When the Past Is Blurry: Inner Work for HSPs on Unclear but Stressful Memories

Todd: [00:00:00] Four times a year, I offer something called a virtual retreat. This is a way to do the work from your home on Zoom with a bunch of us who want to do the work together. I facilitate about four sessions a day. I have my Inquiry Circle participants facilitating another four sessions during the night, and so you can participate in.

Two hour sessions of doing the work around the clock for basically 48 hours from Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon. And I do these four times a year. So if you’re interested in this kind of work, it can be a great way to. Get a more intensive dive into the work of Byron Katie and you’ll find all the details as well as you can sign up at the work as meditation.com and then just go to the virtual retreats page.[00:01:00] 

Client: What if you like, if you want to go to a specific situation, and maybe it’s a long time ago or maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t remember very well what happened exactly. But I’m invited to relive the situation, to be doing the work. So how, like, how to solve that. 

Todd: Welcome to Wiggle Room, a podcast where we start with stress and look for ways to turn it around.

And we use the work of Byron Katie. A way to question any kind of stressful thought that can come up when you’re in any kind of stressful situation. The beauty of this program is that it allows you to look at your own thoughts and re-experience a situation in a way that may not be as stressful as what you originally experienced.

I am Todd Smith, and on the program today, we have. [00:02:00] A few interesting questions from participants in the open session. The first one has to do with doing the work on a situation where you don’t remember the situation that well. Another is a question about can you do the work on an abstract thought?

And then someone starts with a question about how to do the work on jaw tension, and then we end up actually doing the work. So all that is a part of the open session recording, which we’re going to get into right away. And then I will read from my newsletter, most recent newsletter called Insights from a Session on Smoking.

So let’s dive into the work of Byron Katie together. It’s such a simple, powerful way to question what you think and I’ve, I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do. This is the recording from our latest weekly open session, and as always, it’s an unedited recording so you can experience it [00:03:00] firsthand.

Client: I have a few questions if that’s good. I don’t know if there are other ones that want to 

Todd: Yeah, why don’t you start? Sounds great. 

Client: I was wondering about, I have it’s more like an underlying belief. And if I should adjust how I have this I and disbelief in my head. So it’s like an emotionally mature person as more valued and a less emotionally mature person.

So how to best do the work on that.

Todd: Yeah. So this is a general underlying belief, right? It’s a good one. An emotionally mature person has, or immature person has less value than an emotionally mature person. You can do this one of two ways. One is if you’re gonna work it in general.

Then it’s gonna be probably more [00:04:00] challenging because you have different ideas of what that what that actually means in different situations. But you can touch on different situations as you’re. As you’re working it, so you can just be thinking in general, thinking abstractly, doing the work in a more abstract way can be done or you can choose a situation.

Probably this came up in a situation otherwise it wouldn’t be on your mind at this moment. So if you can refer back to what, where, what was the situation that. That brought that thought up to the forefront, then you have a really concrete situation for doing the work on it. And you’ll know exactly what you mean in that particular situation.

And even when you’re doing the work on a specific moment or a specific situation, you’re still thinking about it in general too. So the two kind of work together, the general and the specific they talk to each [00:05:00] other. But that would be how I would approach it. And, yeah, one of those two ways so I don’t have to 

Client: make it to like a i and the other, like to make the sentence different as so

Todd: no, I 

Client: can work with this 

Todd: sentence.

Some thoughts don’t fit on a judge your neighbor worksheet. And some thoughts don’t, aren’t judgements about myself either. They’re just beliefs. Like here it is an emotionally mature person. Has more value than emotionally. I think I said it reversed. An emotionally immature person has less value than an emotionally mature person.

That’s a, just a belief, right? That, so you don’t have to change the wording to fit some kind of pattern. No. Just take the thoughts literally as they come out of your brain. Put them on paper and question them directly like that. And sometimes it will come out judging your neighbor. So write the [00:06:00] judge your neighbor worksheet, right?

