‘Look Up’ – A spoken word film for an online generation.
‘Look Up’ is a lesson taught to us through a love story, in a world where we continue to find ways to make it easier for us to connect with one another, but always results in us spending more time alone.
Imagine that you have a friend named Mary. Mary has 3 green apples, but you need a pound of red apples. Logically it would have made sense to go to the market and buy a pound of red apples from someone who is ready to sell you a pound of red apples, but the market is too far and who knows if there are apples there at all? What if it is closed down for inventory or maintenance? Meanwhile your friend Mary is here, right in front of you and she is cool. So you make a brave assumption that somewhere Mary should have a pound of red apples. Deep in her heart. You also believe that if you apply necessary efforts, she will give them to you, which is what you really want.
“Hey Mary, do you want to go to the movies?” you say with a nice smile on your face. Mary is surprised, but most likely she wants to go, especially because you pretend you really want to take her out. So you take Mary to the movies, but interestingly enough a pound of red apples doesn’t appear after this. “What the heck?” you think and then take her out for coffee. You take her dog for a walk, paint her walls, fix her car, but nothing happens. “What a witch!” you think indignantly, however offer for her to move in with you. The price of red apples is now sky high. Forget about the market, now you need to get your apples specifically from Mary. You tell yourself that she is your fate and now it is pretty clear how the story will end: the day will come when someone will be screaming “I have given you my life, and you can’t find the bloody apples for me?!” And someone else will be sobbing and saying: “I don’t have any apples, why in the world have you decided I do?”
And, honestly, why did you decide that? I purposefully don’t consider the situation when deceitful Mary laboriously misleads you because she simply likes to go to the movies (although often this is exactly what happens). However in many cases we, ourselves, are not quite honest in our intentions and other people eventually don’t have what we are looking for: a pound of red apples, a wish to have five kids with us, an intention to spend vacations together, an ability to have honest conversations, and trivially – loving us. Consequently they don’t have a capability to demonstrate this love. And this is normal, just like it is normal to want all these wonderful things.
What is not normal is to racketeer trying to shake out from the first nice person who come our way something that they don’t have, just because somewhere deep in their heart they may still have it.
They don’t. If someone has something for you, they will gladly give it to you by themselves. Not from the depth of their heart, but from all of it.
Selfishness is a very common thing in relationships. We often want to be happy the way we think we need to be happy coming to the relationship with the specific agenda. Or we simply hope that the other person will make us happy, take away the loneliness and bring stability and comfort. This reliance on the external source of love and comfort makes us blind to the needs of our partner and go after securing relationship benefits for ourselves. In the end it creates a lot of dissatisfaction, misunderstanding and disappointment.
The reason for selfishness is our inability to be good with ourselves, to love ourselves and not to be emotionally dependent on our partner. This happens because we may still be in the emotional position of a child who is expecting to receive love, attention and guidance from the parents. This condition is called overextended childhood codependency, or Bosurgi Syndrome.
The way to get out of this dependency is to establish our own leadership over our life, find the meaningful purpose and get comfortable with our true identity. One of the ways to do it is CognitiveOS Hypnosis therapy which helps clients to terminate childhood codependency, revise their goals, enable themselves to be emotionally independent, start living in the moment and feel comfortable with themselves no matter what.
How many of us had relationships where this question has never been raised at least hypothetically? We either ask it to ourselves or worry that it may be a concern of our partner. In either case thinking about separation brings discomfort, anxiety, uncertainty, guilt, fears, frustration, etc.
In some of my trainings I conduct a little exercise. I write ‘separation’ in the middle of a flip chart and ask people to write their association with this word on a post-it note and stick it to the flip chart. No surprise, 95% of the associations are negative. We like to have and we don’t like to let go.
To help you with this struggle, I suggest a different view on separation. In the physical world we live in separation is an inescapable reality. “In the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” once said Benjamin Franklin. So why does the most certain thing in the world bring us so much anxiety and uncertainty?
Separation is a basis of our life’s cycle. As we grow up we separate from our parents to live our own lives and create our own families. We join and separate a lot of educational institutions, groups of friends, clubs, jobs, locations, etc. Later on in life we separate from our own children when they leave home, from our older family members who pass away and so on until our own death.
