TRIGGERnometry - ＂We Are Angry Because We Feel Powerless＂ - Dr Louise Mazanti

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin. And this is a

00:00:09.720 show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest

00:00:15.020 today is a psychotherapist, Dr. Louise Mazanti. Welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you so much.

00:00:20.160 It's so good to have you on the show. For anyone who isn't familiar with you or your work, I'll

00:00:25.660 just say that we came across you first watching a David Fuller's documentary, A Glitch in the

00:00:30.240 Matrix, in which you he asked you a lot about the Kathy Newman interview with Jordan Peterson.

00:00:36.040 And we just thought, oh, wow, what an interesting perspective would really need to get into some of

00:00:40.120 this. But beyond that, for anyone who's not familiar with you or your work, tell everybody

00:00:45.340 who are you? How are you where you are? What has been the journey that leads you to be sitting here

00:00:50.060 talking to us? Oh, wow, that's a big question. Yeah, I think maybe around 10, 12 years ago,

00:00:58.740 I was at the height of my academic career. And I'd been working really, really hard to get to

00:01:04.900 where I was. And I kind of achieved everything I could in my field. And I was mid 30s. And I

00:01:12.980 realized, what am I doing? I'm not happy. I don't know who I am as a woman. I don't know who's inside

00:01:18.780 my body. I don't know my sexuality. I don't know my spirituality. I don't know all the things that

00:01:24.580 I kind of had to compromise in order to perform in academia. So that sent me on a really big journey

00:01:31.520 into going to the deeper sides, the mystical sides of life. And I discovered psychospiritual

00:01:39.440 psychotherapy, which I studied psychosynthesis, and I started to become a psychotherapist in

00:01:45.540 that area and it was a deep personal and spiritual journey that really took me into who am I as a

00:01:52.480 human being and why am I here and beginning to understand the deep experience of being a woman

00:01:58.120 the deep experience of being a mother the deep experience of having a body and and what does

00:02:02.940 that mean and that kind of took me into what is most meaningful in life experience this is really

00:02:10.840 but what I've been investigating ever since in myself and in the clients that I work with now

00:02:16.300 and the people that I train is how can we go deep in our human experience as men, as women,

00:02:23.580 in these bodies and as everything in between, wherever we find ourselves in this human experience,

00:02:29.680 what does it mean? So I think I started with that curiosity when I came out of my academic mind,

00:02:36.840 what else is here when i stop thinking all the time and start feeling with my body with my

00:02:42.160 intuition what else is available and and that that kind of took me took me here where i'm working

00:02:48.380 with people to come home to themselves in their bodies and and have that deep experience of of

00:02:54.920 the human journey um yeah i think it's fascinating it's fascinating what you're talking about because

00:03:01.460 i think the the connection with your body is one thing that in modern society we don't really

00:03:05.960 deal with or talk about it you don't get you don't go to school to be taught about that right no one

00:03:10.220 tells you about that and also you know you talk about your experience getting to your mid-30s

00:03:15.420 being successful in your career but then suddenly realizing you're not happy well it's sort of a

00:03:20.120 single example of something happening at a broader level of society where we've seen for 70 odd years

00:03:27.200 women's happiness in particular plummeting but also men's too and you know mental ill health

00:03:33.200 on the rise as well. What are your thoughts on the sort of like, why is that all happening? What

00:03:39.160 are the areas where we are becoming more and more disconnected from the things that we ought to be

00:03:43.700 connected to? I think we've lost touch really with the meaning of why we're here, the meaning of

00:03:52.340 what is this human experience? We're just producing and producing and producing, kind of just

00:03:57.440 keeping the wheel going. And we are realizing as we're doing that, it doesn't give us anything

00:04:03.100 other than survival in the moment.

00:04:04.960 And maybe it boosts our ego a little bit.

00:04:07.760 Sometimes it hurts our ego.

00:04:10.000 It's kind of that dance of the ego.

00:04:13.720 And at some point that becomes exhausting

00:04:16.300 when we realize it's not just all about me

00:04:19.480 and my personal experience.

00:04:21.340 What more is here?

00:04:22.500 And I think people are really disconnected

00:04:24.900 from that level when we are in the wheel.

00:04:27.920 At the same time, as deep inside,

00:04:30.600 we know that this is not sustainable.

00:04:33.020 Where we are going as society, where we are going as humankind, it's not sustainable.

00:04:38.260 So we're keeping an identity going and we know it's not true.

00:04:46.120 And I think that inner compromise is what is tearing people down,

00:04:51.080 the knowing that something more true is calling and we're just not listening.

00:04:55.340 And why is this way that we're living not sustainable?

00:04:58.800 What do you mean by that?

00:04:59.940 the effect that we're having on the planet,

00:05:02.060 the effect that we're having on our bodies.

00:05:03.420 What do you mean by sustainable?

00:05:06.860 First of all, it's not sustainable on our planet.

00:05:09.420 We see that very clearly,

00:05:11.620 that we are getting out of sync with ecology,

00:05:15.120 with too many people on the planet.

00:05:16.680 We can see that that's just a very basic fact.

00:05:19.000 We can see that it's not sustainable in the long run.

00:05:24.800 We are out of touch with what really makes us happy.

00:05:28.480 That's another thing.

00:05:29.320 It's it's we're just spinning in the wheel of thinking we have to do something.

00:05:34.100 It's not sustainable either.

00:05:35.680 And we know that that it's overpopulated.

00:05:39.820 We the climate is changing.

00:05:42.000 It's not sustainable.

00:05:43.300 Within a very few couple of years, we'll begin to see more and more tangible effects of things that we are not taking seriously.

00:05:52.680 Our economy will probably be crashing.

00:05:55.420 Our societies are not sustainable.

00:05:57.280 They're not they're not stable.

