461: Healing Our Past To Create More Love Now

Speaker A
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Christina Rasmussen
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's show. I got a great show for you guys today where I welcome Christina Rasmussen. And Christina has a master's degree in guidance and counseling and is currently finishing her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing. And she is a best selling author and focuses a lot of her work around grief.

And she has been featured on ABC News and in Women's World, the Washington Post, and the White House blog. And I really enjoyed today's episode with Christina. As you might have noticed, it's a longer one. Us a little over an hour, and that's because we went deep and really got into some amazing tools and tips and conversation, really. And Christina takes me through a kind of a session in uncovering the foundational issues behind feeling unworthy of love.

I know I start with the question of why do we seek conflict with our partners sometimes? And we do get to that, and those two things are linked. But a lot of what we talk about is understanding how a lot of us carry grief in a survival mindset that will cause us to be triggered in our relationships, will cause us to pull back from love, and really can be a foundation of how we move through the world. And she walks me through a process of uncovering the survival mindset that I have and these foundational issues and then healing them. And it was extremely powerful for me and emotional and moving and really transformative in some ways, how we were able to get to some of the things that I knew were there but hadn't quite put my finger on and hadn't really understood exactly how to heal.

And we got a lot of great tips out of this conversation in that process. And I know you guys will, too, if you follow along. Yeah. It was just extremely powerful and moving. I'm so excited for you to hear it and apply it to your lives.

And I'm excited to get Christina's book and dive more into this work. As always, thank you guys so much for tuning in. Enjoy the show.

Hi, Christina. Thanks so much for joining me on the show today. Hi, Chase. So good to be here. I'm so looking forward to this conversation.

I am, as well. And I told you in the pre show, I'm excited because we've never had a whole episode dedicated to talking. Well, let's see where the conversation takes us. We definitely will go wherever it goes, but we'll start with this idea around why we sometimes seek conflict with our partners. And it really resonated with me because sometimes I ask myself why I'm doing that, because sometimes it feels like I'm picking a fight for the sake of picking a fight.

And I don't do that, really with my friends, with my family, but I do it with my romantic partner. So why do you like talking about this? And then we'll dive into the reasons behind it and how to prevent it. So I want to start by saying sometimes it can be two different ways. We can look at this, that we are safe to attack our partner or that we don't feel safe and we protect ourselves, and then the other way to look at kind of always being at peace with your friends and the people outside of your inner circle.

Speaker B
It could also be that you're also not being yourself there, that you are trying to just modify yourself. We are trying to be, to fit in and say the right thing. So there's many ways to look at it. And what I would love to start with is what happens in our life that put us in that survival mode. And Chase puts us in the most productive prison that I call the waiting room, where we go when we are thinking thoughts that are about fighting dangers and protecting ourselves and keeping ourselves safe and not going after our dreams and goals and wishes.

Millions of people are stuck in this place. That is almost like stagnation experience. You're frozen in time, you're frozen in space, but it feels like you're living your life. You don't know that you're frozen, and you don't know that you're stuck, whether you're in a relationship with a partner or a friend or a colleague or your boss or whatever that is. So you tell me, where do you want me to start?

There's so much foundational stuff to share with you. And I promise you, at the end of this, your listeners, I'm hoping we'll be looking at their life from a different place and their relationships from a point of view that they would understand themselves as to why they are being the way they are, their partner. And this is the part that's a little tricky. Also realize maybe that they may not be in the right relationship. Yeah, yeah.

Christina Rasmussen
Obviously, there's a lot of different directions. I would love to talk about the foundational things that you mentioned. And to me, it's why we do the things we do right and why it is that our partner triggers us so much when on the surface, if we took a objective view of most situations that we're in conflict about, it's like, no, this is being blown out of proportion where we're seeing it in the wrong lens. Easier said than done. So let's talk about that foundation.

Speaker B
I must say that my work is around grief. And when I started doing this work a long time ago, we lived in a world where grief was not often talked about. And when it was talked about, it was mostly about tragic losses and kind of traditional grief. You lose a spouse, you lose a child, you get divorced. That's also considered grief in some places as well, thank God, because it is a very complicated grief.

But I remember in the beginning when I first started doing this, it was not. It was. It was fringe. It was not something that anyone really welcomed talking. So I said to myself, this is a feeling that we all experience throughout our lives.

And then as the years went by, and I. And I taught a lot of people doing. Doing my work over the years. Chase, I found that it wasn't the tragic loss that took them back to that stuck place, to the waiting room. It was something else, almost like a phantom thing that was pulling them back, not living their lives, not investing in new relationships, not trying to put themselves out there.

Something was pulling them back and back into that survivor mindset, life. And at first, and I love a good mystery, but I was like, what is it? What is it that all these thousands of people that I'm helping, something is dragging them back into the beginning, into where we started in the class. Like, they've made all these great strides. They went out into the world and went out and started dating, started doing things, and all of a sudden, back.

And then we started doing what I call public. It was public within the group, a collective cleanse. And what a collective cleanse is, is that basically, chase, imagine you're in a group of 100, 200 people, and I ask you and everyone else to sit down and write everything that's on their mind in that moment in time. Like a stream of consciousness. Like, just consciousness.

Just write it all out. And at first, everyone was like, you mean everyone will read our thoughts and everyone will hear what we are thinking? I'm like, yes, and you have to trust. I don't even know where I found the courage all these years ago to start doing that. For some reason, I thought that was okay and normal and.

