How to Break Free from Emotional Patterns Using Dream Analysis and the Theory of Imprinting with Cynthia Marks

Many people say that your life begins at birth, but what if your emotional imprint starts to take shape long before that? What if your emotions, behavioral patterns, and adaptability are formed in the womb?

This is the conversation Cynthia Marks, host of the And Now, Love Podcast, and I explore. We delve into the transformative work of her late husband, Dr. Bernard Bail, who developed the “Love, Dreams, Imprint” paradigm. This groundbreaking approach helps uncover and understand the unconscious emotional imprints formed early in life. We also discuss the importance of emotional healing and how our earliest life experiences, yes, in utero trauma, can shape how we engage with the world. 

In this episode, you will learn:

• What is imprinting in psychology and how it develops before birth.
• How the Freud theory of psychoanalysis laid the groundwork for understanding the unconscious mind. 
• The ways trauma is stored in the body and passed down through generations.
• How dream analysis can help uncover the wounds that need healing.
• The difference between living authentically vs. patterns of survival.
• Practical ways to connect with your inner self to develop deeper self-awareness.
• The surprising connection between your nervous system and emotional patterns that may have persisted throughout your life.

It's a unique conversation you won't want to miss! So grab your AirPods and join us as we discuss this innovative healing modality.

Much love,

Laurie

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Transcript

Laurie James: 0:02

Hey there. It's Lori. And before we get started on today's episode, I have a little housekeeping, two quick announcements. I still do have room for a one on one. One spot is taken, so I have one more left. So if that's something that you're interested in exploring. Click the link in the show notes, and you can schedule a free half hour inquiry. Call with me. Second I mentioned this last episode, but I'm working on a new offering, and would really love to chat with any of you that would like to share some of your feedback. It's a way for me to create a new offering that meets your needs instead of what I think that you might want. There's two ways of doing this. You can either schedule an inquiry, call with me, and I will ask you a series of questions, or you can click the link in the show notes and answer the questionnaire, it would mean the world to me to have your feedback and thank you in advance and enjoy this conversation with Cynthia marks, who is the host and creator of and now love podcast as we explore emotional healing and personal growth inspired by her late husband, Dr Bernard bales, work that's rooted in love, dreams and imprint philosophy. So enjoy this conversation. Welcome to Confessions of a free bird podcast. I'm your host. Lori James, a mother, divorcee, recovering caregiver, the author of sandwiched A Memoir of holding on and letting go, a therapy junkie, relationship coach, somatic healer and now podcaster, I'm a free spirit, and here to lift you up on this podcast, I'll share soulful confessions and empowering conversations with influential experts so you can learn to spread your wings and make the most of your second half. So pop in those earbuds, turn up the volume, and let's get inspired, because my mission is to help you create your most joyful, Purpose Driven Life, one confession at a time. Hello, free birds, and welcome back. I have to confess, I am super excited about my guest and the conversation that we're going to delve into today. Today, I am speaking with Cynthia marks. She is the host and creator of the and now love podcast, a platform dedicated to exploring emotional healing and personal growth. She's been inspired by the groundbreaking work of her late husband, Dr Bernard bale and she shares insights rooted in his love dreams, imprint philosophy, which I can't wait to dive into a unique approach to understand and reshaping unconscious patterns. So welcome Cynthia. Thank you so much for being here with me today.

Cynthia Marks: 3:12

Thank you happy to be here. I've been looking forward to it for many days.

