From Therapy to Social Change

David Bedrick on Unshaming and Empowerment: From Personal Healing to Systemic Change

• Mick Cooper & John Wilson

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Imagine growing up with a constant sense of shame, only to realize later how powerful unshaming witnesses can be in healing that wound. This episode features the insightful David Bedrick, a teacher, counselor, and author, who sheds light on the profound impact of shame on our personal development. Through intimate stories, he reveals how his challenging upbringing, marked by his father's violence and his mother's denial, shaped his understanding of the dual role witnesses play in either perpetuating or alleviating shame. David’s narrative serves as a poignant reminder of how crucial it is to validate and believe in each other's experiences to foster genuine self-acceptance and transformation.

We navigate through the intricacies of intersectional oppression and systemic dehumanization, diving into gender-based insults and the cultural forces that perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Our conversation emphasizes the necessity of differentiating between individual and systemic oppression when addressing these issues. Recognizing these oppressive messages’ historical roots, we explore solidarity and empowerment as vital tools for healing. David shares how healed individuals can act as catalysts for collective healing, challenging societal norms while supporting others in similar struggles, illustrating the potential for a transformative ripple effect throughout society.

Our discussion takes us further into the realms of consciousness and representation, where we examine how historical oppression continues to influence power dynamics today. Understanding these dynamics is key to fostering meaningful connections and personal growth. We also touch on the concept of shame, questioning whether it can ever be constructive in encouraging just actions. Throughout the episode, we explore how healing can be a pathway to becoming one's true self, engaging authentically with one's passions and purpose. By reflecting on personal experiences and insights from influential figures, we invite listeners to embark on their own journey of self-realization, honoring their unique calling in life.

The Unshaming Way - Weekend Workshop

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Cassandra Geisel:

David Bedrick is a teacher, counselor and attorney. He grew up in a family marked by violence. While his father's brutality was physical and verbal, his mother's denial and gaslighting had its own covert power for the University of Phoenix and the Process Work Institute in the US and Poland, and is the founder of the Santa Fe Institute for Shame-Based Studies, where he trains therapists, coaches and healers and offers workshops for individuals to further their own personal development. David writes for Psychology Today and is the author of three books Talking Back to Dr Phil, alternatives to Mainstream Psychology, revisioning Activism, bringing Depth, dialogue and diversity to individual and social change. You can't judge a body by its cover 17 women's stories of hunger, body shame and redemption. And then there's the fourth book, which is the newest book, which is the unshaming way, which was published by north atlantic books in november of last year. So yeah, very, very excited to have you along. And yeah, firstly, how are we finding you today?

David Bedrick:

This is. This is nine o'clock in the morning, which for me is early, Not I wake up much earlier, but I usually don't talk to people until 10 or 11. So but I'm I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I'm moved by your mission and vision and weaving together social identity. I'm going to call it that and psychology a needed weaving and effort and care. So thank you for doing that work.

Cassandra Geisel:

Thank you so much. And I guess it brings me to the first question, which is just how and we touched on this a bit in the bio, but how and why did shame kind of become your life's work? Yeah.

David Bedrick:

It's always two reasons, always, it's always two reasons, but it's often two reasons. Story, especially the story of their social identity and personal identity and the trials and tribulations and traumas they've been through, can weave together with a person's gifts. If you're John Coltrane, then you take being African-American and having certain talents, and then the saxophone and its playing becomes how you express your love, etc. So for me, how you express your love, et cetera. So for me, I had a story, as you mentioned, of a father, a Jewish father, who used fists and belts to express his rage, and then a mother who was disempowered and that meant in denial of what was happening. So it was like what are you talking about? Even if she saw the violence like heavy duty violence. I don't want to just trigger people.

David Bedrick:

We can say something that later, um, even if she saw that, she'd say I don't know what happened. That didn't happen. Why are you getting so upset? Maybe you've got stomach aches because you're eating badly, right? So we call that today gaslighting. So the way she dealt with her disempowerment as a person and as a woman was that. So now I take in the violence, obviously, but then I take in her viewpoint, the way she sees it. I'm young, I'm vulnerable. Maybe I am making things up. Is it really that bad? Did it happen that way? You can hear the kind of confusion I'm now expressing. I'm unsure of myself, I'm doubting myself, I'm confused. Maybe I am too dramatic. Why am I so angry all the time? And those kind of questions define an identity, and the identity is what's wrong with me, and that's shame.

Cassandra Geisel:

But the way it's witnessed in this case it was my mother. It could have been a school system. It could have been a police system, it could have been anything that witnessed Mothers shouldn't be on the hook for that. I'm, and again, in your, in your work, is this idea of the witness either having one, but also becoming your own in that process within the therapeutic work? Could you speak to, yeah, the idea of witnessing and what that's meant for you?

David Bedrick:

a witness, so a witness can be one of two things. For you, a witness, so a witness can be one of two things. If a witness denies, dismisses or gaslights, that means Cassandra, are you sure I didn't see that? Oh, come on. Oh, go back to that. He would never have hurt you. That's a doctor. Doctors never miss, touch, violate, assault their patients, so those kinds of things.

David Bedrick:

What were you wearing? Why did you do that? Well, that's a militant black person. God, I don't even want to say that out loud. Okay, somebody has to have a reaction to those things. But, sorry, I have to stop and just pause because I have so much feeling when I say things, some of those things, because they're so gross.

