What Just Happened?

What if the most dangerous moments in your life aren’t the loud ones, but the quiet ones? The ones where a voice inside you starts making a very convincing case. A case to quit. To blow it up. To take the shortcut. To say the thing you swore you’d never say. To do the thing you promised you’d never do.

In this talk, we’re going to explore why intelligent, thoughtful, good people still find themselves steering toward walls they never intended to hit. We’ll look at the hidden forces that shape our reactions, the stories our brains tell us in real time, and why we so often feel hijacked by something that doesn’t quite feel like “us.” If you’ve ever surprised yourself - in anger, in fear, in giving up - this conversation will give you language for what’s happening and a way to begin catching it before it catches you.

This isn’t about shame. It’s about awareness. And once you see it, you won’t be able to unsee it — in your marriage, your parenting, your goals, your work, or even the cultural stories swirling around you. If you want to understand the forces quietly shaping your decisions - and learn how to stop crashing into the same wall - this one matters.

See you at the Spiritual Gym (and invite someone in your life that you think could find value in this).

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's this moment I think we all have in our lives. We've been exploring this the last little while. For me, it came. I sat with my brother and sister on a call recently. My dad's getting to be end-of-life stuff. We're trying to navigate how do you support? And I said to my family, my brother and sister, I said, I have three goals in this time of my life. I want to take care of my dad. I think we all want that. I said, I want to deal with my own demons that I grew up with, all the wounds that I have as a child. I want to start healing those. And I want to become closer to you, my siblings. I don't want this to pull us apart. I want this to create connection. It was heartfelt. I truly believe that's what I want, which is strange because a week ago I was out in the mountains snowbiking, and what was going through my head was, screw those two. I'm going to do whatever I want. And for about an hour of snowbiking, my brain was coming up with all the reasons why that completely makes sense. You know those moments where you're like, oh, I was going to go to the gym, but then you have another voice that says, Oh, I'm tired, or I've had a long week, or I deserve to have a break, or or you know those, don't put up your hand, but you know those moments? The moment that says, I'm going to save my money while you're surfing on Tamu looking for something new. Why is it that we have we can have, I want to get closer to my siblings. I'm going to blow them off and just do whatever I want and screw them. How do we have that at the same time? How is it that our lives, our inner lives, are so fractured? But it's not that even. It's not the how. It's the train wreck of when. I want this. And my behavior is exactly the opposite of that. I swore I would never. And yet I find myself doing that very thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

And the impact on our lives. The impact on our self-worth, the impact on the people around us.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I know we've talked about this quite a bit lately, but I'm fascinated is the wrong word. Horrified. Troubled by what's going on inside of our heads. That's undermining the very thing we want. People often say to me, Vince, no, no, no. That's not what's going on inside of me. I'm a single, unified human being. I thought that too while I was snowbiking and thinking about how I could scroll for my brother and sister. I had one single thought in my head. Without regards for what it was going to do to me. Without regards of what it was going to do to my relationship with my brother and sister.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

You can feel that tension inside, can't you?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

You probably can even feel when you go against your values, you go against the things, your goals. You go against who you are. And then you're dealing with that for the next two weeks. I will never yell at my kids, and now you're apologizing for yelling at your kids. How do we navigate this?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

How do we not get stuck in this cycle of not doing the very thing we want to do?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

This probably sounds familiar. We've been talking about this idea of parts. It's a story, it's a mental model. It's it says that we're all kind of broken up in these different things. Parts, the definition is a story that conceptualizes our inner life with separate parts that have different agendas, different feelings, and also different uh level of agency. I have a part that wants my relationship with my brother and sister to be very, very good. And promises that I will do what I can to grow that relationship. I have another part that couldn't give two craps about that. It'd burn them in a second. How is it that I could have that much difference inside of me?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

How could you have that much difference inside of you? Now, parts is just a story.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