Laurie James: 3:16

Good, good. So can you start by sharing with our listeners a little bit more about yourself and how you became the creator of the podcast, and now love and to carry on your late husband's work

Cynthia Marks: 3:33

absolutely so and now love came about because my husband was really struggling at the end of his life to continue to get his message, his work, known to the public. So for most of his career, after he discovered his theory, he was fairly well shunned by his community, by his peers. He was a renowned psychoanalyst, and continued to be that, even after he was shunned, and he was quite the rebel, he would not give up trying to make his voice known and to offer up the idea of exploring his theory to students, to other analysts, but he just struggled. I mean, what a tough guy Try as he might, and it wasn't just that he wanted to communicate his own ideas. He wanted to just enrich the platform at large with the idea that, wait a minute, maybe we need to be open to ideas outside of those that we constantly contend with or appreciate or respect, and in no way was he saying, don't respect what you know or what you've been practicing. But maybe there's more to it. Maybe there's another avenue. And in fact, one elder gentleman had said to him at a conference, you know, I hear you. I totally get it. I believe. Leave you, but I'm too old a horse to change this course, and a lot of people were afraid to just change it up here, perhaps, as an analyst, you've been speaking to your patients about how to improve their lives based on certain theories, and now you're going to say, I'm going to add this to it. What does that mean? Have I been telling you the wrong thing. How do I incorporate this? So it was easier to dismiss, which I actually find kind of interesting, because in my opinion, you know, I have a lot of friends who are therapists as well, but in the work that I've done with my own therapist through on and off through the years, they try to get the patients to be curious and open minded about themselves. Yet these psychoanalysts weren't open minded about maybe adding because it didn't sound like he was trying to change everybody's mind. It's just maybe adding an element to what they're already trying to do with their patients. Tell me if I'm wrong. I agree with you. When I first learned this, I was very surprised, because I thought my goodness, in my mind, I'm stereotypically thinking of this field as being those who would be open to hearing what their patients have to say, open to learning about new ways of treating patients, and it was not so. Of course, his work was pretty revolutionary, because whereas many of the analysts and psychologists were treating their patients via a Freudian method, which is great. I mean, the dream work that Bernard worked with basically came from Freud. And thank goodness that Freud sort of introduced us to the dream. But the idea of our trauma sort of beginning at the age of three and starting to need to deal with things then and Oedipus and so forth. His work said, Well, wait a minute. You know, maybe things start way before the age of three. Maybe we're talking about what's going on in utero. And that was the red flag for everybody, like, Oh no, that's that No.

Laurie James: 7:14

And how can it not be when you are connected to your mother via umbilical cord, you are growing and living inside another human being you know, being a somatic experiencing practitioner and coach, like, how can your birth mother's nervous system not affect yours and your growth? Yeah, and it's easy for us to think of something as simple as, say, a mother who, you know, unfortunately, is taking a nicotine and knowing, knowing that that's not good for the baby. And if you think about it, you know, sort of on that basic level, you can really then say, okay, I get it. Everything that mother is doing has some effect on that baby? Yeah, absolutely. So can you tell our listeners a little bit more about your late husband, Dr Bale, and how his work has impacted what you were doing and how you're carrying on his theory and legacy, and then maybe we can jump into what his theory is a little bit more. Okay, great. So we are carrying on, because at the end of his life, the end of Bernard's life, he said to me, darling, oh, love of my life, just a little bit of coaxing there, if there's any way that you can move this forward, because try as I may, at 100 years old, I just don't have the energy to do this anymore. We were trying until, really, until he was just about 100 and his voice was too frail, his hearing was impaired, his mind was totally together, but we couldn't make a presentation, you know, via an audio podcast or video podcast that would suffice to tell the story. And so I said, Okay, thinking, What in the world could I possibly do? I'm not a psychoanalyst. I'm not trained in this. I'm not a doctor, and I let it be for a good many months, because I just needed to deal with the fact that I'd lost this man that I loved so much. So after a few months, the gentleman who had been working with us previous to Bernard's passing, came and said, I've got an idea. I've got an idea. Why don't you Cynthia, because you know so much about this act as a lay person and ask questions of the professionals, and ask questions of people who might help others, other lay people, find their way to Bernard's work. And I said, they said, I cannot. I could. I mean, see, I'm even stuttering thinking about it. I can't do that. And after another.