So what is the idea behind the separation? A friend of mine, Olivia Bareham, who is a specialist in death and dying said, “We only love and enjoy something because we know that one day it will no longer be there. That’s why we enjoy fresh flowers and don’t enjoy fake ones.” Separation, or knowing that one day things will come to their end, changes our perspective, makes us improve, change, do things better, value what we have, enjoy the relationship with another person. Separation is healthy, otherwise our lives will be full of old things, people and situations. Every separation gives us back a part of ourselves and reminds us of our own value, identity and purpose. It helps us break the old dysfunctional patterns and ties, face reality and change it for the better.
So how can we embrace the idea of separation and include it in our life’s journey? First of all we need to realize that the only person who will stay with us till the very end is ourselves. Other things, people or situations are external to us and can change or part from us at any time. Thus the only thing worth investing into is ourselves.
When we create clear and healthy boundaries with the external environment, cutting all the dependencies and assuming ownership and leadership of our own lives, we become the managers of ourselves always choosing what is better for us. Some people call it selfishness, but if you think about it, it’s the opposite. To live the way you want is not selfish, it is selfish to expect others to think and live the way you want.
In the ideal situation our parents bring us to our teen years with enough support, leadership, care and love. This allows us to separate from them mentally and physically and become self-sufficient. This first significant and important separation in our lives sets the tone for the way we approach and handle ourselves in relationships, personal and professional, and in other situations in our lives. If this separation is compromised, the instinct of childhood codependency stays active which prevents the person from creating a safe and trustful connection with the world.
You may guess what happens next. People grow in age and size, but keep relying on external sources of leadership, guidance, love, attention and validation. This condition is called Bosurgi Syndrome. It creates vulnerability, hence anxiety, fears and make people feel unsafe. In this context any separation is considered by the mind as a threat to the emotional and physical safety of the person creating a lot of pain and discomfort. It also keeps the person in the position of a receiver, e.g. I need to receive attention, validation, love and guidance from others in order to feel safe and good about myself. Again, separating from the sources of these emotions becomes very stressful. A self-sufficient person who leads and loves themselves, becomes a giver and views separations not as a personal horror, but as a natural process of life change. A giver doesn’t see in their partner a provider of emotional or physical comfort, but makes a choice based on the qualities supporting a strong and trustful connection.
If an unsatisfying relationship is part of your life and your mind is full of doubts and dilemmas, remember the first important separation in your life, separation from your parents, and think about the nature of your connection with them in the present. If you find any traces of trying to prove yourself to others, feeling not good enough, guilt, anger, control, etc. it may mean that it’s time to work through those unproductive feelings and dependencies, and set yourself free to make the choices out of your personal confidence, peace and independence.
To learn more about adult codependency, the Bosurgi Syndrome, it’s consequences, treatment and prevention, visit the website. You can also ask your questions on our blog.
From the book The Mind Shaman part II –
“Elena was born twenty-nine years ago in the violent town of Medellin in Northern Colombia. She was the fourth of five kids; her mother died giving birth to her last brother, and her father was a gang member—angry, drunk, and terribly violent. She grew up with a schizophrenic grandmother that didn’t allow the kids to wash—ever! She never took a proper shower for the first six years of her life, and her clothes were always terribly dirty and broken. This made the interaction with her peers almost impossible; she was so dirty and smelly that when she started school, all the other kids ran away from her, holding their nose, laughing and mocking her. One day, a bunch of kids locked her and her twin brother in a bathroom and, with the garden hose, sprayed them so violently that her torn clothes fell off in pieces, and she found herself half naked in front of all the children. By the time that one of the nuns intervened to stop the cruel torture, the damage was done.
She never recovered from the shame of that day. In reality, she never recovered from the shame and rejection from each day of her childhood. Scared, lonely, unloved, but incredibly intelligent, she got her nun teacher’s attention. They practically adopted her and fostered her, cleaned her and dressed her decently. She also got her twin brother to be fostered with her in the school convent. The nuns were hard but straightforward and fair, which was a great upgrade from her earlier life. She was very smart, so she understood early in her life that education was the only way to escape the ghetto. She was committed to using all of her resources for studying. Elena was fourteen when she left the convent. The nuns wanted her in the order, but she knew that it was not for her. She just wanted to escape from the town that killed all three of her elder brothers as well as her father in the horrible cartels’ war, which was inflaming the town in those years. The crazy grandmother was certainly not an option; therefore, she accepted a ride from the priest of the convent and moved with her brother to the capital Bogota.
