What I Learned in Therapy

K66-3: Hey, welcome back to What I
Learned in Therapy with me, Jamie Lang.

What I Learned in Therapy is a
podcast about storytelling, about

healing, about philosophy and how
to make the world a better place.

At least these days, it seems that's
the focus and today is no different.

Quickly, I am a licensed
clinical professional counselor.

I have an additional master's
degree in communication.

I own a private practice that lives inside
of my healing center called The Vault.

Also, inside the vault is a small
yoga studio, and it's connected

to my psychotherapy office.

So I get to do both.

I get to do yoga classes, I get to do
yoga therapy with my clients, which means

using the breath and the body, somatic
experiences to help heal, to help heal.

understand and tell a more complete
story every time the story occurs.

I also offer retreats, groups of
women to come to the vault and

we study together for a year.

Some groups have been
together over two years.

The curriculum I built is based
on yoga philosophy, Buddhism,

and I'm not a Buddhist.

I'm not holy in any way, um,
and it's about deep philosophy.

It's healing.

It's community.

It's what we all need right now.

I also turned my curriculum into a
digital course, which is now available.

If you'd like to learn more
about that, shoot me an email

listed in the show notes,

or go visit the website where you can read
about it, inquire about it, or just check

out the other offerings we have there.

K66-8: So today I'm going
to begin with a story.

K66-7: This story has been told
in various forms across different

cultures, from Buddhist parables
to Middle Eastern folk folklore.

It is a story about a king,
and it goes like this.

K66-5: There once was a great king
who ruled a prosperous kingdom.

He was kind and just, but there
was one strange thing about him.

He wore a blindfold.

From the day he ascended the
throne, he refused to remove it.

He claimed it gave him clarity, that
seeing less helped him rule with wisdom.

His advisors whispered behind his back.

The people speculated.

But no one dared question him.

One day, an old sage visited the palace.

Unlike the others, he
did not bow to the king.

Instead, he spoke.

Great king, why do you blind yourself?

The king stiffened.

I see more clearly this way.

The world is full of
distractions and illusions.

I do not need my eyes to rule wisely.

The sage nodded, and then he said, But how
do you know the world you rule is real?

The king faltered.

The sage continued, What if your
advisors have changed your maps?

What if they tell you the fields are
full of grain, but they are barren?

What if the people sing your praises,
not out of love, but out of fear?

The king felt a deep unease.

But he was not ready to face it.

I trust my advisors, he said firmly.

The sage sighed and left.

Days passed, and the
king's mind was troubled.

Eventually, curiosity
got the better of him.

In the dead of night, when no one was
watching, he lifted his blindfold,

and what he saw shook him to the core.

The palace walls were
cracked and crumbling.

The once golden floors
were covered in dust.

His advisors, whom he had trusted
blindly, had feasted while

the people outside starved.

The truth had been there all along,
but he had refused to see it.

The next morning, he walked through his
kingdom with open eyes for the first time.

The people gasped.

His advisors cowered.

But the king did not turn away.

He knew that only by seeing clearly
Could he begin to change things?

There was a time in this country when
we built things from the inside out.

We started with a foundation,
something firm, something unmoving,

something that could hold the
weight of lived experiences.

We built from the core, reinforcing
what was essential before expanding

outward, because a structure like
this could stand the test of time.

But when you reverse this process,
when you build from the outside

in, you create something fragile,
something hollow, something that will

collapse at the first sign of pressure.

This is where we are now.

Right now.

A teacher in my state was Told to
take down a sign in her classroom

She's an elementary teacher.

The sign says all are welcome here

and Shows various different hands
Like hands raised to answer a question

in the classroom and each of these
hands is a different skin tone.

She was asked to take this sign down.

Why?

Because someone argued,

her administration argued,
that this was an opinion.

And opinions, they said,
do not belong in schools.

Let that sink in.

She was told all are
welcome here is an opinion.

Pause.

Let that sink in.

She was told.

All are welcome.

Children's hands of various
different skin tones.

That's an opinion, ma'am, they said.

All are welcome here is
not a political slogan.

It is not a directive.

It is not a demand.

It is an affirmation of inclusion.

And yet this is now considered
a negotiable construct

instead of a core human value.

We have confused the things that
should be non negotiable, the dignity

of human beings, the need for safety,
the fundamental right to belong

with things that are subjective,
debatable, optional opinions.

And at the same time, we have taken
the things that should be questioned,

examined, held up to the light,
like laws, policies, bureaucratic

systems, political narratives, and
treated them as immovable truths.

We are living in reverse.

Aristotle wrote that a just society
is built upon virtue, not convenience,

not preference, not power struggles.

But virtue, he argued that truth
and goodness were objective

forces, things to be pursued, not
things to be reshaped at will.

For Aristotle, justice
was not simply about laws.

but about the cultivation
of moral character within

individuals and institutions.

A just society is one in which
people do not simply follow rules,

but actively embody virtues such
as courage, temperance, and wisdom.

He believed that when virtue is neglected,
laws become mere tools of power rather

than expressions of the common good.

