What I Learned in Therapy

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

K66-1: What I learned in Therapy
is a podcast about healing.

What I learned in Therapy
is a podcast about healing.

It's a podcast about storytelling,
about therapy and philosophy.

Um, it's just kind of an
amalgam of, of the way that I

conceptualize healing, I suppose.

A quick reminder, I'm a licensed
clinical professional counselor.

I own a healing center called the Vault.

I do amazing things at the vault.

I do retreats, workshops,
group counseling, group

processing, trauma processing.

I teach yoga classes.

I do yoga therapy, somatic therapy, all
in this little place called the Vault.

We call it the vault 'cause
there's an old bank vault door in

it weighs about a million pounds.

It's pretty awesome.

If you're interested in learning more
about what goes on at the vault, shoot me

an email at W-I-L-I-T with Jamie at Gmail.

So that's what I learned in therapy
Acronym with Jamie at gmail.

It's located in the show notes, or
you can just head over to the Vault's

website also located in the show notes,
and you can contact us there too.

I'm really excited to continue to share
all the healing that happens here.

Um, and now it can happen with
you wherever you are with the

digital course podcast meditations.

It's all there for you.

So going over to the website and begin
a really profound journey of healing.

Speaking of the retreats that I do over
the last couple of months, I've had

four retreats at the vault, two with
one group, and two with another group.

So they're separate and they're in
different stages of the curriculum that

I've built, and it's been so profound.

The groups are very different.

They learn differently, they love on each
other differently, and I get to experience

all of that in a very intimate way.

I'm so lucky sometimes I just feel
like the luckiest woman in the world.

At one of our most recent retreats, a
woman named Erin was really struggling

with the concept we were studying.

We were talking about
Aparigraha, and it is the wisdom.

Of letting go, and the wisdom
isn't the letting go part.

The wisdom is that it's
really fucking hard.

So stay with it.

Stay with it.

There is nothing that you need
to lose because you cannot

lose any parts of yourself.

There is just transformation
waiting for you around every corner.

And I'd like to talk
about Aparigraha today.

And also this woman, her name is
Erin, that's not her real name,

but she has given me permission
to speak about her experience,

um, as long as I change her name.

K66-2: So let's get started.

There's an old saying that
we do not fall in love.

We fall into recognition.

I love that we find in our lovers or our
partners, the echoes of our past, the

fingerprints of those who have shaped
us for better or for worse, really.

And so often we don't understand
why we choose who we choose.

You may have heard people
say, oh my God, I married my

mother, or I married my father.

And there, there's something
really valid and real about that.

Um, and I think it's one of the
most beautiful things in the world.

Honestly.

We simply know that we are
drawn, pulled, tethered to people

who seemed to bring us home,

and a home not designed just for comfort.

Also someone with whom to walk into
the unfinished rooms of our childhood.

The places where we were left
waiting, unseen, and often unheard

aparigraha.

The wisdom of letting go is often
misinterpreted as detachment.

But it is not about removing
ourselves from life.

It is about releasing our grip
on the illusion of control.

It is about recognizing that love is not
possession, and healing is not domination

over another, but rather surrendering
to the truth of the present moment.

There is no amount of suffering
that is going to change the past.

However, there is a tremendous
amount of suffering when

desperate to modify the present.

Erin is a part of the newest group of
women moving through my curriculum.

I.

throughout the curriculum, we meet
seven times a year, each meeting for a

two day weekend retreat at the vault.

She has a 48-year-old woman and a five
year relationship with her boyfriend Jack.

Erin came to the retreat carrying a
lifetime of illusion, the illusion

that control gives her what she needs

as a child, she learned that
survival meant being seen

that love was not given freely,

but fought for whether through.

Laughter, performance control,

fear.

Her father left and her
mother turned toward many men

turning away from Aaron,
and so she learned to grasp.

To anticipate, to orchestrate,
to manage the chaos so that she

would never be forgotten again or
to reject before being rejected.

And now she has Jack.

He is everything.

She was denied.

He is present.

He's patient, willing to listen
without demand, without pulling away.

In fact, the last time I spoke with her,
she said something like, he's the kindest,

most patient person I've ever met,

but it terrifies her

because to love Jack, I think as he is,
means that Aaron will be able to accept

that love does not have to be chased
or controlled, that it can simply be.

That she can simply be.

She was expressing some frustration with
Jack at our retreat, and I stopped her

and said, Aaron, we pick the partners.

We do because they hold
the medicine we need.

Jack

is not your father.

He's here.

Right now, in this moment,
he's with you here,

and the question is, can you be with him?

Can you let go of the illusion
of control and simply receive

aparigraha is the hand that slowly uncles,

it is the hand that releases the tension
of grasping for whatever we already have.

It asks us to see the ways we hold
onto pain because it is familiar.

The ways we try to shape our partners
into ghosts of our past so that we

might finally rewrite the ending.

But healing, I assure you, does
not come from rearranging the past.

It comes from choosing in this
moment to let the story continue to

transform you and continue to become.

Aparigraha does not mean leaving.

It does not mean detaching.

It means surrendering to what
has already been constructed.

It means surrendering to love as it
already has been constructed, and let it

transform you again and again and again.