The priest was a good man and knew Elena and her brother well. He appreciated the talents of the young woman and introduced her to one of his friends, which owned a shoe factory in the south of the town. She was young but talented with numbers, so she got hired in the administration and her brother in the production. It was a dream for the young Elena that, unfortunately, only lasted a few months. Her brother Pablo got accused of stealing tools from the factory. He wasn’t a thief, but he couldn’t prove it, and both of them got fired. From then on, for the next three years, they did all sorts of jobs to survive, pushed around in dreadful and scary dorms. Fortunately, Pablo was a big guy and protected his sister. Elena didn’t forget her commitment and carried on studying in the public library and, after strenuous hard work, received a diploma in accounting. This allowed her to find a job, save enough money, and fulfill her dream to immigrate with her brother to the US.
Most of her strength was coming from desperation and her determination to reach a place where she could feel safe. From birth, she fought like a warrior, and despite her constant fears, crippling anxiety, and chronic shyness, her powerful intelligence got her to the US. They landed in Miami, with a tourist visa and a small amount of money, and instead of trying to get fake IDs and being robbed by the local Latino mafia, she was smart enough to invest her money to learn the language. In less than three months, she found a job in accounting, where they accepted her without a working visa, and she started building a life for her and her brother. Unfortunately, one year later, on their twenty-first birthdays, her brother got in a fight and was deported. She found herself alone for the first time, so desperate and scared that she thought about killing herself. Only the thought of her brother back in the ghettos of Bogota gave her the strength to move on and to try to get him back.
She got married in order to get a green card and had to live with that man for a while. The guy turned out to be horrible, and after months of harassment, one day, while drunk and angry, he raped her with the excuse that she was his wife. Elena was very religious and prudish and had never been touched by a man before. She was saving herself for the man who would marry her for love. She felt horribly violated in her body and soul. She lost it and tried to kill herself by jumping from the building. Fortunately, the flat was on a lower floor, and she landed on a canopy with just a few bruises. To avoid getting in more trouble, the guy stopped harassing her, and after a few months, she got her precious green card. She came to LA soon after, invited by a Colombian friend working as a nurse in a hospital. She saw the opportunity, and she decided to stay in LA, working and studying to get a nursing degree. She got the diploma after three years and immediately got a job in a private clinic. In the meantime, she brought Pablo back with a student visa on fake credentials. She had to travel to Bogota to get him to come; he was too scared to travel alone. From then on, life got much easier. She found Pablo a place to live, and she found a more lucrative job in a major hospital.
She finally got to a point in her life where she felt that she had arrived, and so she relaxed. Her desperate drive suddenly stopped, and so did the little confidence that made her go forward with so much determination. Her shyness and fears became so severe that she couldn’t talk to people, and she didn’t feel safe to leave home alone. Pablo had to drive her to the hospital every day, walk her to her ward, and pick her up from there at the end of each shift. This got progressively worse up to now. Even today Pablo was in the parking lot, sitting in the car and waiting for her. When she was told about this opportunity by a nurse colleague, a young Mexican girl that Luca had helped for similar issues, she saw a possible way out, and she went for it—and here we are.
“To understand Elena’s transformation, we need to talk about fake identities. People in codependency typically need two elements to feel safe: leadership and safe zones. Each one of these can partially or entirely substitute the need of the other. We talked extensively about leadership, but what are the safe zones? There are two types: the physical safe zones, such as a home or a trusted friend, and the mind’s safe zones (or fake identities) that are areas of life where people in codependency feel confident and strong. These are typically related to success, wealth, beauty, or a specific skill, such as a sport or academic ability. People suffering the Bosurgi Syndrome feel safe only when they are in their safe zone. When they are out of their safe zone, they regress like a lost kid. In contrast, when adults are off codependency and enjoy their real identity, their skills, beauty, or success represent a great pleasure and satisfaction and not a needed place for the mind to feel safe.
“Let’s analyze what transformed Elena in the last two days. Did Liam fix her in the first session? No, he just renewed her trust in her safe zone as a smart student. At a very young age, after terrible abuses, Elena discovered her intelligence and the power of education. She made the unconscious decision that seeking education and using her brilliant mind will protect her from more abuse and poverty. Thus, she committed her life to study. She felt confident and safe as a student in any situation where she could prove her intelligence and learning skills. Her trust in this safe zone has been confirmed throughout her life; she saved herself and her brother many times because of her education.