Cynthia Marks: 10:00

Months, I said, All right, let's just give it a try. And it was so fascinating and so much fun and so heartwarming for me, and I knew that that that feeling of the warmth in my heart and ears, in my eyes that I would have when I would speak to these people was to me, almost like Bernard's spirit saying you've got this and I mean, just saying that to gives me chills, but it's been a beautiful experience for me, if I just speak selfishly, and I think we've got a lot of fabulous people that we're having conversations with and a great big audience now, so it's super exciting, and as long as it's fun and full of love and exciting, we're going to keep it going beautiful. I love that, and I'm with you. I support you, and I think from the little that I have read before, as I was preparing for our conversation. A lot of it resonated with me as well, just based off of the 15 plus years of healing work that I have done. And I think that in the therapeutic world, there is more acceptance to the importance of those pre verbal years. So I'm hoping that as you continue to put the word out and continue to spread his theory, that it continues to catch on like wildfire. Sounds like it was a life passion of his. Oh my gosh. He couldn't really operate from this space, until he discovered that this methodology, that this theory, served to heal him first, yeah, can you say a little bit more about that? Sure. So he was, even as a youth, always looking for, what was his reason on earth? What was he supposed to be? Feeling passionate about, what was his path? And he kept coming back through the course of his first couple of decades to I need to do something to help other people heal. He'd been in World War Two. He had unfortunately seen, you know, the horrors of war, and he said to himself, you know, there is in no way, shape or form that I'm ever, ever going to come to humanity from a place like that. In fact, I want to help people understand how we can have an existence where we don't do that kind of harm to each other, either individuals talking to other individuals, being with other individuals, or communities coming at each other from these big, scary places. And his work gets us to a place where we lead with love. So ultimately, he became an analyst, and as an analyst, you find yourself in analysis and supervision, which is a fabulous thing, of course, and he was able to work with some of the world's best analysts, which was fabulous for him. He doesn't regret that at all, but still, he didn't come away feeling like he was learning about his feelings, learning about his trauma, learning about love, he came away with this sort of great intellectual idea of life and the meaning of life, and he started to feel pretty upset about this, like, my gosh, I just know There's more to this than this, and I've got to figure it out. And I'm treating my patients. I'm feeling this way. How can I treat them properly? Well, I'm feeling this way. And at this point, he had a huge practice, and they stayed with it. He basically abandoned everything and said, we've been working with your dreams. That's all we're going to do, just listen to your dreams. I'm just going to sit here and listen to everything you tell me. And he listened to, you know, the hundreds of dreams of many, many different patients, and finally, came to the conclusion that this stuff is happening in utero, and we have way, way back. Our dreams are the keys to where all that trauma is held, and let's get there, and that's what he's been able to do, beautiful. And so what are the key principles of this dream? Love, dreams and imprint philosophy. So the idea is that we are all imprinted in utero by our mothers, and that does not mean that our mothers are bad people. It's not to diss our mothers, but our mothers. Have. All of our mothers, basically have some amount of trauma that they've had to deal with, unknowingly or knowingly. They've also been imprinted. They are also the results of ancestral trauma, and we are all carrying this with us from generation to generation. And clearly, it's not just women that are being affected, because mothers give birth to boys and girls, and even in you utero, a father can still have an impact on that baby by the way he communicates with the mother, by the interaction he has for the mother and so fathers are not to be left out, either in the world of happiness or the world of in frailty. So the idea, then, is to get to that information, to find out what that trauma is. And the way to get there is via the dream. The dream really is door to our unconscious, and our unconscious holds everything about us, all of the positive, all of the negative, and the dreams present to us the things that we are struggling with. If we're doing well in an area, we probably won't dream about it, because it because it doesn't really need any work. And so the key then to this is to understand those messages. And once you understand the message, it begins to resonate with you. You start to have a certain feeling about that message, and you can then begin to relate it back to things that have happened to you, which you can then start to recover from. So we find ourselves in our everyday lives operating from this trauma rather than from our true selves. So it could be that in my case, for example, all of my life, up until the last decade or so, my decisions also made by my father unconsciously. But when I would think about making a decision, it didn't even have to take one. I would hear my father's voice. I would ask him the question and look for his approval. Oh my gosh. I mean that, when I discovered that I was really doing that, I thought that was so not my life. That was my life. Still trying to find the love of my father, even after he passed away, and once I finally said, You know what, I love you, but I'm not doing this for you anymore. That voice went away. Yeah,