David Bedrick:

But notice that those are not the perpetrator, those are how people are talking to the person who's been hurt. This is how I see it. You're a person who shouldn't be wearing certain clothes, who has a certain color, who's, et cetera, who makes things up, who's psychologically unsound, who's got anger problems. When that witness happens, then shame enters. A person comes to believe those things about themselves, like for me and my mother. But there's something that I call an unshaming witness, and the unshaming witness sees what says oh, I just saw that. Or you told me a story about what happened. I have no reason not to believe you and believe in you thinking, oh, something happened. It's important that you tell me it would be good if I have a feeling for you, like if you were hurt, it would be good if I was either pissed or oh, sandra, or touched. So if I have a feeling, reaction, that gets into you kind of go, oh, I must matter. David's actually moved by what I said. He's upset about what's happening for me. David sees it. He's not ignoring the details. Oh, he believes me. And when those kinds of things happen, the belief, the seeing, the feeling people take in the opposite of shame, the opposite of what's wrong with me oh, nothing's wrong with me, I was injured. Oh yeah, thank you.

David Bedrick:

I believe myself, I believe my experience, and that creates a whole different psyche and it changes the healing industry dramatically, because the industry, psychologically, is mostly based on an allopathic model. Allopathic means you come in with a symptom, I'm angry, and then I say, oh, you've got anger issues, let me help you with your anger. And I don't find out the meaning of that anger where it belongs, the power in that anger that you need. I don't believe in it. I just think what's wrong with you? Oh, I procrastinate. What's wrong with you? Oh, I drink too many drinks at night. What's wrong with you Doesn't mean I should support you to drink too many drinks, but I don't think this person is doing something important. And witness it as if there is intelligence in your system that is expressing itself about a story and about who you are and the kind of nature and responses you have to the world.

Cassandra Geisel:

Yeah, there's so much in that and I guess I feel like landing on that last point of there's an intelligence in what's showing up and I guess the trusting of that and how that makes such a difference, leaning into saying I trust your experience and how it's manifesting in the world, rather than there's something wrong with you. And I guess you know you've written about activism, you've written about kind of the political. I mean in the unshaming way there's a whole chapter on social issues and shame.

Cassandra Geisel:

And how do you see, I guess, this individual experience of shame, either manifesting relationally or on a sort of systems level? It's a big question, but yeah, how do you see it?

David Bedrick:

Well. So in my example I had a mother who was a witness and she wasn't the only witness, meaning she saw or didn't see, or somebody I told. A witness could be somebody I told 20 years ago right, or 20 years later ready, or 200 years later actually. So so socially, we need a culture that has a sufficient percentage of people who can bear witness to the violence. It's not going to be everyone, it's not going to be 50% of the people, it's going to be probably closer to 5% to 10%. I don't have research on that, that's my opinion, it's an educated opinion, but it's an opinion. I don't have numbers, but it's probably like 5% of the people who we need to witness social violence.

David Bedrick:

So if somebody attacks you, says, cassandra, you are, don't take anything, you're an idiot, I can't believe you're doing what you're doing. Yeah, so I could witness this personally. Oh my gosh, that's gross. That person said that to you. But I could also witness the social aspect. Did that come across also as sexist? Did you feel that, particularly as a woman? Does that person do that to other women? Have you had similar comments that come to you as a woman versus the man who you work with and you could say, no, it's nothing to do with that, then I trust you for that moment. Maybe your sister should tell you different about that. Then I trust you for that moment. Maybe your sister should tell you different about that. I would say than I believe you.

David Bedrick:

But most women would say well, that never happens to these people, that always happens to me. Of course it has to do with being a woman. So in that case the assault on you is not just to your intelligence, meaning you're one more person whose intelligence is impugned, it's to you as a woman person. Your gendered identity is also assaulted. So that means I need to witness two things the individual assault.

David Bedrick:

That's gross, that a person puts you down like that in public, let's say and what's it like for you to get that kind of attack on your intelligence as a woman? I want to witness that part Also, and you might say well, individually, I hate it as a woman, david, it's crushing. This is what happens to me. I don't have a voice, I don't speak up in the world in general. So now you're telling me other aspects that have to do with your woman's body and identity. I'm assuming you're a woman identity. Thank you, I just want to check with that, thank you. So if that's happening, then I want to witness that. So that's something in you. Takes in this was somebody cares about my, the assault that I just experienced and someone's like oh my gosh, thank you for doing that.

Cassandra Geisel:

As a woman, that's really important, or maybe as a woman no-transcript, but then you have this like yeah, other layer of witnessing which is the, yeah, intersectional dynamics that go on just existing in the world. And have you found in your, I guess, clinical experience that that almost double whammy? If you, if you will, the sort of individual personal, do you differentiate the two like I just did, or would you say it's the same thing?

David Bedrick:

I would differentiate yes, no-transcript. I'm dumb, I'm stupid. That would be pretty bad, right. And then let's say now you walk around with that voice that says I shouldn't speak up, I should just hold my tongue, and other people know better than me. That would disempower your voice. If you internalize that as a woman, you now have an extra thing. You have this thing of I'm not I don't even want to say these words out loud, but people understand, I'm not a smart woman. Women are like that.