And so Aaron is learning
slowly, carefully, painfully

it hurts.

It hurts to realize the thing
that saved you is now harming you.

We choose the partners, friends and
mentors we do because they have.

The salve, the particularly constructed
medicine to nurture our healing.

There is no coincidence in
our deepest relationships.

We are drawn to those who unconsciously
reflect our unresolved wounds.

Not as a punishment, but as an
opportunity for integration.

Buddha once told the story of a man who
clung to a raft after crossing a river.

I love the story he had needed it
to survive, but once he reached

the shore, he refused to let it go.

He carried it with him on his back
through the forests fields, believing

that because it had once saved him, it
would always be necessary, but clinging

to the raft only slowed him down.

It was no longer needed.

What once kept us safe can
often become our burden.

Aaron's need to control was once raft.

It helped her survive a childhood of
neglect, but now in the presence of

love with Jack, it weighs her down.

She must lay down the illusion
if she is to move forward.

Neglect is not just a lack of care.

It is an absence that takes up space.

It is a void that a child tries
to fill in any way they can.

Neuroscience shows us that children who
experience neglect, whether emotional,

physical, or psychological, develop
brains wired for hypervigilance.

Their nervous systems become finely
tuned instruments, always searching for

signs of rejection, abandonment, or harm.

Instead of growing into a world that
feels safe and predictable, they adapt to

one that feels uncertain and dangerous.

For young children.

For little girls, neglect carries a
unique imprint when a father is absent,

either physically or emotionally.

A girl learns to question her own worth.

She internalizes the message that
she is not important enough to be

prioritized that love is something to
be earned rather than received freely.

If a mother is emotionally unavailable
or immersed in her own pain, a daughter

learns that her own needs are secondary,
that she must take care of others before

she is allowed to take care of herself.

And when exposure to sex comes to
soon, whether through inappropriate

conversations, witnessing
adult relationships, or direct

exploitation, the effect is profound.

This happened to Erin.

Her developing brain was not equipped to
process sexuality before it was ready.

Research shows that early exposure to
sexual content can blur boundaries,

confuse a child's understanding of love,
and create deeply rooted associations

between attention and desirability.

Instead of learning that love is
built on trust and respect, they

learn that love must be earned through
performance, through compliance,

through making oneself desirable.

A young girl exposed to sexual power
too soon learns that her body is

a tool, a currency of connection.

Even if no physical violation occurs,
the psychological impact is lasting.

She absorbs the unspoken message
that her worth is in, how she

is seen, not in who she is.

That power comes not from her voice,
but the shape of her presence,

that to be wanted is to be safe,
even if that safety is an illusion.

Fast forward into adulthood, and these
early lessons manifest in relationships.

The neglected child becomes the adult
who is terrified of being unseen,

who tries to control love, because
love once felt like an unpredictable

force that could be taken away at.

Any moment the girl who learned that
love must be earned through pleasing

others now struggles to set boundaries.

Fearing that saying no means losing
connection, and that anyone that

says no to her doesn't want her.

And the one who was exposed to
sexuality too soon may unconsciously

seek validation through desirability.

Even as it perpetuates her
fear of being abandoned.

In Erin's case, her relationship
with Jack is not just a love story.

It has become a battleground between
her past and her transformation.

She reaches for control, not
because she doesn't love him, but

because her nervous system does not
yet believe in safety without it.

To let go

of the illusion means to risk
vulnerability, to trust in something

that has never felt reliable.

When a child experiences consistent
neglect or abandonment, their

developing nervous system must adapt.

The amygdala responsible for detecting
threats becomes hyperactive, always

scanning for signs of rejection or danger.

Meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex,
the part of the brain responsible

for rational thought and emotional
regulation struggles to develop fully.

This imbalance means that as an adult,
even small triggers of uncertainty

or distance in relationships can feel
catastrophic as if survival is at stake.

But there's good news,
the brain and the body.

Are malleable healable
through neuroplasticity.

We know that new relational experiences,
ones that are safe, consistent, and

nurturing, can rewire these old patterns.

Every time she takes a risk and
allows Jack to hold space for her

without controlling the outcome.

Her brain is building new neural pathways.

I.

Each moment of trust, each breath
, where she chooses to soften rather

than grasp is literally rewiring
her nervous system to experience

love as something stable real here.

Aparigraha is not just a
spiritual practice, in my opinion,

it's a spiritual necessity.

To let go of.

The illusion of control is not to
surrender to chaos, but to trust that

love has existed long before you came
to this earth, and it will exist long

after, even without our grasping for it.

It is to believe that we can be chosen
without performing, that we can be

held without begging, that we can be
loved for who we are always becoming.

And so Erin is learning not just
through words, but through experience.

Every time Jack stays, every time
he listens, every time she loosens

her grip and finds that love
does not disappear, but deepens.

She's changing.

She's becoming yet again.

Letting go of illusion is terrifying.

I know I've had to do it several times
in my life, especially with my own

partner, but what I've come to learn
is that when I let him, he's exactly

who I've needed most of my life.

The hands we unc Unclench
have already become.

You have always been
becoming, and you always will.

There's nothing to grasp before.

Why stand in the way
when it's always been?

Thank you for listening.

Now go spray.

Paint that big old world out
there with all of your love.