But there's some truth actually to this. I want to show you. There's a there's a test called the Stoop S-T-O-O-P. Stoop effect. Can you throw up the first slide for me? Tell me what color that font is. Do you notice how your brain has to go? Don't say red. It's blue. There's a part of you that wants to say the color that's written up there, and there's another part of you that knows that's not the answer. Can you feel that tension inside of you? That's kind of what parts are like. There's a part of you that wants to say red, and there's another part of you that knows that red's not the right answer. It's actually blue. So this metaphor, this story, this conceptualization of us having internal parts that are different and have different agendas and have different ways of seeing the world, it kind of fits, doesn't it? Last series we did, uh, there's a framework called Immunity to Change. It's a way of looking at the world through this parts language, but they they gave us something more. They said, okay, we have this parts idea. Remember, I was up here on stage and I had a bunch of elastic bands attached to me, and I'm trying to make this change, and I have a bunch of parts that are trying to keep me from making the very change I want. The idea is it's like I want to work out six days a week, and I have another part that's saying, We're just gonna sit on the couch all those days. And that part will literally try and pull me back out of the very change I want to make. That's the concept of immunity to change. Now, the beauty of that book, the genius of that book, is they asked us a question about our parts.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

They said, What do your parts believe?

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Can you throw up the So we have these parts that say, I want to do this, I want to be a better spouse, I want to do better in my job, I want to, you know, get healthier, get my finances lined up. And then we have a part that's designed to do the exact opposite for us. Or there's a part that's not designed, that's the wrong word. There's a part that exists who pulls in the opposite direction. It's why change is so hard to make. And yet, if we understand what that part believes, everything shifts. With my family, with my siblings, I have a part that says I want my relationship with them to be good. I've seen so many families break apart through kind of times like this. I do not want that in my family. But what does this part believe? What does this part think? This part thinks that if I have control, everything will go better.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

That's what it believes.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

And it will wrestle control from my family because it has this belief that says, no, no, screw them. You know better. This sounds really bad when I say it out loud. It's okay, all of our parts, when you say it out loud, it's like, oh my goodness. But finding the beliefs of those parts is incredibly hard, isn't it? I can sit up here and say we have these parts, we have these parts that are pulling back. You just got to understand the beliefs of those parts. Do you know why you don't like conflict? Do you know why more information makes you feel calm? Do you know why using makes you feel better about life? Do you know the beliefs? Because I don't most of the time. Just my life turns into a train wreck, and then I'm going, what just happened? So if that's the goal, if that's our North Star, how do we get there? How do we see what we can't see? How do we become conscious of our unconscious? That's like one of those Zen proverbs of like, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, did it actually make a sound? How do you become conscious of your unconscious? If your unconscious is the thing that's undermining your values and your goals and your happiness and your relationships, how do you see them? By definition, they're unconscious. I've become obsessed with this today. Can you throw up the model for me? Today we're going to work on the I portion of our model. Oftentimes, you know, taking water is beautiful. Even this we, conceptually, it's beautiful. But until you understand yourself, until you've you can come to grips with this stuff, until you become conscious of your unconscious, the whole model is built on that. And so oftentimes what we have to do is we have to work on this part of us, figuring out who we are so that I can become the person who can be in a we relationship with other humans. And I can take water in a sustainable way. She used to attend our church when she lived in town here. She's now in Vancouver, and she said something kind of off the cuff. She's like, Oh, Vince, you know that immunity change came out like a few decades ago? I was like, what? This stuff's been around for that long and I didn't know about it. Seems not completely odd, but then I started realizing, I actually think this idea is older than that. There's a writer named Paul who I think is dealing with what we're dealing with. He said this. Can you write this up? He was writing to a church called a church in Rome. So it's the letter to the Romans. He says, This I don't understand my own actions, for I don't do what I should, but I do the very thing I hate. How much of our lives are that? I love it. And then he says, I can feel something deep inside of me trying to keep me doing the things I don't want to do. This is a paraphrase. If you grew up in Sunday school, I don't know. Can I just ask, how many of you were influenced by Sunday school growing up? Anyone, can you just throw up your hand for me? Any no Sunday school whatsoever? Any of those people, we call you guys pure. You don't have to deconstruct a bunch of stuff. It's just like you're pure, innocent, clean. I envy you all. If you grew up in Sunday school, you would have seen the different verse than this. You'd have seen this. I can feel sin inside of me. When I say the word sin, what comes to mind? Just yellow. Just yell at your answers.

unknown 12:53

Guilt.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Guilt.