00:05:58.400 there's a lot of tension in our societies that is just bubbling under the surface and right now

00:06:04.640 we are able to keep it kind of safe and contained but I don't think that's going to last forever

00:06:10.080 because there is in the individuals and in the collective there is this this knowing that

00:06:15.360 this is not the right direction what are we doing yeah and you talk about the right about

00:06:22.560 the right direction what is the right direction Louise for you yeah that's a very good question

00:06:27.180 i think the right direction is really to to pause and to stop producing all the time and to start

00:06:35.420 feeling it's in a way it's it's a i took the microcosm of that in my own life that i i i

00:06:42.160 stopped performing in that big way and said i really don't know what is the direction right

00:06:48.560 now i pulled every plug in my life literally to the point where there was nothing left of my old

00:06:55.080 identity. And I think as a society, we need to do this journey in finding new values, finding what

00:07:02.500 is life really about? What has value to us? How are we connecting with each other? What is life,

00:07:10.460 this miracle of being alive in our body, of being able to breathe in a body to see, smell, touch,

00:07:17.520 and feel? That is an incredibly deep journey that we're not honoring right now as we're just

00:07:23.840 racing ahead our nervous system are constantly on high alert and we're not feeling we're not

00:07:30.120 really being present with the the miracle it is to actually be here in this human experience

00:07:36.120 and louise one of the things that i you know i've done some of the sort of work that you're

00:07:42.460 talking about in my own life you know personal development and training and all that sort of

00:07:46.380 thing and i found it very useful but one of the things that inevitably comes out of what you're

00:07:50.880 saying is the more you connect with your body, the more the male and female aspects of this start to

00:07:57.120 come in because our bodies are different. Our hormonal makeup is different. And I don't know

00:08:05.520 whether you'd agree with this, but I think it has been the case that we in the last many decades

00:08:11.760 have sort of tried to erase all of that and pretend that actually, you know, we're not men

00:08:16.300 and women actually you know like we're kind of the same like you know we can all do the same stuff 1.00

00:08:20.880 we all think the same we all you know it's all sort of you know it's up for grabs we it's it's

00:08:26.400 it's a socially negotiated thing and you can just be who you are without ever having to deal with

00:08:31.360 the fact that biologically you are of a particular sex and it's I don't know because I don't know

00:08:37.100 exactly the nature of your work but I imagine you might have some thoughts on that yeah it's

00:08:43.600 I love this question, because everything is in that question, because what you're saying

00:08:49.900 logically makes sense. Of course, postmodernism, deconstructivism makes sense. Like we have to go

00:08:57.780 through that stage where we question all these essential truths. But once we've done that,

00:09:05.020 what is left when we stop thinking about it, when we stop thinking the world from a conceptual level

00:09:11.460 and we start feeling, when we start slowing down so we can actually feel what is this human

00:09:17.240 experience about in me at an experiential level, we start connecting with something that's deeper

00:09:24.500 than the conceptual constructions of values in society. We start feeling our existential

00:09:31.200 condition. And in that existential condition, I don't think we can just say there is nothing

00:09:38.520 like a man or a woman or the masculine and the feminine from a felt perspective.

00:09:43.800 Of course, we have both inside us.

00:09:46.040 Absolutely.

00:09:47.200 And also, some people find themselves on different specters of that.

00:09:51.800 But we have male bodies, we have female bodies, and that's a given that we have to somehow 0.99

00:09:58.660 make peace with unless we want to change.

00:10:01.760 But it is a condition that we have.

00:10:06.100 and that does not mean that we identify as a woman or a man as society has conditioned us

00:10:14.940 absolutely I really agree with those questions are so important to ask we have to move through

00:10:22.640 this phase absolutely those stereotypical images of what it is to be a man and a woman

00:10:28.440 they don't work anymore but once we've done that there's the next level and that level is about

00:10:34.740 really feeling what is in in in lack of better words what is the feminine in me what is the

00:10:41.380 masculine in me how does it want to express what does it feel like as an archetype as as as an

00:10:48.660 energy and some people are more connected to the masculine energy some people are more connected

00:10:54.180 to the feminine energy most of these people will be women and men and of course we oscillate all 1.00

00:11:00.200 the time but we can't say that that they don't exist they exist in my experience as simply

00:11:06.820 existential polarities that are within us and between us and and they want different things

00:11:15.220 they have different qualities and a thing that I am really interested in is how that shows up

00:11:23.380 in society how that shows up in the in the discussions we have in society about men and

00:11:29.000 about women and about that really really hot space between men and women and i say hot space

00:11:35.800 because it's both a space it's a space where there's a lot of passion and there's a lot of

00:11:39.800 excitement and there's also a lot of very very difficult emotions and and what what's that about

00:11:47.620 what are these emotions and why why are they so hot right now the emotions are basically because

00:11:54.740 we're moving out. We've been moving out for a very long time, but we're still in that transitional

00:11:59.700 phase of moving out of a society that was structured around patriarchal values. That's a

00:12:06.340 given. That's how it's been for a very, very long time. And for a long time, we've also,

00:12:11.780 we've been rebelling against it. We've been moving through that paradigm. But again,

00:12:18.640 with this paradigm, I think we have to be careful that we don't throw out the baby with the bath

00:12:24.100 water because as an existential given as human beings we're vulnerable we're vulnerable because

00:12:32.680 we are alive in a body that makes us very very vulnerable we're physically vulnerable

00:12:36.700 we are emotionally vulnerable and what we do is we try to reach out to someone that can protect us

00:12:46.100 that's bigger and stronger than we are.

00:12:49.060 That's what we're primed to do.

00:12:52.240 And men have had that ability to be the bigger and stronger

00:12:56.520 that women were reaching out to for safety.

00:13:00.280 That's how it's been for a very, very long time.

00:13:03.660 And now that paradigm has been moving for a long time.

00:13:08.080 It's beginning to shift.

