Episode 3 – The Price of Change – When Change Tests Your Relationships

What happens when you change and the people around you don’t? When Amina stopped reacting the way she always had, a former boyfriend turned violent, and family and friends asked whether she didn’t care any more.

In this third episode, she and her teacher and guide, Pål-Esben Wanvig, talk about the price of change: why the people closest to us often defend the status quo, the beginner’s blunders that make things worse, and how to grow without ending up alone. It is part of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a podcast about the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to yourself.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

In this episode

• When change triggers violence: Amina’s most drastic experience
• Why the people around you defend the status quo, even when your change is a healthy one
• The pause button and the space of free will
• The beginner’s blunder: pushing your new insights onto people who haven’t asked for them
• Why Pål-Esben stopped following the news
• Learning to be happy on different football pitches, so that the path doesn’t lead to loneliness
• Partners, disrespect and de-escalation

This podcast is for you if you:

• Seek real depth in your spiritual practice
• Want to understand yourself on a more fundamental level
• Are curious about shamanism but tired of superficial “new age” spirituality
• Have taken many alternative courses but still feel that something is missing
• Feel an inner longing for freedom, love and wholeness

In a time when so many get lost in external methods and promises of quick fixes, this podcast invites you back to the only place where true answers can be found: your own heart.

Listen above, or read the full conversation below.

Transcript

A warm welcome to the podcast “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. This podcast is a collaboration with our favourite magazine, the health and lifestyle magazine Medium, and is devoted to exploring the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to oneself. We follow Amina, a student at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, as she goes through a deep primordial shamanic process of development together with her guide and teacher Pål-Esben. It is a raw, unpolished journey of discovery towards true joy in life, deeper meaning, and a life that truly feels good to live.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

Today’s theme: when the people around you react to change

Pål-Esben: Hi, and a warm welcome, dear Amina!

Amina: Thank you so much, and welcome to you too, Pål-Esben!

Pål-Esben: Thank you! Today we’re going to talk about an exciting theme that can also feel challenging and difficult for those who walk a path that involves a profound process of development: how the people around us react when we begin to change, and how we can deal with exactly that situation. I’ll give a few examples. It isn’t always easy, and perhaps you’ve experienced that too: when you begin to see yourself and the world around you in a different way, interacting with certain people can become challenging. Tell us a little about your experience of that.

The most drastic experience

Amina: Yes, I’ve had several experiences of that over a few years now. But I can begin with the most drastic one. That takes us perhaps three or four years back in time, when I began to change my pattern of behaviour and no longer acted out so much. I no longer had such big reactions to what happened to me. This is about a relationship I was in. At the time we fought like cat and dog. We had a very destructive relationship where one of us shouted, and then the other shouted, and that’s how we carried on. Then I started treatment for difficulties with emotional regulation, and I began not to act out as much as before.

My first and most profound experience of that was when the boyfriend I had then said that it was over, and that I was to drive him to the station now. That was the routine we’d been through many times: he breaks up with me, I say “no, don’t leave me”, and then it all works out in the end. This time I didn’t react. There was no “oh no, don’t do it”. Then he reacted very, very strongly, and he became violent. He pushed me down the stairs. And he still didn’t get a reaction. Then I thought: “No, I’m not going to give him this.” And that was the moment he also put me in a stranglehold and wanted to kill me. Because he no longer got that acknowledgement, that reaction he was used to: “Whoa, what’s going on with Amina? She has changed.”

Of course a lot had happened before this too. It didn’t happen overnight; it was a gradual change, where he thought that Amina had started dabbling a little in the spiritual world and gone completely mad. What had really happened was that I had become calmer. I was no longer triggered in the same way as before. So that is perhaps the first, biggest and most drastic experience I have of this.

“Don’t you care?”: the family’s reactions

Amina: But I also have several other experiences when it comes to family and friends. Because I come from a family where whoever shouts loudest gets heard, where everyone has strong opinions and all the rest of it. I got some feedback along the lines of: “Yes, but Amina, this and that has happened. Why aren’t you reacting? Don’t you care? Don’t you have feelings for your child?” Then I tried to say that yes, of course I do, but now I have to keep a cool head, because it doesn’t help my child if I’m running around everywhere like a headless chicken. I also got comments like: “Oh, right, so now you’re a know-it-all, because apparently you know best about things like that.” I noticed that the people around me were triggered by how calm I was, and by me saying clever things like: “No, I’m not going to react now, dear so-and-so, because it isn’t constructive.” That perhaps sounds a bit robotic to people who are used to this person having very big emotions.

Another thing that was very triggering for the people around me was that I spoke more calmly and more quietly. I could get: “Hang on, I can’t hear what you’re saying! Speak up!” And I was still calm. But I also understood, the way I see it in hindsight, that family and friends may have been a little afraid: “Who is Amina really? How do we relate to her?” Because here is a person you have known all your life who suddenly changes. And then you see that it isn’t just a phase either; this is real. When I began to understand that along the way, I also began to feel a bit more compassion, so that I no longer got as irritated with those who commented on the path I have taken. Because in the beginning it was very much about self-development, and then came the spiritual development, the spiritual path, where I also got comments like: “Oh well, Amina couldn’t come today, probably because the energy in here was a bit bad.” It has calmed down now, at least in front of me, but I know there may still be a bit of talk behind my back. But I embrace it in a different way now, and perhaps see a slightly bigger picture than I did right at the beginning.