And sometimes it will be judging myself or it will be some fears or it will be, but sometimes it’s just a statement like, oh, like this. Emotionally immature people don’t have as much value, so question it. I think that’s probably one of my favorite things about the work is that. You can trust what your brain comes up with it.

It’s coming up with stressful thoughts all the time, so you can just trust that and take it down by Byron. Katie sometimes says, take dictation, from your mind and just literally get the thoughts as they appear onto paper and work them. Yeah. 

Client: Great. Thank you. Thank you for the clarity. And actually, I have a question that kind of fits into that as well.

Okay. In some way what, if you like, if you want to go to a specific [00:07:00] situation, and maybe it’s a long time ago or maybe, I don’t know, maybe I just don’t remember very well what happened exactly. But I’m invited to relive. Situation. Doing the work. So how, like, how to solve

Todd: that happens.

Yes. You start thinking about early childhood kinds of situations. I don’t remember exactly. I don’t always remember all the details. Or it’s become foggy over time. It can happen from something last week or last month also. If that happens, it doesn’t mean I, I can’t do the work on it, it just means that I may have to hold that situation a little more like just a little more carefully.

And the way, what I mean by that is you may have to just land on a version of that situation. It doesn’t have to be the [00:08:00] version, it doesn’t have to be. What absolutely happened, but close enough, something like that kind of happened. So for example, I’m, I was working on a worksheet recently on my mom when I was, I said seven.

Was I seven? I don’t know. It could have been five, it could have been nine, it could have been 12. I don’t know. It happened a lot. So I picked. Say seven. And it was, she would when her mother would call, my grandmother would call, she would answer the phone and go, hi. Really hi, like really high tone of voice and super enthusiastic.

And we used to make fun of her because we thought she was fake. And so I don’t remember exactly what the situation was. Was it at dinner? Was it at lunch? I know we were in the kitchen and I can remember that telephone with a really long cord that she would use to walk across the kitchen talking.

And so what [00:09:00] I do is, what I did is I put myself there. It was close enough. I was in the kitchen and she was on the phone, and the key word was her saying hi. And I know we were at a meal, and I remember more or less where I was sitting. It was good enough. It’s close enough. And if I couldn’t even remember that much, even if I just remembered what she said and it was not, the rest was foggy, I could still do the work.

’cause the feeling of it is there. So what I sometimes do is, if it’s not a hundred percent clear, I’ll just almost set the stage a little bit. Imagine what it was like, almost recreate it a little bit. As if it’s a version of what could have happened, but keeping true to the feeling of what was going on.

And so as long as I’m true to the feeling and then I have a pretty believable approximation of what the surroundings are, that’s all I need. [00:10:00] In fact, all I really need is that one micro-focused thing that she said hi and who cares whether it was, dinner, lunch. Other people around, not that’s the core of it, but if I have some more of those things they can be supporting.

If I remember them, great. If not, I may hold them, like I may almost recreate them or I may just let it be a little bit blurry and that’s fine. So it’s like when you’re, I’ve done the work on dreams before and sometimes you don’t remember the dream very well, but you remember that stressful feeling.

And so I’ll do the work on my closest approximation of what that situation was without worrying about whether it got it perfectly or not. It still works. 

Client: Thank you. That’s very helpful. Yeah and I’m wondering, but I think you already said it, like even if I don’t remember [00:11:00] the exact words, even if I was triggered by what someone said, but I don’t actually really totally, surely remember what they said, but I think I heard this and that.

Then I can work with that.

Todd: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah, it’s the idea in my mind, it’s my memory of it, my version of it that is stressing me. Yeah. So let me question it based on that version and we’ll find out. After all, I’m questioning everything, so maybe I will start to realize maybe it wasn’t a hundred percent sure that they did say that.

So that can be. That can come out as I do the work. But to start with, when I’m ready to start doing the work, I just look for my version of the story and go with that. It’s purely subjective. 

Client: Thanks. Thanks, Doug. 

Todd: Yeah. Ryan, I saw your hand up. 