And people did it. And do you know what started happening then? That's how all the discoveries, that's. That's where this book comes from. The.

That's where invisible loss was actually seen for the first time. We started seeing the same fears, the same doubts, the same worries, the same crazy thoughts in each other. And I started seeing something that we couldn't normally see. Imagine if it was almost like, and I'm getting pushed on saying this. It was looking back at 14 years of doing this.

It was almost as if you're walking down the street and you could read people's minds. Wouldn't you understand everyone else better and you would learn to love them more as well? All of a sudden, we started experiencing each other in that and those groups as if they became our best friends because they saw us for the first time. They validated our feelings. And the invisible loss that I'm talking about what it was that was pulling them back.

They were not the significant big loss experiences. There were things like the way my teacher in class shamed me in front of the classroom, the way my friends didn't ask me to go out with them that night, and they ignored me. The way my father looked at me when we were having dinner, and he wasn't. I don't even have. People would say, I don't even have the words to express how that made me feel, but I felt like I wasn't loved, I wasn't special.

And, Chase, over the years, I want you to imagine thousands and thousands of cleanses. I started seeing something that nobody else could see. I started understanding that our stuckness, our anxiety, our feelings of loneliness, our feelings of being a feeling that nobody gets us. Our partners, our friends, they don't understand us, that we're feeling isolated, come from a place that we didn't even realize. Imagine feeling things as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, and not having the words to express or to process or to share with anyone.

And then even if you did, people said to you, you should be grateful for what you have. Stop complaining. This is not anything you should worry about. Move on. You know, take the next step.

Jump, and the net will appear. And so we are in a world where not only we're not supposed to express these moments of impact, I call the moments of impact that put us in that waiting room. But when we do find the courage to express them, we are being shut down. And I want to also say something that could be controversial. I'm gonna say it.

I think men specifically have the most invisible loss because they were raised to be in fighting mode. They were raised to, you know, not to be aggressive, but they were raised to not show their feelings. Still to this day, they're raised, you know, you're. Be a man, right? Be a man.

Do this. What does that even mean? Men are sensitive beings. Women, too, but we know that about women, but for men. So the work of this book, what I'm here to do now, is to be able to start helping people understand themselves and their partners and their friends from a place of.

What is it that's being triggered or you chase in this conversation to make you lose your mind? I want to know. I want to understand it, and then I want to love you from that place. I hope that makes sense. And I will stop my.

I'll drop the mic. It makes a lot of sense, and it sounds really beautiful, these healing circles. And I want to dive into all that, I think it would be valuable if you could walk us through how we can start to identify these invisible losses. And if you want to do that, I'm thinking I would love for you to. You can ask prompting questions towards me.

Christina Rasmussen
Yeah. Are you sure? Because that's my favorite thing to do. Sometimes when I do it in the interviews, I was like, you know, you can tell if it's the right thing to do. So I know for those who are listening, this is the first time we meet.

Speaker B
Right. I don't know anything about you, your past relationship, apart from what I read in the introduction on your website. So, nothing really. I mean, very little.

Chase, I want to start by asking you to share with me right now, if that's okay with you. If you could do. If you could just share with me in the most authentic way you can. And it's very hard because we're asking the world to do this. What's on your mind right now?

What's. If you were to write this down, if we are in a group and you would write this down, what would it say? I'm sorry. I know it's hard. No, it's okay.

Christina Rasmussen
So what's on my mind right now? Yeah. I've been dealing with trying to figure out where my anger comes from. I've had this recent realization that for a lot of my adulthood and even going back to teenage years, I've had, like, this underlying anger slash anxiety. And I've recognized it before.

And in the past, I played competitive sports. I still am involved in sport activities, not on a competitive level, but I still get so angry and, like, angry at myself. And I feel like I kind of know the root of it, but I want to deal with that because it doesn't serve me. So that's definitely what's on my mind. So I'm hearing two things.

Speaker B
One is there's a part of you that is witnessing this. Yes. So there's a part of you that's saying that you're having these experiences of anger, and it's almost like there's a healthy distance from it, from what you're saying. And then. So there's that witness to the events that have made you feel this way.

And then there's the part of you that. And in the end, you said, I want to find out why I feel angry. And you went from witnessing to being in it, and I want to know who made that jump. Did you feel the difference in feeling between witnessing the events of your anger versus being in the eye feeling this. Did you feel that change that took place within a very short amount of time, by the way?

Christina Rasmussen
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's part of my struggle, is that I am witnessing it. I recognize it in a sense, but I feel like I don't have control over it. So imagine you wrote this out, or you said it.

Speaker B
You said it to me. Right now, I want to ask you this question. This is very important. When we do this, I want you to go back to what you just said to me and tell me a couple of sentences from what you already said that you feel are coming from doubting yourself or from a fear place. What are those?

Christina Rasmussen
When I experience the anger, yes. Everything you just said. Which parts? Imagine we're doing this in writing, but since we're not doing it verbally, which works, by the way, even better, because you have an interactive person on the other side. So which part of this comes from fear and doubt in yourself?

I don't like that part of me. And I guess I'm. I wouldn't say I'm afraid of it, but I don't like the idea of it having so much control over me. Like, being able to witness it and still not having solutions, I guess. And I've thought about it, and, you know, I feel it relates to a need to feel good enough to be worthy of love, going back to my childhood and my dad in particular.