David Bedrick:

And now you have what people would call internalized oppression. It's not just the voice of one jerk who put you down, it's the voice of one jerk who put you down, it's the voice of a culture. So now the power of that insult is not David saying Cassandra, you're this or that, you have a whole culture and a power that's been for generations. That's not a 50 pound punch, that's a 10 million pound punch, so a lot of energy behind it. And then you're going to think why do I still think this, why do I still think this, why do I still think this? And then I would say, cassandra, that's been hundreds or more years in a whole culture. That reinforces this message for you as a woman and every time you look in the mirror, put on a clothes or think of yourself as a woman in any way, that message is reinforced. That's not just that one person who put you down. You get over. Oh really no, don't think something's wrong with you that you can't get over that. That's an incredible force and the medicine you might need is different.

David Bedrick:

You might need solidarity with other women who get that. You might need to read bell hooks or other feminist psychologists. You may need to connect with women who get that so you can connect with why it's bad to be put down and what that's like as a woman in your body and your identity walking through the world, that both of those healings are needed. And if you get both of those healings that social healing I'm calling it that means you wake up to the social oppression, how it's been internalized. You feel more empowered as a woman to have boundaries and not think of yourself as intelligent.

David Bedrick:

You will also not just heal yourself. You will be a healing power, medicine for other people, whether that's men, by correcting me and say and then you're medicine for me, whether I take it in or not, and you're like that's how I learned a lot, a lot of women, people of color, said David, let me tell you why that's insulting. Well, they told me in a harsher way that was less friendly. So, but it's still medicine, meaning they are corrective to my eyes or another woman who's not as far along as you. So it's no longer only in the individual healing space, it's a collective healing space yeah.

Cassandra Geisel:

Yeah, so important and actually, as you were talking, there was this paragraph in that chapter that I'm just going to read out loud, because I think it speaks to exactly what you're saying.

Cassandra Geisel:

And then you've sparked another question off the back of that. So I'm going to read this. If you want to respond to it, please do. And then I'm going to ask the next question, which came to mind right at the end there. Great, so what you say in this book is how people dialogue about social violence, forms of social oppression and marginalization is a window into the stories we tell ourselves about our nation, illuminating how we shame or unshame the oppressed. These narratives either help us to face ourselves and bring about change, or they chain us to the unjust systems and dehumanizing practices of the past. Is there anything you kind of want to say to that point?

David Bedrick:

Today's Friday, I think it was yesterday In the United States there was a plane that crashed, a plane and a helicopter crash. I don't know who crashed into a plane and a helicopter crash. There was 64 people on the plane, they all died, and four people three people I think on the helicopter and they all died. I'm not, I'm moving fast not to dismiss that normal policy. We can stop and kind of go holy shit and we could have grief or anger or think, all the appropriate emotions that go with that. But then our new president, donald Trump and I don't want to get into Trump is a no good person. Let's all real. That's not my point here. That's he's a stand in for something. Yeah.

David Bedrick:

And and his first of these kinds of things, because then we don't take people. These things are so freaking gross, it's hard to say them and not want to like scream it's important because we shouldn't take them in without a feeling reaction to it. It's like, otherwise we don't witness how gross it is, otherwise we don't witness how gross it is. And then when we have these diversity hires, we have people who don't have the intelligence or psychological wellness. I can't believe he used what he used intelligence, genius and psychological health. Wow.

David Bedrick:

So, whoa? Now some people think, well, maybe they weren't smart, but that's not. He's witnessing the violence. The violence was the plane crashing, and whoever was responsible for that, sure, but he's witnessing that and he's saying hey, people you should be thinking about some Makes me weep again Some person, a woman person, a person of color, who's not so smart, psychologically unwell, unstable. You should have that in your mind now when you think about these things. Let me speak.

David Bedrick:

It's like that goes over the airwaves and it's relatively not just relatively a large majority of people would say that's true. They wouldn't even. Not only they wouldn't even. They would say well, david, you don't want to hire people who are bad, and they wouldn't get that. He's witnessing the violence. He didn't know who, he didn't when he was asked, he didn't know who did it, what the color was, what the gender, he didn't know anything about that. So he's now bearing witness and saying please, put into your mind a certain kind of person, connect that person with less intelligence and less psychological wellness. That's the basis of caste systems, the basic essence. In India, in Nazi Germany, in the United States, a system says these are people of lesser value, lesser rank, lesser humanity.

David Bedrick:

It's that potent. So, I get so upset I'm going to lose track of it, this kind of stuff. That again he's not the perpetrator of the initial violence, but he's saying here's how I see it. That is incredibly. That to me, that's the shaming part, that's the, in this case, dehumanization as a form of shame. That, to me, is more dangerous, not that we should overlook the violence of the mistakes or people getting hurt.

David Bedrick:

Sure but when that kind of idea perpetrates people's consciousness, it allows incredible amount of things to happen to millions of people over hundreds of years. It allows that to happen. So that's why I focus less on perpetrators. Trump was a bad dude he did this. Or this person assaulted somebody on the train dude that he did this. Or this person assaulted somebody on the train and this police officer assaulted a person and search and frisk a person of color, and shouldn't. That's a bad police officer. I don't focus on that police officer and somebody should. They should prosecute the person, etc. I focus on. That's a system everybody that bears witness to people in a certain way, and if we think that's okay to do because if the system was different, that person would have got lost their job or more so that it's the systemic witnessing that creates the problem. The individual is a bad apple. Let's get rid of them, but that doesn't. That doesn't create. The witnessing of hobos at particular events is I'm not saying that clearly is that you can come back.

Cassandra Geisel:

Yeah no, no, no, it's, it's spot on. And I mean, what a apt and sort of timely example of this kind of playing out in real time sort of mass dehumanization, um that we're sort of seeing again and again anytime you turn the tv on at the moment right and then, and then somebody is going to try to find well, this was the person in their bed.