Laurie James: 17:44

that's a beautiful story, and it's so true. And it could also come from if we have to behave a certain way to kind of keep the peace when we're young, or if we have parents that are volatile, right? And so we're always trying to navigate, because our survival counts on it like we need to do what we need to do, because we're not capable, as children, to fully take care of ourselves. So we have to find ways and compensate, basically, to make sure that we survive. And so then those patterns continue into our adulthood, until we become conscious of them and change them. Tell me if I'm off on that.

Unknown: 18:29

No, you're right, but I'm glad you brought that up, because that was super important to Bernard, that we all know that even in utero, unconsciously, we understand unconsciously, that in order to survive, we have to protect our mothers. So he tells us that we took the trauma that our mothers were carrying and whatever made them nervous or upset, angry, sad, we piled that on ourselves, unconsciously to protect them, because if they were not okay, we would not be okay without them surviving to the best of their ability, we weren't going to survive at all. So then we carry that on into our lifetimes, and we spend our youth being narrowed by those elements that we are trying to undo for those people that take care of us and they become part of who we are and who we were really meant to be is long gone or so covered up we can't find it, and his goal is to get to the authentic self of each of us so that we can have our own lives without carrying all of this trauma and by having our own lives, we can honestly feel love for others and love ourselves, and we can honestly move forward in a fabulous way in our communities, in our families and as part of humanity.

Laurie James: 19:58

Yeah, I think that. That has been a goal of mine through my healing journey, for sure. And I you said it so well, because we can't be our authentic self when we are trying to be somebody else or something else to keep other people safe or for our own survival.

Unknown: 20:19

Yes, and we just all do this on some level. Com, unknowingly. I mean, how many times have I heard someone say, Oh, your mom used to say that, and you don't even think about it. Well, is that me speaking, or is that me trying to protect my mom speaking? It's down to the littlest thing. But I am so encouraged that there is this great way to actually be able to enjoy being who we were meant to be. I think that's

Laurie James: 20:48

a lot of the work that we do in the somatic world is to really connect to the body and to really start listening to the body and to those little thoughts, to those little nudges that we might experience. It's always the whispers, right? It's never the big, heavy, two by four that hits you over the head. I mean, that might wake you up, but it's really those little What do I want today? Like sometimes that when I'm working with clients who really don't have a sense of self, and that's what I think we're talking about here, is I even will start with really asking, you know, what do I want for breakfast? You ask the simple questions, what is going to nourish me today, or what is going to bring me joy? If I just do one thing that's going to bring me joy today and get a really ignite or make me happy, doesn't have to ignite, but just bring some joy into my life. You know, that's a really good starting place, in my opinion, but also I love what you're talking about, because as an adoptee, it wasn't really until my late 40s that I really accepted the fact that there was birth trauma that I experienced right being adopted, being given up. I know my birth mother wanted me, but growing up, I always wondered why she had to give me up. Why was I not loved? Why was I, quote, unquote, not enough for her, right? Because as children, we internalize things and we think it's our fault, right? Because the world revolves around us when we're young, and it's really when you do this type of work and really understand that there was trauma there that and you know, it's like, I know that my mother had trauma. I mean, she was having a child in the 60s. In the mid 60s, it was unacceptable to be an unwed mother. She was sent away. She didn't really want to give me up, but she was told she had to. So I know that she felt a lot of angst and struggle and upset and frustration, and I know that that affected me. And then the next step is when I'm left in the hospital for three days with no connection from my birth mother or my adopted mother. I was a private adoption, so it happened fairly quick, but still like that initial bonding that so many people research is now showing is so, so important, right? But you don't even have to be adopted. I mean, I have lots of friends whose parents they were an accident, or they weren't wanted, or the mother wanted to be in a different place, or whatever it is, or they were too young, or they didn't feel like they had a choice. And that all affects all of us in different ways.