Why change is threatening: the status quo

Pål-Esben: It’s interesting: when a human being begins to change, the field around them, that is, the people around them, notice that we’re interacting differently. For many that feels uncomfortable, since the pattern of reaction is different from before. It can frighten people, and it can make some irritated and furious. That is a big challenge in general, not only in spiritual circles. But if you learn basic psychology, where we talk about biases, transferences, projections and all these things, and you understand the fundamental psychological mechanisms of how people act and interact, it doesn’t take all that much to upgrade your own psyche and your own behaviour so that it becomes less destructive. Because that is what I’m talking about here: we change things in ourselves that used to create suffering, that triggered suffering.

I have many, many examples of this. Just take a banal example. You have friends who like to sit in the evenings eating crisps and drinking cola. That is the social setting: crisps and cola. And then perhaps you’ve been to a nutrition seminar, or you’ve seen a YouTube video about healthy eating, and so you’ve stopped eating crisps, because they aren’t very healthy, and cola isn’t very healthy either. So you turn up with your water bottle and some kind of vegetable snack. What then happens, in pretty much every case, is that the people sitting there eating crisps and drinking cola get irritated and sulky. They begin to attack the one who has changed, because that person no longer fits into this social setting, since deep down they know that what they’re doing isn’t very good for the body. And when someone has managed to make a healthy change, they aren’t inspired by that person. Instead of saying: “You’ve managed something we haven’t. What are you doing? How have you done it?”, they attack, because they have zero interest in knowing anything at all about change. Because change isn’t what we’re interested in. What we’re interested in, and here’s the thing, is keeping the status quo.

Security, exclusion and the price of changing

Pål-Esben: Human beings, or rather our psychology, are built around safety and security, because that part of our psychology has to do with survival. When we have a field where we feel safe with the people around us, where we know exactly how we interact with them and relate to them, we feel secure. And as soon as one person begins to change, that security is threatened. It sounds a bit strange: when someone suddenly loses weight, gets better skin, gets more energy and vitality and becomes happier, the gang they used to have a nice time with over crisps and cola gets furious, sulky and grumpy, and often freezes them out. “Because we don’t want people like that in our setting; it’s threatening to what we do.” It is of course a little sad that it should be like that, but unfortunately that’s how it is.

And the question is: how do you deal with this? Is it a case of: “Oh my goodness, I don’t get to be part of the cola-and-crisps gang any more, so I’ll start on the cola and crisps again, put on weight and get ill”? Or are there other ways of handling it? You have to remember that when a human being is cast out of a social group, that in itself is threatening for the one who is cast out, because we also depend on social interaction for our own sense of safety.

The buttons that stopped working

Pål-Esben: This is perhaps a banal example. But in your case: you take a course or get help from a coach, and stop giving your partner at the time the destructive response, while he expects a very particular pattern of reaction. He knows that “when I press that button, Amina explodes, and then I can control how she reacts”. So when you suddenly change that, so that the button doesn’t work any more, stress is created, and then, unfortunately, he became violent.

But what happens more often, in ordinary families, at least among my students and clients who begin to upgrade their behaviour and become more constructive and loving, is that the people around them get frustrated and irritated that you don’t react in the same aggressive, destructive, depressive way as before. It’s quite something to experience, but also very difficult at the start.

The pause button: the space of free will

Pål-Esben: Your family, as we talked about, is used to pressing your buttons, used to you reacting in a particular way. Then suddenly you have learned about self-regulation, about how to regulate your emotions. You have learned about this space called free will: you get an impulse, and normally a human being will react to the impulse automatically, without thinking. And you have learned that self-regulation depends on developing this space, free will, from being almost non-existent when we react to impulses, to a point where we can expand it, so that we can press our pause button and regulate ourselves. That means: we get an impulse, someone says something to us that may be unpleasant at first, but we have learned to press this pause button and think it through: what is this impulse, and what is a healthy reaction to it? Only then do you press play and act.

In my book I write about an experience of my own with this, when someone drove into my car back in the old days. What did I do then? I was stopped at a red light by the shopping centre, and someone bumped into me. In the old days it was straight out of the car: “What are you doing? Are you stupid, or are you blind?” Getting all worked up. That was my normal way of operating, at least in the old days. Then, as I was learning about this space of free will and how to regulate yourself before you act, someone drove into me again a few years ago. I think it was my dear wife’s car I was driving, an old Audi. I’m sitting at the lights, on red, and someone comes up behind me, and then: bang, right into the boot. And it was different. It’s unpleasant when you feel that feeling; the first emotion is triggered by the first chakra, and the anger comes up for a millisecond. Then I think: “OK, is this a healthy way to react?” Then you step into this space, press the pause button and think: “How do I react to this in a healthy way?” I get out of the car, look at the damage and say: “Well, that’s a shame. That was unfortunate. How do we sort it out?” He was completely taken aback, and then I say: “OK, let’s find a solution to this and exchange insurance details.” He was probably a little shocked that I reacted in a friendly and peaceful way. Because there’s no point in getting worked up about something the insurance company will sort out anyway.

