Digital Social Hour - Why Trauma Could Be Costing You Millions in Business | Brian Yang DSH #743

Episode Date: September 21, 2024

Discover how unresolved trauma could be costing you millions in business! 💸 Join Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly as he dives deep into this intriguing topic with guest Brian Yang. Packed with valuable insights, this episode explores the hidden impacts of trauma on your professional and personal relationships. From understanding the "relationship Loop of Doom" to the journey of inner healing, Brian shares his experiences and expert advice on overcoming these challenges. Don't miss out on these transformative insights! Tune in now and join the conversation. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets! 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀 Whether you're a podcast enthusiast on platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, this episode is a must-watch to uncover the secrets of sustaining success. #LifelongLearning #PersonalDevelopment #InnerChildWork #SaveMyMarriage #Psychology #RelationshipAdviceForWomen #DatingAdvice #AttachmentTheory #ComplexTrauma #CouplesTherapy CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:38 - How to Make a Relationship Work 04:59 - LinkedIn - Get $100 Off Your First Ad Campaign 06:15 - Childhood Trauma and Relationships 11:01 - Reasons Why Most Relationships Fail 17:41 - The 3 Stages of a Relationship 19:55 - Understanding Generational Trauma 22:08 - Reparenting Yourself for Healing 24:31 - Exploring Love Languages 26:59 - Overcoming Trust Issues 33:19 - The Dangers of Being a Mama's Boy 36:55 - Effects of People Pleasing on Life 39:24 - Cultivating Compassion for Yourself and Others 40:40 - Healing from Pain and Suffering 42:05 - Where to Find Brian APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Brian Yang https://www.instagram.com/awakeningwithbrian https://awakeningwithbrian.com/get-started/ SPONSORS: LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/social Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are three stages to our 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-a-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, man. 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. Because we all engage in relationships, whether it's dating, friendship, parental.

There's always some sort of 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. Yeah. You feel like you're dependent on them for your sense of well-being.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. 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 I guess you could say is mixed, actually. He's my executive coach. He works for me in my business. And he's a friend.

And we spend time, friend time together. And he is an employee, essentially. That works for me. I think the main reason why it can work though is that we are super conscious of our own insecurities and fears 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 then you get into arguments and then you and you fight and then um you know you you are making assumptions and it just 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 um 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. So I was like, you were right this whole time. I need to work on myself because it's affecting the relationship. What was she pointing out to

that she was using as an example? Sorry, I'm going to throw 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 uh work money all any way to you know to get away from that um and i wasn't even aware i was doing that automatic right and then we came to a relationship with my wife um you know we're obviously we're dating initially it was just avoiding conflict i don't want to deal with uncomfortable emotions your emotions are too much um and so i pull away i withdraw i isolate i try to get away from that perceived threat um and i didn't even know that was a trauma response well to my childhood where

first that's where i first learned it um and it was it was basically emulating me my my relationship that i had with my mother right and i'm 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 that becomes 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 relationship,

what you're observing and seeing through them, that becomes your model of the world. You absorb it like a sponge. It's not a conscious thing. You're just like, oh, this is how I relate to myself and other people. I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to do what they do. And so that becomes imprinted onto us.

But we still think that's love. That's a thing. All right, guys. Shout out to LinkedIn, today's sponsor. As a B2B marketer, you know how noisy the ad space can be. If your message isn't targeted to the right audience, it just disappears into the noise. Luckily, with LinkedIn ads, you could precisely reach the professionals

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Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. We still think 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 right sometimes both they can switch kind

of traits of both but oftentimes it's the it's the it's the you know let's say for you is 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 a lot of people, if they just spend some time exploring, it's like, it's there. It's totally there. 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 getting me in touch with the little boy inside. 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. I just point out what I'm doing wrong. I feel not good enough, right? 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, right? 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. Right. So you can break yourself free from it. And then, you know, ideally, you're both doing the work. And you can 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 it's just it is what it was but even like simple stuff you know it doesn't have to be terrible stuff like a car crash, someone dying, rape, and whatever.

The obvious big T traumas, but the 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 right you don't know if you're gonna 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 would just remember thinking like this is a crit like a pivotal decision in my life right now because they're never gonna forget which side I choose

yeah 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 and I think that's so interesting too because like yeah I think you first mentioned when your girlfriend said that you got childhood trauma issues.

You got issues. Yeah. Your first instinct was like, no, I don't. Right? Yeah, I didn't think I did. That is so normal for people to do that. And here's the reason why. It's because we have to normalize that as a child.