David Bedrick:

Let's prosecute that person. Who are drinking I don't know, I'm making something up, I have no idea what they drinking on the job or whatever they were. Yep.

David Bedrick:

And then, and then they'll, everyone will focus on, yeah, that person, that person, let's get that person, but then we'll forget this whole systemic view that's been brought out into the world and it injures people, because if you're a person who feels looked at as having less intelligence, less psychological wellness, like people of color, like women, have across time, that can injure and that could go in and you could start thinking of yourself that way people do. Yeah, anyway, go ahead, go back to your question.

Cassandra Geisel:

So no, people, people absolutely do, and you carry it right and we can't. We carry it. I mean, I can only speak to this as a woman, but I, you know, you carry that, the impact of the dehumanization, the, the feeling less than, et cetera. You have that in your backpack, right, you carry it around with you all the time.

David Bedrick:

There's a study done 97% of women have violent voices inside of themselves about their body every day. Not just like you. Those glasses are not as nice as this. I mean disgusting. Ugly, nasty voices every day Now. Ugly, nasty voices every day Now. Yeah, well, maybe people don't feel as good about how they look. Here's more research. If you think of yourself as if you take that in, I'm not attractive, I'm not beautiful and whatever and all the other things that go in, I'm not lovable, you are less likely to speak up, you're less likely to find the right kind of person, you're less likely to set boundaries with people who are abusive to you. You're less likely to express your intelligence, you're less likely to be able to focus on reading a book, because it's hard to focus when you feel that bad about yourself. So it's not just well, some people don't feel good about their beauty. The impact on that life how they parent, parent, how your mother will change. So it's not just like a little thing, not that feeling ugly and untraceable, small.

Cassandra Geisel:

it impacts the whole flow of the life yeah, the flow of the life and the flow of the system. Right, and I think if we think about it in that way, it's it's we're all a bunch of uh, individuals in this system. So if we're all a bunch of individuals in this system, so if we're all walking around carrying this burden of shame and that's influencing how we connect or don't connect with each other, oftentimes don't connect right as a result of shame it goes inward.

David Bedrick:

Yes, yeah, go inward. I don't know, I'm just depressed, I don't know, I'm just feeling a lot. Some people come to me. I'm just very anxious, I'm just depressed, I have anger issues, so it's hard for me to be in public. All those people could just have a lot of internalized depression and having a reason.

David Bedrick:

If you're being told you're no good, et cetera, of course you're depressed, of course you're angry, of course you're afraid that you're anxious, that's not an anxiety problem, a depression problem, an anger problem. That's an internalized oppression problem, oppression problem. And if we diagnose it as the other, if we diagnose it as a depression problem not that you shouldn't get help and maybe drugs will save your life, not against that but if we don't inquire further and say, oh, of course you feel down and want to lay in bed and don't do anything because of how you're treated inside, then we don't bear witness. Going back to the gender, race, neurodiversity, muslim problem, we don't bear witness to that. That goes underground and we just think there's a whole bunch of people who are depressed, there's a whole bunch of Native Americans who have alcohol problems. We're going to say these things out loud and if we can say that without looking at. What is that? What's going on? What is that condition?

David Bedrick:

yeah yeah, then we're. Then we don't witness that, we just think, well, that's a drunk, whatever person on the street, and we don't have to include that in our consciousness and that becomes very painful yeah, yeah, I think that sort of numbing or, you know, cutting off from the, I guess, compassion or the ability to witness is something that's really interesting, I guess.

Cassandra Geisel:

Politically does shame have a function. Politically, do you think? Say more about what you're thinking so I guess, in terms of, like you know, if we're all uh conditioned or socialized to be walking around, um, not bearing witness to each other, whether it's because of our own shame or whatever reason, but this is how we're being socialized yeah do you think there's political benefits to us being in a shame state or not witnessing each other's shame?

David Bedrick:

Not witnessing. You're saying I mean if, if if we're not witnessing, then it allows systems of oppression, more fascistic systems, to thrive. It allows that to happen and we know that in all kinds of cultures. As a Jewish person, I'm probably more likely to have studied um the rise of anti-semitism over centuries. And it's, it's flowering. Is that the? You know?

David Bedrick:

it's flowering in, uh, in nazi germany, how that happens yeah people like that's a bad person, that's a this, that's that, and then that's an economic problem, and then it's easy to leave out. That's an economic problem, and then it's easy to leave out. Why did a specific group of people Jews, queer folks, people who were not mentally considered the same, gypsies? So why those targets though? Well, people are screwed up in there. They say people who hurt or hurt, hurt people. So let's say that's why germany got hurt, they got crushed in world war one, but this could happen to any group. Those people are suffering, those people are hurt, those people have a lot of fear. All those statements leave out the identity of the people who are hurt. I can be afraid and and go fight with my father doesn't have to be fight with my wife because she's a weaker physical force. Does that make sense? So if we make psychological analysis that leave out the identity of those people who are harmed, then the psychological analysis breeds shame. Then why Jews, why gypsies, why women, why Muslims, why Palestinians? And we should ask those questions.