Speaker B
Bingo, by the way. Yeah. Do you see what you just said? You said, and I will reflect back as clearly as I hear it. You said.

You nearly said, I'm afraid of it, but then I could see you were struggling with that sentence, and you said, I don't. I don't. Not afraid of it, but I don't want to be this person. And then you said that, you know, about love, which. Which takes me to ask you this question.

We are. Just entered your invisible loss, Chase. You're so. Can I just say you're very courageous to do this and who I'm seeing in front of me, someone who's worthy of a lot of love. And.

And we will. In this mini conversation, we will get to this place that hopefully you've never been to before. So we just entered one of your primary invisible losses. When I say this, in response to what you just said to me, what memory comes to mind? Nothing specifically that I can think of right now.

Christina Rasmussen
Not like a specific moment. Like I said, I have had this recent realization that I've been carrying this unworthiness, or however we want to call it, for a very long time. And it probably had an origin, right. And then it was perpetuated. And if I could just be good enough, then I'll be worthy of love.

And I did that throughout school. And then I played college basketball, and then I went on to compete in paddling sports. And I always had this drive, you know, this work ethic. And it definitely, I think, again, the nature nurture, I think it was a part of me and my personality, and there was a big component of I want to do this to be good enough. So.

Speaker B
And you're so aware, by the way, and this is why you're moving fasting to your momentary awareness. Yes. And actually, I want to say is that even though this was the drive to compete to be the best and it's a wonderful thing to have done and it gave you, I'm sure, great experiences. But dare I say that this is also part of your waiting room, that the way that you thought you could get love and get acceptance and feel where they was at the top of your game, which, my friend, is a very hard way, and I'm getting goosebumps just for you. Like, it's a very hard way to receive love.

So you're so in the book, I describe that we are fragmented. There's three narrators within ourselves that the survivor, which I'm hearing from who says I needed to, and I'm paraphrasing this part, I needed to do really well to receive love. And if I did really well, then that's the only way I can get love. And then I have the watch yourself, which is the witness we talked about, is actually getting stronger in the last few weeks or months of your life. That's what I'm hearing, something in your life today.

And I don't know what that is. I don't know why I'm getting goosebumps. But something in your life today, chase, is opening the door to that waiting room of success. And I know there's a duality when I'm saying the waiting room of success. What?

Success is a stuck place. What? Yes, it is, because in this case, and in my case, too, in many cases, comes from the need to prove our worth to the people in our lives. But something's happening right now, and I would love to, you know, asked to discuss what could it be that allows you to have access to that second narrator, which, by the way, we accessing the water, which is the part of us that knows us the best, knows everything about us, all the awesomeness. We are loved by this part of us.

We know the truth about who we are. We actually, most of us only have access to this if we don't do all this work by, like, maximum 15%. Like, you know what a survivor is. 80% of our daily thoughts. Behavioral life.

Even if you're succeeding and you're excelling and you're doing the best, I bet it's hard. I bet it's a hard life. I bet you barely can catch your breath when you're in those kind of ways of living life, right? That is not a threat. You're not.

You're thriving in your sport or your. Your arena. But are you thriving as a human being where you wake up every morning like, I'm just happy to be here today. And then the last percent is the. Is the 5% before we start doing this, which is that thriver self, that's the kid in you.

So here's what's happening to you right now. The watcher, the witness, the wise part of you that knows you the best and knows the truth of your value and worth. Chase is coming through. Suddenly. We're going to have to find out where it's coming from.

Is there a new relationship? Is there a new person in your life? Is there a new hobby? Is there something that you're doing that's different? Yeah, I'm six months into a new relationship that.

Christina Rasmussen
Yeah, that I'm very happy in. And, yeah, that's definitely this third factor, I think, that you're picking up on. And in this relationship, again, we don't know each other. Is there something that's taking place that's different from other relations? I know this is personal, and please edit.

Speaker B
I want this for you to have this for you. If this doesn't make it to the cut, please know that this is more for you than anyone else, and if anyone gets helped by this. But is there something in your new relationship that you're experiencing that you're being seen that is different, Chase, than before? Yeah. Yeah.

Christina Rasmussen
And I'm happy to share, and it's valuable for myself, and I think it will be for our listeners. Yeah, definitely. I noticed from the beginning of this relationship, and it's progressed nicely and we've spent a lot of time together, that my partner, she's very open hearted is, I guess, a way to describe it. And not to say my past partners weren't. I don't want it to seem like that, but for the timing of my life and where I'm at, I've been able to receive that and not feel like I have to prove as much, I guess, and not that my past partners made me feel like I had to prove it was just more maybe where I'm at and maybe that's my witness recognition and this person also having the open heart and being like, hey, I love you, and I'm here.

Speaker B
And I also want to say that it takes someone to be able to see us for who we are and courage on your part to show up in your. I call it the original self in the book, your original self. There's something in this relationship. And by the way, I'm not saying this is a forever relationship either. This is right for what this is now.

And maybe it is, maybe it isn't. We're not even examining the future, right? We're examining the present. What is being triggered that opens that door to the waiting room for you, and you're feeling free to. You're feeling safe to exit and you're feeling as if you could be more yourself and there's no punishment for it.