And that brings us to these things you’ve begun to become a real expert in. What is it like to meet people when you begin to become an expert in self-regulation? Now we’re thinking of your life today, which you talked about a little earlier. What is it like today when you meet people who try to get the usual reaction from you and don’t quite get it? How do you experience it, and how do you handle it?

A new kind of autopilot

Amina: I just have to say, when you talked about your car episodes: I’ve had several episodes like that in my life, where someone has driven into me, and then the whole day has been ruined. “How am I going to sort this out, and phone around, and deal with it all, and sort it? And this person, how could they do this and that?” That’s the huge, inner, destructive dialogue. Whereas now, in the last year, I’ve been driven into twice, and it isn’t pleasant, but it seems as if my autopilot has changed, so that I no longer need to say “no, no, we’re not going to react now”. It seems I’ve made myself a new kind of autopilot. Just four weeks ago I was at a flea market, and as I was leaving, I heard that someone had driven into my car. Oh well. And the person who had hit me was completely devastated, while I sat there comforting them: “This is exactly why you pay for insurance.” It actually turned into a very pleasant encounter.

From implosion to healthy self-regulation

Amina: But how I meet it today is rather interesting. Because when I got to know you, I had already learned a bit about self-regulation, about what happened on the outside, how I reacted outwardly. What I got to know better after meeting you was that I had self-regulation on the outside, but a lot of it kept going inwards, so that in a way it imploded. I wasn’t destructive towards things around me, but in the end I began to suffer, because it seemed I had just stored it somewhere. Then I got to know you and learned more about physical self-regulation and spiritual self-regulation: getting the energy out one way or another, a yang energy and things like that. So perhaps you can say a little more about that too.

But this is how I handle it today: sometimes I can feel a bit strange about not reacting. If, for example, someone lies to me and I catch them in the act, it’s: “Yes, that happened. Am I going to let that person take up my brain capacity, or my inner emotional life?” Sometimes it can feel a bit cold, while at the same time I remind myself that no, it’s only because I’ve managed to handle it in a different way. And then of course I can meet situations where I’m a bit shocked by my own inner reaction, because I thought I had actually finished working on this. Then it’s about how I can meet these situations in new ways and get to know myself in them. Because I definitely think there is a lot to learn on that level.

And then there are my children. Before, I could become very, very emotionally unstable, especially on the inside, if they were having a hard time, if I couldn’t fix their problem, or if they had a reaction I couldn’t help them with. Now I’m better able to stay present with the fact that I can’t solve everything, I can’t fix everything, but I can be here. And in that I can also help them with self-regulation, help them with excess energy and all that.

Expecting resistance

Pål-Esben: It’s quite remarkable when you go through a process of development. And we’re still talking about the very start of a process of development. What we’re talking about now is still the foundation, which you have created for yourself, so that the real spiritual, primordial shamanic process of development can happen, can begin. So we’re still talking about the foundation, which we also talked about in the two previous episodes. And the way I see it, we need to learn how to handle this. If you set out on a path of development where you actually change the way you think, the way you feel, the way you see things and the way you act, you have to expect the people around you to react negatively to it. Unfortunately, even though it’s a positive change you’re making.

I think we should say a little about how we handle this. Because whatever you do, whatever path of development you’re on, whether you study psychology, go to a coach, learn NLP or whatever it may be, you experience the same thing: you upgrade the way you think and feel, so that less suffering is created, and the people around you often react negatively to it. And there are many blunders you can make that make things even worse. Let’s say a few words about them.

The gratitude blunder: “What are you complaining about, Petra?”

Pål-Esben: I’ll take an example. You’ve become acquainted with the concept of gratitude, as many people have, and you’ve worked intensively on becoming grateful for what you have, and grateful for life itself: grateful that you perhaps have children, a partner, a house, a place to live and food. You’ve really worked your way through it and become a genuinely grateful person. That is, a person who sees the glass as half full instead of half empty. The challenge comes when you meet people who are very focused on what isn’t good: “Good grief, we have too little of this, and too little of that, and there’s war over there, and problems over there, and have you heard what he’s doing, have you heard what she’s doing?” For a person who is genuinely grateful, it is first of all very tiring to sit and listen to people moaning and complaining about a life that is actually better than what the vast majority on this planet have. There are 8 or 9 billion people in the world today, but those of us who are Norwegian live among the top 0.1 percent of them all. And still people moan and complain that things aren’t good.

When you have worked on gratitude and become very grateful for what you have, instead of moaning and complaining about what you don’t have, it feels very strange to find yourself among people who moan and complain. And the blunder is trying to push your insight onto them. Here’s an example: “Yes, but why are you moaning and complaining about that, Petra? Surely you can see that you have so much good in your life. You have children, you have a place to live, you have a job, and we’re better off than most people in the world. What are you complaining about, Petra? Can’t you start being grateful for what you have?” In the vast majority of cases that leads to an explosion: “Who do you think you are? How can you say something like that?” Have you perhaps experienced that yourself?

