I would kind of distance myself during fights.

Like that was my style.

Instead of like embracing it, I would just run away.

Absolutely.

I mean, that's very classic, you know, avoidant behavior.

Yeah.

And I relate directly to you because that was my style as well.

Super suppressed, disconnected from my emotions, my feelings, even my fears.

And I cope with it by working, video games, porn,

you know, work money, all any way to, you know, to get away from that.

And I wasn't even aware that I was doing that.

Well, automatic, right?

And then when it came to a relationship with my wife,

you know, we're obviously dating initially.

It was just avoiding conflict.

I don't want to deal with uncomfortable emotions.

Her emotions are too much.

And so I pull away, I withdraw, I isolate.

I try to get away from that perceived threat.

And I didn't even know that was a trauma response

to my childhood, where I first, that's where I first learned it.

And it was basically emulating me, my relationship that I had with my mother.

Right.

And I'm curious, did you find similarities there?

Now that you're saying it, yeah, my mom used to yell at me a lot and I would just go to my room, shut the door.

So that was probably a daily occurrence.

Yeah, exactly.

That's what we do.

Right.

So when we, when that becomes our first,

our first interaction with love and relationships,

our first concept, of love and relationships is through our parents, mom and dad, or whoever the caregiver was

and how they interact with us how they communicate with us and how they communicate with each other right mom and dad or whatever the parental relationships you what you what you're observing and seeing through them right that becomes your model of the world you absorb it like a sponge right it's not a conscious thing you're just like oh this is what this is how i relate to myself and other people i'm gonna do this thing i'm gonna do what they do and

and so that becomes imprinted onto us

and but we still think that's love that's the thing right All right, guys.

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And so, we find ourselves later on in life as an adult being attracted to the same people, places, and things that feel familiar to that because we still think that's love.

Even though, even if there was pain involved, we still think that that that's how we exist in the world is through that lens.

And so it's very common that we find ourselves dating, especially the people that we find ourselves the most closest and most intimate connected with.

We find ourselves connected to the person that reminds us of one of our parents.

Right.

Sometimes both, they can switch traits of both, but oftentimes it's the, it's the, it's the, you know, let's say for you, it's your, your mom.

For me, it's my mom, right?

My wife,

certain traits and characteristics are so one-to-one to my mom it's mind-blowing it's freaky

i'm sure a lot of people if they just spend some time exploring it's like it's there it's it's totally there um but it's not a bad thing though

because this is natural it's a natural part of the human experience to kind of reconnect to these early childhood wounding experiences and to reprocess it to

first act it out play it out it's a mess of course but then to transcend that and then do the inner work to then, okay, here's a fighting that's happening, but it's, it's getting me in touch with the little boy inside.

Right.

Same thing for the little girl inside her.

And now I can get defensive and make it about her, or I can try to take a little tiny wiggle room of a moment.

And then just, if I can, when I can catch myself, shift that focus onto myself and just connect to what's happening inside me.

Oh, I don't feel safe.

I feel unsafe like I did as a child.

I can feel it right there in my chest.

I feel unworthy.

She's pointing out what I'm doing wrong.

I feel not good enough.

Same shit I experienced as a little boy.

Let me feel that and feel the little boy and connect to him directly and reparent him.

Teach him to feel, teach him to work through this, which is him and me the same.

And that's how you break free one little layer at a time, right?

That's the journey.

That's the inner work.

That's the journey.

And that's the gift of those fights and interpersonal relationships.

It gets you in touch with that stuff.

So you can break yourself free from it.

And then, you know, ideally, you're both doing the work and you can, you know, transcend it together.

It's a beautiful thing.

No, it's beautiful, man.

Now I can converse and I can, you know, get in arguments, but it's not really like a heated argument.

My parents got in some heated ones when I was growing up.

So I think that's why I was scared of arguing because they would yell and sometimes get physical.

So it's terrifying.

Yeah, I was scared of it for sure.

It's terrifying for a child.

And that's one thing I get so often is like

people will say to me like, oh, my childhood was normal.

Right.

Maybe that's what you first thought.

Yeah, it's not, you know, just, it is what it was.

But even like simple stuff, you know, it doesn't have to be like terrible stuff like a car crash, someone dying, rape, and whatever, you know, that the obvious big T traumas, but a little T traumas of just your parents fighting in front of you.