David Bedrick:

Otherwise, again, the psychological analysis leaves things out. So, politically, it allows gross things to happen and fascistic things to happen and maintains systems, and maintains systems I'm not sure politically, how much those I have. I'm not as hopeful as some around wasn't, because I thought she's just a great candidate. And then that's a whole nother question. But part of it, part of it is I don't like the fascist movement of the country, but part of it is, I think, in my mind I wonder what some girl of color seeing her, maybe that will affect her life, independent of her policy. That's not the whole reason, but that is in my mind. Yeah, thinking somebody looks at her and says that could be me. That's one part. I'm not saying that should be an entire decision, but that's not irrelevant to me that someone gets to look and see that person and say that looks like me yeah, yeah, representation yeah, represent to look to positions of power privilege and see yourself reflected.

David Bedrick:

There isn't that huge years ago I went to a photography exhibit. It was called oh, I can't, I can't remember it. It was a really famous one and it had it had picture. There were huge pictures, you know, like five by ten size, life-size pictures of african-american firsts, the first african-american opera singer, the first african-american mayor, etc. And then one of them was the first and then one of them was the first African-American female brain surgeon. They had her in her like a surgical garb, the mask down and a thing on her hair. And this is more like 40 years ago.

David Bedrick:

And I looked at the image and I fell to my knees and started sobbing. And my friend said why are you crying? I said I didn't know, I never saw that, it never even occurred to me that I didn't know. I saw that and it was so different from what I had in my brain that she was absent from my consciousness, a hole where I didn't even know existed. And then I see I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm like her, like my brain is like having to deal with the, the discord, the dissonance of something in me doesn't have that image. And now I'm, I'm being confronted with that image. It was so powerful, yeah. So you so powerful.

David Bedrick:

Yeah, so you're talking about representation. I left your political question, but just no, no.

Cassandra Geisel:

It's hugely important and I guess you spoke about that experience with such humility just then. I guess naming your own sort of blinkered spots or the spots that blinkered spots or the spots that. How have you come to learn to do that within yourself?

Speaker 2:

kind of naming your own, I guess things that you haven't been able to.

David Bedrick:

You know yeah injured spots, blinkered spots I mean there's a few. There's a few reasons. One is one is always a person's nature, because some people are not inclined to ever wake up about certain things. They're just not. I'm not trying to put them down or say we should accept that, it's just, it's just true. So something in me, for whatever reason, took the violence that I experienced and wanted to not have that happen to other people especially, especially the violence that my mother perpetrated, which is the shame upon me was like I didn didn't want people to be told something's not happening. For some reason I focused on that. Why, I don't know. That was in me. So I had an inclination in that way. Some of my greatest teachers were African-American teachers. My favorite teacher is this, k James Baldwin. I've had his picture on my desk for 30 years.

David Bedrick:

I read the letter that he wrote to his nephew 20 years ago, and I don't know how many times I read it. I'm shy to say I read it as if he was writing to me. I'm not a 15 year old black youth in Harlem and wasn't, but somehow I needed to hear somebody talk to me the way he talked to me, so that became relevant. Yeah, I've been lucky also to have people challenge me, you know, with some love, not meaning I shouldn't feel bad or something, but enough love to challenge. Some people have also woken, helped me, wake up about my own experiences as an individual, but my own experience as a Jewish person.

David Bedrick:

I remember I had a psychologist, Mark Schupacher, a Swiss psychologist I worked with for many years, a brilliant man. I used to call him a sorcerer because he was kind of magical more than psychological. And I remember telling him the story about my father's violence and what I grew up with. And Max had tears in his eyes and I said you're really moved by what I went through? And he said I am, but that's not why I'm crying. And I said why are you crying? And he said cause I'm Swiss and maybe if the Swiss were different, your Jewish father would have been different. What.

David Bedrick:

I'm like no one ever said anything like that to me, ever. He wasn't feeling like I'm bad, I'm guilty. He's not like, oh, I'm a terrible person. He really felt the implication of the absence of Swiss witness. We're neutral. He's like, no, no, no, that was so deep a medicine for me and that wasn't I like psychology, working on traumas, working in psychology, that's a social witnessing. He says I'm seeing you and your father as also a jewish story and I can witness that by saying maybe your father would have been different. I, as a Swiss person, have something to do with that story personally. That blew my mind.

Cassandra Geisel:

That's not heard of in psychology.

David Bedrick:

No, no, no.

Cassandra Geisel:

Yeah, I'm sitting here affected by that, just how that angle is so rarely brought to like traditional sort of healing spaces. And I guess one of the big reasons I'm asking about, about kind of your humility, is I'm thinking about you know, something violent has occurred, whether interpersonally, within your community. You know something's happened and maybe one of us wants to be a witness and kind of name it or call it out or actually call in. I'm wondering is there a way to be calling each other in that I don't know if you could totally avoid shame, but does it in a way that brings people towards the cause or violence you're trying to name?

David Bedrick:

It's such a good question, it's such an important I don't have an answer. It's such an important question. What do we do to raise that consciousness to whatever we're going to call it? Bring alert people so they can see things that they are not able to see or don't want to see? I mean, the first thing I would say is, if you as a person are have a reaction, find places where you don't mute that reaction Meaning that really obsessed me, but I don't want to say things that are going to be too difficult Then find some other place, but don't suppress those strong reactions so that you're not upsetting to other people.

David Bedrick:

That's not good for the whole story. It doesn't mean you're going to do it in the best way for that other person's learning, and maybe you can't even do it. Maybe I want to kill somebody and I'm not going to go do that, but then I'm going to go into my room and I'm going to express the rage that I have. I'm going to call them, quote unquote, murderous rage. I'm not going to go get a gun. I don't want to take a person's life. I don't want to be responsible with taking a person's life, but the energies that live in us, those need to be unshamed, alive, meaningful. Make poems out of it, talk to other friends that, do something with that energy. Make music out of it. Set boundaries with your children with it, I don't know, but do something with that energy. Don't suppress it and make those into bad things. Because some people try to be so careful with not making another person upset. We know that they lose voice and that's not usually good for their life.