00:13:09.640 And right now, women are not happy with that role. 1.00

00:13:14.600 And they're angry about it.

00:13:16.220 They're angry about the shadow sides of that role,

00:13:18.780 which has been the misuse, the abuse of power.

00:13:22.660 But what I see is that that discussion happens without looking at

00:13:29.340 nothing exists in a void.

00:13:32.760 The masculine abuse of power does not exist in a void.

00:13:37.280 Why is that?

00:13:39.180 The masculine also exists with a feminine 0.80

00:13:41.900 that has been adding into that dynamic.

00:13:45.720 And looking at that dynamic is really important for me in my work,

00:13:50.640 where I work with a lot, mostly I work with a lot of female clients 1.00

00:13:53.620 that have a difficult relationship with being a woman

00:13:56.740 and have a difficult relationship with their sexuality

00:13:59.480 and have difficult relationships with the masculine,

00:14:02.680 whether they are wanting to be in relationship with men or with women.

00:14:06.900 But that space is difficult

00:14:09.060 because they don't know where to put the masculine.

00:14:12.720 They don't know what to do with it.

00:14:14.260 They don't know what is the masculine about.

00:14:16.500 Is it wanting to overpower me or is it not worth anything?

00:14:19.460 Has it lost the blood?

00:14:21.200 And I think many women are struggling with that whole,

00:14:24.800 what is the masculine when it's not patriarchy?

00:14:31.080 And do you think, Louise, part of the problem is,

00:14:33.920 is that the role of men has changed in society,

00:14:36.360 whereby before, you know, there was a very traditional structure.

00:14:40.080 The male was a breadwinner, went out to work.

00:14:42.340 The woman was a homemaker. 1.00

00:14:44.220 Now, because of a myriad of different reasons, that is no longer applicable.

00:14:48.840 Do you think that's part of the reason why we're in crisis?

00:14:51.820 I think that's a very big part of it.

00:14:53.740 I think men have, in their own journey, men have lost their identity

00:14:59.060 and women are reacting to that. 1.00

00:15:01.260 So women are both angry and women are also feeling more empowered, like that kind of, that tower of patriarchy is crumbling. So women are reacting to that in different ways. And men are also reacting to it. Men are reacting with, I don't know how to be a man anymore. I don't have any role models.

00:15:20.560 Men have to make it up as they go along now, and they have all these reactions from women 0.85

00:15:28.000 to deal with.

00:15:29.700 These reactions, these projections, and they're very strong still.

00:15:33.500 We're still only on our way out of that paradigm.

00:15:37.720 And to see, from my perspective as a woman working with women, to see what women do to 1.00

00:15:43.360 men and see the suffering that, I'm going to say, we inflict on men is painful.

00:15:50.560 and it's painful. What do you mean? What are you talking about when you say the suffering

00:15:54.940 women as a whole inflict on men as a whole? What do you mean? I mean that many men now don't really

00:16:05.700 know how to be with women. They don't know where women are with men. They don't know, 0.90

00:16:12.660 can I be myself? Can I be in my power? Can I just be my spontaneous natural expression? Or

00:16:19.060 am I going to offend anyone? What's going to happen if I just express this? Men are really

00:16:24.880 tiptoeing around women as it is right now. And women are still waiting to see if this kind of 1.00

00:16:34.180 overpowering is going to happen. Women are still on alert for that energy. And men get anxious 0.57

00:16:41.120 around women. And that space means that none of us are able to actually relate to each other. 0.99

00:16:47.240 We're still in the projections that belong to the past.

00:16:50.840 The projections are not true anymore, but we're still carrying that energy.

00:16:56.260 So we're not actually able to see who we are,

00:16:59.700 what we're bringing to the table, each of us.

00:17:02.100 We're not able to see each other in a clear light.

00:17:04.120 And I see that in women, what they see in men is still this waiting, 0.95

00:17:08.900 there's still this rage that's waiting to come out.

00:17:11.660 That work hasn't fully completed yet.

00:17:15.160 and men are just there waiting to see

00:17:17.720 when is it going to come my way?

00:17:19.680 When is it going to happen?

00:17:21.520 So none of us are really using our ability

00:17:25.140 to actually be in synergy, to co-create,

00:17:27.640 to add different energies to the whole.

00:17:33.060 And still, I think that's a part of the crisis

00:17:35.080 that is in the world, right?

00:17:37.040 Still, that we are not co-creating,

00:17:41.080 we're not feeding each other,

00:17:42.440 We're not using each other's sensitivity, each other's abilities,

00:17:46.780 each other's gifts.

00:17:48.420 We're still fighting them.

00:17:51.440 And you say that we're still fighting.

00:17:54.540 Do you think as well part of the problem is our understanding of sex

00:17:59.660 and relationships has been so distorted by pornography that in a way

00:18:04.260 we find it impossible to connect in a way that is real because we see sex 0.92

00:18:09.060 and connection as a type of performance almost?

00:18:11.940 I think porn has a lot to answer for in that regard, that it has made this kind of stereotypical difference between men and women, has made it very clear it's both diminished men and it's diminished women.

00:18:29.460 So we have the kind of the role models for our real power, for our real potency, the role models that we have are really, really poor.

00:18:38.100 They are degenerated. They are kind of the shadow sides of who we really are.

00:18:43.340 And I think we are seeing a consequence of this because we know porn is not real,

00:18:49.780 but it still creeps into our subconscious that we think we have to be like that,

00:18:54.600 to be in our power, to be in our potency.

00:18:58.140 And that becomes very distorted.

00:19:01.320 That easily becomes distorted because it's still working our subconscious.