Unknown: 24:04

Yes, and may I ask, you can tell me you don't want to talk about it. How did you come to terms with what your birth mom's experience was outside of yours? Did you have to figure out a way to forgive her, or maybe you always had compassion for her. How did you separate yourself from I'm not a bad person? Yeah,

Laurie James: 24:29

you know that was definitely part of my journey, and it's a little complicated, because I did meet my birth mother. It wasn't on my terms. It was people can read about it in my book. It was a decision somebody else made for me, and I wasn't really happy about that, and separating that out from my own personal healing journey. So one of the things that I did on my healing journey, which. And so thank you for asking this question. I'm happy to share is I went away to a very intensive week long therapeutic program that's run by Pia melody, who's a well known therapist and has a program out in Wickenburg, and she's written several books on CO dependency. And so I went away for this week long intensive training, and at the time, my therapist said to me, I want you to work on your adoption. So one of the things that through that week, that one of the many things I did, was they gave me a doll, a baby doll, and I held it in my arms as if I was the adult, and that was my younger self, my baby, right? But I was looking at myself and so having that relationship as my adult self now and communicating to the infant self, or part of me that may be still feeling and experiencing some triggers of not feeling like I belong, or not feeling loved or worthy, or those were some of the issues that I dealt With so by holding that baby, and talking to myself, essentially, or a part of me, and really connecting with that infant self, I, you know, I had this dialog, and then tears came. And, you know, they they walked me through this whole process of, what do you want to say to your baby, you know, to your younger self, if you could do it over again, what would you have wished would have happened? And like, what are some parting words that you want to leave your infant self? And that was super raw, super hard, but it was also a very healing experience, because I'd never connected with that part of me or with my younger self, and, you know, I've done a lot of other work, a lot of nervous system work Around abandonment issues and around belonging and those types of things, but there's always more, right? There's always more that we can do. It's a journey. It's not a destination. But I'm curious, in that situation, what would Dr Bernard bail suggested? Or do you know in a situation like that? Well, I

Unknown: 27:40

imagine it would be slightly different for each person, given their circumstances, but as you were speaking about that experience that you had, where you connected with your infant self, and how that brought about these raw emotions for you, I imagine that you know, most of us have not really conceived of that as a thing to do you it doesn't even enter into your mind. So what a fabulous opportunity, and how great that you were able to put so much into it. I think that for Bernard, he believes that many of us are really still our baby selves, because our baby selves started out taking care of the people who were responsible for us, or who birthed us, or who we relied on, and part of finding who we really are means connecting with your baby self and discerning, okay, how can I be a grown up if I'm so busy operating as a baby, and what do I do to undo that? You know, embrace your baby self and love that part of you. But if we can figure out how to love ourselves, we can figure out how to operate with sort of more emotional maturity

Laurie James: 29:01

well, and when that baby self or that baby part of us kind of shows up. I mean, I often talk about it starts with awareness of recognizing that first and then, how can we as our adult self, and this can get into parts work and internal family systems, if you're familiar with that at all, and I'm I know very, very little about it, but I'm learning more of you know how the adult self can care for that baby. And that's also some of the work that I did while I was there, right? Like, how do we take care of that baby part of us that didn't get its needs met and didn't get taken care of in the way that we ideally needed to? And you know, we all have it like there's nobody comes out perfect, right with with a perfect parent that every need? Is met because that would have its own issues.

Cynthia Marks: 30:04

That's another topic, exactly.