David Bedrick:

If it's possible, when a person injures another person, if it's possible, asking that person what was it like to be you doing that? That's a very, the most neutral question. Now I'm not in. I want to hurt you, because if I want to hurt you, I can't honestly ask you that question. I want to say I want to hurt you, I won't do it, but I want to hurt you back. I want to do this. I want to confront you. I want you to change. I'm in pain. I want to scream and cry about what you've done. All of those things belong. But if I can witness that separately, that means you just said to this person or used your fists, or used your belts or whatever, shot this person or pulled that person over. What's it like to do that and that person won't know the answer because they've never had to inquire about the deeper experience. What's it like is a huge thing. Well, I just felt like I can do that. What's it like to feel like you can do whatever you want? That's not a guilt question, what's it like? And then person has to feel something of that.

David Bedrick:

I remember once I was teaching a class at University of Phoenix and we were talking about different kinds of privileges I called it rank, different kinds of privileges and I was about five, seven and the guy I was talking to was about six foot four and I'm using American metric, I realize and he said I don't understand. I said I said stand up. And I stood up next to him. So he was, you know, nine, ten inches taller than me and I stood very close to him and I said what's it like to be taller than me? And he said well, what do you mean? I said you're looking down, right, I'm looking up. What's that like? That was really hard for him because and he's experiencing it all the time, but he's not I'm not putting him down he's not conscious of that experience feel what it's like looking down, having other people look up, let it into your body, feel what it's like. Maybe you might be. You want to stand up, not crouch down. Maybe it feels good walking around like that.

David Bedrick:

That person needs to know what it's like, not as a put down, but to feel that kind of the height privilege. A person needs to know what it's like to feel that way and privilege I call that rank because my teacher, arnie mendel, called it rank the power difference. Um, a person who has more of that is almost always somewhat unconscious. Everybody about that. Arnie Mandel said rank is a drug. That means I feel really good right now. I don't think I'm getting something. 20 people fawning over me, right? I just I'm not noticing that. That part of the rank. I'm power difference. People are trying to be nice because they're frightened of me. I'm not thinking that I could right. I'm power difference.

Speaker 2:

People are trying to be nice because they're frightened of me.

David Bedrick:

I'm not thinking that I could. I could be aware of that, but it's less likely. I might just be I'm calling it, quote unquote drunk. This feels really good. I like feeling this way about myself. This is lovely. I don't know. I just had a great time in that class. I was a brilliant teacher. You feel part of that because you're really smart, David, but you feel part of that because of the way people are looking at you. It's an atmosphere. Really I didn't know. So waking people up to that experience is huge.

Cassandra Geisel:

It's huge. Yeah, waking up to that. Yeah, your own the privileges we all hold to some varying rank.

David Bedrick:

What's it like to be bigger than a person? What's it like to be more educated than a person? The specific part what's it like when you're a teacher and a student? What's it like being the teacher person Not like you, david, the person? What's it like to be the teacher person? I don't know, I'm just talking to Cassandra, my student. Oh, you don't notice that you're the teacher person and that person is treating you in a certain way, given that role. Probably not, maybe not, but probably. And you're experiencing something. It's not just David. You're experiencing this thing that comes from people treating you as an, as a higher, more authority human being yeah, the position is like, laden with meaning yeah, and that's like meeting people then project.

David Bedrick:

What's it like? Walking around more or less white, more or less straight as I am in the world? I don't know, I'm David. Yeah.

David Bedrick:

Can you follow and what that means. What that means is I have the luxury people call that privilege of not thinking of myself as a skin color or gender. That's why I say David Right, Because if you were black and queer you might say well as a black and queer person, but david doesn't say as a white male person. David says as david makes sense, so I don't have to have consciousness about my identity. That is the experience and that has a feeling, experience in the body to have that I don't have to think about those things. That's an experience. I don't notice because it's. It's everywhere.

Cassandra Geisel:

Such a such a useful way to put it and that you know wanting to kind of bring each other in and and be connected, I guess, for a cause, for a purpose, et cetera, do you think? Do you think there needs to be an existing sort of relationship to do that kind of calling in or curious Maybe I'm going to leave that term aside calling in, what you've described to me is like a genuine curiosity of the other person and their experience. So do you think there needs to be an existing relationship for that sort of curiosity to happen?

David Bedrick:

There has to be some kind of I'm going to call it consent but that's too strong a word Meaning a consent even to be in the conversation. The person has to have to say I agree to have this conversation, even to be in the conversation. The person has to say I agree to have this conversation. But if a person's staying in the conversation, if a person writes to me on social media and keeps on writing back, they are consenting to converse with me. It's on social media. They could walk away. They're not locked up in. So there's an implied consent to have a dialogue.

David Bedrick:

I'm using the word consent in that way? Because if the so there's an implied consent to have a dialogue, particular thing, I'm using the word consent in that way? Yeah, because if the person essentially doesn't consent internally, I don't want to be here. If I were free I wouldn't be here, but the conversation is going to go nowhere. If that person were more free to be themselves, which is where we have to go first, that person would not listen. And then I would say to that person don't listen. I really would. Yeah.