There's. My guess is that, Chase, you have moments of thriving in that relationship where you are accessing that kid self, that original self.

Has there been moments in the last six months, even outside of that relationship, when you're not with this person, that you've made decisions that have been different from before six months that. That surprised you, that were more true to you, to you, more your own decisions. And it could be about, like I said, a new thing that you're starting, or has something changed in your everyday life outside of that relationship as well because of that. Of that interaction? I wouldn't say anything super drastic, but I could say that one of the things that's different and unique in this relationship is I've had a lot of new experiences with her, and a lot of it has been because we're aligned in that.

Christina Rasmussen
I mean, I could share. It's dancing and music. Like, I've always loved music and dancing, and I've not had a partner that have had this kind of interaction that it feels so nice and good and fun to explore. So, yeah, we've definitely. I think we've gone to four music festivals in the last six months.

And personally, that was something I was kind of pushing to do that I wanted to explore for myself, and it aligned with this relationship. Before we continue on, we're going to take a short break to tell you about our sponsors.

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Speaker B
I think that even though you know, you're partnering with someone to say yes to those experiences, and she has been, this person has been a part of the reason. I also think you brought this experience to you, and I could feel there was the thriver. It's actually really hard to hear the thriver. So early on in the cleansing, what we're doing is mental stacking. So basically, we had a layer of cleansing of where you just shared, and we did this very quickly.

I do this in the course of, like, eight, nine weeks, right? So this is a mini, mini version, but it really works like this, too. So you cleanse, right? And then I said to you, tell me, what is the fear? So we actually take the fear code out of that cleanse.

So I'm breaking it down so everyone can see what we've been doing. We took out that fear pattern of you being afraid of your own anger, right? And then we stepped into the witness part of you, which is the watcher, which is the refrain, and we allowed that to step in and talk about what has changed in your life, what is completely opposite to that fear chase, which is the freedom to be more yourself and to say yes to new experiences and to feel loved without judgment or expectation of you being someone else. You so normally that because you're so ready for this, you're able to kind of reframe so easily. And then we move to the action part.

And when I said to you, there's got to be something that you're doing, that you're thriving, because I could hear, I felt there was also this joy in you, right? I had no idea. You're dancing. I know you're going to musical festivals. And when you said that, I'm like, bingo, right?

Here it is. So we just mental stacked. Now, imagine if we were doing this with someone who had a more resistant survivor self, someone who would say, you don't understand. And I see. I've seen this in my practice all these years.

This is hard for me to do. I don't know what my pattern is. I don't know what my reframe is. I don't know where I can. I call it the plugin.

So your music festival and the way that you're plugging into life, it's stepping outside of the wage room of yourself, of the waiting room, of success, of competing, of receiving love through that version of worthiness. And now you are basically through this relationship, and I believe you were ready to do this without this relationship. This kind of expedited a little bit. You're receiving love while you're dancing in musical festival space. How does that feel?

Christina Rasmussen
Yeah, totally. It feels amazing. It's really beautiful. And our first date was actually a concert. It just kind of worked out that way.

But, yeah, that was one of the things that really clicked between us. And, yeah, I was seeking that. I was actually going to the concert. You were there? Yeah, I was going by myself or with some friends I was meeting there, and we actually matched on a dating app.

And I was like, hey, do you want to go out to dinner? I'm going to be in town for this concert and then maybe go to the concert. And we hit it off at dinner, and then we danced all night. And, yeah, that was kind of the recognition, as you said, in myself, of what I wanted, what I wanted to explore. And then it was so beautiful to be able to meet this person in that moment in time who could meet me there and was also herself in a place to meet me there and explore that.

And she's shared similar feelings of, like, I've not been able to connect with a partner in this way. And, yeah, it's been really beautiful. But, Chase, did you see something that just, you just told me that actually a bigger deal than everything we talked about so far, which. And it pertains to what we said, that she met you there, you took her to this experience. It wasn't the other way around.

Speaker B
You somehow. And I wonder what that was said to yourself. This is how I want to spend my day, my life. I want to go and have fun. I want to feel joy.

And then you were courageous enough to this person online that you may not have met yet, say, you know, this is where I'm gonna be. Would you like to join me? And allowing her to see you in the light of that versus seeing you, hey, let's go for a run. Let me show you how fit I am. Or do you know what I mean?

Like, you were outside of the waiting room already when you met this person, Chase. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And just thinking back, it was a conscious decision on my part in that moment in my life that.

Christina Rasmussen
Yeah, that is what I wanted to cultivate. And I was looking for someone to share those experiences with, and I was okay. Not. But it's been beautiful to have been met there. I'm gonna go back to the anger thing and bring it all together now because I'm excited about this part for you.

Speaker B
When you talked about dancing, I. So how you chase, and again, I don't know you, but I felt like you released so much in that. In that mode, in that movement, in that. In the music and listening to the music and dancing with people that you love, your partner, your friends, there is a need for you to release all this energy, all this. All this.

Whatever this is within yourself. And imagine if anger is connected to that release somehow when you are in the state of joy. Let's use an example as dance. Do you feel angry at all? No.

No, not even close. You're not like, who is that? Right. And could it be possible that your anger comes and knocks on your door when you have not given yourself the opportunity to feel free in that way or any other way that could also prove to feel freeing for you? Totally.