Of course, them yelling at you when you did something wrong, but when they're fighting against each other, no matter what it is,

it's so intense for a little child to experience that.

Yeah.

It's terrifying.

You don't know if you're going to be safe, right?

I got a vivid memory of one of them.

My mom was pulling one arm, my dad was pulling the other, and they were about to get divorced, and they were like, You got to pick who you want to spend the weekend with.

And I just remember thinking, like, this is a crit, like a pivotal decision in my life right now, because they're never going to forget which side I choose.

Yeah, what you, what side did you end up choosing?

I went with my mom, which was the safe route.

She was trying to say my dad was crazy and all this stuff.

So,

yeah, but then he ran away for a year, so I didn't see my dad for like a year.

Yeah, and I was only like 10, dude.

So I think that was pretty traumatizing.

Yeah.

I think that's so interesting, too, because like,

you know, I think you first mentioned when your girlfriend said that you got childhood traumas, you got issues.

Yeah.

Your first instinct was like, no, I don't.

Right.

Yeah, I didn't think I did.

That was, that is so normal for people to do that.

And here's the reason why is because we have to normalize that as a child.

It's my mom and dad.

It's my, it's the only thing I got.

Of course, I'm going to normalize it so I can continue to exist in it, to function in it, to maintain connection with these people, even if it's, even if there's pain, even if there's, you know, their own crap that they're, that they're, that they're dumping onto me.

Like I'm going to normalize that because that's my

one true source of love, connection, safety, survival, food, shelter.

So we do normalize these things.

It's very natural because we have to, as part of our survival instinct, to normalize our family environment so we can maintain connection with them and continue to survive.

Absolutely.

So, you believe there's three stages of relationships, and most fail in stage two.

Could you explain the stages?

Yeah, so there are three stages to our relationships, at least the way I have break it down.

The first stage is very obvious.

This is the easy one.

This is where it's fun, the honeymoon stage, right?

So, this is where you're having the most fun.

This is where you're having the most sex, the most dates.

It's a good time.

It's like the best high, right?

That beginning part of a relationship where you're so attracted to them and they're attracted to you.

And at the same time, you're only really sharing a very filtered version of yourself to them.

It's not even fully conscious, but you know, you do it when you meet someone new for the first time.

And anyone, even a business relationship, you're trying to put on your best foot forward.

It's just natural instinct because you want that connection so bad, right?

And so that's what you're doing for each other.

And so you're not really bringing all of you to it in the beginning, for one.

But

also more importantly than that is the threat isn't fully there yet.

In the beginning, the threat is not fully there.

And what I mean by that is, you're not fully committed to each other.

You might have not quite said, I love you yet.

Maybe you did, but you're not, you know, you still, you still have your space.

You have your life, they have their life.

You're not fully committed.

You're not talking about crazy long-term plans.

It's just lower expectations.

Lower expectations, lower threat.

And so it's easier to be this in this more enjoyable state with one another.

And also, it's new, novelty, right?

Fresh, new, it's exciting.

And then what happens is that that stage eventually fades.

And typically what ends that first stage, which is very natural and happens for everyone, it's just the progression of relationships, is more commitment, right?

More expectations of one another.

Your perceived sense of well-being becomes more dependent on the other person, on how they're going to show up for you and vice versa.

And so things like moving in together, things like getting married, right?

It could also be, like I said before, saying, I love you, right?

Just that bigger commitment that we're in this longer term.

That's going to push you into stage two, natural.

And

when you get into stage two, when the expectations are higher,

when you feel more like you're threatening each other's well-being,

is when your childhood trauma comes up to the surface.

All the stuff that you never knew was even there comes boiling up to the surface.

And so what that cycle is going to look like, I call it the relationship loop of doom.

Stage two is a relationship loop of doom.

And what happens is, I'll give you one example.

It doesn't matter who starts it first.

Could be the man or either partner, same-sex marriages, same thing as well.

One partner, just say,

is stressed at work and they are feeling like maybe they made a mistake or things are just not going according to plan and they're stressed.

They're maybe feeling not good enough.

Maybe they're just feeling, you know, maybe shame and guilt.

It's just things are messing up.

They're feeling these uncomfortable emotions that come up to the surface.

And as a result of that, that person is going to cope with that.

Every human being copes with their pain, right?