“Her identity as a brilliant student kept her going with no fears until she confirmed herself as a nurse. At that stage of her life, she relaxed, and she stopped studying. She didn’t need it anymore, but she didn’t realize that in doing so, she came out of her safe zone that kept her survival system quiet for so many years. She could have tried to study in order to grow further in the nursing profession, but it wasn’t something that stimulated her mind. It was routine work that actually depressed her brilliant mind. Despite her good job, the brother next to her, and, finally, a bit of tranquility, her still active codependency deprived her from a lifelong safe zone and made her feel terribly unprotected, unsafe, and lost.
“On Monday, Liam reactivated her student’s mind. He challenged her with a complex lesson about the mind, and he asked her to cooperate with him in the healing. Thus, she walked straight back into her safe zone, reacquiring confidence and a sense of safety. Today she came in strong and ready to progress with her learning. That’s why she asked you several questions that you answered brilliantly. You will see that in the next session, she will want to know more, and I suggest that you carry on stimulating her brain with further knowledge and involvement in the process. This will grant her enough stamina, confidence, and, of course, knowledge, to get to the click and release her codependency. After that, she will never require a safe zone again. She will almost certainly progress with her studies to become an informatics genius, but it will be a pleasurable choice and not a need that comes from fear.
Great talk about the power of now and the impact of our parents in the first 10 years of our life. [Click the post’s title to watch Paul Brenner talk]
From the book the Mind Shaman-
“All right, let’s talk about your partnership with Diana. I would wait until our work is completed before you evaluate or make any decision about your relationship or any other aspect of your life. You will see that many of your priorities are going to change, and you are going to see life differently. This is the normal process experienced by each client that clears codependency. Today, despite the fact that you are nineteen, you are still in the typical self-centered attitude of a young man of ten years old, struggling with too many personal issues to be able to focus on a partner. When you will position yourself at the top of the vertical hierarchy over your mind and your mind over your body, you will be so happy with yourself that you will forget about you. Then you will be fit for love. You can’t love anyone if you don’t love yourself, because you are still too focused on solving your personal issues.
“My Spiritual Teacher has compared love as a train track, two rails always progressing together in the same direction but never crossing. Khalil Gibran in his book The Prophet compared love to the same wine drunk from different glasses, two strings of the violin playing the same note. Our evolution is single. We can walk together with someone else for a period or for all of our life, but our evolutions will remain individual and never merge. Therefore, individuals create powerful unions. You mentioned my wife and me. It’s a good example. We are both strong and independent. We trust and love each other enormously, and we try to spend all of our available time together. We focus on our reciprocal needs, but we don’t depend emotionally on each other. This makes our marriage a 50 percent mutual effort, keeping us faithfully together but single in our spiritual evolution. We choose to be together every day, and our choice is based on the pleasure of being with each other, not on the fear of being alone or unloved. All that comes from joy, efficiency, and power is the fruit of a well-balanced vertical hierarchy, spirit over mind, and mind over body. In contrast, everything that originates from neediness or fears is the indication of lack of structure and typically does not last.”
This essay brings to your attention the two very frequent scenarios of behaviors in relationships. A lot of people go through similar experiences and wish to change the situation. I suggest a different view at the problem, in fact, I shouldn’t call it a problem, rather an adaptive mechanism of your mind. This perspective shows you why your mind believes that it needs to apply the dysfunctional behaviors. The reason is the instinct of codependency which, if failed to terminate at puberty, prevents you from being self-sufficient. It holds the key to turning the situation around by fulfilling the critical needs of your mind and hence stopping the crippling codependency.
From the book the Mind Shaman –
Billy is a very smart gay guy and also very funny . His life story was tough, sad, and very complex, but he kept it light, making constant jokes about his fears as well as the mediocrity and ignorance of his family. He was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His father was a training officer for the National Guard, a military-trained bulldozer: big man with huge fists, no feelings or emotions, harsh with his family in the same manner as he was with his cadets. His voice was so sharp and loud that Billy was still getting the creeps today just thinking about it. His mother is a full Native American from the Navajo tribe and was very submissive and kind, ready to do all that was in her power to please the husband.