Christina Rasmussen
Yeah. And this last part here for this little awesome thing that we did, what else can help you release that stagnation, that waiting room that you carry inside of you every day in similar ways? What other forms of living, what other decisions do you need to make, chase, to free yourself? Yeah, that's a good question. I feel what's interesting is I surf, and that's a huge part of my life.

I surf every morning. That's amazing. And I love it. I'm super grateful for it. And that's where my anger comes out the most in what I've been unpacking is it's a lot of times at myself, I thought it was at the crowds or if it's crowded, and that can definitely be a thing.

But just the other day, I was surfing, and it was kind of stormy. There was no one. It was just, like, basically me in the ocean. And this has happened before, but I was still feeling the anger come up, like, if I missed the wave or I didn't get one I wanted or whatever. And it's like this competition with myself, and it's tiring.

And that's what has been my realization these last months, is like. It's like this. I say anxiety because it's like, this low level anger, or it's exhausting to be, like, battling within myself all the time at the ocean. So, yeah. And I've realized that this is a practice that I don't want to give up surfing.

And, oh, now I don't have to confront my anger. And it's been a magnifier of, like, okay, like, in those moments, I'll try to breathe. I think there's a thread that I want to pull on of. Like, it goes back to not feeling good enough if I wasn't good at sports. Cause I can remember feeling it when I played basketball.

A similar frustration. And a lot of times it would be directly linked to if I made a bad play, if I wasn't getting playing time from the coach and realizing that the root of that, I think, was and is that in order to be worthy of love, I need to be good. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. It doesn't have to be sports. Right.

Speaker B
Chase, I want to just say something. You said, for when you surf, you said, I don't know why, but this happens, that I feel angry when I'm there. I'm just there, just me in the ocean. And I wonder if that's a great metaphor between you actually split in two. There's two ways to look at this.

One is that it's you as a kid in the ocean is maybe your father. And the other way to look at this is that you have that thriver self and you have that survivor that's angry at you, that you're not doing well enough, that you're not doing good enough. Maybe you. There's. Why are there all these people here?

Why is this waved or whatever that is? There is something there in the act of surfing that you feel that you. It's almost like you go. It's almost like you step outside of time and you go back to a relationship that made you feel in a certain way, what does the ocean represent to you? Is that a person?

Is that. Could that be. I don't want to assume when I say this, if this is you and this is the ocean, who could the ocean be? Yeah, I mean, if I had to say, it would definitely be my dad. And related to that.

Christina Rasmussen
One of the things that's been helpful for navigating the anger in those moments is to picture myself as a child and to go, oh, like to talk to my inner child, be like, oh, Chase, I see you're angry. It's okay. You know, you don't have. And not even necessarily needing to understand exactly what he's angry about, but just witnessing that and recognizing it, and then I kind of soften in those moments. And you have a relationship with the ocean.

Speaker B
Chase, this is probably, and I'm feeling it again when I'm saying this, the most intimate relationship of your whole life. Chase, you go out every morning to meet with the ocean. This is where you feel the safest to release. And in that moment in time, you're releasing the anger. And you, I wonder what you need to say to yourself about yourself, what needs to be reframed?

Remember, if we did the cleanse over there, we bring this mental stacking here. What do you need to hear as a kid, as that kid that has been with that ocean relationship all these years? An amazing, beautiful thing. And you, this is the most important. I'm sorry to your partner, but this is the most important relationship of your life.

And maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like you wouldn't be going out there meeting the ocean every day if it wasn't. So if you were to reframe the relationship from that witness self, that watch yourself, that knows you the best, what would you say to yourself in that moment in time? As far as when I'm angry in the ocean or just in regards to the relationship? When you're angry, when you're there immersed, when you're in this place. And I bet it feels.

I don't surf. My daughter used to surf. But I bet it feels like you're outside of reality in many ways. Right. When you're with the ocean and the water, you are.

This is a very intimate relationship, Chase. I don't know if you've ever thought of it like this, and you go there and you're arguing with. With the ocean. Right. What do you need to remind yourself of this relationship?

Christina Rasmussen
Yeah, I feel like I need to remind myself that it's fun. Yes. Yes. It's a loving relationship. It's a fun relationship.

Speaker B
The ocean loves you, Chase. It's. It's the most important relationship of your life, and it's supposed to be fun. And I think now that you know this, or I, or I feel like this is the truth. This is.

And I think the ocean also knows your original self, Chase. The ocean also knows the true you and has accepted you all these years more than anyone or anything in your life. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to make assumptions. Yeah.

Christina Rasmussen
I mean, it's definitely feels that way. And I will say, before it was basketball, and it's not as beautiful of a metaphor as the vast ocean, but it very much was my safe place. In a very similar way, it felt very similar that I could go there and escape in a sense, and then that transferred. But yeah, everything you're saying makes a lot of sense. What would it look like to bring the ocean back to your life?

Yeah, I think just reminding myself that, that it's fun and that being out there, gratitude has been a big part. But yeah, like, what you said was really beautiful of just like that the ocean accepts me. And again, I do feel a connection with the ocean, but I just feel that as a metaphor for, for the world, for the people in my life. Accepts you the way your partner is accepting you, the way you, I don't know if you can dance on the surfboard, but, like, I don't know, do some tricks, like meet it. I think your relationship with the ocean is also evolving in the same way as your new partner, the new relationship you have.