So he's going to, it's just a hit, it's a he.

He's going to cope with that pain by shutting down, isolating, maybe distracting himself with more work, just working harder, video games, sports, porn.

There's so many ways to distract, right?

To distract.

numb, suppress, withdraw, get quiet.

He goes into himself, right?

He does something that he learned to do from childhood, probably not even aware of it, to cope with those emotional pains.

But he's trying to do that to feel better.

He's not trying to hurt anybody.

He's just trying to soothe those pains.

But the thing is, is that when he does that, it's going to have the opposite effect, which is trigger the hell out of his partner, right?

His partner is going to perceive that coping mechanism as abandonment.

Wow.

He's leaving me.

He's rejecting me.

He doesn't love me.

He doesn't care.

Right.

Touching her core wounds.

And when she feels that pain,

of course, she's going to cope with her pain in the way that she learned how from her childhood, unconsciously.

It's all unconscious.

And so that's going to look like getting criticizing.

That's going to look like, you know, pointing out all the things that he's doing wrong

because she's feeling alone.

She wants his attention.

He's like disconnected.

She might get controlling.

She might get very emotional, like angry, right?

To project emotion to get attention.

And so, She's not doing that to hurt him.

She's not trying to criticize or yell at him or do that to hurt him.

She's feeling alone.

It's all about the pain that she's trying to soothe.

It has nothing to do with, you know, hurting him.

But of course, just like him, her coping mechanism is going to do the opposite.

The more she does it to soothe her pain, it's going to trigger his wounds even more.

So now he's going to feel even more not enough, more unsafe, more of the very pain that he's been trying to cope with.

He's going to feel that pain even more and then cope with it more.

And then the more he copes with it, the more she feels triggered and hurt, and then she copes harder.

And so it becomes literally this infinite loop of doom.

Right?

It's just like

their pains cause them to cope.

Their coping cause each other pain and they cope more.

And so they're in this vicious cycle of being hurt, coping, and feeling more of the pain.

And it becomes like a downward spiral.

And relationships can be in this cycle for years,

decades.

You know, I got clients that have been together for like 30 years and they've just been doing this the entire time.

Right.

They do it.

They have a big blowout.

They sweep it under the rug, pretend it didn't happen until like the next fight happens and they get into this little cycle again right every this happened happening to everybody it's some some flavor some form of this and so

how you get out of that is what i've i've discovered what you've discovered in your personal journey as well is like is to first be aware that you're even in it to begin with like oh this is more than just i'm not this is not real it's just we're playing out this phantom you know, game of running away from these old childhood wounds and doing a coping mechanism that we don't have to do, but I learned to do it.

That's what's happening.

It kind of creates some separation.

Like, okay,

then, okay, I'm aware I'm doing this stuff

and what do I do about this stuff?

Like, okay, I can do some trauma work.

I can do some inner child work and can do some somatic work.

Instead of coping, connecting to the pain of not feeling good enough, feeling it instead of coping.

And then through that, you can connect to the little boy inside and start to repair that part of yourself, right?

To create healing, to allow healing to happen.

So you're not just managing the pain, but you're actually dealing with it and you're healing it.

You're just going to the root of it.

And the same thing for the partner, she gets to address her pain of abandonment, right?

To feel it, connect to the little girl that's there that was abandoned as a child growing up.

Right.

So this,

the, the, the stage two provides the foundation to do the inner work to then get you to stage three.

Right.

And so stage three is where, you know, people transcend that loop of doom.

They don't see it as like, oh, this guy's, you know, this, this, this partner is some terrible person that's making my life miserable and they just need to stop doing that, right?

It's kind of like the psychology of most people in relationships.

It's like, no, they're giving me an opportunity to see myself.

This is a moment, like literally, they're giving me a moment to look at myself like a mirror,

to look at all these, these parts I haven't addressed or didn't know how to address, and now I get to do it, right?

That's a spiritual awakening

that puts you into a spiritual partnership.

You can both do that.

It's It's incredible, right?

So you're both doing your inner work.

Yeah.

You're healing.

It happens in layers.

It's a gradual process.

But then you realize the truth of what you're in each other's lives for is for evolution, is for growth, to be able to experience more and grow more together than you can individually.

That's why you're together.

Right.

And it's much deeper, much more fulfilling, and it can last a lifetime.