Billy was the third of three boys. His brothers were the spitting image of their dad, playing with guns and fighting all day long. He was like his mom. He liked art, sewing, and painting. His mom was a great artist, and he learned the magic of colors and forms from her. But they had to do it in secret because his father would not consider the option that one of his kids might not enlist in an armed service. For him, art was for women; guns were for men. When Dad was home, Billy was constantly terrorized, hiding and walking on eggshells to not get him angry. All three kids had to endure physical punishment for every tiny mistake they did, which meant holding a standing position for hours, running around the house many, many times with no access to water, or fasting for an entire day, and so on; and this started from when they were still toddlers. The two older brothers got stronger and angrier. Billy, instead, got weaker and more sick, fainting all the time, horribly slim because he couldn’t hold food in his stomach. The constant pain in his gut provoked by his relentless fears brought him to the emergency room several times. The army doctors always thought that it was a bug in his stomach, and they sent him home with some useless pills.
He really tried to be like his dad, but it was not his nature. He just wanted to have a quiet life painting and sewing. But that was not allowed; he was a man! His illness and his passion for art provoked endless bullying and mocking from his brothers as well as constant very hurtful remarks from his Dad. He didn’t mind to be called “girl” or “daughter” by his father, but he suffered thinking that he let his dad down. He loved and admired his dad, and he would have cut off his arm to be loved back, but his father was too stuck in his soldier’s mind to understand the “different” beauty and powers of his youngest son. So he gave up on him and ignored him from the age of five. The pressure was gone, but the rejection that came with it was so devastating for the little Billy that his health got worse. His mother worried for his life and sent him to her parents in a tribal village a couple of hours south. There, Billy started a new life, and for the first time, he felt accepted and loved. His health improved dramatically, his stomach stop hurting, and he made friends, kids just like his loving nature, playing and doing art stuff. He started school in the local Navajo school. He was shy but very sharp, and the teachers liked him, but in some ways, he felt different from all the other boys. He felt much more in tune with the girls of his class, although somehow attracted to some of the older boys.
Around eight, he started experimenting with a couple of older boys, enjoying giving them pleasure. It was natural to him but also very confusing, and he couldn’t talk to anyone about it. His grandparents were old and still attached to the Navajo tradition that teaches to respect everyone without discrimination but to not discuss sex. They were good people, and they loved him dearly, but they weren’t equipped to give him much leadership or direction. He couldn’t talk with his parents either; his father would have killed him, and his mother was too scared and probably too depressed to deal with something like this. So Billy kept his painful secret to himself, feeling terribly guilty, as well as like an outsider with his peers. He returned to being sick, re-experiencing his old digestive problems and the constant pain in his guts. He felt that this was God’s punishment for his attraction to men, and he stopped seeing the kids that wanted sexual favors from him. Of course, he felt more isolated than ever, and only the passion for painting, sewing, and creating forms and shapes kept him going.
Around ten years old, the entire village was aware of Billy’s sexual nature. It was obvious by the way he talked and moved, and as much as everybody liked him for his kindness and skills in the different arts, every day he felt more excluded and despised for being gay. His breakthrough in accepting his sexuality came with a medicine man, a two-spirited person, a nadleeh. This was a famous healer that moved to the village the same month that Billy finished middle school. He was a Navajo, gifted with special powers and highly trained in his medicine, but also a guy that knew too well the struggle of being gay in his tribal traditions. He became his mentor and made him accept himself as a human being and his sexuality and healed his physical and mental struggles. This guy was the first real guidance in Billy’s life, and his presence and leadership had such an impact that Billy grew physically and mentally, becoming a man capable of taking care of himself.
When Billy graduated from high school, his mentor, attracted by Billy’s intelligence and skills, offered to train him in his medicine to become a healer. He loved the man, but he wanted out from the tribe and the judgment. He also wanted to develop his artistic skills and make some money with it. Billy jumped on a bus and travelled over twelve hundred miles to San Francisco. He was still very shy and fairly anxious, but the excitement of being free to be himself with others like him made him overcome all his fears. The first evening in town, he met Dino, the love of his life, a much older man, experienced, powerful, rich, and the owner of a fashion design company. His dream came true. One day in Frisco, he found all that he had desired: a leader, a father, a luxurious life incredibly different from his past, a man to love, and a job as fashion designer. This lasted just over three years. On his twenty-first birthday, Dino decided that he wanted a younger boyfriend and dumped Billy. In twenty-four hours, Billy found himself heartbroken, homeless, and jobless. It was totally unexpected. He thought that Dino was sharing the same love that he felt for him and their union was for life. He didn’t think about saving money or preparing a “Plan B”.