00:19:05.420 louise earlier you were talking about uh the post-modernist approach and this is what i was

00:19:12.280 so it's very popular to rail against post-modernist ways of thinking now and and i do to a very large

00:19:17.900 extent because i think there are a lot of flaws in that approach but having said that that you

00:19:23.120 have to also concede that there are elements of truth for example the idea of how men and women

00:19:29.120 should necessarily dress right now i still have like an instinctive discomfort if i'm being honest

00:19:36.120 with the idea of like men wearing skirts for example right but but i also recognize that

00:19:40.560 that instinctive discomfort is a product of socialization right there's no god-given

00:19:46.400 biological reason that men and women should dress in this particular way and so the idea that some

00:19:52.760 aspects of our behavior are socially constructed is a fact right and you're talking about how well

00:19:58.740 you know some elements of that social construction were about maintaining what was then

00:20:06.060 accurately in my view could be described as the patriarchy right men behave like this women 0.94

00:20:11.480 behave like this and men seem to end up in all the roles of power and influence and whatever

00:20:15.320 for the most part and now we've as you were talking about we've gradually gone to strip that

00:20:22.600 away uh and i i think it's left both sexes quite discombobulated and uncertain about what they're

00:20:33.000 supposed to do and and i see that in you know in in my own relationships and relationships with

00:20:38.560 people around me like men men still know that a woman does want a confident strong man but at the

00:20:46.860 same time being strong and confident is sort of like are you are you supposed to be that still

00:20:51.540 and women are the same are you supposed to like that or are you supposed to be repelled by that 1.00

00:20:57.400 we're sort of in this limbo aren't we yeah yeah i'm all for that post-modernism that opened

00:21:06.420 opened our minds that that that destroyed those rigid paradigms absolutely so important

00:21:15.840 the problem with post-modernism is that it easily stays as a mental construct so we think how am I

00:21:23.080 supposed to be instead of feeling and I really will come back to that sense of feeling because

00:21:31.160 it has to emerge from inside we have to feel the masculine inside and the feminine inside and we

00:21:37.120 have to be able to not get stuck in one so I have a male body or I have a female body it must mean 1.00

00:21:44.940 blah blah blah but let it come from a felt experience what does that mean to me today

00:21:51.380 I'm in my masculine tomorrow I'm in my feminine or it shifts from moment to moment and also in

00:21:56.980 our relationships can we can we switch roles can we be the one that takes initiative can we be the

00:22:03.020 breadwinner can we can we oscillate between those energies in ourselves and in our relationship

00:22:09.300 and one day I want to dress like this one day I want to dress like that but not because I think

00:22:14.660 that I should be doing that because that's the right paradigm, but because it feels true when

00:22:19.620 I connect to myself. This is how I want to express today. Tomorrow I might want to express in a

00:22:25.180 different way. And there's still a lot of work to do in having the courage to do what feels right.

00:22:31.360 But I think we have to be careful with thinking what's right. And my sense is that a lot

00:22:36.400 of this as it is right now comes from a comes from a mental conceptual place it makes sense

00:22:45.760 and and i think it's important that it happens but it's not the truth we are experimenting

00:22:51.700 with with a conceptual paradigm great but we're still evolving we're still in a process

00:22:58.360 and i think that's that's a very good point that we are still in a process because if you saw what

00:23:05.180 happened with me too it was very important because it had women to talk about their experiences

00:23:10.680 but at the same time there was a an anger that was unleashed at the same time

00:23:16.520 and do you think that's part of the process of healing or do you think that was something else

00:23:22.600 I think it was a it was important step that anger was a long long long held anger

00:23:33.360 and some of it was a righteous anger

00:23:36.260 and some of it was an anger that had gone into its own spin.

00:23:41.040 But the process of going through it,

00:23:44.740 of acknowledging in ourselves, in the collective

00:23:49.100 and being acknowledged, having that acknowledged,

00:23:53.020 I think it's extremely important that that happened.

00:23:57.060 But let us not get stuck in,

00:24:00.200 oh, now we reached kind of the truth.

00:24:02.940 this is how society should be, this is the truth about women, 1.00

00:24:06.200 this is the truth about men, and women are allowed to always be angry 1.00

00:24:10.220 and we should be watching each other all the time,

00:24:13.720 that is really, it's a really deep misunderstanding

00:24:16.280 that is leading us astray if we keep watching each other

00:24:20.340 with that suspicion.

00:24:22.720 That it happened was important, and I think there was also some,

00:24:29.980 there's been some victims in that on both sides.

00:24:32.620 I think that's important to acknowledge.

00:24:34.700 Men has also suffered.

00:24:37.380 And in the documentary that I talked about earlier,

00:24:42.020 you were talking specifically about the interview

00:24:44.580 between Cathy Newman and Jordan Peterson,

00:24:46.820 and you talked about, and I'm paraphrasing from memory,

00:24:49.680 and for you it's a couple of years ago as well,

00:24:51.680 so correct me if I'm wrong in any way

00:24:53.900 when I try and recollect exactly what you said,

00:24:56.840 but something along the lines of the rage

00:24:59.420 that you could see in Cathy Newman's behaviour

00:25:02.000 is a rage that any woman can connect to and feel 1.00

00:25:07.680 if she so chooses.

00:25:10.240 Yeah.

00:25:11.220 Right, is that, and so is it really,

00:25:15.220 is what's happening in modern society,

00:25:16.920 like we all have a reason to be angry

00:25:18.840 and increasingly we're starting to choose

00:25:21.000 to connect to that anger.

00:25:23.860 I honestly have a sense that we will see

00:25:26.580 more and more anger, more and more anger coming out.

00:25:29.500 Now women have been really airing their anger, some, as I said, righteous anger, and some 1.00

00:25:35.780 of it not so much.

00:25:37.620 And men are also beginning.

00:25:39.900 There's riots going on.

00:25:42.360 And that anger maybe has a different source, but I think that the anger that we are carrying

00:25:47.800 collectively is deep down, it's an anger of despair.

00:25:52.140 It's an anger of hopelessness.