It's my mom and dad. 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 it, to maintain connection with these people, even if there's pain, even if there's their own crap that they're dumping onto me. I'm going to normalize that because that's my one true source of love, connection, safety, survival, food, shelter. to me like i'm going to normalize that because that's my like my one true source of love connection safety survival food shelter so we do normalize these things um 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 sure 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 breaking 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, you're trying to put on your best foot forward. It's just natural instinct because you want that connection so bad. 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 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 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? 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 um when you get when you get into stage two when the expectations are higher when you're when you're able to when you feel more like you're you're threatening each other's well-being is when um 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 he, he's going to cope with that pain by shutting down, isolating, maybe distracting himself with more work, just working harder. We do 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 and and 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 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 um because she's feeling alone she wants his attention he's like disconnected um she might get controlling she might get very emotional like angry right to project emotion to get attention right 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 has nothing to do with you know hurting him but of course just like him her coping mechanism is going to do 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 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 you know clients that have been together for like 30 years and they've just been doing this entire time

right they do it they have a big blowout they sweep under a 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 some some flavor some form of this and so how you get out of that is what i've discovered what you've discovered in your personal journey as well as 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 and doing a coping mechanism that we don't have to do but i learned to do it that's what's

happening right it kind of creates some separation. Like, okay, where 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. I 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 reparent that part of yourself. 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. To feel it, connect to the little girl that's there that was abandoned as a child growing up. Right. So this, abandonment right to feel it connect to the little girl that's there that was abandoned as a child growing up right right so this the the stage two provides the 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. 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. Literally, they're giving me a moment to look at myself like a mirror, to look at all these parts I haven't addressed or didn't know how to address, and now I get to do it. That's a spiritual awakening that puts

you into a spiritual partnership. You can both do that. It's incredible. You're both doing your inner work. You're healing. It happens in layers. It's a gradual process. 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. And it's much deeper, much more fulfilling, and it can last a lifetime. And you're less in these huge roller coasters, highs and lows, right?

It becomes more stable, more gradual. Yeah. I always wondered why people are drawn to 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 upbringing and they saw that as love right if anything you just give them compassion like oh it makes sense you got a hard shot instead of judging someone that has that perpetually does a terrible one terrible relationship after the next you'd be like oh damn that person had a hard childhood instead of judging someone that has that perpetually does a terrible one terrible relationship after the next you'd be like oh damn that person had a hard childhood they just

painted it out i was a nice guy in high school it 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. 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 father. Yeah. His whole life. Yeah. And it's generational. a lot of it. And that time, that generation, the inward exploration is not there.

The number one prerogative is survival. Make money, get education. I'm not sure if that resonates, but 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.

And so I believe we're in a very cosmic sort of next level evolution of humanity where we're sick and tired of being in that constant state of survival. It's stressful. Your body doesn't like it. It breaks down. You see mystery chronic illnesses all over the place. Nothing's mysterious about it. It's stressful. The body doesn't like it. Breaks down, you see mystery chronic illnesses all over the place. Nothing's mysterious about it. It's all stress and trauma.

And so, when you start to people are getting sick of that because they've seen that all these coping mechanisms, the money, the people, being love addicts and chasing people or chasing money or chasing fame or status and all these different things, it doesn't fucking work.

It 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. 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. It's even worse. More hopeless. Got a taste of it. Yeah, exactly.

And it's crazy, too, because you see it. The stories are there. Got a taste of it. Yeah, exactly. And it's, it is crazy too. Cause you see it like you, 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 cause they have it all. And so all that's left is the pain and the depression and the, 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, where we're trying to wake up from that. Yeah. Which is, okay, let's just stop doing the coping and chasing,

whether it's through relationships, 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, you know, 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 their own emotions is what they do you know to to them to them to their own emotions is 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 as a baby? Yeah.

So you just got to think that that's what's happening inside them. That's what's happening inside them is they're coping and not dealing with that crying baby inside them or the crying five-year-old or the 10-year-old. And it just gets louder and louder. And then people are surprised,

oh, 10 years from later on, they're depressed and don't understand because this is what's been happening inside them. surprised oh 10 years 10 years from later on they're depressed they 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 and close to them right bring right there to the heart even though it's making that mess is uncomfortable at first i'm just going to do i'm just going to take a risk and bring it close go closer to the 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 it's it's really unavoidable it's the healing and that's the new work that we really it's it's it's 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 yeah specifically closeness and that was my fiance'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 i 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 not not 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 um but you know also with like the five love love languages they're usually the 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. Of course she wants physical touch

because that's how she soothes the pain of abandonment. For you, it's 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. So definitely, that makes sense.