Fortunately, he immediately got back working, as he was already a great and established designer. Fashion designers fought to hire him. But that was the only aspect of his life that kept going in a straight line. Emotionally and physically, he was a mess. He felt totally lost and terribly sad. His digestive system started freaking out again, and he started losing weight and feeling sick all the time. For two years, he changed many partners trying to get back what he had lost with Dino, but each time was a further confirmation of his unlovability as well as his inability to be happy. Around twenty-four, sick and tired from rejection and physical and emotional pain, Billy went back to his tribe and his mentor in order to find himself again and get some rest from the constant misery experienced in his life. In the meantime, he made a decent amount of money, so he arrived with beautiful gifts, and the village welcomed him like a hero. But after a few weeks, he ended up hanging out with only his mentor and a couple of local gay guys, which in some ways was expected, and he was fine with it. He wasn’t there to build a new life.
Bored but restored, after a few months, he again left his mentor, the old grandparents, and his Navajo refuge. Determined to create a life for himself that no one will be able to mess up, Billy decided to find a business partner and create his own label. He already knew many people in the industry, but he couldn’t trust any one of them, so he sought an investor. Unfortunately, instead of looking for a pure financial investor that would finance his business, he searched for a father that would lead him as well as finance his venture. He did this in the gay world, but this time in Los Angeles, and he fell in the same trap of several years before. The new guy, much richer than Dino and totally in love with Billy, gave him a label, invested a ton of money, and enabled him do what he desired the most—creating collections.
Billy was a genius as a designer but totally inexperienced in the business of making money with fashion. He designed beautiful collections, but they were unsuitable for creating any cash flow, and he failed season after season until he gave up. His boyfriend was rich enough and still terribly in love with Billy, so he didn’t care about losing money with the toy that he created for his lover. But Billy couldn’t bare the shame of his fiasco and left the business and the guy. He wasn’t really in love with him anyway; he just enjoyed his paternal protection. Back to square one and too ashamed to retreat to New Mexico, Billy entered in to the worst period of his life. He worked as a freelance, making the minimum required for survival, and started drinking, smoking, taking a lot of drugs, and sleeping around with as many guys as he could. He was in West Hollywood every night, partying and burning his talent as well as his brain cells. He was twenty-eight when he fell on the floor of a bar one night, totally drunk, releasing blood from every cavity of his body. In the ER, they found his gut perforated as well as his blood infected with HIV.
At first, he decided to die and then to live. The deadly virus was probably just what he needed to appreciate life. He cleaned himself from drugs and casual sex, and he got back to designing in a stable job, managing a totally new type of life. This was last year, and he’s kept clean, sober, and single, too worried to infect someone and too ashamed to fall in love. He also kept his job despite his constant anxiety and fears. It doesn’t pay much, but he can’t get much more in his state of constant mood swings and recurring depression. One of his best friends, a well-known publicist, told him about Luca a couple of months ago, and here he is, and . . . he jokes about all this. Respect the man! I would not be capable of joking for sure.
And . . . here we have another victim of the Bosurgi Syndrome. This guy with a different dad and a different mom would very likely be Valentino number two. Instead, he is here joking about his life’s fiasco. Maybe he is still in time to do something great. I’m sure Carla will do the magic! I wonder if I will be able to follow the impact of this work on our clients in the next part of their lives. It would be very rewarding as well as a great matter for a book or a show. We should probably consider this as one of the Bosurgi Syndrome Institute spin-off projects. I should talk to Luca about it.
Carla ended the first part of their work, telling Billy about their targets: “Our goal is to provide you the tools you need to become self-sufficient. We need to clear your codependency, and consequently your fears, anxiety, and need for external leadership, in order to enable you to create a successful fashion label with someone that knows how to run that business. This will allow you to capitalize on all your past experiences and mistakes, providing you with what you desire the most, the ability to create, to succeed, and to reach a powerful state of unconditional happiness. Correct?” Over these words, Billy changed expression stopping his jokes, looked Carla with the expression of a kid, betrayed already too many times, and asked with a little voice, “I wish! Do you really believe that could be possible? I’m rotten inside now. Isn’t too late?”
Carla took his hands smiling and promised that she will get him there in just a few weeks. Billy started crying quietly, almost ashamed to be emotional. He used his jokes to keep some power, but now he felt good to let go, surrendering all his power to Carla.