unknown 12:56

Shame.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Shame. What was it? Bad. My coach said she was a Catholic. She's like chewing gum in school. I was like, I'm not sure where that was a big deal, but for her, that was sin. Sin was all those things that you do that were bad. Who defined bad in your growing up years? Parents. For me, it was my church tradition. No drinking, no smoking, no sex whatsoever. Like the drinking one again. So strange. But again, though those were sin. And the idea was that sin, this idea of some people call it missing the mark. They conceptualize God in a way that says there's this character God, and the God created a bunch of rules that your tradition tells you. And if you break the rules, if you sin, this character God is angry at you. And the Jesus story is the solution to that. Okay, let's just put that aside for a second. The reason I didn't put sin up there is because if I said sin, that's where you're gonna go. Shame, guilt, whatever. No drinking. But sin has two meanings in the writings of Paul. And the second meaning is the most important meaning today. And this is the piece that if you don't catch this, a lot of the Bible doesn't make any sense. Because this conceptualization of God says, if I make a mistake, God is angry at me. But the other way of looking at sin is something called the force of evil in the world. The idea was that up until just before Jesus time, the Jewish community, the Israeli community, the ancient people, conceptualize God as anything good comes from God, anything bad comes from God. If we as a people are no longer devout, God will send bad things. That's how they conceptualize God. If we're devout, good things. Can you see the shift? Suddenly, they are the most devout ever, and their lives are hell. Their conceptualization of God said this should never happen. When we're devout, life is good. And so what happened is they shifted their conceptualization of God. This is like the reason it's not such a big deal for us is because most of us who grew up in a church have this conception already. But this is a complete shift. They said there's forces of good and there's forces of evil now. The forces of good are run by their conceptualization of God. The forces of evil are run by this character called the devil.

unknown 16:10

Bad.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

But when Paul uses it, he says, he calls this sin. That force that makes me want to completely go against my brother and sister, even though that's the very thing I want. Sin is that force that says, no, no, no, I want to get healthy, and yet I'm eating a bag of Doritos. And there's a second bag sitting next to me on the couch. It's that force that says, Oh, oh, I can't let this go. I have to blow a snap a crayon on this person. I'm gonna yell at them, or I'm gonna have to suppress myself to the point where there's nothing here. He calls that sin. We call it our unconscious. And suddenly this parts work, I realize Paul was doing this work long before we came along. He just called it something different. At the heart of our tradition, at the heart of the Christian story is this idea that says when we become conscious of those things that are pulling us off of our values, off of our purpose, off of the things we desire.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

That force is called sin.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

And there's a battle between the forces of good inside of me and the forces of sin. Again, some people conceptualize this as an actual force of like demons on your shoulder. You know, we have that mess, that meme, angels, devils, right? It's all from this. So the question then becomes how do we see that force when it's active? And how do we deal with that force so that we live the lives we truly want? It's seeing that force that's the hard part, isn't it? When I was on my snow bike, all I could think about was, oh, I'm gonna screw them over. In fact, I have a part in my brain that says to me, Oh, you have to screw them over. It's the right answer. In fact, it's the best for them and for you. Anyone have that voice, you know, the voice that's trying to tell you that that force isn't actually the force at play? This is just logical, this is just the right answer, this is the only way to go. So, how do we see it? You know who taught me one of the ways to see it? My wife. If you ever want to learn about yourself and you're unconscious, partner with somebody, partner with three people. They will show you stuff about yourself that you don't necessarily want to learn, but you probably need to. And my wife goes to the deepest, darkest, negative possible scenario. Used to drive me nuts. Because I just assume everything's gonna work out. Optimism. Shouldn't everyone be optimistic? Of course they should. So why isn't my wife being optimistic? Normally this would just spark a fight. One day I asked her, why do you do that? And in a moment of like genius clarity, she said, when I can live in the worst case scenario, I can handle anything after that.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

That floored me.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

I always thought she was doing it wrong. Because my story is so clear and so that's the voice in my head says, no, no, this isn't a story. You're just doing it right. You're optimistic. Everyone should be optimistic. What my wife showed me is no, no, no. She's dealing with hope. Once I can live in the worst case scenario, anything can happen and I can handle it. It can go down the toilet and I can handle it. And if it goes better than that, that's a win. Whereas I'm like, no, no, it's gonna go awesome. And then when it doesn't go perfectly awesome, I'm frustrated, I'm mad. And I realize, wait, her way, her story actually has some strengths that mine doesn't. But because I'm optimistic, I assumed, and the story inside my head says, I'm right, she's wrong. You see, seeing her story helped me see my story. Seeing how she answers the question, what is the future gonna hold helps me realize I have a story about that? It's just unconscious. I can't see it until I see how the story plays out against somebody else. Suddenly I realize can you throw it back up the the the table for me? In the immunity of change model, what beliefs do These parts have. My part has a belief that the world is going to work out and it never thinks what happens if it doesn't. I'm just depressed and mad and try and steal control. And so now what we see is we see why I was trying to take or do something to my siblings that we never agreed to.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Because I have a story.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