And then you're less than these huge roller coasters, highs and lows, right?

I love them.

It's more stable, more gradual yeah i always wondered why people are drawn to like toxic partners but you explaining this makes so much sense now because it's on a subconscious level

it's what was familiar to them that toxicity is what was familiar to their to their um upbringing and they saw that as love right if anything you just give them compassion like oh it makes sense you had a hard childhood instead of judge someone that has that perpetually does a terrible one terrible relationship after another be like oh damn that person had a hard childhood they just pointed it out i was a nice guy in high high school that pissed me off because I was that guy.

I was there for them, and they always picked the dick or whatever.

You know, absolutely.

Yeah.

Right?

Because they match their trauma.

That person matches their trauma in the same way that they also match the other person's trauma.

It takes both.

It's not one person is the victim of the other.

They're just acting out their roles and they're both just coming together to one person reminding the other person of their mother.

Yeah.

The other person reminds the other person of their father.

That's literally it.

It's pretty crazy.

And I'd say a large majority of people never address their traumas their whole lives, which is insane.

I saw it with my, with my, uh, with my father.

Yeah.

His whole life.

Yeah.

And there's, um, it's generational, a lot of it, you know, and that time, that generation, you know, the inward exploration is not there.

You know, the number one, the number one, you know, prerogative is survival.

Make money, get education.

You know, I'm not sure if that resonates, but like, just as long as you can function and you can pay the bills.

That's that's it.

That's life.

Right.

Right.

A lot of the previous generations have this psychology.

and it's really just human human um the cycles of human evolution right we've been in a state of survival for a very long time

where survival was more important whoever had the most resources or money or whatever like that's what you have to either align yourself with or aspire yourself to become from a place of survival of emptiness right

and so we're i believe we're in a very cosmic sort of next level evolution of humanity where we're we're we're sick and tired of being in that constant state of survival.

It's stressful.

The body doesn't like it.

It breaks down.

You see, you know, chronic illness, mystery, chronic illnesses all over the place.

Nothing's mysterious about it.

It's all stress and trauma.

Yeah.

And so when you start to, people are getting sick of that because they're seeing that, oh, all these coping mechanisms, the money, the, the, the people, you know, being love addicts and chasing people or chasing money or chasing fame or status and all these different things.

It doesn't.

fucking work.

Doesn't work at all.

Not long term.

Not long term.

You get a dopamine hit, you get a little bit high, fun for a little bit, and then boom, you're back down to exactly where you were before.

Right.

I'm sure you've experienced that.

Sometimes lower, too.

Sometimes lower.

It's more depressed.

Like, shit, I did this thing.

It doesn't even work.

I feel even worse.

Yeah.

Right.

More hopeless.

Got a taste of it.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And it's crazy too, because you see it.

Like the stories are there.

Yeah.

Not there for no reason.

You know, they, they, they have access to everything.

There's no,

there's no more chasing anything because they have it all.

And so all that's left is the pain and the depression and the, and, and the, the, all that crap that's been inside them that hasn't been dealt with right and when it comes up all at once it's overwhelming as hell absolutely for some people it can be very devastating for sure and they'll survive it but that's what we're here at right we're trying to wake up from that yeah which is okay let's just start stop doing the coping and chasing whether it's through relationships romantic romantic relationships or through material things or whatever let's start getting curious about that little boy little girl inside us right that felt the pain of not feeling good enough for their parents or a pain of feeling abandoned or being abused and not feeling safe.

Can I start to

connect to that part of myself?

Because you can.

When you connect to that part and you learn to feel and face it and explore it and renegotiate, reparent it, it starts to feel safer.

It starts to heal.

The very simple analogy I give people all the time is like, imagine a crying baby that is just throwing a tantrum, crying, snot down the face.

It's just, it is not happy.

It's hurt.

It's scared, whatever.

Most people, what they do,

you know, to the, to, to them, to them, to their own emotions and what they do to that child is push them away.

I can't deal with you right now, right?

You be someone else's problem.

You're too loud.

You're too much.

I don't want to deal with you.

All that kind of stuff.

Right.

And that pushes us away.

That child feels more hurt, more scared, more abandoned, more neglected.

That's what they're doing to themselves whenever they cope and not deal with their own insecurities and emotions.

Even that's a baby.

Yeah.