From the book the Mind Shaman
From the Mind Shaman – Morgan is only twenty-nine years old. Born in San Diego, California, from hippie parents living in a commune, drugs, nudity, and free sex were around her throughout her childhood. She saw her parents having sex in between them and with many others from as far back as she can remember. She tried marijuana before talking, and she was initiated to sex herself when she was nine. Her life was fun though; she learned surfing when she was a toddler, and she lived always out and about with sheep and chickens surrounded by a lot of dancing and music. She grew up like a wild creature, everything was allowed, as long as it would not hurt others or nature. But certainly, she didn’t receive any structure, direction, or leadership.
From the book The Mind Shaman –
“The Bosurgi Syndrome is a condition that describes an overextended codependency. Codependency is a natural stage in human psychological development and occurs in childhood. As part of our survival system, it acts to keep children psychologically dependent upon the parents in order to keep the children safe while they are physically and mentally vulnerable. It also allows children to be receptive to their parents’ tutoring and leadership. In essence, it is a tool offered by nature to our parents to protect, educate, and raise us. It also keeps us close to our parents so that we don’t wander away from home at an early age when we are not equipped to navigate the world.
“The codependency period starts at birth and ideally continues until puberty, around the age of twelve to fourteen. During the codependency period, the developing mind of the child is dependent upon the parents for leadership, security, validation, and guidance. Ideally, the parents will give the child leadership, unconditional love, validation and precise guidance, and will teach the child how to lead itself so that the child can begin to exit codependency around eight years old. The full transition to complete self-leadership should occur around puberty. Correct termination of the codependency period allows the young adult to become emotionally independent and equipped to lead and live an efficient and balanced adult life.
“The codependency period is naturally terminated by the mind, when the mind detects that the self-leading learning process has been completed. The mind will not terminate codependency until it is unconsciously confident that sufficient self-leadership is in place. Codependency may remain active in some cases throughout an adult’s entire life.”
“Liam, have you ever asked yourself why puppies are anxious when they are separated from their mother? The answer is at the base of my discovery. All mammals during the first vulnerable and inexperienced period of life are forced by nature to seek the protection of adults, typically their mother or both parents. This is a natural instinct that makes the puppy feel unsafe and anxious if it is unprotected—it is called codependency. Codependency is a healthy temporary instinct, part of the survival system, which disappears automatically when the puppy becomes a self-sufficient adult dog, able to be independent and protect itself.
“In the human, the codependency is much more sophisticated. It is active during our first twelve years of life with a variety of restrictive feelings. It makes us dependent on our parents because it is unsafe to be out in the world on our own. It makes us feel anxious and insecure if we are left unprotected. We look up to adults, and we seek their guidance and leadership. We need a lot of love and validation. So we act in ways to please grown-ups. We resent it if we are unguided, and we feel unlovable and not good enough if we are rejected. This instinct is supposed to weaken around seven or eight years old when we start developing our own reasoning process and it should terminate at puberty.
“During these first twelve years, nature has entrusted our lives to our parents. They are our protectors, tutors, guides, and source of love and validation. We depend on them to do their job. We deserve to receive their leadership, to constantly feel safe and to get unconditional and unlimited love, validation, and guidance.
“Unfortunately, many parents are unable or just unqualified to offer proper parenting to their children. The consciousness revolution of the sixties has dramatically transformed our society, making this task much more challenging than ever before. The result is that many kids grow up without the fulfillment of their basic emotional needs and without a good leadership model that can be replicated in the process of becoming adults. The consequence of this is that many young adults are reaching puberty without the leadership tools required to take charge over their own mind, which has been dependent upon their parents since birth.
“So at the time that they are supposed to become independent, they don’t have the self-leadership tools to do it. Their mind consequently doesn’t feel self-lead, and it makes the decision that it is unsafe to give up codependency. It holds onto it. The consequences are devastating. People grow in age, size and experience but the codependency is still active making them feel like a ten-year-old kid unsafe if unprotected, and always in search of external leadership, love, validation and guidance. Remember that codependency is the software program that is supposed to get you safely from age zero to twelve. If the program does not terminate, the body grows, but the mind keeps running assumptions that you are still a child.
“Imagine a ten-year-old girl looking like a thirty-year-old woman that is living an adult life. She feels inadequate, like a child in an adult world, terribly anxious because no one is protecting her, and tries to please other adults to get some love and validation, constantly facing the fear of been rejected, judged, or abandoned. She may also be angry and resentful because she is not receiving the care that she deserves. Sound familiar, Liam? This is the condition described by the Bosurgi Syndrome.”