Speaker B
And don't leave it behind. Don't leave the ocean of your life behind. Chase, without this beautiful relationship that you've had with basketball, you know, surfing, with music and dancing with your new partner, I think that you, without connecting with those from your kid thriver like self, that's where the anger comes in, when you're not giving yourself to those parts of your life that you created from that place, from that fun place. And I want to connect you to that. There's an exercise in the book called the Thriver's bridge to the past.

If you were to go back to a very early time in your life before you remember any moments of anger or invisible loss or the loss of acceptance of yourself through the eyes of the parent, is there a memory that, and we normally do this, by the way, you getting the speed version, they close there. Like we do this in a longer version, but is there a time that you can remember where you were full, thriving, full blown yourself like you at a hundred percent feeling joy, happiness and completely carefree, is there something that jumps to mind? Yeah. Yeah. I can keep it in the same category.

Christina Rasmussen
Not intentionally, it's just what popped up, but that is. Yeah, just playing in the waves in the Gulf of Mexico for hours and hours without all the things that you said playing. And you use my favorite word, which is playing. You were playing. You didn't say you were surfing.

Speaker B
You said you were playing. Yeah. And imagine bringing that part of you back here when you go tomorrow morning after this conversation to have your meeting with the surfboard and the ocean. And imagine bringing that kid, that truly original chase, when you show up there tomorrow morning. What could that look like?

Tell me, Chase. I wish I was there. To see it totally. Before we continue on, we're going to take a short break to tell you about our sponsors.

Speaker A
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Or do you want to feel more emotionally connected with your partner? Or do you just long for those fun, giggly moments of connection that you used to have at the beginning of your relationship? Well, over the last decade of hosting this podcast, those were the main reasons people tuned into the show. And we get it. We've been there.

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Christina Rasmussen
Yeah, that's beautiful. And I could tell you that in the moments that I'm most happy out there and not in my anger are not like the biggest, best days for surfing. On a recent trip to visit my brother, he and I went out on these big, soft top boards that I wouldn't normally surf. They're like fun boards, they call them. And we surfed, like crappy small waves that were breaking onto the beach, but we were playing.

And those are exactly the moments. And you're absolutely right. Like, I can bring that to the everyday. I think that's a beautiful practice. And I think you're a fun guy, Chase, and I think you're a guy that likes to be free and have fun in his everyday life.

Speaker B
And that got lost along the way because somehow there was a moment of impact, and I call them the moment of impact. That happened a long time ago, that your fun, kind of crazy self of doing whatever the heck you want and releasing everything was not accepted as good and you had to abandon it totally. Wow. And it's so good. And I have a.

Christina Rasmussen
My best friend here is a guy who's super playful. It's what I love a lot about him. And he brings so much joy into a lot of people's lives and into mine because he's learning to surf. And when he's out there. We were out together this morning, like, I'll be in my mode and I can be in my head and angry out there and then.

But I know, like, he's like this kind of tool, not in a sense to be used for. I know exactly what you mean. To nudge me towards the playfulness. And I always have more fun when I'm in that. And I think that speaks to relationships, right.

And why they can be so healing and beautiful is, whether it's a friendship or a romantic partnership, is that they can remind you of that time before the moment of impact. Like you're saying it's a mirror, the right relationship. And I love the work that you guys do because everything is relationships. We grieve in relationships, we fall in love in relationships, we thrive and survive in relationships. It's.

Speaker B
We're not doing. I mean, yes, there's loneliness and people don't have partners in life, but most of our lives we spend in relationships and we bring mirrors. Every relationship is a mirror. And depending on the mirror, we're bringing that part of you that is hidden, that you see in your best, awesome friend lives inside of you. And basically, this conversation, this mental stack, this interaction we've had, what it tells me is that in order for that anger to go away, is that you need to increase that part of you that's been with you all along and bring it more to life.

Chase. Because when you were talking about all those things, did you feel angry at all? Was there, like, any glimpse? I don't see any of it. It doesn't even exist.

There's not even a concept in your mind, because that is not. That is not part of that original kid that was born to go and have fun with the fun boards and the games and the sea and the sports. And it wasn't about doing it right or competing or doing it the best. It was about the love he had for himself, to give himself that experience. It was all about that.

Christina Rasmussen
Totally. Yeah. I get passionate. I'm sorry, I get, you know, please don't apologize. Yeah.

And, I mean, I could continue with my personal story in. This is. It's so beautiful. Thank you for that. And I.

Yeah, I definitely had a breakthrough in a realization there, and I hope that'll be valuable to our listeners for their own journeys. And I wanted to, not to try to link it back, but it did come up. Of why we sometimes seek conflict with our partners is that I notice. I think it's linked to this idea of just feeling, like, not being able to receive love and so that I can create conflict in order because I don't feel safe. Right.

And so it's like, wow, this feels too good. I'm. I'm in love. My partner's relating. Everything's good.

Let me pick at that. And, yeah, so maybe you could talk a little bit about what's going on there. No, but you're saying it perfectly well because you just had this experience where we had this breakthrough, and you're able to now see from the work, from this body of work for what you just did and give all the answers. And I would like to hear it from you, Chase. And, you know, it's funny because we're sitting here having this conversation and many people will hear it, but in many ways, I hope when people are listening to this, because it was so personal, they stay with us, that they.