Right.

So you just got to think that that's like what's happening inside them, right?

That's That's what's happening inside them is they're they're sort of they're coping and not dealing with that crying baby inside them or the crying five-year-old or the 10-year-old, right?

And it just gets louder and louder, and then people are surprised.

Oh, 10 years, 10 years from later on, they're depressed and don't understand, right?

Because this is what's been happening inside them.

And so the inner work is really bringing that crying, that scared, hurt little child close to them, right?

Bring it right there to the heart, even though it's making that mess and it's uncomfortable at first.

I'm just going to do it, I'm just going to take a risk and bring it close.

Go closer to the wound and hold it and give it that safe presence that we didn't get growing up, right?

Obviously, I'm simplifying it, but that's generally the work what we're trying to do.

And as you start to do that,

every mother knows this, you know, knows this.

Oh, the child starts to feel safe again.

Yeah.

Right?

It starts to feel loved.

And that's the healing.

And that's the new work that we really,

it's really unavoidable.

It's the work that needs to be done if we want to transcend this stuff.

Yeah.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Having abandonment issues, your love language is probably physical touch, right?

Yeah.

Physical touch, closeness.

Yes.

That's important.

Specifically closeness.

And that was my fiancé's and it wasn't mine.

So I had to learn to adapt because we have different love languages.

Mine is acts of service.

Yeah.

But for her, it's physical touch.

So I make time to do that for her every day.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

And it's not just for her benefit, but it's for you as well.

Because I imagine like giving her a physical touch is naturally uncomfortable for you, you, not you.

At first, it was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was like, what is a hug?

Like, my parents didn't hug me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it grows you to be able to give that and then to then appreciate it.

You expand yourself.

You open your heart.

But, you know, also with like the five love languages, they're usually the symptoms of her childhood trauma of what we didn't get.

Right.

So what we didn't get becomes her love language of what we crave later on.

Right.

Of course, she wants love into, she wants, she wants, you know, physical touch because that's how she soothes the pain of abandonment right

um for you is acts of service someone just being there for you doing stuff prioritizing yeah when i was a kid my parents didn't show up to my sports games exactly you know so definitely that makes sense just people showing up for you yeah right and you just and the way you can rationalize that oh when they're doing stuff for me they're showing up for me they're prioritizing me yeah i'm important no that's so deep because every other kid's parents were at the games like soccer basketball whatever and mine were never there yeah holy crap yeah and and, and, you know, part of you too is like, you know, do you have a hard time?

Let me ask you this.

Do you have a hard time asking for help?

Yeah.

Being vulnerable?

Yeah.

Exactly.

Very hard.

Which is understandable because when you were counting on people there for you, your parents didn't show up.

That hurt like hell.

Yeah.

I've been in bad financial situations and I won't even ask for help.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Because the pain.

The percept, the phantom pain,

all this is a phantom pain.

The phantom pain of what it would mean if you were to ask for help is greater than the pain you're dealing with right now.

And that's oftentimes what gets us stuck in suffering and misery is that we have a phantom pain of something that we think is going to be bigger than the pain that we're dealing with right now.

And so we'd rather just put up with this pain right now forever, infinity practically, to avoid that bigger phantom pain, whether it's abandonment or being disappointed or shame or...

whatever that thing not feeling good enough.

We'll put up with a lot of other shit to avoid the bigger thing.

And that's really really what you see in also, you know, really painful relationships.

Absolutely.

Do you see a lot of trust issues in your clients because of social media and just everything being so easy to access these days?

Yeah.

Well, for sure.

Well, give me an example of trust issues.

Just slowly watch.

People like cheat on each other.

So now they have a trust issue that every other guy or girl is going to cheat on them.

And it just kind of stalls a relationship.

Well, it's a manifestation of what's there before.

And so if they've already had trust issues, then they're going to be ultra-sensitive to social media or their partner on social media.

Right.

So the way trauma works is as we hold it inside us, it's always looking for threats, right?

So sure, you could say it's social media.

Absolutely.

It makes it accessible and easier to be shady and cheat and do all kinds of crap for sure.

But if that wasn't there, the trauma would be looking for the next threat, the next threat.

Okay.

Like, oh, your coworkers, are they female?

Right.

Right.

It was going going to start to look around, like, oh, you haven't texted back in you know, 20 minutes, what's going on there, right?