Amina: Yes, yes, absolutely.

Pål-Esben: It’s a blunder, let me call it a beginner’s blunder: trying to save the world around you with your new insights.

The cat story: when the insight exploded

Amina: Yes, I have to say something there, actually. I remember you had a seminar, or a video conference, about choice, about how we always have a choice in life. And I had gained a new insight: “Wow, of course, my goodness, I always have a choice!” I felt so empowered. Then I had a conversation with a friend who was really struggling because his ex was going to come over and feed the cat. It really got to him, and there were some other things in his life that were getting to him too, but he just had to put up with it; she had to feed the cat, because the cat liked this woman, and one thing and another. So I told him that he did have a choice: “You could let someone else feed your cat, and then you wouldn’t get wound up every time”, and the same for the other things. I came out with the new insights I had learned, all well and good. And he exploded, into a person I hardly recognised. That was when I had my biggest aha moment: “Whoa, OK, this applies here too.” You can’t expect everything of everyone, especially when you yourself have been on a path of development and are having these aha moments. That has been something I’ve had to work on: not guiding people from where I stand today. I have to remind myself that if someone had done that to me when I was in the thick of my own suffering a year or two ago, it wouldn’t have got through to me either. So yes, that was an interesting experience.

Compassion before preaching

Pål-Esben: I think this is also about a degree of compassion, and an understanding of human beings and the path they are on. When you begin to see things more clearly, have cleared away things that create limitation and suffering in life, and gain more and more insight into how to create a meaningful life in a practical way, then you have to be careful about trying to impose your insight on other people who haven’t asked for it. Because if you do, the people on the receiving end explode in almost every case, because they haven’t gone through the process of development you’ve been through. They are where you were two years ago, as you say. And then you can’t expect them to accept it when you say: “Of course you have a choice in everything.” You have a choice in what you do, in how you react, in how you think, in which feelings you let fill your life. You have a choice in absolutely everything. That’s where you are today, and it’s something you live out, at least 90 to 100 percent.

It’s difficult, because we are human. We’re monkeys, the whole lot of us, we’re primates, with an extended brain stem and a hormone system and fight-or-flight modes. I think it’s about dealing with the people around you in a respectful way. You have been through a profound process of development, and it hasn’t been easy. You’ve had to go many rounds with yourself, and had periods where you were perhaps a bit irritated with your guide: “How can you say I have a choice? Surely you understand that this is difficult, that this isn’t working, and then you say it’s a choice.” That can generate a bit of irritation. So when you deal with the world around you, you should be a little tuned in and empathetic, and see: they haven’t learned what I have learned. Why should I expect them to react like me?

Tell them about yourself, and wait for the question

Pål-Esben: This is how I do it in my life: when I notice people wallowing in their suffering, I can say a little about myself, a couple of my own experiences, just to give an idea of how I handle it. But I never make the mistake of trying to force it down other people’s throats. I only go further if they ask. I perhaps tell them a little about how I react to things, why I do it that way, and how my life feels in relation to what we’re discussing. And then I wait for a question. Because if they’re really interested in knowing what you’ve done to reach the insight you have, they will ask the question: “Amina, what have you actually done to get there? Before, you exploded about everything and suffered over everything that happened in your life that you didn’t like, whereas today you feel very balanced, whichever way the wind blows.” Only then can you go in and talk about this.

Because if the other person hears me say: “I’ve found a solution to this, I’ve found peace with this, I don’t react negatively to this, everything is fine”, and still doesn’t ask the question, then they have zero interest in hearing anything more from you about it. It means that they are unconsciously seeking the status quo: things should just stay as they are, and any change is a threat. And what do you do then? What do I do? Change the subject.

I’m an expert at changing the subject, because I see no reason to invite conflict and discord when I’m dealing with people. I can tell them about my own experiences, but I respect that: if they don’t want to know why and how, I don’t talk about it any more, because that’s pointless for me. The alternative is to talk about their suffering, and about how problematic politicians are, and Trump and all these things. Utterly uninteresting.

The news fast: choosing not to take in the noise

Pål-Esben: Take me, for example: as of today I haven’t watched the news or read a newspaper for two and a half years. When I meet someone, the question comes: “Don’t you watch the news? Don’t you keep up? Don’t you know what’s going on in the world?” “No, I don’t,” I say. If they don’t ask why, I still see no reason to continue the discussion about Trump and Putin and war here and suffering there. I don’t need it in my life. I don’t need to fill my life with this destructive input. What can I do about Trump? What can I do about Putin? What can I do about Erdogan? What can I do about the politicians, or about there being floods here and war there? I can’t do anything at all. So why should I take that input into my life continuously, day after day? I see no reason to, so I’ve made a choice not to.

And it shows in everything: in how the autonomic nervous system calms down, how the unconscious calms down. It can actually be measured, with heart rate variability and all that, how a person’s physiology and biochemistry change the day they stop taking in all this noise all day long. And when I then meet someone who asks me, “How can that be, don’t you watch the news, don’t you keep up?”, I say: “No, I don’t.” Instead of starting to discuss what they want to discuss, namely how bad Trump and Putin and co. are, which is pointless for me, I change the subject. And when they ask, “Why do you do that? I’m curious”, then I can go into the consequences, into why I made that choice.