Client 2: Thanks. Yeah. I appreciate that question and it kinda makes me think [00:12:00] about, as we were discussing earlier, questioning more abstract beliefs.

So I wondered if you could say a little bit relating the conversation just now to this idea of questioning an abstract belief where maybe there’s not really a concrete memory or experiential memory to reference. 

Todd: Yeah. Anything can be questioned. There’s no limit to the work. You can’t, you don’t have to say only concrete, specific examples, specific situations.

Only those can be done with the work. No, you can question abstract beliefs. Abstract. Ideas, you can question absolutely anything. Some people are more comfortable working with abstract ideas and it’s gonna be more natural for them to work with an abstract idea. So know yourself and if it feels comfortable, no problem.

Or try it and find out the reason why. We tend to favor concrete situations is [00:13:00] because it’s easier to know what you’re actually talking about. It’s easier to know what you meant. When you’re dealing with an ab abstract idea, then it’s very general and it can apply differently in different situations and sometimes it doesn’t.

You don’t really know what you’re talking about. And the tendency with. Abstract ideas when you’re working them. The tendency is that it starts to become more of an intellectual exercise. So it tends to be like removing X’s and Y’s around on a page. We’re doing math basically, and and as, and that’s fine if that math is connected to something real and emotionally for me, because then when I’m moving the X’s and Y’s around, I’m actually moving things around inside of my.

My heart inside of my experience. But if those X’s and Y’s become disconnected from anything experiential for me, then it becomes just like [00:14:00] a, like a puzzle of sorts. And it can be intellectually satisfying, but it may not actually it may not actually touch me or may not actually change anything significantly for me on the experiential level.

So if you notice the work of Byron Katie always starts with emotion. Emotion is the alarm clock saying, Hey, there’s something going on. Check it out. That emotion is grounded in my experience. It’s direct experience. I feel angry, I feel sad, I feel whatever. So then we find the thought that’s connected to that emotion and we work with the thought.

Because it came from the emotion in the beginning when I work, the thought, the emotion gets worked. It’s like I’m working the emotion directly because the thought and the emotion are connected. If in some way it happens that I’ve got a thought that’s not connected to my experience or [00:15:00] emotion or something, and I start.

Manipulating it or turning it around or doing different things. It may just be floating in space and not touch me. But that’s not to say that an abstract thought has to be disconnected from experience. Not at all. Many times I’ve had this where I really do feel. Think in an abstract way about something, and doing the work on that is really touching me, changing my perspective, opening my mind, and so why not?

So those are the only cautions on it. But, explore, I always say you can’t explore wrong. So try it. See what works for you. You may find. Some abstract thought. Thought when you question it just blows you away or you may find it goes nowhere. Just play with it, see what you find.

Alright, so anyone else either have a question or wanna [00:16:00] do the work. We have plenty of time, so just let me know.

Yeah, Chris.

Client 3: I like to do the work. Okay. I have a tension in my jaw and I can’t relax. I just can’t grip, have a grip on it or how do you say that? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Client 3: So I ask you how to do the work on that. 

Todd: Okay. I’ve I heard you say you can’t relax. So that could be a place we could start with when I tend to trust whatever comes out of our mouths right away, so that was the first thing you said, I can’t relax or we could take it one step further.

I can’t relax because like why, what are you, what is making you not relax?[00:17:00] 

Client 3: It feels as if I can’t find the,

the place to be. I it is it’s stuck in my jaws.

How do you say that?

I look up the word. Sure. I.[00:18:00] 

Yeah, the point of application, it feels as if I can’t find it.

Maybe it’s,

Todd: In terms of why there’s not a clear reason why you can’t relax, is that what you’re saying? 

Yeah. 

Client 3: Okay. And where to be in my mouth or in my jaws. 

Todd: Oh, I see. There isn’t a, there isn’t like a resting place in your jaw. Yeah. Like you can’t just find, there’s not one place where you can say, ah, that’s, yeah.