Laurie James: 30:08

Are there two or three small steps our listeners, you know, we've, we've jumped into this, I believe, like such a rich conversation around the importance of this imprint. And are there a couple of small steps that our listeners can use to kind of shift things away from maybe some of our old patterns, whether it's, you know, the three year old, the baby, the seven year old, whatever it is, yes. And

Unknown: 30:36

before I answer that question, though, in your work, I wanted to ask you. So sometimes when we are maybe operating from the baby part of us, so medically, there might be something that's happening to someone physically that they should say, Okay, wait a minute, I'm having this sort of physical reaction. What does that mean for me? Emotionally? Is that right? Is that how that

Laurie James: 31:03

Yeah, so I think if I'm understanding your question, right? So what happens is, depending on who you're kind of talking to in in the somatic world we talk about, our nervous system will often dictate what our thoughts are, because if, if, let's just take an example, if your mother was always very anxious, you will most likely develop similar anxious tendencies, right? Because our nervous system, we co regulate. So have you ever just been with somebody and thought, wow, that person is so kind and warm and calm, and then you walk into a room and somebody is like, hyper and active and fun loving, but maybe a little phonetic is lack of better word, right? That's different people's nervous systems showing up. So when I'm with a friend or my partner, I know when he's dysregulated and his nervous system, or when he's regulated. And so the idea is, we co regulate each other, right? They talk about the 22nd hug, and how regulating that can be. Why do we want that hug is to regulate our nervous system to feel connected, because we're humans, and we are meant to connect. And so to answer your question is, when we have a regulated nervous system and we can regulate our own nervous system, then we can show up more present and more authentically ourselves. And oftentimes that requires you to really kind of connect with the body, connect with even just as we're talking, feel the chair underneath you, feel where your feet are touching the ground, and just notice sensations in your body. Sensations are the language of the nervous system. So I often have a lot of tingling in my body, but I I can, because I've done this work now for over five years, I can regulate my own nervous system. It's hard for people to do that. So if somebody has been in a very chaotic family, it is a challenge to regulate their own nervous system because that chaos is so familiar, that's what feels normal to them. Yes, yes, and answer your question.

Unknown: 33:33

Oh, totally. And it makes really good sense to me and and I would think too, then part of why this discussion about Bernard's work is valuable, because is that this trauma that we carry obviously affects the nervous system and causes us to react in sort of unknowingly, to situations, and that's not our trauma to be working From.

Laurie James: 33:58

Yes, so the more we can develop that awareness, the more we can connect with our body. And it's like, what is my body telling me right now? As you know, because, from a nervous system standpoint, we go into a fight, flight or freeze, typically when we get dysregulated, right? So what does my body want to do? Do I want to run away? Do I want to crawl under the covers, or do I want to fight? That will tell you where you're going, and it doesn't mean that those are bad things, because we need those. That's how we've survived. Yes, yes, right? But sometimes when we stay in those places or we feel like it's a threat, and maybe it's not really as threatening as it might feel like to our bodies and our nervous systems,

Unknown: 34:45

which could be that you have trained yourself over the course of your life to react a certain way based on how you had to react from the very beginning, and that reaction isn't really applicable to reality, right? So. When you sense that your partner, is it dysregulated? Can you help him know that sometimes,

Laurie James: 35:09

sometimes I can, and sometimes it might be too far gone, but oftentimes I can, and sometimes it's just giving him space and for his own nervous system to become more regulated, and he's doing his own work, and, you know, I do a little bit with him, but I don't know that that's necessarily my place, but as a partner, I can help to co regulate him, and then I also can really trigger him too.

Unknown: 35:39

I suppose that's true in all relationships, right? Like

Laurie James: 35:42

we know people's buttons, if we want to push them, we can't go there.