David Bedrick:

If you'd say what do I do? This person doesn't listen. I would say treat them like, accept that they don't listen, but what do I do with the fact that I'm upset? Find another person who might listen to that and tell them the message, write a book about it, Do something with it, because that's not going to go anywhere. I would even protect that person's freedom to walk away from you. They said I don't want to be around, Cassandra. I'd say you can leave.

David Bedrick:

I really would, because that's how it's going to go anyway, not because I think it's right. That's when life continues its way. That person's going to wander away from you and you'll have energy left. Let's make that happen as soon as possible and then you can say what should I do with all this energy? And I said let's figure that out. Make a podcast and use your example.

David Bedrick:

That's something like that. Let's do something with it. Yeah, an active process, and I'm aware of the time you ask great questions and I I'm, I'm self, I have a little self-conscious I'm, so I get. So I'm passionate about the things you're bringing up and they matter to me a lot. So I know I'm like, but that's what comes up for me in talking about these issues.

Cassandra Geisel:

So no, no, me too, and and I'm just, yeah, so grateful. There is two questions that I have on my mind. You have time, let's do them yeah so the first was around do you think there is a positive role for shame? And I had an example, and again I'm bringing this person up not as a let's all point fingers and whatever, but say Elon Musk, right Moving through the world, incredibly violent, etc. Would the shame potentially help him act in more sort of socially just ways or not?

David Bedrick:

This question requires a little bit of background, or not? This question requires a little bit of background. The way most people conventionally have thought about shame was a moral idea that came from Judeo-Christian thinking. You should be ashamed of yourself because you really did something bad Although we can discuss what happened in the Bible and sexism but let's say you really did, you injured a community or you injured a child or something like that. You should really. There are certain things you should feel really bad about and that idea crept in. So that was not a psychological idea, it was a moral notion.

David Bedrick:

And when psychology started messing around with this idea of shame and researching, then they found out you know what Most of the people we're working with, in fact all the studies, were showing this shame thing is hurting people, it's making people feel worse, it's not helping their psychology, it's not helping them healing. And people with the moral idea said we have to hold on to this. Shame is a good thing for certain people. So then psychology defaulted and they said well, let's make it into two kinds toxic and un-toxic. That was a confusion and that distinction should never, in my opinion my opinion, but obviously because I'm speaking but that distinction muddies the water. There's no good shame.

David Bedrick:

Shame is not a feeling about yourself. Shame is an internalized viewpoint and that viewpoint annihilates your connection with yourself. And if your connection with yourself is less, you will be less empathic, less compassionate, less accountable, less responsible. So I always say to people should people feel be accountable? Yes. Responsible, yes. Remorse. Should people feel be accountable yes. Responsible, yes. Remorse yes. Make amends yes.

David Bedrick:

Should you want to get justice? Yes. Is it fair to want to hurt a person? Hurt you back yes. That comes up as a normal human reaction. Right, I hurt that person. I want to get justice. I want it. They should feel guilty. They should feel terrible about what they did. I think all that's fine, but shame as a literal variable. I look at myself and try to figure out what's wrong with me. This connects me from the other person. I no longer notice you. That's all I'm wrapped up in If I'm trying to make a change because I feel shame. Cassandra, you are invisible to me. Your gender, your personhood, the injury I caused are all irrelevant to me. The only thing that's relevant is how do I get myself out of this bad feeling? It doesn't go anywhere.

David Bedrick:

And people can show a lot of remorse and make zero change based on shame. Yeah, in the in the uh uh, there's a man named Jerry Firkenstead and I think he's the world's foremost person on on working with uh, working with sexual predators, and it's a heavy topic, but I say that because people are triggered by those things and he goes around the world working with clinicians and helping them know how to work with these people Many of them were in jail.

David Bedrick:

And he goes to court and the court says should we let this person out of jail? They ask him to make his opinion and they, and he says a person who sits and weeps about how painful it is what they did. He said that person don't never let them out. He said that means nothing. It means they have a part of them that feels, but the part of them that perpetrates has nothing to do with that. You haven't met the perpetrator, he said. And the clinicians sit and they kind of go oh my gosh, you feel so terrible, I'm so glad.

David Bedrick:

And he says to those clinicians you have to talk to the person who thinks about it, who's thought about it six months before, who didn't do it accidentally, who plans it, who has the impulse, who wants certain things, who has certain needs and knows all that, he said. And the person I would let out of jail says didn't just happen that day and I lost control. I've been planning this for six months. This is my fantasy life. This is my imaginative life. This is the depth of the needs I have. This is the story that lives in me. He said a person can recount with awareness, not with. I'm a bad person. This is what I'm up against. This is the kind of things that I do. He said that person is much safer, meaning he's an unshaming witness. Not, that doesn't mean everybody don't feel bad. It means let's get to know the depths of who you are. I'm sorry is not doesn't mean you know anything about yourself or the other person.

Cassandra Geisel:

So, yeah, it's a strong example, but no, no but, but really important because so, yeah, it's a strong example, but no, no, but, but really important because I think it's speaking to that thing of like we need to go towards the actual dark experience rather than just what's on the, you know, the weeping that's at the end. Right, what are you actually sitting with? What is it like to sit with? Yes, yes. Planning and fantasy and thoughts et cetera right In this context.

David Bedrick:

Exactly. I worked with a man who shook his child. He got freaked out. He came to me. He's like oh, he's like oh shit. I'm like yeah, and then he feels really bad. I'm glad he feels bad about that. That's a good thing. He's suffering about that. That means some compassion and remorse and love for the other person and empathy. All those things are active. That's good. And then I say I put like a pillow in his hand, you see, and I say, show me what you did. I'm not trying to say, show me what you did. Let's get to know what's going on for you.