I can relax and there’s nothing happening. I get it. I get it. Yeah. Okay. Then let’s go with that. You can’t find the place to be to Yeah. That, that in your jaw. Is that true? 

Yeah. 

Todd: And can you absolutely know It’s true. You can’t find a place to be.[00:19:00] 

Yeah.

Todd: So how do you react when you think I can’t find the place to be where I can just be naturally relaxed with my mouth and my jaw?

Client 3: I feel impatient and also irritated.

Yeah, I feel like biting.[00:20:00] 

And I, I can’t stand it. I am really irritated.

Todd: And how do you treat your jaw when you think you can’t find this place to be?

Client 3: Yeah. As a nuisance.[00:21:00] 

As a, yeah, as an enemy or?

Yeah, I feel resistance towards the tension and,

and resistance towards not finding the place to be. 

Todd: And then what happens to your mind when you think I can’t find the place to be?

Client 3: I feel estranged. So what happens to my mind?

I want to have a solution. Yeah, I want to fix it. [00:22:00] 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. And the mind gets busy trying to find that solution, right? 

Yeah.

Todd: So who would you be Without the thought, I can’t find the place to be. Who would you be right now with your jaw if you didn’t have this idea? I can’t find the place to be.

Client 3: Without a thought, I, it feels like I, I [00:23:00] try to relax as far as I can go, so I’m more accepting. 

Yeah, more open. 

Todd: What do you notice? Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, what do you notice when you feel your jaw and you don’t have this thought? What do you see there? What do you feel? Yeah, 

Client 3: I feel more relaxation on different places. So I’m more present with whatever there is tension or relaxation.

Yeah, both.

Todd: So it’s ironic. It’s interesting. It’s. The idea, I can’t find a place to be. Makes it more tense. Yeah. So how [00:24:00] would you turn the thought around? I can’t find the place to be.

Client 3: I can find a place to be that. Yeah. That’s what happened. Just being and. Be there and focus or don’t force. Yeah. That, that is,

yeah. Especially not forcing is feels important. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s like I can’t find a place to be when I’m forcing. 

Yeah. 

Todd: But when I’m not forcing, it’s, there is place to be. 

Yeah.

Yeah. 

Todd: I can find a place to be. [00:25:00] How else can you play with that? What could be another way, another example for that?

Client 3: Giving words to it and I think of Katie telling, write the thoughts down or do something with it. That’s also a place to be. 

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. I love that. It doesn’t have to be comfortable. It doesn’t have to be stress free. Yeah. But I can write those thoughts down and it starts to, it’s a place to be. 

Client 3: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. It’s 

Client 3: the 

Todd: recognition, a home. 

Client 3: Yeah. Validation. Recognition. Yeah. That’s to be, yeah. Yeah. Whew. 

Todd: And when you were saying, I can’t find a place to be what was, what were you meaning, what exactly were you meaning when you say that? 

Client 3: It has [00:26:00] to do with having the, a grip on it or having, hold on it.

Todd: So how is it that you don’t, that you can find a place where you have a hold on it? 

Client 3: Yeah it’s about openness.

Yeah.

Todd: Yeah, it’s if I’m thinking it has to be a certain kind of place, then I’m not open. If it’s different from that, it’s like it almost like it has to be. [00:27:00] The perfect place for it to be, or a really good place for it to be. 

Yeah. 

Todd: But very good. It can be, 

yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. It can be a good enough place. Yeah. The good enough for what’s available.

Yeah. At the moment. Yeah.

Yeah. Like when I feel tension. I sometimes think I can’t be, I can’t relax, but it is possible to relax in a kind of way with tension. It’s just a different kind of relax when I don’t have tension. But it’s not a hundred percent that can’t relax. Yeah, I can find a place to be. Any other example for you?

Client 3: The thought that comes up [00:28:00] is that I had the idea, this has to be, I. It, it has to be gone. I don’t want this. And now I think, oh yeah I can live with it. So that’s also a place to be. 