When a society loses sight of its moral
foundation, it begins to drift into

disorder as people chase after personal
gain rather than Shared well being

a society that builds itself upon
Constructs instead of virtue is destined

to crumble because it has no real anchor

Buddha taught that suffering arises from
illusion From mistaking the impermanent

for the permanent, the false for the real.

Maya, the veil of illusion, is
strongest when we forget our core and

become entangled in what is external.

Buddha explained that humans become
trapped in suffering because they

attach themselves to illusions.

material wealth, fleeting
power, and transient identities.

He taught that the path to liberation
is seeing through these illusions.

Recognizing that what we often fight over,
status control, power, winning, external

validation, has no lasting substance.

The more we invest in debating
constructs, The more we reinforce

our own suffering to free ourselves,
we must learn to discern what is real

from what is merely a projection of our
fears, desires, and conditioned beliefs.

In this way, negotiating constructs
instead of values is a form of

collective delusion, an agreement
to remain trapped in illusion rather

than striving for true wisdom.

Hannah Arendt warned that when a
society begins to negotiate truth.

When it treats fundamental human
rights as topics for debate, it

sets the stage for authoritarianism.

She called this quote, the banality
of evil end quote, not the grand

monstrous acts of history, but the
slow bureaucratic erosion of what?

She

argued that totalitarianism does not arise
solely from violent oppression, but from

systemic dismantling of truth itself.

When societies allow truth to be replaced
by manufactured narratives, individuals

lose their ability to think critically.

She pointed to historical examples where
ordinary people believing they were merely

quote following orders or quote abiding
by policy became complicit in atrocities.

She warned that once truth becomes
negotiable, people become a detached

from their own moral responsibility.

This is what makes negotiating
constructs so dangerous.

It numbs us to injustice,
making us passive participants

and our own degradation.

And this is what we are
witnessing right now.

Today,

a 10 year old rape victim is denied an
abortion, forced to carry a pregnancy

her body cannot safely sustain.

A woman who suffers a miscarriage is
investigated for murder, interrogated

while grieving the loss of a wanted.

Pregnancy.

A woman is denied life saving
medical care because doctors fear

prosecution under strict abortion bans.

In a recent Congressional hearing,
Texas Republican Representative

Keith Self misgendered his colleague,
Representative Sarah McBride, the first

openly transgender member of Congress,

the first elected
transgender representative.

During the House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee meeting, Self

introduced Sarah McBride as Mr.

McBride.

Sarah McBride responded by addressing
Self as Madam Chair, attempting

to proceed with her remarks.

However, Representative Keith
Self kept addressing her as Mr.

McBride.

Interrupting her,

Representative William Keating, the
subcommittee's ranking Democrat,

interrupted to address the misgendering,
calling Keith Self out of order.

He questioned his decency
because Keith Self was trying to

remove Sarah McBride's dignity.

Keating insisted that Self properly
introduce Sarah McBride, but instead,

Keith Self chose to adjourn the meeting.

These examples are not complicated.

These examples are about human dignity.

And yet we have made them negotiable.

Why?

Because power no longer resides in
the ability to lead with values.

It doesn't.

It resides in the ability
to manipulate constructs.

Debating the construct itself
becomes a form of control.

This is why nothing ever feels settled.

Because the goal is no longer resolution,
it is perpetual negotiation and negation.

It is perpetual negotiation of the
constructs and the negation of dignity.

Our bodies feel safer.

When values are clear,
our nervous systems relax.

We know what is right.

We know where we stand.

We know where we belong.

We know where we are safe.

But when everything becomes a debate,
when even the most fundamental truths

are up for negotiation, our bodies react
with stress, tension, and exhaustion.

We are dysregulated, disoriented.

It becomes harder to trust,
harder to breathe, harder to

rest, harder to breathe, harder
to move, harder to breathe.

Chronic uncertainty rewires our
nervous system, keeping us in a

heightened state of vigilance.

When trust is eroded relationships suffer
not just with others but with ourselves.

We begin to question our own Instincts
doubting what we know is true.

This is not a political issue.

It is a trauma issue It
is a spiritual issue.

. A human issue.

When we strip people of the
ability to stand firmly, we

create a culture of instability.

And instability breeds fear.

And fear, left unchecked,
turns to cruelty.

Plato's allegory of the cave is the
perfect way to understand where we are.

We are arguing over the flickering shadows
on the wall, mistaking them for reality,

while refusing to turn toward the light,
the light of truth, the light of dignity.

But the cave is not inescapable.

The choice is ours.

Will we continue to negotiate illusions?

Or will we gather the courage
to step into the real world,

into real dignity for everyone?

This is not a partisan issue.

It is a human issue.

And like I said, it is a dignity issue.

It is a you and me issue.

It begins with you and me.

Because the world will continue to
negotiate constructs, but you, you

can choose to hold onto what is real
because in the end, the shadows will

never hold us, but the light will.

K66-6: Thank you for listening.

Now please, go spray paint the
world with all of your love.