“The Bosurgi Syndrome is an unnatural human condition that is the result of lack of self-leadership. Our mind is always seeking efficiency and likes to stay abreast with nature. So with enough discipline and education, people affected by the syndrome can establish the self-leadership required to beat the condition. It will take time, but it is certainly possible. Liam, if you want to help your friends affected by the Bosurgi Syndrome, teach them some of the lessons that you will receive during the next sessions. You will be surprised to see that several of them will get it and come out from the Bosurgi Syndrome as if by magic.”
“My school is progressing fast, and I hope that in a few years we will be able to open centers throughout the world. In view of the magnitude of the problem, this is just a drop of water in the ocean. My hope is that the leading schools of psychology will acknowledge the existence of the Bosurgi Syndrome as one of the main psychological issues of this era. This will focus the psychological research to explore my methodology as demonstrated on a large number of cases and provide the clinical statistical work, the rate of success, and the permanent results required to demonstrate the validity of the therapy. For this purpose, I can offer clinical researchers hundreds of clients that have seen major permanent changes in their lives because of CognitiveOS Hypnosis. Unfortunately, the scientific community’s validation process will be very slow and terribly argued, but I hope that one day the medical community will eventually realize the gravity of the problem and start thinking about the available solutions. We have, with CognitiveOS Hypnosis, a very effective method that could offer many licensed professionals a new set of tools to be able to beat the plague of codependency.
“I also hope that more mind researchers, after having embraced the concept of the Bosurgi Syndrome, will find other methodologies able to deal with codependency permanently. Of course, prevention will be the real solution. The Bosurgi Syndrome can be avoided altogether with careful parenting and education. This should become one of our government’s major efforts. It can also be easily treated as soon it manifests itself during the initial stages of the teenage period. I have great success with teens. They are fast and wonderful to heal. My hope is that we will see teams of psychologists helping teenagers to come off codependency.” – The Mind Shaman
The Genius Lab of the Mind – an interactive talk show about the mind hosted by Luca Bosurgi and his team.
Dates: March 26th 2014, 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Venue: Third Street Theater, 8115 W 3rd St, Los Angeles CA-90048
Suggested donation: $ 10 – No one turned away for lack of funds “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller
Your mind generates your joy and excitement as well as your anxiety, fears, lack of purpose, addictions, painful relationships, depression, etc. Thus the key to resolve these issues sits inside your mind. The purpose of the Genius Lab is to help you to explore your personal mind’s struggles and to give you tools to fix it. The interactive conversation will be focused on your questions and on a few of your personal cases assessed by Luca Bosurgi and his team.
Up to now the mind has been considered as a mysterious black box. We want to explain how the mind works, the purpose of anxiety, the value of codependency and the cause of addictions. Mastering the organization of your mind will create a shift in the way you approach life, relate to people and feel about yourself.
During this interactive conversation we are going to demonstrate to you how your daily crippling issues are connected to incorrect choices made by your mind, and how you can change it. We want you to tell us your story so we can present it to you from the perspective of your mind – the way nature works to keep you efficient and safe. We will identify where your mind was misled and explore the solutions to fix it.
Live music by James Hood featuring ‘ CEREMONY’ jameshood.com
Luca Bosurgi, the founder of the Institute, has just published his new book about the young man who is trying to become happy and independent, but is caught in the emotional vicious cycle of ups and downs, in which downs take the significant part of his life. He finally breaks free going through the CognitiveOS Hypnotherapy and clearing the Bosurgi Syndrome, the cause of his anxiety, depression and fears.
The book is written as an interesting novel which reveals the inner workings of the mind and the mechanisms to fix them. The book is available on Amazon and is very helpful for those who are looking for personal growth, a different perspective on therapy, and wants to understand some aspects about the healing power of the clinical hypnosis.
It’s Sunday and you are out in the park jogging or walking your dog, through your sunglasses you see a couple passing by, they are holding hands, smiling and having a chat, they seem to be peacefully happy and in love. You notice those couples on the way home from work, in coffee shops, supermarkets, etc. Your imagination completes the image by picturing them in their cozy house, sitting on the couch, hugging and reading a book. And every time the same questions pop up in your mind: why am I not like this?