00:25:54.820 It's an anger of powerlessness in where we're going as society, what's happening with our politicians, what's happening at the collective levels, what's happening with our societies.

00:26:07.160 We feel so powerless to what is really happening in the world.

00:26:12.080 That anger is building up and I think that's happening as we're speaking, it's building up collectively.

00:26:18.900 And when I say we're not heading in the right direction,

00:26:21.440 it's because I think that that anger will begin to erupt

00:26:24.420 because we're aware, like, what are we doing?

00:26:28.540 Also, how are we treating animals?

00:26:30.660 It's a different thing, but how are we treating animals?

00:26:33.280 At some point in the future, we'll look back and say,

00:26:36.080 oh my God, how come that people did that?

00:26:38.440 That was really something.

00:26:41.840 And there's so many of these things that we will look back and say,

00:26:45.920 how come that we were so unevolved?

00:26:48.320 And that knowing inside, that's roaring, that's roaring in all of us.

00:26:52.660 We just don't really know what to do with it.

00:26:54.560 So we burn cars or we smash the police or whatever, wherever it starts.

00:26:58.900 But that anger, I think it's an anger that all of us have in the powerlessness of COVID

00:27:07.400 is just a little kind of a little reminder of we are very vulnerable as a society and

00:27:13.760 we are very vulnerable as people.

00:27:15.860 We are very vulnerable as communities.

00:27:18.140 We are very vulnerable to things that happen like this is just COVID.

00:27:23.200 No one kind of created it.

00:27:25.440 But how do our politicians deal with that?

00:27:28.580 What's really happening?

00:27:29.840 We're powerless.

00:27:30.900 And we're powerless in we don't know.

00:27:33.060 We really don't know anything, to be honest.

00:27:35.000 We can have a lot of theories about this and that, but we don't really know what is real.

00:27:42.140 We have so many stats.

00:27:43.560 We have so many experts that are saying this and that.

00:27:45.920 And we don't know how to sieve in it.

00:27:47.520 Most people feel overpowered by life.

00:27:51.960 And I think that creates a rage of hopelessness

00:27:54.840 that will begin to erupt more and more.

00:27:57.420 Do you think part of the problem, Louise,

00:27:59.640 especially when you look at COVID,

00:28:01.580 is in the West, death is a taboo subject.

00:28:05.000 We don't talk about death.

00:28:06.700 We don't acknowledge it.

00:28:08.340 We seem to have bought into this idea

00:28:11.500 that actually we're going to live forever.

00:28:13.180 And you can see it.

00:28:14.340 I am.

00:28:14.480 Yeah, exactly.

00:28:15.320 much to the chagrin of everyone around you but um but you see it also you know in the smooth

00:28:21.700 blank expressionless faces of our celebrities who don't want to just don't want to admit that

00:28:27.540 they really are isn't part of the fury and the rage from covid the realization and you talk

00:28:34.640 about it yourself that we are fragile but more importantly we're mortal yeah as i said we are

00:28:42.120 vulnerable just because we are alive it's scary if we really connect with it the price of admission

00:28:48.060 to be alive is we have to die and we are vulnerable all the way through at all stages of life we're

00:28:55.640 vulnerable that's scary and we don't know we don't know what to do with that existential vulnerability

00:29:01.400 and we don't know as you say we don't know how to talk about that we don't know how to talk about

00:29:06.380 yeah at some point it ends that's this this life is um it's a scary place and and how do we how do

00:29:16.640 we start to as individuals because i i get this very strong sense from what you're talking about

00:29:21.180 that the solution to all of this comes at the level of the individual it's by individuals

00:29:27.280 thinking not thinking but slowing down feeling what is right for them and and changing their

00:29:34.860 own thought patterns and behavior and and and how they feel about things i've been struck by a thing

00:29:40.720 this is turning into personal therapy now but do you want me to go yeah yeah thanks mate just

00:29:45.060 i'll lie on this little sofa and talk to to louise but uh what i've been noticing is during

00:29:51.340 this whole pandemic and lockdown i'm i'm very concerned about some of the the ways we've dealt

00:29:56.480 with the pandemic i think they've been excessive unnecessary in many things and and panic driven

00:30:02.560 more than anything, but it doesn't really matter how you feel about it. What I've been struck by

00:30:06.560 is in my own, my life is great. Like the lockdown in many ways meant that I spend more time with my

00:30:12.320 wife. I have a job that I love doing this. You know, I'm surrounded by friends. Like my life is

00:30:17.860 good. So I feel good about me, but I also feel very concerned about what's happening in society

00:30:24.740 and sort of like weaving those two things together. There's a big clash going on. I think

00:30:29.960 quite a lot of people feel that way at the moment that maybe their own life isn't really that bad

00:30:35.920 but what seems to be happening around us as you say there's a repressed thing that we're all

00:30:42.940 we're all realizing that our lives can be changed like that by people who we have no

00:30:50.040 no no ability to influence at all how does how does one reconcile those two things

00:31:00.700 Yeah, that's a journey.

00:31:04.660 That's a journey.

00:31:05.720 How do we reconcile that?

00:31:07.160 We stay right in there, right inside that question.

00:31:13.020 That is, how do I contain my own human experience?

00:31:17.620 How do I make peace with?

00:31:19.900 The price of admission is I have to feel all these things.

00:31:24.240 I don't know what to do with all these feelings.

00:31:26.940 They're here.

00:31:28.060 Can I contain them?