See, it's the threat response, it's always looking for something, um, and that never stops until it gets addressed.

But that's that's the coping is like, oh, I want to control what you're doing on social media, I want to control what you're doing at work, or whatever, right?

That's more for the person that's more anxious attachment, which we're talking about the person that has abandonment, right?

They're going to have that, whereas the person that is more avoidant, um, you know, for them, for them, them.

It's like, I want to be trusted.

Actually, to me, cut to that.

You brought up trust issues for a reason.

Do you struggle with being trusted yourself or trusting her?

What direction is it?

It wasn't mainly at me, I'd say, or my fiancé.

It was mainly my friends.

Just a lot of them just seem to really.

So you have difficulty trusting them.

No, I see them have difficulties trusting their potential partners.

Okay, so it's just what you're observing out there.

Yeah, like very commonly.

Okay.

Yeah.

And a lot of it is from cheating, I'd say, and social media.

Yeah.

And at the same time,

like I said, we come right back to the beginning of our conversation here is that we are drawn towards the environments, the people, places, or things that are familiar to what we grew up with.

So if we grew up being betrayed, let down,

and we have trust issues there, we're going to be drawn to environments where we can't.

be trusting the people around us.

Wow.

Because that's familiar.

That's deep.

Yeah.

And we do it all the time.

Yeah.

People don't even know they even know right they hate it hurts but some part of them is like pulling them towards these types of people environments or spaces because there's a familiarity to that it almost gets them in touch with that childhood part of themselves subconsciously because it feels again feels like love does it feel this is how i exist in the world is be in this sort of emotional state where i can't trust them pulls them in there and they get stuck in it because you know I guarantee you they probably stick they stay stuck in it.

Even though they can't trust them and the person cheats on them or betrays them, they still stay stuck in it.

They don't leave right away.

They just

keep trying to convince or control the partner or the person to stop doing that.

Or if they do leave, they find themselves in another relationship or another situation where the same thing happens again.

And that's going to be their that's going to be their future.

Is it's going to be repeating like Groundhog Day.

Keep changing relationships, changing certainty, whatever that is.

If they don't deal with what is inside them that is unresolved, that is also pulling them into these situations, attracting them into these situations, they're going to keep repeating it.

And there's nothing that you can do or anybody can do to try to convince them otherwise.

They have to get to a point where they hit rock bottom and they say,

What the fuck am I doing?

I'm doing the same thing over and over again.

Let me explore myself, right?

Yeah.

And that's the work.

It's like, okay, what's going on here?

Why am I experiencing this?

What's this about?

And one thing that can help anybody that might be confused on, like, oh, I don't know if I have childhood trauma.

What's this all about?

How do I explore this?

And if they're confused about all they got to do is this,

look at what is prevalent in their life.

What is happening in their life consistently and that's really just showing up in their face.

Am I constantly being lied to?

Am I constantly being yelled at?

Am I constantly being whatever way?

Or whoever, where is that loud threat happening in their life

that's dominant?

And then ask yourself this question.

How early in life do I remember feeling this way?

Simple.

Very simple.

And just sit with that for a little bit and see how far back you can go.

You might start with, like, oh, this was just like my last relationship.

Well, keep going further back than that.

Acknowledge that and go back.

Okay, how about even further than that?

Oh, you know, when I was a teenager, when I was 12 years old, seven years old, five years old, oh, my whole entire childhood.

Boom, there you go, right?

There's a childhood pain.

It's manifesting back in your adult life.

And now you get to meet that childhood pain, right?

Instead of trying to soothe that pain through all these people and places, trying to fix the pain through this outside

environment through whether people, the money, the whatever it is, is can you connect to that little that young part of you?

Yeah.

That little boy, that little girl that's still inside you because it's alive inside and it's controlling you until it gets addressed.

And so that's the work there.

That's a great mindset shift, that self-accountability, because you could ask anyone, oh, why did you break up with that person?

And they're going to put the blame on the partner, most likely.

1000%.

But very rarely are you going to take self-accountability for a relationship failing.

Yeah.

And there's a reason why, right?

And the reason why is because it hurts like hell to take accountability.

Because if I have to be, if I were to be accountable, then I would feel less than.

I feel shame.

I feel guilt.

I feel bad about myself.

I feel not enough.