Kofi Annan’s chief diplomat

Pål-Esben: I had been experimenting with these things for a long time. But the day I made the full choice not to watch a single news broadcast, not to read a newspaper, not to let any more of this noise into my life, came around two and a half years ago, when I read an article about Kofi Annan, who was Secretary-General of the UN some years ago. His chief diplomat, an Egyptian whose name I don’t remember, had been interviewed in Die Zeit, one of the biggest German newspapers. The journalist interviewing him assumed that he followed the news about what was happening in the region where he was to carry out his diplomacy to prevent war. Then he says: “I never watch the news. I never read the newspaper.” The journalist is shocked: “How can you, as one of the most important people on this planet for preventing war in vulnerable regions, not do that?” And his reason was this: nothing reported in the news is ever entirely correct. “And if I take in information that isn’t 100 percent correct, and base my behaviour, my decisions and my interactions on it, things go really badly.”

Then I thought: if a person like that, with a job like that, has made a choice not to read a single newspaper or watch a single news broadcast, why should I? Can you imagine what was going on inside me? And then I thought: “OK, let me make the full decision now.” Because at that time I thought I had to keep up for at least ten minutes a day and flick through the newspapers online, just to see what was happening. After that I stopped. Now it’s been two and a half years, and there’s something peaceful about it, I must say.

Then you might ask me: “So what’s it like, Pål-Esben? Don’t you know anything at all about what’s going on in the world? Do you live in a cave over there in Germany?” Of course I know what’s going on, because the big things filter through anyway: through your partner, or people you meet, or when you’re buying food in the shop and suddenly overhear a discussion. You know the basics. You know, now as we’re recording this, that there’s an election in the US soon. You know that Trump will probably win, you know that Putin still hasn’t finished the war in Ukraine, and you pick up that the Chinese are floating some balloons over the US. But those are distant things, and for me completely irrelevant, because I can’t do anything about them.

The ultimate blunder: preaching

Pål-Esben: And of course, when we sum up what I’m talking about here: when we meet people in this setting, it’s about telling them how you feel and think, but there’s a big difference between that and trying to force it down their throats and convince them. That’s where the blunder lies, and it’s the ultimate blunder on a path of development: trying to force things down people’s throats, trying to convert them and preach to them about how you yourself see and think and feel. It’s like a fanatical vegan, an aggressive, fanatical vegan. There’s no problem with veganism, but there’s a group of vegans who are aggressive fanatics. And when you meet one of them and say that you eat meat once a week, they explode: “You eat meat? What kind of person are you?” Then you get all this aggression. And that is, let me say, not quite the way to go. You need to be a little flexible and accept that other people are different, accept that other people see things in a different way. Make peace with it. That’s what I want to talk about here.

Amina: Yes, and that’s something I learned from you, which inspired me a lot quite early on: letting people be who they are, not forcing anything on them, even if you find your own truth. I think that has helped me in many more areas than I’m actually aware of, because I took it with me from quite early in my training with you. I may have my thoughts about, for example, only eating vegetarian from now on, but I don’t mind at all if someone next to me is enjoying their sausage. And even those who are enjoying their sausage go a bit: “Is it OK if I eat my sausage?” Of course, enjoy your sausage, have two! I don’t mind at all. I live my life the way I want, and other people live their lives the way they want, and then you can decide who you want to play with and who you don’t.

The story about my mum

Amina: And I thought what you brought up there was really good. Because at the beginning of my journey of development I was very caught up in that too. When my mum complained about her troubles and all the rest of it, I said: “Well, try doing it like this. Try doing it like this.” “No, that doesn’t work, because it’s terrible, and that’s terrible, and that’s terrible.” In the end I realised this was serving no purpose, so I stopped. Every time she said something was so bad and terrible, I offered compassion instead: “Yes, that doesn’t sound nice.” Then some time passed, and that actually brings us to this past summer, when things began to happen in her inner world. She got in touch and asked: “What do I do now?” Because she was in a period where everything she had done before no longer worked. There was something inside her crying out for something else. Then I told her a little about what I had done, how I had worked, and inspired her to work through her own issues. But by then I had an invitation to do so. And look how she has now managed to take in what I have said and advised: she has started getting help with her issues and is having big aha moments. That really was an invitation for me to come in.

When you no longer fit in

Amina: So I really find that it’s important not to force anything down people’s throats. And I think many people on a journey of self-development or a spiritual journey find that they don’t fit in with the crisps-and-cola crowd you talked about earlier. Then the question is: what do you actually do? For example, I had a group of people I spent a lot of time with, and there it was nothing but negativity. We only talked about whoever wasn’t there: “She’s put on weight”, and “Svein has divorced Turid”, and he did this, and she did that. And I felt: I don’t fit in here any more. I don’t even want to. Why should I sit and listen to that? Why should I be here? I hear that from several others on this journey of development too: what do you do then? Because you may be fond of these people, and at the same time you see that this is a toxic environment to be in. What do you do then?