00:31:29.100 and stay present, stay with a light of awareness on, stay awake to, wow, what a ride this human

00:31:37.800 life is. I don't know how it's going to end and I don't know what it means. And it's vulnerable

00:31:43.800 and I feel powerless, but I'm here. And one of the things that for me, the pandemic has really

00:31:51.460 brought when we're so physically disconnected is that we can connect in different ways. We can

00:31:58.760 connect on the screen and we can connect with our consciousness and I think this is now I said a lot

00:32:04.060 of things that that that sound quite pessimistic but I also feel that there's a paradigm that's

00:32:11.020 beginning to emerge where we feel our consciousness is more and more connected because it's not just

00:32:16.140 about me and my personal experience and me slowing down it means when I slow down and I begin to feel

00:32:22.400 life in myself, not concepts and ideas, but the felt sense experience. And I connect with other

00:32:29.900 people when I'm in this place. We're beginning to feel more and more that I feel your experience.

00:32:37.940 I don't have to physically be with you. I can just listen to the sound of your voice. I can

00:32:44.160 listen to the vibration of the sound. And I can feel, I can feel like we are beginning to be one

00:32:50.940 consciousness more and more. And that's something that is beginning to emerge that hasn't fully

00:32:56.620 shown itself. But that feeling, we are not that different. That's another thing. We're not that

00:33:01.660 different. We think we are so unique in our experience and all that. We're not that different.

00:33:06.880 We are wired mostly exactly in the same way. We are so predictable as human beings. So what I

00:33:14.840 experience. It's very easy to tap into and influence each other. We don't need to be

00:33:20.660 physically connected in order to create a field of consciousness where what I feel becomes what

00:33:27.220 you feel. And we can begin to change things like that. I'm very excited and very interested in what

00:33:35.180 does it mean when we use our consciousness, I want to say as a technology, it's not a tangible

00:33:40.700 technology, but it is a technology because it is a way it creates. We become a bigger neural network

00:33:47.120 that has a lot of potential. It's not that I have the answer of where this is going, but

00:33:52.720 we are beginning to create those connections of becoming a bigger neural network.

00:33:59.920 And I think that will hold a lot of positive change, a lot of really interesting

00:34:06.060 new narrative about what does it mean to be a human being and we haven't discovered that we're

00:34:12.360 beginning to but it's way more than these boxes that we have placed ourselves in as it is now

00:34:18.200 do you think part of the thing that might actually help and i this is what happened to me during

00:34:23.500 corona so i was a stand-up comedian i was gigging every night of the week i was doing you know well

00:34:29.040 i was earning money most money that i've ever earned and then all of a sudden overnight

00:34:33.920 it stopped and I was left alone in my flat overnight everything I worked for stopped

00:34:42.300 and then you suddenly realize that these things these ideas that you've been chasing

00:34:46.680 there are many ways an illusion they don't matter what matters is the connections that you have

00:34:52.380 with other people do you think we may have been reminded of that and we may appreciate that far

00:34:58.360 more when all these lockdowns are over we're able to socialize again and we're able to see our

00:35:03.440 family again I think it's what's happened is a massive shift in our values of course because

00:35:11.160 most of us have been as you said we've simply been slammed out of our identity of our

00:35:17.620 identifications this is who I thought myself to be it's not possible anymore so who am I and what

00:35:25.260 really matters when I'm sat there in my flat dead board and physically on my own what am I going to

00:35:32.200 do, what really matters. And that takes us into that fields of consciousness where it really is

00:35:38.180 about connection. It is about what can we create when we come together? What can we create when we

00:35:44.240 feel each other? When we are on a human journey, not just all about our identity and what am I

00:35:49.880 doing? What are you doing in life? Which kind of identification game are we playing out? But who

00:35:55.780 are we as human beings? I think that that is also a shift in our values that is happening. And I

00:36:02.020 I really like the fact that we are so much online and sometimes you're in a studio, sometimes you're in your home and we're seeing more and more of each other.

00:36:13.060 We're beginning to unpeel a bit more, show a bit more.

00:36:16.480 It's not all shiny.

00:36:18.560 It becomes more and more real.

00:36:20.340 And that ironically happens when the world becomes virtual.

00:36:24.160 And I think there's a very interesting dichotomy in that kind of collective intimacy that we are also able to create that wasn't possible in the same way before.

00:36:36.380 That's really interesting.

00:36:37.420 Liz, I want to talk briefly about something else.

00:36:39.640 You talked about the fact that there's a bubbling rage fueled by our hopelessness and powerlessness that we feel.

00:36:46.920 What about fear?

00:36:48.880 because one of the things that has absolutely shocked me during the pandemic particularly

00:36:55.140 is how willing people have been to give up certain rights, certain freedoms that we all

00:37:01.740 used to take for granted and assume could not be. We assumed they were inalienable from us.

00:37:06.960 The right to walk on the street, to go for a jog, to meet friends, to eat in a restaurant,

00:37:12.960 all of these things have gone like that. And the support seemingly, at least we're told by

00:37:18.000 pollsters is you know the vast majority of the public are very happy with this and they want

00:37:22.220 more of it and i i've personally maybe i'm just quite a risk hungry person i've never had an issue

00:37:29.100 with taking risks but a lot of people seem to be to have turned out to my surprise and it could

00:37:35.140 just be my ignorance but a lot of people surprise me by how risk averse they were in the middle of

00:37:40.800 this did you have any insights on on why that might have happened if you share my analysis yeah

00:37:45.640 yeah honestly I think we are in a collective trauma we are in a collective we are both we

00:37:52.600 we are both at the same time we're in a collapse we are just collapsed in hopelessness we don't

00:37:57.280 know we really we feel disempowered we don't actually really know what to do and there's so

00:38:02.260 much going on exactly with feeling overpowered with what's going on politically how how is that

00:38:07.820 suddenly possible are we becoming a police state what's really happening so there's a collapse

00:38:13.620 So that's one trauma response.

00:38:15.980 Another trauma response is dissociation.

00:38:18.500 We also dissociate it, we're detached.

00:38:20.720 We just got into, let's have intellectual conversations

00:38:23.580 or let's watch a lot of TV

00:38:25.160 or let's just veg out and not think about it.

00:38:27.900 That's dissociation.