And again, even that right there, where did that come from?

How early back in life do you remember feeling that way?

Oh, when my parents blamed me and when I did something wrong and they were down on me hard, criticized me, they yelled at me, they shamed the shit out of me, whatever it is.

And that's the pain there that makes it hard for someone to become accountable later on in life.

Because when they were, they made a mistake and it was exposed, there was so much pain associated with that.

And so they're like, I'm not going to be accountable, right?

So, same thing, it all comes back to the same place.

That's deep.

You made a video about the dangers of being a mama's boy.

Yeah, I want to talk about that because, yeah, I am one.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Well, I made that video because I am one.

I was one

as well.

And so, yeah, being a mom is a boy.

Okay.

So it's the mother, the mother fun, the mother-son dynamic is very interesting.

It depends on the culture, but

generally speaking,

there's a lot of pressure for kids generally, but especially like Asian cultures,

even more so, to be a good son, be a good daughter, be there for the parent.

Now, in this case, in this dynamic, the son being there for the mom.

And so

typically the mother is domineering, controlling,

uses, can use either overt or sneaky, covert ways of using guilt and shame on the child to keep the child in line and also subconsciously dependent on the mother.

And so the son grows up in life thinking that,

I just have a close relationship with my mom.

Yeah.

Right.

And maybe even struggles later later on in life to figure out, like, okay, well, now I have a partner in life.

I got my mom.

Who do I prioritize?

Right.

The fact that they even ask that shows that mom and boy's dynamic of how the mother has groomed that son to be.

Wow.

To prioritize her needs over pretty much everyone else's.

Right.

And that's very Asian culture, too.

The mother's needs are the most important because I know better.

But really what's happening is that mother has a fear of abandonment too.

She's afraid of being abandoned, she wants to feel important because she's not getting it from her husband.

She didn't get it growing up, right?

She wants to get it from her son.

You see that?

Oh, that makes sense.

Because Asian culture is tough.

They never got that love.

Yeah, a lot of pain, a lot of trauma there.

I mean, all cultures got trauma, but you know, that's that's the flavor of Asian culture is that

dynamic.

Um,

other things that can happen too depends.

Um,

you know, for me,

I'll speak for myself.

There was what's called emotional incest.

And so, what emotional incest is, is it's where the parent is

basically turning their child into a surrogate partner emotionally.

Right.

It's not conscious, right?

They're not saying, like, oh, just go be my boyfriend, but they're treating them like one, right?

Boyfriend, girlfriend.

They're treating that child as their emotional support vehicle to complain about their life, to complain about, you know, complain, you know, my mom would complain about her husbands to me, right?

All she's got a lot of husbands.

She complained about all of them to me.

And I was just sort of like

her boyfriend, you know, metaphorically that she would dump all this crap onto vent on and expect all this emotional support constantly.

And so

that also creates a lot of this sort of mama's boy dynamic that is actually extremely

destructive.

to a child's development to come into their own to be able to you know have more um ownership of their own emotional experience and their own needs because they get they abandon themselves for the mother it's been a lifetime doing that

and so you know and then then they will also do the same thing with their partner because they're again remember we date people that are similar to our parents so you might find yourself date abandoning abandoning yourself for your partner either people pleasing or when it gets too much then you go into avoidance right so it becomes a slingshot um so mama's boys do this how does that resonate with you dude i was a massive people pleaser Yeah, exactly.

Even like strangers, like I would put them over like close family.

Yeah.

It was weird.

Yeah.

It's groomed to do so.

Yeah.

Because what would happen if you didn't please, you know, let me ask you this.

Who did you find yourself pleasing the most?

Your mother, your father, or who?

Ooh,

I really liked my dad.

My mom was tough on me academically.

She was the Asian one.

My dad's the white one.

I'd want to please my

I rebelled against my mother in high school.

I started failing classes on purpose.

So it got really kind of toxic on me.

So before that, though, how do you remember being before?

I wanted to please my mother, but then I had that rebellious phase.

Yeah.

So before the

rebellious phase, there was the strong drive to please.

Yeah, whether it was piano or whatever she wanted me to do.

That's still your core programming there.

Yeah.

Right.

And

as it was for me.

And then let me ask you this.

If you made a mistake, if you didn't do what she wanted,

what would she do?

Oh, she would scream.

Exactly.