David Bedrick:

Does that make sense. I'm not supporting him to do that. The child's not there, the child is not safe. In supporting him to do that, the child's not there, the child is not safe. In fact, if he gets more aware of what he's doing, the child's going to be much more safe than if we say you're a bad person, never do that again. You have to count on his suppression.

David Bedrick:

Counting on people's suppression is not so good. I want to count on the fact that he knows who he is and what that energy belongs and what he's going to do with that. And that means he's got to show me some of that energy and what's happening inside of him and what he wants to do with that. He's not only a bad dude, but he has that energy. We have to figure out. What are you going to do with that that lives inside of you? Does it belong anywhere else? Do you sit and deal with your child way too long and then finally lose it? How come you don't use a little right away? A little doesn't mean shake them right, I mean stop, I'm walking anyway. There's an intelligence in the system, it's just totally misused and partially shame is the problem because you're not allowed to do certain things. Suppress them in places that are usually not so good and knowing what we're capable of.

Cassandra Geisel:

Knowing what we're capable of. Knowing what we're capable of.

David Bedrick:

Isn't that incredible Knowing what you're capable of. That's a great way of saying it.

Cassandra Geisel:

And you know, there's so much more that we could explore and talk about.

David Bedrick:

We have one more question. Let's see if we can get it.

Cassandra Geisel:

Yeah, so you know you wrote this book on activism specifically and I guess in a quite light-hearted. I'm just curious what? What drew you to writing it? Why did you write it?

David Bedrick:

what was the whole unshaming way? Or the earlier book?

Cassandra Geisel:

either, but specifically about the activism, I think what drew me to write about it.

David Bedrick:

I mean, it's all the things we're talking about the the psychology being too often psychology is more western, white and male. I'm not trying to say that's those are all the bad categories. Whiteness is dead. I'm saying that's where it came from. That's its root right so um, and that's where it came from.

David Bedrick:

That's its root, right? So, um, and that that means that there's a privilege, and the privileges I think of Cassandra, as Cassandra and David is is David, and I don't say, hmm, I wonder what her background is. I don't know. Her name is Cassandra. I wonder what that is. That has something to do with how she feels and experiences things. Oh, she's a woman. I wonder how she experiences things. I don't have to do that, I just think of you as a person, and psychology has had that blind spot.

David Bedrick:

If you searched under anxiety, then you would get pages and pages of things, of things to do about anxiety. Those could be really good. This is how to meditate, this is how to deep breathe, this is how to do things, and you would have to go a lot of pages before you found out about the morbidity rate of Native American children. Why do I mention that? Because that person's anxiety I'm saying it, right, that person's anxiety is not the same as David's anxiety. That person is more likely to lose a child, so isn't that incredible? So that detail is invisible to the psychological world because they think we're just dealing with anxiety problems.

David Bedrick:

That's one example. It wouldn't have to. It could be other examples. Right, it could be a person with chronic illness. That would be used. Tons of people with chronic illness experience all kinds of symptoms that are psychological anxieties, procrastinations, whatever they're going to call it, and then we're going to treat it like that person is procrastinating, but that person's in physical pain, ongoing and exhausted. How does that enter the diagnosis of anxiety or procrastination? So, because that's invisible, not asked. That upsets me.

Cassandra Geisel:

And perpetuate suffering.

David Bedrick:

And perpetuate suffering. And that person then thinks I have an anxiety problem. Do you worry about your child being born and you're pregnant? Yeah. Like oh, why are we talking about that? Because that's maybe the big part of what you're calling anxiety. I had an anxiety problem. Oh, I see, this is my culture, this is my background, this is who I am. These are the things I want to speak about. This is how I want to care about my sisters who are pregnant. Life then comes out of that understanding, as opposed to a therapeutic intervention.

Cassandra Geisel:

That's so life comes out. Yeah. You look at it with these glasses on, life comes out.

David Bedrick:

Yeah, then the person is going to go do something that's really meaningful and not just try to heal themselves. Healing ourselves is great, obviously, I'm into that, yeah, but I think a healed person is not just a person who feels better inside. It's a person who's living a life that belongs to them.

Cassandra Geisel:

Agency.

David Bedrick:

Yeah, and you doing, you Doing podcasts and interviewing people and being turned on and passionate about social justice, and you're coming for healing. I want to make sure you're doing more of that the way you would do it, not just feeling okay. I want you to be Cassandra when you're healed, not David, somebody else or some normalized human being that says I don't have an, I'm not nervous, my nervous system is okay. I want your nervous system to be okay as long as it leads you to be more like this, not just so you can have a nervous system. Ok by itself. That doesn't really matter to me very much. I got to say I shouldn't say that because people would be set with me, but I think if you have that and it leads you to be more Cassandra, right on. But that to me the key is, you become more you.

Cassandra Geisel:

Yeah, what a gift, you know? Yeah, giving people. Is that giving birthright? I think you talk about it in your in in the unshaming way quite a bit the birthright of becoming yourself, really, yeah well, that's, that's the life project.

David Bedrick:

The life project. How do I become more david? And then do that means his calling his purpose the way he loves, the way he would raise a child, the way he would love a person, although the way he loves, the way he would raise a child, the way he loves a person, although the way he would garden, all those things. Yeah, thank you. You're all doing some amazing stuff.

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