Speaker B
It's even better when I'm not here teaching the concepts and saying, do you know what the waiting room is? You know, when you go, when you grab the book, make sure you do all the exercises, like all of that is there and it's great. But this is actually more impactful because they see it take place right before their eyes. And we didn't plan this. I had no idea.

I'm not. I prefer not to know what, what I will be asked. I'd rather have this. I wish all of my interviews were like this, because then I. Then it's easier for someone else who's listening in to understand themselves through the story of someone else that they're seeing.

They're seeing you experiencing insights or having a ha moments or learning this for yourself, even if you knew it before in a more from a different perspective place and applied to them in their own tailored, made way. I believe in this type of podcasting, and I don't know how your other episodes are. I think I listened to something very briefly, but I don't know. But for me, this is the best way for anyone. It's like having a class.

The reason why the work worked the way that it did is because we had interactions like that and people got it. And then they say, and then they like, oh, my gosh, I have to cleanse with my partner. I have to. I have to cleanse with my friend. I have to go.

And I did this. I did. I was doing an interview yesterday with someone else, and I, they were asking me for this example of cleansing, and I said, I'm going to. Instead of me asking you what you're feeling right now, I actually directed the cleanse to myself. And it was great because I said to her, you know, I don't know if I'm sitting here thinking, wondering.

And then I said to her, this is when you go on a first date. This is what you're feeling. I'm sitting here wondering if how I'm showing up is good enough for you. And that's the cleanse, but the reframe. And instead I should say, how about me?

Is this good enough for me? Am I getting what I need out of this? Is this right for me? But we forget to ask that question. And that's what keeps us in the waiting room, because the survivor portion of our mind, our brain, is keeping us safe by telling us, keep modifying yourself to please the person across from you, especially the newer people that will allow you to have no conflict and keep you in success, but not in success in creating the best experience for you, but creating what's right for them.

And we do that in early relationships.

We do that with co workers. We do that with friends. But imagine if we continue to mental stack, and we say, what is right for me? Hold on a second. Is this right for me?

And how would it be if it was right for me? And it would be like this. I need this and this and this. And how do I go about getting it? Then I won't be angry for feeling the way I'm feeling.

I won't be. I won't feel resentment because the resentment, like you said, is towards ourselves for not giving ourselves the love that we deserve, the worthiness. I learned this the very hard way, personally and professionally. Chase, when I worry, let's say, about being on stage, being in conversations, doing all these things in public, it's my survivor self not trusting me and my abilities. And when we experience moments of impact and we experience these invisible losses, we actually lose the perception of the self that had the abilities and had the worthiness, and we abandon that part of ourselves.

So when we enter relationships, we go from that survivor mindset and we are in defensive mode. That's how we started our conversation about relationships. So we get triggered all the time, and we are in protective mode, and we're like, why did you say that? That's not. Are you trying to say I'm not good enough?

I'm not worthy of you? I'm not. I mean, we may not be saying those things out loud, but we go, we stay in the waiting room. We show up in our relationship, in our survivor selves, and we are not thriving. We will never thrive.

We actually imagine both partners being stuck in their own waiting rooms within that same space, and they don't meet outside of that. And we could have a whole other conversation about that. I mean, it's imagine this. Imagine we meet people just like I was meeting that other person yesterday, and for the first time, the majority of our thoughts is, how do we get them to like us? Which happens.

I'm sure you agree, a lot of people. How do I get this person to be attracted to me, to like me? Right. So if you start from that place, they don't get to see the real you. You showed.

And that's why I think it's very what you did, telling this person that you met for the first time to come to the concert with you. You showed up from your original self in that moment in time, and that's rare in relationships, especially in the beginning. Yeah, this whole exercise is. It's been so valuable to go through for myself, and I think it will be for our listeners and, yeah, like, just obviously in this work, it never really ends. You know, we're works in progress.

Christina Rasmussen
But I think understanding just these foundational, these moments of impacts, and I have more that I'm excited to dig into personally. And then recognizing, hey, I'm showing up in my survivor self. It's not necessarily that, hey, don't show up that way. And I've done that in my current relationship where I've showed up in my survivor self. I've created conflict when there wasn't there just the other night, I did it.

And then I recognize it pretty fast. Within, you know, ten minutes after getting triggered, going down this path and saying, hey, look, I'm sorry. I know this is not about this particular thing. I'm feeling whatever it is I'm feeling. You could just say, I'm feeling that.

Speaker B
You'Re reframing there, by the way. You're literally stepping into your. Watch yourself. And you're reframing what just happened with the survivor self. Like, keep going.

This is exactly, I'm just saying this is how awesome it is that you are able to do this. As you know, many people can't do that. Yeah, it's a process, and then. Yeah. And it gets really beautiful when your partner can recognize that in you and accept you instead of blaming or shaming.

Christina Rasmussen
And then when we can understand our partner and their survivor self, and now we're relating and we're really seeing each other. Right. Imagine that. Yeah, imagine. Imagine.

Speaker B
Imagine your partner is sitting there seeing you going into your defensive mode because you felt threatened. The survivor self puts everything through the threat filter. Is this a threat? Is this a threat? Something may have happened to you that day that triggered your invisible loss, that there was some kind of impact that kind of intensified you being in survival mode.

And you come at home, you go to that relationship, and no matter what, and there's a line in the book that I say, no matter what the questions are, the answers from the survivor self are always the same. Be afraid. Be afraid. Doubt this person. Protect yourself.