Pål-Esben: It’s something most people experience when they walk a profound path of development back to a happy, meaningful and fulfilled life, where suffering no longer decides how you experience life. Everyone who walks such a path experiences these things. So the question is: how do you handle it? And I think one of the challenges when you walk a path of development like this is the danger of becoming lonely.

And that danger is real. Because in some circles, especially esoteric ones, you often hear that if people aren’t connected to their heart, you shouldn’t spend time with them, because they are destructive. You shouldn’t spend time with your friends any more, or your family; you should only be with people like you. But where that attitude ends up is that you often become very isolated and very alone. Especially if you depend on one particular circle, for example an esoteric circle, and have pushed away all your friends. Then suddenly something happens in the esoteric circle, with backbiting, freezing people out and all that, and suddenly you’re standing alone. You’ve said goodbye to your friends, perhaps not in a very good way, and you’ve created problems with pretty much everything around you. I don’t think that’s a good way of doing this.

The football pitches: being happy in more than one arena

Pål-Esben: I experienced this right at the start of my real process of development. It began as early as when I was 14, when I was trained by one of the best taekwondo masters and began to learn martial arts. But after my burnout, when I started the primordial shamanic process of development that we’re really discussing here, I began to learn these concepts. And I said to my teacher at the time that I found it pointless to sit with my mates drinking beer and talking nothing but rubbish, small talk and drivel. “I have nobody to talk to about deep things that I think are important.” Then he said: “If you carry on with that attitude, you’ll become a very lonely person. You expect that if you can’t talk about so-called deep things that interest you, you shouldn’t have anything to do with people.”

Then I was introduced to the concept of learning to play on different football pitches, of learning to be happy on different football pitches. It goes like this: we have different social settings in life, which we can call different football pitches. The different pitches have different social rules, different forms of social interaction and different ways of handling things. He said to me: “Your task is also to learn to be happy with your friends, even if you drink beer and talk rubbish.” There the social rules are like this: it’s the lads, and there aren’t exactly many lofty conversations going on. It’s mostly nonsense, but it’s very pleasant. If I go into that setting as one specific football pitch, with the social rules that apply there, I can also be happy together with these people who have been with me for many, many years.

Then there are other football pitches with my family, with other social rules and rules of interaction, and I need to learn to be happy with that too. And then we have football pitches for so-called spiritual people, where you can have profound conversations about spiritual experiences, interaction with metaphysical beings and so on. But that only fits on the football pitch where people have this form of social interaction with each other. So the whole concept, which I introduce to my students right at the start of their journey of development, is that this journey you’re setting out on isn’t about becoming alone and pushing away all the people you have in your life. This journey is about becoming happy. It’s about creating a meaningful life, and you won’t be able to experience meaning without people around you.

That doesn’t mean you have to bring along absolutely everyone you’ve had with you through life. If someone is very destructive and damaging and doesn’t respect your boundaries, then of course you may find less time for people like that, and more time for other people. But in general I’m very keen that you should still be able to get along peacefully with all kinds of people around you, and still be happy.

Changing the subject with a smile

Pål-Esben: And in your case, with your group of friends who talk a great deal about things you perhaps don’t feel good about: how do you handle that football pitch? Well, you can be a bit clever. Someone starts talking negatively about the woman who isn’t there and who has put on weight, and then you say: “Yes, that’s fascinating. But have you heard?” And you simply steer the subject away from the noise, without people noticing. Then you move into a more constructive conversation: “Have you checked it out? They’ve redone the shopping centre in such-and-such a place, have you seen the new shop?” That’s one football pitch we’re talking about there.

The hardest football pitch: at home

Pål-Esben: And then we come to the most challenging football pitch of all: home. Especially if you have a partner who is negative about you working on yourself, about you being in a process of change. How do you handle your family, and especially your partner? Now, I’m not very involved in the esoteric scene in Norway, but I’ve been part of the esoteric scene here in Germany, and in the US and other places too, so I basically know what goes on. It’s often said that if your partner doesn’t respect you, if your partner doesn’t agree with what you’re doing, if your partner doesn’t support you, then perhaps you ought to find yourself a new partner. To me that’s really dangerous stuff. If it happens rashly, you destroy something that may actually be very good. I’m more of a believer in appreciating your partner as long as he is supportive, or at least neutral about you doing your esoteric things or development things. If your partner says: “Yes, you go ahead with that, I’m not very interested in it, but you go ahead”, then that’s more than good enough.

But here too I find that students say: “My partner won’t come to a shamanic seminar with me. That’s so negative for me.” And then I say: “Come on! You’ve been with your partner in very specific settings and with specific rules of interaction. You met each other, and you have a life together. Why should you expect your partner to come to a shamanic seminar with you, as long as he respects that you do what you enjoy?” Do you see how you create so much unnecessary conflict? And other conflicts come from having been to a seminar and learned that you have a choice, and then you come home to your partner and force it down his throat, and unnecessary conflicts are created. And so it goes on and on. Unnecessarily.