00:38:30.320 And both the collapse and the dissociation happens

00:38:33.340 when our system is in overwhelm,

00:38:35.400 when we simply can't compute what's happening.

00:38:38.540 And I think collectively,

00:38:39.860 we can't compute what's happening

00:38:41.220 because we don't know.

00:38:42.980 It's not over yet.

00:38:45.280 And COVID is just, that's just a little circle that kind of tickles us in.

00:38:51.920 Hey, people, life is beginning to change.

00:38:56.040 Wake up.

00:38:57.240 Wake up.

00:38:57.700 And right now I think we are in freeze and in detach collectively.

00:39:03.980 And at some point, and this is where when I'm talking about the collective neural network

00:39:09.120 that is also forming that that comes more online when we begin to unfreeze from that place and

00:39:16.280 realize okay but there's other possibilities there's other ways we can connect there's other

00:39:21.240 ways to find meaning there's other ways to be human but right now we are going through a state

00:39:26.820 of trauma because everything we thought that was okay this is just how it's going to be

00:39:33.040 is not it's not possible it's not possible right now and when it becomes possible again

00:39:38.080 the world will have changed it's happening kind of mostly under the radar but it's happening at

00:39:43.740 very deep levels and louise do you think another part of the problem is and let's talk about

00:39:50.740 politics briefly so you know trump was elected and then biden was elected and everybody sort of

00:39:57.620 went well you know everything's fine again now are we not learning from our mistakes meaning that we

00:40:04.400 continue to make the same mistake again and again well electing old white men yeah exactly but but

00:40:10.660 in a sense you know collectively we're making these mistakes again and again whether it's with

00:40:14.740 the institutions whether it's with the political system whether it's with our treatment of the

00:40:18.720 planet whatever it may be yeah i really don't know what to say to that because there is a big problem

00:40:27.640 around our political structures our political systems it's very obvious they don't work

00:40:32.280 but it's not like we have a better answer okay we're just gonna do this instead we don't know

00:40:38.060 how we're gonna sort that out I don't know what to say to that but I can see that it is

00:40:46.500 an incredibly big big problem that we have such I'm gonna say degenerated leadership

00:40:52.680 because I didn't grow up in England but something that I really really love about that country

00:40:59.200 is the myth of King Arthur where I love the English countryside and I love there's a lot

00:41:10.680 of that mysticism and I think that that myth is a part of it where they say the king is the land

00:41:16.920 and let's just say the king or the queen is the land which means that leadership is not about

00:41:23.940 power over. Leadership is about being. It's about serving the well-being. There is no leader without

00:41:31.660 the land. The land is a leader. And we've completely forgotten that. Leadership is

00:41:37.780 degenerated and self-interested. It's not really about the land.

00:41:43.800 It's become tyranny. So this is what Jordan Peterson often talks about. We've gone from

00:41:48.440 a powerful but benevolent leadership

00:41:51.660 that looks out for the interests of the people

00:41:54.380 to corrupt tyrannical leadership

00:41:56.900 that only looks out for the interests of itself.

00:41:59.240 Yeah, yeah.

00:42:01.040 How do we change that system?

00:42:02.740 How do we put a better system in place?

00:42:05.080 That's a very difficult question.

00:42:07.580 Revolution.

00:42:09.920 Yeah, that probably isn't a pretty answer.

00:42:13.380 That's the truth to the difficult questions.

00:42:15.320 There isn't a pretty answer.

00:42:16.400 Yeah. Yeah. Louise, we've got about 10 minutes. There's one thing I wanted to come back to,

00:42:22.720 which is the men and women thing. And my wife will be very unhappy with me if I don't bring 0.91

00:42:27.540 this up, because what we've noticed, and I think a lot of people have noticed, and you talked about

00:42:32.680 at the beginning of our interviews, the more you connect with who you actually are, you slow down

00:42:38.740 and you notice not what you're supposed to feel, not what you've been told that you're supposed

00:42:44.780 to feel but actually how you feel it's difficult to not then notice well as a man there's certain

00:42:50.100 things that drive me in this direction and it's only when you fully connect with that that i feel

00:42:54.540 for myself i'm able to connect with the feminine parts of me to to be more you know gentle or

00:43:02.280 diplomatic or whatever the stereotypes you want to put on it and one of the things my wife has 0.99

00:43:07.060 been talking to me is the importance of the the cycle and recognizing things that come with that

00:43:13.140 and that's you know a taboo subject for you know for a hundred different reasons but men also have

00:43:19.100 a cycle too not me you're just you're just constantly depressed is that it and angry like

00:43:25.620 but we all have like patterns that that that that we go through what advice do you or would you give

00:43:34.860 to both men and women in terms of being aware of that being present to that uh and and you know

00:43:40.280 And I just increasingly am aware that's not something you can pretend away from the human experience, right?

00:43:47.520 If your body is flushed with certain types of hormones for both men and women, you can't ignore that, right?

00:43:53.660 So what do we do about that?

00:43:56.480 Light of consciousness.

00:43:58.700 Really be aware.

00:44:01.060 This is how I'm feeling right now.

00:44:02.620 I'm flooded with this feeling.

00:44:06.280 Feel it.

00:44:07.040 Really be fully in the feeling.

00:44:08.580 let the feminine inside show you here the feminine is full of feeling the feminine is always 0.96

00:44:14.240 looking out for the tribe the feminine is feeling how is the field

00:44:17.820 light of consciousness there's a field here wow this field is feeling a lot

00:44:24.320 and light of awareness in there is a field that's feeling a lot what are we going when we stay in

00:44:32.800 our inner alignment what is the choice we're going to make what are we going to do with that feeling

00:44:37.480 Again, the king or the queen is the land. 0.93

00:44:39.820 The land is the feeling.

00:44:41.500 What is the decision we're going to make?