Hide, defend, defend. So you go into the place, but now imagine the other person saying to herself, wow, sweetheart, are you okay? Like, did something happen today? I see you're in your survival self mode, and I'm here to listen. Let's.

Let's cleanse it all out. Just. Just do. Do what we did at the beginning. Like, just say it.

Say whatever it is, whatever you're feeling right now. Let's find that and change it together. Right. And to love someone is to understand them. Right.

The only way we can love each other is to understand everyone is experiencing everyone is impacted by multiple invisible losses through multiple moments of impact in our lives. And unfortunately, we are in our survival mode, by the way, I've lost myself here completely, and I'm in thriver. I'm loving my experience with you, Chase. It's awesome. You can tell.

I'm like, I feel like we're not even recording. That doesn't. There's no, there's no. It's just thriver here. Right?

And when you are in a place where you can understand why your partner is saying something, what you can say to help them release it and change it to the truth, to that, change that witness. When you went back to her ten minutes later and you talked about what was happening, you were talking to that witness, part of you very healthily, in a beautiful way. And then to move into thriving together, let's. All right, let's go dance. Let's plug into an experience outside of that waiting room.

Let's keep leaving that room and metaphorically speaking, and out the other side. Let's stay integrated so the fragment itself is becoming one. Let's stay close to our original selves and be true. And in our conversation, the reason why it's so beautiful is because we were both very honest, shared your deepest thoughts, and. And that's what the cleanse is for.

We can't do a mental stack without the truth, chase, ever. And yesterday, I had to be. I had to put myself in your place and be very vulnerable and honest to that person and tell her exactly what I was feeling. And it was an amazing thing. And all of a sudden, hopefully we inspire in through your podcast couples to actually leave their waiting rooms and their survivor selves, even for a few seconds, and connect from that place of understanding and the mental stuck together, you know, and then go have sex or whatever, right?

I don't care. But like, like, do the connect from the truth of who you are and don't be afraid to be yourself with your partner, because we are. We are afraid of losing them. We are afraid of losing love. That is the biggest invisible loss there is.

And that stems from your experience. My experience, we. So we go into that mode because we're afraid of losing love, Chase. We just want love and we don't want to lose it. So we fight, right?

We get our guns out and fight instead of cleansing and stacking our thoughts and taking control of the inner narrative. And I'm sorry I'm talking so much, but I just. I get so passionate about this. It's. I've seen what it does and how we together can help so many people.

Christina Rasmussen
Yes. And I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Christina, thank you. Please don't apologize. I'd love to have you back on to talk more and dive into this.

It's been super helpful. Personally, I have lots of notes and just the experience. And I think our listeners will be able to follow along and discover some new things about themselves. And I want you to share with our listeners. They can find out more about you, more about your book in this work, and then we'll say goodbye.

Speaker B
And I want to say this to everyone. I wrote this book for you, for the listener, for the reader. I'm planning a very different life in my future. This is for you. I am here talking about this for you.

The book is called invisible Loss. Go on Amazon. Go on every bookstore, go find it. Invisible loss. You will see it everywhere.

And, um, my website is christinarasmusen.com. but there's another place that after you get the book, highly recommended, I build this is. This is for free. We don't keep your emails. There's nothing.

There's something called that. I created invisible loss library where I am creating the biggest database of invisible losses. So you go anonymously, you don't have to put your name, you can read other people's losses. And this is like, I have someone who goes and checks to see if anyone has shared and makes them public. You write your invisible loss and you just press submit and someone on the other side will publish it.

And I hope one day there'll be millions of invisible losses for everyone to read and feel validated for themselves. So the action from here is share your invisible losses, grab the book and step outside of your waiting room any chance you get. Living a beautiful, full life of joys is your birthright. Don't ever, ever let that go. So thank you for having me.

Chase, this was awesome. Thank you. Amazing. Christina. We will have those links in our show notes, in our website, in the ad.

Christina Rasmussen
Thank you so, so much for your work, for those resources. I really, really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you, Chase. Thank you guys so much for tuning into today's episode. As always, all the links to the guest as well as any of their recommendations will be in the show notes page.

Speaker A
You can find the link to that in the episode description or by going to idopodcast.com. click on the podcast tab up at the top and you will have access to all the episodes that we've ever done. There are over 300 of them. And while you're on our website, if you haven't checked out our free 14 day happy couple challenge. We really hope you do.

It's a free email challenge that we send to you. It's 14 days of fun, easy, doable challenges to help strengthen and improve your relationship. And if you're looking for something that provides a little more help with working on your relationship, whether it's improving intimacy or communication with your partner or just bringing the spark back, we would love for you guys to check out our online course, spark my relationship. We're offering $100 off to all of our listeners if you go to sparkmyrelationship.com unlock. We've worked with over 15 psychologists and therapists to create the real life tools and strategies that they are teaching their clients, so we wanted to give them to you.

It's a self paced online course that can be done in as little as a month or up to three months. You can really decide how much or how little you want to do with your partner or maybe just yourself. So we hope you guys check that out. It's sparkmyrelationship.com unlock. Have a great day.

Christina Rasmussen
You are listening to a pleasure podcast. For more from our sex podcast collective, visit pleasurepodcasts.com.

461: Healing Our Past To Create More Love Now

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1: Introduction

2: Deep Dive into Healing

3: Practical Tools and Techniques

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