Unknown: 35:48

Well, you asked about a couple of tips, let's say so one of the first things to do is to sort of think about this idea, about finding your true self, about finding the love in you because it is there. 100% all of us have this core of love. Some people relate that to spirit or the universe or God, yeah, yeah, so, but that love is the thing that grounds us. And I love that you said humans are meant to be connected, and humans are meant to be connected in a loving way, yeah, and we have become as as a humanity, so we

Laurie James: 36:32

disconnected. There's the word and dysregulated that too, especially right now, yeah, so

Unknown: 36:41

we struggle to figure out how to treat each other well and with love, and we have to learn how to do that within ourselves. So Bernard always says something that I found really viable and moving in that when you look around the world and you see the chaos and how off the rails we continue to go look inside yourself, we also carry a huge amount of chaos. I mean, not all of us to the same level, of course, but to some degree, what we are facing inside ourselves is what we see outside. And if you can believe that, you can't help but want to undo the trauma and get to this space where you're coming from love, knowing you're lovable, knowing how to treat others with love. And you know, as corny as it sounds, that's how we're going to stop these wars. That's how we're going to, you know, behave well and treat each other as if we are equals and all deserve to exist on a basic level, if your trauma is held in your unconscious, and that is pretty well sealed off to most of us, but there's an opening and you can get to it, why wouldn't you experiment? Why wouldn't you try to go there? So certainly, the very, very best way to understand the information that your dreams hold is to work with a therapist who knows this work, and there are very few of them at the moment, we're hoping someday that Bernard's methodology will be taught in schools of psychology, but we're not there yet. But as a small step for an individual human if you start to buy into the fact that your dreams are meaningful. They're not just some weird thing that happens to you on some nights and not all nights. It's happening every night. And you say to yourself, Okay, I want to remember my dreams. And you sort of settle in at night, and you ask that of yourself, you may start to remember some of your dreams, and if you do, they're sometimes fleeting, so the best thing to do is to spend a moment and write them down. And over the course of having written down a few dreams, you might discover some commonalities, like there's different things that happen that create the same fear in you, or there is the same thing that happens that creates an anger in you,

Laurie James: 39:07

right? Or you have the same reoccurring dream, yes, yeah.

Unknown: 39:11

And why is that happening? And then, really, why is that happening? What is the feeling Can I think about things in my past that have stirred that same feeling, what were the circumstances? And you can start to unpack some of the trauma by getting to the source of where that began. Now it's obviously hard for us to understand what sort of trauma we may have had in utero if we can't communicate with our parents, or if we didn't grow up with our birth parents like yourself, but still, the the trauma can be present, like for example, you mentioned maybe not feeling loved or not feeling worthy, and that started in utero. If you were to look at your dreams, there would probably be many scenarios where you found yourself in a situation. That may not be sort of very clear in a material way, but if you spent some time reviewing it, thinking about it, feeling the feelings, you could get to that place of, Oh, I get it. I can see in scenario, or after scenario, I'm putting myself in a place where I don't get love because I don't deserve it, and then you can see how you do that to yourself in life, right

Laurie James: 40:25

by being with the wrong people or being in the wrong relationships or the wrong friend group, or maybe the wrong career,

Unknown: 40:36

yes, yes and and even selling yourself out there is this fabulous person. I've always wanted to be friends with her, but you know what? I think she's just too smart for me, or she's too fun for me. So I'm just, I'm not going to do it. And that's not the case at all. And I just it's really disturbing to me how often we sell ourselves short. Maybe it's more disturbing because that was in sort of big in my past,

Laurie James: 41:04

yeah, well, but it's also scary, right? I mean, it's scary to put ourselves out there, the scary to feel rejection, and so I think that fear is what controls some of those decisions, too, you know? So it's the thoughts, it's the fear, all of that. But, you know, oftentimes I talk about stretching the nervous system, you know, let's stretch ourselves, not stress ourselves. Yes, in something that we're doing, and when we're taking on a new endeavor, or trying to make new friends, or whatever it is, it's stretch ourselves enough, but don't stress ourselves. Yes.