When I was younger, she would slap.

Yeah.

A lot of pain.

Yeah.

A lot of pain, right?

Yeah.

And so that's why people pleasing is so strong.

It's trying to cope with that pain.

Wow.

I never realized why it was like that.

Yeah.

It's that phantom pain of, I don't want to be punished.

I don't want to be, you know, like I did something bad.

I don't want to be yelled at or screamed at or criticized.

I don't want that negative, unsafe feeling.

So I'm just going to people please.

And because of that trauma, I have lost millions of dollars in business.

Yeah.

Because I'm just trying to please everyone and put others before me.

Yeah, exactly.

Crazy.

And I never realized it was from that.

Holy crap.

Well, it's natural.

Yeah.

It's the most, that's what we do.

Every human's doing that.

They're just playing out their, their, their childhood conditioning and programming.

It's incautious.

And quite honestly, we got to meet it with compassion.

It's easy to judge it, but that's so stupid to do these things, but there's a reason why.

And we understand the reason why.

It's like, oh, it's just compassion.

Like that child is so fucking scared.

That's why he did those things or he or she did those things.

Wow.

And so you just want to meet that with compassion that of course you did those things because of how much pain you experienced as a child.

Same thing for me, my wife, and everyone I worked with and just people out there.

Of course you did those coping mechanisms with the people pleasing, the withdrawing, the shutting down, because you experienced so much pain.

That was the only way you could figure out how to intelligently avoid more of that pain from your mother.

For example, right?

Because that compassionate piece is so important because that's what allows that part of yourself to feel understood and loved.

And then you can do some, obviously go deeper and do, you know,

inner work to process more of that pain, which then frees you up to be able to stop people pleasing or shutting down or hiding the emotions or not expressing yourself, whatever those things are.

I love this way of thinking because when I see my friends do stupid things, I'm like, that's stupid.

But now I'm going to start thinking, okay, why is he doing that?

Like, what caused that?

You know what I mean?

Because we think so service level as humans, but there's deeper meaning.

There's deeper meaning to everything.

There's a cause and effect for everything.

No one's just stupidly doing something.

I think that's the biggest thing that I want people to understand.

No one is just stupidly doing anything.

No matter how terrible it is, no matter how ridiculous it is, they're not just doing it because they're a fool.

They're doing it because they're avoiding a phantom pain that was so excruciating.

That's why

the behavior is so extreme or so repetitive.

Wow.

Right?

Just see that, oh, that person's in pain.

So much pain.

And the only way you can help someone like that is just give them compassion.

Like, oh, I can see you're struggling.

I can probably see where it might come from.

That's that's really hard.

That's probably maybe a pain I can't even fathom myself.

Right.

If anything, what a powerful soul to have that and function of that pain.

Um, and I wish them the best.

Yeah, I wish them healing.

It can be a gift if you heal from it.

A thousand percent.

A lot of top successful people in the world have had deep traumas.

Yeah.

Well, here's the thing: you know, you can be successful, not heal the pain, right?

You see it in celebrities, you see it in business moguls you can be very successful without the healing but it's not sustainable that's the thing right right you're gonna crash and burn right either gonna be depressed um shit's gonna fall apart right if you don't address it even though you have the success now if you do heal then you can retain the success or move the success or the you know what you've developed into a way that is more from the heart as opposed from the fear

you know the fear is if i don't have the success i'm not going to be good enough if i don't have this success, I'm not going to feel important or seen or heard by the world or whatever, right?

Because you can try and cope with that.

That is a constant hamster wheel of running away from pain.

It's a very stressful state to be in.

And it's not sustainable.

Everyone crashes.

But you do something that you create something beautiful from the heart that's of service, that just something that just from the heart, from a place of love,

that has so much.

sustainability.

It's infinite, actually.

Infinite sustainability.

You can keep on going and going and going.

Anything that comes from a place of love, not fear, will sustain you forever.

I love that.

Yeah.

Frequency, right?

Frequency.

Yeah.

I'm all about that.

Brian, where can people learn from you, find out your site and everything?

They can follow me on Instagram.

Awakening with Brian is the handle, but they can also

follow my website, awakeningwithbrian.com.

Perfect.

We'll link below.

Thanks for coming out, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's a super valuable lessons there, guys.

Check them out, and I'll see you guys tomorrow.