The partner who didn’t want to hear about angels

Amina: Yes. I also talk to several people who have ended up in that situation: “I’ve learned this, and I talk about beings of light and angels and guides and gods, and he isn’t on board with it.” Then I encourage them to see it differently, which is something I learned from you, of course. Because in the past I might have thought that sometimes people go different ways in life; when you develop, perhaps you’re meant to fit with other kinds of people. But now I see it completely differently: still being able to do the things you’ve always liked doing together, continuing to cultivate the good things, instead of both of you having to share either everything or nothing. And that is, as you say, quite important. Because I think many people in spiritual development, or on this journey, can feel that they now have to replace everything and everyone in their life because they’re beginning to feel so different.

I felt that a lot myself in the beginning. One of the conversations we had during the first six months I knew you was about this, when I was thrown out of an esoteric group because I spoke my truth very clearly. Not in a bad way, but in a very clear way. That was when you started talking about these different football pitches, and it made a lot of sense to me. Because even if I’m here at home talking to guides and power animals and beings of light and going on my shamanic journeys, I can’t go to a parents’ evening at six o’clock tonight and start talking about this. That would be a disaster. So adapting to different places and people has been very important for me. I’ve felt very strongly that not everyone around me sees the world the same way I do, even in the esoteric scene. We’ve had some conversations about that, and I’ve found more peace with the fact that it’s fine. I’m a completely unique person with my own individuality, and nobody is ever going to be a 100 percent copy of how you think. So that’s very important.

Pål-Esben: It’s super important. Because there’s no reason why beginning such a profound development as the one we’re talking about, one that will change you as a person, should make you lonely and cost you your family. That’s pointless in my eyes. You need to learn how to interact in the different areas of life in a loving and peaceful way, and learn to understand the limitations and possibilities of how that interaction happens.

I’ll take another example. Some time ago I had a student who had started learning on her primordial shamanic path of development. She had been in a very happy relationship for many years, they had children, and they were doing very, very well. Then one day she comes to me and says she’s so frustrated, because her husband no longer wants to sit and listen to her talking about angels, beings of light, power animals and her shamanic experiences. He had put up with it for half a year. You can imagine: you’re sitting there with no relationship to these things, and then your partner comes home and talks your ear off every evening about something you’re not really interested in. He had put up with it for six months, and then he put his foot down: “You’ve changed. I’m not interested in you talking to me about these things. It’s OK that you do them, but I don’t want to sit and listen to this every evening.”

And she comes to me, in tears, completely distraught: “My husband doesn’t respect me, he doesn’t respect my needs. Now the whole relationship is falling apart, and maybe I’ll have to leave my husband.” And I say: “What are you saying? Are you mad? Leave your husband in peace with these things, and focus instead on all the good things you have together. You have kids, you have hobbies in common. Why can’t you cultivate that? Save the more esoteric things for me, or for your esoteric friends.” Because yes, this also needs to be said: those who go through a journey of development like the one we’re talking about need to have people to talk to. There you can talk about everything: angels, forces, shamanic journeys, whatever it may be, and experiences of how to handle personal development in everyday life. It’s an absolute must when you do this.

That’s why I connect my students with each other, so that they have groups where they talk with like-minded people, perhaps once a week or every other week. That’s absolutely necessary. But you don’t need your partner to be like-minded, even if you’re in an esoteric process of development. So she understood this, and thought that perhaps she should change things a bit. A week or two later I spoke to her again: “How’s it going now?” “That was liberating! Now I’m so happy again, the way it should be, and my husband is really happy too. Now he doesn’t have to get an earful of power animals and all sorts of things every evening. Now we talk about what we’re both interested in, and it’s so good. I feel so happy, and everything is good.”

Do you see the difference? The difference between chaos and suffering on the one hand, and peace, meaning and happiness on the other. With these things there’s often a fine line to walk, and you need to be taught how to handle it. Because if you don’t get this teaching, which we’ve only just touched on in this conversation, it unfortunately creates a great deal of limitation, and often a great deal of unnecessary suffering and loneliness in life. That, of course, is what we absolutely don’t want.

Motorbikes for three hours every evening

Amina: It would be like my partner coming home every day for six months and talking about motorbikes for three hours every evening. If you turn it around a bit: I wouldn’t have been very happy either. But the experiences you have through this process of development are so incredibly profound that you often can’t keep them in. You just have to go: “Wow, this happened, and this happened, and this experience!” But what matters is doing it in a constructive way: with whom and where and when you share things. Because if I were to share everything inside me with everyone around me, I might only have my cats, you and my fellow students left. That won’t do. And learning this is also very helpful in a process of development.

Pål-Esben: It’s absolutely necessary. Because what we can expect of our partner is that they respect that we have different interests from their own, and that they respect our freedom to pursue our own hobbies and our own path of development, something that makes us happy. That’s the least you can expect. The day your partner begins to run down what you’re doing, then we have a problem. But only then do we have a problem. Let’s take that example too: if you have a partner who is destructive and negative about something that makes you happy, you get this thrown at you all the time: “Why are we spending our money on this nonsense? This isn’t serious,” and all these things. It goes on continuously. And if the partner can’t respect the other, the break-up will come sooner or later.