Todd: It’s a place to be. Yeah. You found a place, you found a peaceful place. Yeah. To be with tension. 

Client 3: Yeah. Yeah. And maybe it’s the rest of my life.

Could be. I will see. It’s an adventure.

Todd: Yeah. There’s certain things that happen in these bodies. I noticed in myself that certain tensions come and some of it’s, it may just always be there. I don’t know. And so can I be at peace even with the physical the lack of physical perfection, if you will, compared to maybe when I was young or something.

And I love this. The work separates that so clearly that there’s the physical tension and then there’s my story about the physical tension and I can at least [00:29:00] be at home with the physical tension with a little less story about it. But that is a place to be. 

Client 3: It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: Thank you. 

Client 3: Yeah, thank you.

Todd: If you would like to participate in open sessions like the one we’ve heard just here, then go to the work as meditation.com and go to the open sessions page. And there you can see the schedule of sessions coming up. You can sign up and I’d love to have you participate. Only seven people can participate each week, but if you sign up, you can join in, ask your questions, and do the work with me.

And while you’re at the work as meditation.com, I also encourage you to look at the work 1 0 1, which is my on it’s like a, used to be a nine month course or [00:30:00] a nine week course. Now it’s a go at your own pace course. And it has 45 lessons and it’s very systematic and it goes through all the details of how to do the work.

And if you want to get a little more. Intimate with the work and become more self-sufficient in how to do this process, then I encourage you to check out the work one-on-one, and that’s at the work as meditation.com. Next, I’m gonna read one of my newsletter articles called Insights from a Session on Smoking.

Self-Control is not always the answer. Insights from a session on smoking. Last week I worked with a client on smoking. She had quit for 10 years, but started again a year or two ago. A big part of the experience for her has been a lot of shame around the idea of being a smoker. Again, [00:31:00] we questioned smoking is bad, and part of what makes smoking feel shameful is the idea that it’s bad.

The idea is that everyone knows it’s harmful to health, so there must be something wrong with me if I smoke. In spite of the evidence. People would think badly if they knew, and thus there’s a need to hide it. And keep in mind as I’m reading this, that this can apply to any kind of thing that you think is bad, any kind of addictive tendency or any kind of thing that you feel ashamed of.

And just play with that because the same principles that we’re finding with smoking can apply to many different kinds of situations. Before questioning the thought smoking is bad, we detailed why she thought it was bad, and the reasons fell into two main categories, basically with regards to others and with regards [00:32:00] to myself.

So smoking is bad with regards to others because others think it, it’s bad. They think it’s bad for your health. So why would you wanna do that to yourself? They think you’re stupid to smoke. They think you’re not as evolved. They treat you like you don’t know as much. They treat you like what you think is not as valuable because you smoke.

They look down on you for not having any self-control in that way. And then the other area are thoughts just connected to myself. Smoking is bad from my point of view in my opinion because I can’t breathe as easily. I don’t want to go to yoga as much. It smells, it’s expensive. It’s bad for my whole health, teeth, gums, et cetera.

I don’t like my kids to see my smoking. I’m setting a bad example. It shouldn’t be seen by others. I’m dependent on it. I don’t like [00:33:00] hiding. It’s enslaving and it’s stopping me from being free. This list of reasons why she thought smoking is bad helped us to hold the abstract concept. Smoking is bad when questioning it, and I find this really helpful when I’m working on a concept that seems very big.

And general and spans a whole lot of time, and it’s very universal. I love to look in a little more deeply and what did, what do I mean by smoking is bad? And so that’s where all these reasons came up. The prompt I always use is, smoking is bad because, so why is it bad? It’s bad because it’s expensive, it’s bad because it’s enslaving, it’s bad because other people don’t think I’m valuable.

These are what I mean when I think smoking is bad. So with these points of reference, it became easier to know what bad meant, and we could go into the work a little deeper. The coolest insight from this inquiry, [00:34:00] the coolest insight, came from the turnaround. Smoking is good. She looked for many ways that smoking could be seen as somehow good, and she found one that was very interesting, that it teaches surrender.