00:44:43.440 How are we going to be with that feeling?

00:44:45.520 What does that feeling want?

00:44:47.460 How does it want to express?

00:44:49.540 And how do we, with our structured mind, with our masculine,

00:44:54.660 how do we want to conduct the feeling?

00:44:56.540 It really is about that inner alchemy.

00:44:58.720 It's about bridging the masculine and the feminine inside.

00:45:01.600 And when we are flushed, listening to life is expressing something

00:45:05.040 and having the light of awareness to not just in pure feeling act out,

00:45:12.680 but saying, I'm going to listen to what this feeling is telling me.

00:45:18.520 So it's neither black or white, like I'm wearing.

00:45:21.900 It's neither black or white.

00:45:22.980 It really is to stay right in the middle and feel both.

00:45:26.460 And we tend to want to dismiss one or the other.

00:45:30.300 Yes, we do.

00:45:32.000 but isn't part of the challenge as well that a lot of us live in these you know city landscapes

00:45:36.860 where it almost seems designed for you to not experience stillness to for you to not experience

00:45:44.180 that feeling because it's a constantly sensory overload because you're go go go go go so actually

00:45:49.840 you never get to experience that stillness and in many ways when you do you're sort of bereft

00:45:56.080 because you're missing that constant stimulation.

00:45:59.560 I think it's a good point.

00:46:03.400 And I think we are always in choice.

00:46:05.240 In every moment, we're in choice.

00:46:06.920 You don't have to be like on a meditation retreat

00:46:10.020 out in nature before you can sit still

00:46:11.960 and begin to feel.

00:46:13.200 In every moment, in this moment,

00:46:16.000 the feeling is available right now.

00:46:19.440 Just slow down and feel.

00:46:21.520 It's not complicated.

00:46:23.020 It's not like you need to design

00:46:24.340 your whole life around it

00:46:25.420 or you can't live a normal life, you can't have a job, you can't be in a society.

00:46:29.380 That's, again, that's again black and white, a misunderstanding.

00:46:33.200 That being able to connect with the field is always available.

00:46:37.840 We have a body.

00:46:39.440 We have feelings.

00:46:40.760 We have our breath.

00:46:42.400 We can feel every time we tune in.

00:46:45.280 It's never further away than that.

00:46:47.660 Tune in.

00:46:48.140 There's a breath.

00:46:49.300 How am I feeling?

00:46:51.140 And yes, there's a screen.

00:46:52.300 There's people I have to talk to.

00:46:53.520 There's phones ringing.

00:46:54.220 There's whatever there is.

00:46:55.420 and I'm here it's it's that simple and that hard yeah it's it's really interesting to me that

00:47:03.840 whenever we've had this conversation whether that's with you or with Jordan Hall or with

00:47:08.820 Jordan Peterson whenever we we pose these questions about society the answer always

00:47:15.200 comes back down to the level of the individual which is it's you that has to you know in Jordan

00:47:20.760 Peterson's case clean your room or whatever it is or you have to slow down and you have to to be

00:47:27.460 present and you have to feel and that is really the answer to all of this isn't it yes and

00:47:34.600 it's not black and white because the individual is collective too there it's a false dichotomy

00:47:41.760 it's either me or the whole because we can only feel the whole when we feel ourselves

00:47:48.260 and we are in a field of consciousness whether we are physically connected or not we are impacting

00:47:54.440 each other all the time so the journey to the individual is really a collective journey we

00:48:00.960 just haven't totally figured it out yet that makes sense well louise it's been an absolute pleasure

00:48:07.240 speaking with you uh as you know we have one final question which is always what's the one

00:48:12.640 thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be yeah we've been talking about

00:48:18.740 it today without talking about it because it's it's a big context of of where it's it's it's

00:48:29.920 the ground of all the conversations we have which for me is what are we going to do with the fact

00:48:36.000 that we are too many people on this planet

00:48:39.700 and the numbers are going up and up and up and up and up

00:48:43.220 and we get fixated on the stats of COVID and oh the deaths

00:48:48.260 and that's a bad thing

00:48:49.700 but if we look at how many people are born every second on this planet

00:48:53.620 it's going up and up and up

00:48:55.420 and very logically that can't continue

00:49:00.180 and what are we going to do about that?

00:49:02.940 it's such a painful and difficult question and we don't know how to even begin

00:49:09.040 now don't worry we're gonna have a war and it'll all be fine louise

00:49:13.180 that's a sad answer i know i know i'm a comedian i'm supposed to do jokes about sad things so i

00:49:21.740 don't have to address the reality underneath which is difficult that's my job uh it's a good

00:49:27.360 point it's a very good point it's one we've discussed on the show in the past and um you

00:49:32.600 You know, I want to thank you for coming on

00:49:34.740 and for giving us this perspective.

00:49:36.620 It's really, really valuable.

00:49:37.980 I hope and I'm sure that people have enjoyed it.

00:49:40.980 If our audience want to find out more about what you do

00:49:44.620 or follow your work, where's the best place to do that?

00:49:47.300 It's my website, louisemazenti.com.

00:49:50.940 Perfect.

00:49:51.580 We'll put that in the description of the video.

00:49:54.060 Thank you once again for being a guest on the show, Louise,

00:49:56.940 and thank you for watching at home.

00:49:58.760 And please, please, please follow us on all the social medias,

00:50:02.360 But more importantly, from Wednesday right the way through to Saturday, 7pm,

00:50:07.440 or I should say Tuesday right the way through to Saturday, 7pm UK time,

00:50:11.320 check out another fantastic live stream or episode.

00:50:14.780 And be still present and notice your breathing as you're doing that.

00:50:17.740 Absolutely. Don't forget to breathe, guys, because it gets problematic.

00:50:32.360 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - May 05, 2021

＂We Are Angry Because We Feel Powerless＂ - Dr Louise Mazanti

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