If you can see our story, you can see your unconscious parts. Because they hold the story. This is the genius from my wife. If you can see the story, your parts hold, you'll actually, if you can see the story, you'll see the story, the parts hold, and you'll start to watch how does it impact me in the rest of my life? I think most of the Bible is actually not theology. The theology is the study of God. I think most of the Bible is psychology and sociology. Written in a time before that stuff existed. And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to say, who are we?

SPEAKER_01 23:15

And part of it is what unconscious parts hijack us.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

So here's what we're going to do this whole series. There's a first 11 chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. We call it the primeval history. It's written in a genre that nothing else in the Bible is written in. If people live to 999 years, you know, there's like uh they build a tower to the universe, there's a creation there, there's just all these stories that are just fantastical. Some people think they're they're literal. 999 years old. Again, I'll let you deal with that. You can buy me a beer and we'll can argue that one out. I think they're in a genre called etiology, which means they're trying to show us something of this moment in a story. And if they're doing that, what they're doing is they're trying to figure out how to tell you something about your life. Something about your unconscious. Next week, we're gonna ask the question: Is the world on this kind of a trajectory going up or down? How your brain answers that question will tell you something about your unconscious parts. Once you realize my brain likes it, it likes to think of it going up, my brain likes to think of it going down. Not reality. Again, you have a part of your brain that's gonna say, no, no, Vince, there's no story here. I'm just, I know the truth. The world is going down or up, you're right? This is not a story, this is just truth. We have a friend who every time she says truth, she goes like that's truth. But what if it's a story? And what if that story tells you something about the belief of your core parts that you're not conscious of? And as you become conscious of them, you realize when they try and take over.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

And suddenly we have an antidote to the train wreck of our unconscious taking over our conscious.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

But we have to see the stories, the beliefs our parts hold. And I think our spiritual ancestors did this through story. So we're gonna examine three stories. Your work is gonna be going, okay, do I think of it like this or like this? It's not a right answer. We're gonna explore both parts as a way to help you understand your unconscious, as a way to figure out that spiritual work and figure out the forces inside of us that are trying to hijack us and take us in a different place. So if you're like me and you've had a moment where you're going, what in the world just happened inside of me? I promised I would do this. I swore I'd do this, this is not who I am. I had a moment the other day, me and my wife, I just freaked out. Just like lost my lost it. I had a part, an unconscious part, take over it. It's not unconscious. I took years and years of therapy. I have a part that's my, I call it my avoidant attachment part. It sits right over here. It has a belief. No one will ever take care of you. That's its belief. I didn't know it had that belief until my counselor told me. If you're an anxious attached, you have a different voice. Your voice says, no one will ever stick around. Everybody will leave me. When my avoidant part gets poked, I go nuclear.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Nuclear. That part will burn my life down in a second.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

I learned that part going through my divorce. It's mildly conscious. Usually it's conscious about six hours of sleeplessness until I finally realize, oh wait, that part is running my life right now. Oh, okay, buddy. Could it be that the most spiritual work for us today is to become conscious of the unconscious? If I can use Paul's language to find the force of evil he calls sin, that's causing us to do the very things we don't want to do. Could it be that the heart of our spiritual journey, our ability to stay in we, our ability to take water is tied to this piece that says, I become conscious of all the forces inside of me so that I can be the human I want to be. I can be the partner I want to be, the friend, the family member. May we take these next three weeks and do the incredible hard work of making the conscious, unconscious, conscious. We're gonna start next week with is the world getting better or worse? If I can give you homework, your homework is this. Watch this whole week which news you're attracted to, which direction do you think it's gonna go? Which times when someone feels one way, you're like angry at them. Which is the one like, no, no, I just want to listen to them. Start to find your story around which way this world goes. That was an awesome ringtone. Have a great week, everybody.