Smoking is actually bigger than her. She’s powerless against it, despite her desire to quit, and it is unyielding. The only way to end this kind of fight is to surrender in this way. Smoking teaches something that not smoking cannot teach. It teaches humility and surrender. Some people go to an ashram to find a guru to surrender to.

While that sounds romantic, that guru, if he or she is any good, will soon set up situations where you have to surrender any remaining attachments. This does usually not feel that romantic in those moment moments. The guru seems to be bad indeed, but it is the surrendering to [00:35:00] not getting what I want that opens up the field of liberation.

Smoking is a guru. It has no mercy. Once you enter into the smoking’s ashram, it doesn’t let you leave until you have learned the humility and detachment of surrender. What must be surrendered. The pride of being someone who’s in control must be surrendered. The esteem of being a non-smoker must be surrendered.

The need for respect from others must be surrendered. The idea of being smart must be surrendered. This guru called smoking. Is a genuine guru of an ancient line of gurus here for only one purpose, to free the mind from bondage. Surrender is the needed element to follow its teachings. What am I really surrendering to?

Smoking is an external mirror. What I’m really surrendering to when I surrender to smoking is myself [00:36:00] to a version of myself that I don’t want to admit is real. We like to hold the identities that I’m not a smoker. I’m in control of my life, even while smoking. It takes humility to see that I am not who I aspire to be, but rather that I am what I am, a smoker, not in control, et cetera.

When I surrender to who I really am, then I can listen to what I really want. This is self-awareness and it goes against everything we like to think. What do I really want asking? This is a practice of listening to myself and hearing what I’m actually feeling instead of what I’m, what I think I should be feeling in doing this, I’m surrendering to my current state of evolution, a place where I can truly rest, and a place from which I will naturally evolve, but I can’t evolve, and if I’m stuck [00:37:00] trying to be what I think I should be.

Instead of being who I actually am in any given moment, so I have to ask myself and truly listen in each moment. Do I want to eat a piece of candy? No. Do I wanna do yoga? No. Do I wanna smoke? Yes. That’s what I want. Do. I’m truly open. Then I will treat that desire as natural and right for me in that moment.

I will listen to it. I will honor it. This is self-awareness, self-acceptance, humility, and peace. Smoking is not the problem. If you really need to quit smoking, you could probably quit in a few days, but if you keep clinging to the idea, I’m not a smoker, this lack of open-mindedness will cause your mind to challenge you to be more open.

It will lead you once again to smoke. [00:38:00] Luckily for many PPE people, the body can handle a lot of smoking. While it waits patiently for the humility, acceptance, and listening required to stop from my side, I wouldn’t wish you to quit smoking if it meant you would miss the teaching that smoking has to offer.

But of course, if you do quit smoking, that’s great too. You will find another guru in your boss, your spouse, or another thing you can’t control. Smoking is just one of many paths leading to the same place. Private sessions are a great place to work on this. If you want to work on your thinking about smoking, addictions or anything else you can’t control, but wish you could, I’m happy to hold the space for you.

Private sessions provide a safe one-on-one environment for challenging. Any thoughts that keep you feeling stuck? Stuck. [00:39:00] And here’s a quote from Byron Katie from her book, loving What is, I don’t care if I smoke or if I don’t smoke. It’s not about right or wrong for me. I smoked heavily, even chain smoked for many years.

Then in 1986, after the experience in the halfway house all at once, it was over when I went to Turkey in 1997, I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in 11 years. I got into a taxi and the driver had some wild Turkish music playing on his radio very loud, and he was honking constantly, and he turned around with a big smile and offered me a cigarette.

I didn’t think twice I took it. He lit a match for me. The music was going full blast. The horns were going full blast, and I sat in the backseat smoking and loving each moment. It’s okay if I do smoke. I noticed, and it’s okay if I don’t. [00:40:00] And I noticed that I haven’t smoked since that wonderful taxi ride.