Just people showing up for you. And the way you can rationalize that is, oh, when they're doing stuff for me they're showing up for me they're prioritizing me yeah i think 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 i'm do you have a hard time do you let me you know, do you have a hard time? Let me ask you this. Do you have a hard time asking for help? Yes. 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 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 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 with a lot of other shit to avoid the bigger thing right um and that's really what you see and also you know really painful relationships absolutely do you see 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. But give me an example of trust issues.

Just like 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 the 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 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 co-workers are they female right right it was 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 this is the threat response is always looking for something um and that never

stops until it gets addressed but that's that's a coping is like oh i want to control what you're doing on social media i want to control what you're doing network right 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, you know, for them, for them, it's like,

I want to be trusted. Actually, me cut, cut to that. You brought up trust issues for, 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 fiance. 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 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 don't even know. Right? They hate it. 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 like love. 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 stay 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 um they just they 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 right and that's going to be their that's going to be their um their future is it's going to be repeating like a groundhog day keep changing relationships changing certainly 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 there's nothing that you can do or

anyone can do to try to convince them otherwise they have to get to a point where they hit rock bottom and they say like what the fuck am i doing i'm doing the same thing over and over again let me explore myself. 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,

I'm like, oh, I don't know if I have childhood trauma. What's this all about? How do I explore this? If they're confused about it, all they got to do is this. Look at what is prevalent in their life. What is happening in their life consistently and is really just showing up in their face.

Am I constantly being lied to? Am I constantly being yelled at? Am I constantly being whatever? 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 you might start with like oh this was just like my last relationship well keep going further back than that right 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, when I was 12 years old, 7 years old, 5 years old, oh, my 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 and trying to fix the pain through this outside, you know, environment through whether people, the money, whatever it is, is can you connect to that little, that young part of you?

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? They're going to put the blame on the partner most likely. A thousand percent. 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 were to be accountable, then I would feel less than. I feel shame. I feel guilt. 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 so they're like i'm not gonna 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 so fair enough yeah well i made that video because i am one i was one as well and so yeah being a mama's boy is okay so it's the the mother the mother fun the mother-son dynamic is very interesting um it depends on the culture but well generally speaking there's a lot of um there's a lot of pressure for kids generally but especially like asian cultures yeah even more so to be a good son be a good daughter be there for the parent right now in this case in this dynamic the son being there for the

for the mom and so um 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 on in life to figure out like okay well now i have a partner in life yeah 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. She wants to get it from her son. You see that? Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, because the Asian culture is tough. They never got that love. They got a lot of pain, a lot of trauma

there. I mean, all cultures got trauma, but that's the flavor of Asian culture is that dynamic. Other things that can happen too. Depends. For me, I'll speak for 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 well right it's not conscious right they're not saying like oh just go be my boyfriend. But they're treating

them like one. Boyfriend, girlfriend. They're treating that child as their emotional support vehicle. To complain about their life, to complain about my mom would complain about her husbands to me. She's got a lot of husbands. She complained about all of them to me.

And I was just sort of like her boyfriend, metaphorically, that she would dump all this crap onto vent on and expect all this emotional support constantly, right? 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 have more ownership of their own emotional experience and their own needs. Because they abandon themselves for the mother. It's been a lifetime doing that. And then they will also do the same thing with their partner.

Because again, remember, we date people that are similar to our parents. So you might find yourself 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 yeah i would put them over like close family yeah it was weird yeah it's groomed room to do so yeah because what would happen if you didn't please you know i want

to ask you this who did you find yourself pleasing the most your mother your father or who oh 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, honestly.

But 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,

it 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. Yeah, I never realized why 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 I 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 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 is doing that. They're just playing out their, their childhood conditioning and programming.

It's unconscious. And quite honestly, we got to meet it with compassion it's easy to judge it but oh that's so stupid to do this 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 how much pain you experienced as a child.

Same thing for me and 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. 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? 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. To see that, oh, that person is 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 really hard. That's probably maybe a pain I can't even fathom myself. If anything, what a powerful soul to have that and function with that pain. And I wish them the best. 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 can be successful and not heal the pain. 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. You're going to crash and burn. You're either going to be depressed. Shit's going to fall apart 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 what you've developed into a way that is more from the heart as opposed from the fear. The fear is, if I don't have the the success i'm not going to be good enough if i don't have the success i'm not going to feel important or seen or heard by the world whatever right because you can try to 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 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 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 on, man. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome.

Super valuable lessons there, guys. Check them out and I'll see you guys tomorrow.