One of two things happens. Either there’s a break-up after a certain time. Because the one who walks this path and feels very happy because they’re becoming freer and happier and gaining more insight into what reality is like, will be very hurt as this crap keeps coming, and it reaches a point where they can’t take any more. Then they have to get out of the relationship. The other is that the one who has gained more insight and a more joyful and happy life stops their process and goes back to the old status quo, back to normal limitation and suffering. One of the two. You need to be aware of that too.

That means: if you come home to your partner, and your partner is actively destructive towards you, you immediately need a conversation with your partner about respecting that you have different hobbies and interests. You don’t put up with your interests being run down; at the very least your partner has to learn to keep quiet and not voice any disparagement, because that is disrespect. That’s where disrespect comes in. Disrespect isn’t about not being interested in listening to shamanic things all the time because you don’t share the interest. That has nothing to do with disrespect. But this is disrespect: when we don’t respect that our partner has different interests, different opinions and different hobbies from ourselves. It’s the same as if you and your partner come home, and your partner loves motorbikes, and you say: “Are you messing about with those motorbikes again? It’s just nonsense. You spend all your money on them, and you hang out with those people, blah, blah, blah.” You get this constant running down. What happens then? It takes a certain amount of time before you say: “I’m not having that any more. Hasta la vista.”

An aha moment or a destructive relationship?

Amina: Yes, and that’s where the distinction lies. Because quite a few people, when they’re in a process of self-development or a spiritual process, can have aha moments like: “Whoa, I’m actually in a destructive relationship”, or “whoa, I’m actually in a violent relationship”, where they see the reality for what it is. And then it’s about finding the distinction: is it an aha moment? Is it something that keeps going? Am I in a relationship that keeps holding me back in my development? Or is this about the first thing we talked about here?

Pål-Esben: Yes, and that’s something you may need a bit of help to talk through, with a couples therapist, a coach, a guide or a teacher. I think that if you’re in a setting where one party is disrespectful towards you, it’s about many, many other things in that relationship. Because the way I see it, the foundation for the flame of the heart to be able to blossom in a relationship is, number one: respect. Disrespect gradually kills this flame of love, until there’s only a spark left, and then nothing. In the old days I also did couples therapy. Now I’m too old for it, I don’t do it any more, I’m turning 50, after all. My dear wife is a couples therapist; it’s quite a circus. But back when I did couples therapy, I thought: the first thing we have to talk about is what respect is. Because without a grasp of that, you can’t have this feeling of love together with someone.

All this can seem a bit strange, and it isn’t that easy to deal with, even when you’ve experienced it. So there’s no shame in seeking help. My idea here is de-escalation: trying everything we can to make it work. Instead of saying “oh, your partner is disrespectful towards you, you can’t stand for that, so now you have to leave the relationship”, which is destructive in itself, let’s rather look at how we find a solution, so that you can get along with each other in a good way. That’s my idea. I’m very much about de-escalation here, because finding a partner who really suits you isn’t that easy. If you’re going to give that up because your partner isn’t interested in your shamanic, esoteric things, we have a problem. So this needs to be handled with kid gloves. And of course we don’t want anyone to be in a destructive setting, because then we come to setting boundaries and all those things. But that’s a topic for another time.

Keeping your wits about you

Pål-Esben: What we want to do now, Amina, is give you, the listener, a few ideas. It’s important to keep your wits about you with these things, because nothing happens by itself without us actively taking part and steering it, and actively dealing with it. If you just slide into a process of development without being aware of these things, there are a great many bumps in the road ahead of you. And they are unnecessary bumps, which can be avoided right from the start by understanding what we’ve talked about now.

Amina: Yes, absolutely.

Pål-Esben: At least that’s how the two of us see it. You’re of course free to disagree with us, and we’re not looking for everyone to agree. But that’s our experience, Amina. And it’s an important foundation for having a happy, meaningful and joyful life. Without this it’s difficult. I don’t think we’re made to live alone in a cave in the Himalayas. I think we’re here to have a social field around us, and there isn’t one single social field that will satisfy every part of us. So we need to find several football pitches. At least it’s been helpful for me and for you, and for all the students I’ve introduced it to. And you’re probably introducing it to your own students now, Amina.

Amina: Yes, that’s going to be very exciting.

Pål-Esben: Do you have any wise closing words to round things off?

Amina: Yes, I’d like to inspire you to take stock of your own football pitches: how you can consciously step onto the different football pitches in your life in the time ahead, after listening to this episode. That can be very interesting and instructive.

Pål-Esben: Absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for staying with us all the way, dear listener. We really appreciate your feedback, and a five-star rating on Spotify helps our podcast reach more listeners. And thank you so much for being here with me, Amina. I really appreciate it.

Amina: Likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: Thank you for being with us, dear listener. I hope you’ll join us again in the next episode. And until then: have a truly wonderful day, evening, night or morning, wherever you are listening from. Take care.

Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. We hope Amina’s story has inspired you to explore your own journey of self-discovery and development. Remember that the path from suffering to self-realization can be demanding, but with courage, patience and support from a competent guide, mentor, teacher or therapist, almost anything is possible. We wish you all the best on your journey, and we’ll talk again in the next episode.