Unknown: 41:44

Oh, that's a lovely thing to remember. You're right. You can't, sort of just jump in. And we're behaving that way because we are protecting ourselves like you say. We don't want to put ourselves in a position of being rejected in what we think is yet another rejection when that's not really the reality of things. And another thing that happens is when you kind of come to terms with the fact that you're operating from a place that's burdened by this trauma, or you're carrying all kinds of trash with you that's not your trash. I've been so busy carrying all this trash. What am I going to do without it? You know, now there's this big empty space. What falls in? Worse trash, more garbage, better stuff. I gotta tell you, it's only better stuff.

Laurie James: 42:31

Yes, if you can recognize that and recognize the trash from the treasure, I'll say, and replace the trash with treasure. Absolutely. You know, we talk about rewiring the nervous system, rewiring the brain by doing that, and it does feel unfamiliar at first, but the more you do it, then you rewire, and then you're you're not drawn to the trash anymore. You're drawn to the treasure.

Unknown: 43:02

Yes, yes. And you don't have to have this sort of unconscious conversation with yourself about worthy, not worthy. Protect myself. Go for it. You begin to be able to feel what is best for you. Because not everybody needs the same thing. Not everybody's missing the same thing,

Laurie James: 43:23

exactly. So as we come to a close, Cynthia, what's one confession you'd like to share with our listeners that we haven't touched on? Ooh, a

Unknown: 43:35

confession? Well, this has to do with what I learned from Bernard. I had no idea most of my life that what I considered to be love was nothing but a giant fantasy that I had built early on. As a teenager, I was in a relationship that I won't go into, but it was more than unhealthy. But as a teenager, I didn't have the skill to know that, and I completely bought into what was going on. And somehow in the back of my head, I turned this into the biggest type of love that could exist. And when it came to relationships, love relationships, everything unconsciously needed to compare to that, and nothing could live up to that. So I put myself in that place, basically because my imprint told me that I wasn't really very lovable, and so I became that thing that couldn't be loved by saying there was this greater love that nobody could attain. So I would never let myself be loved by someone honestly and through the course of talking about our dreams together, Bernard and I, again, he wasn't analyzing me. But as you said, partners do decide. Discuss the things that are their passions. When he first started sharing with me, have you? Have you thought about this? Is this maybe not reality? I said, You're so wrong. I don't even want to talk about it. I was even angry, and it took a good deal of time, but I finally came to know that that was nothing but false, and when I finally understood that I was actually then even able to wholly receive this love that Bernard had for me and I, prior to that, I couldn't really let him love me fully, because I needed to be reserved. I needed to protect myself. Yeah,

Laurie James: 45:42

yeah, we all do some level of that at various time. We do well. Thank you for sharing that. And so, how can people find you and your podcast? And do you guys also have a movie coming out too

Unknown: 45:58

well, thank you for bringing that up. There was a documentary that was made several years ago. So it has been out. It's available on all the platforms now, Amazon, et cetera. It's called and now love. And it is about Bernard and how he came to his theory and what in his life transpired to help him become a more loving person, so it's it's pretty fascinating, and our podcast and now love is available also on all of the platforms, from Spotify and YouTube and Amazon, and you can also go to our website and now love.com and You can link to any of those outfits. Well,

Laurie James: 46:42

thank you, Cynthia, for this very rich conversation and sharing Bernard's work with all of our listeners. And I look forward to watching his documentary and learning more about this imprint theory that he created.

Unknown: 47:00

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate our conversation and learning more about what you do, too.

Laurie James: 47:07

Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a free bird. I'm grateful to be in your ears and hearts. If you're interested in becoming a free bird, I'd love to support you. Please check out my website at Laurie james.com to learn how we can work together, or to sign up for my newsletter so you can receive tips on how to date and relationship differently and ultimately, find more freedom and joy in your life. If you found this podcast helpful, please follow or subscribe, rate and review and share it with friends so they can find more freedom in their second or third act, also until next time you.