I've Coached 1000s of People. They All Avoid the Same Thing

0:00 It's really rare in a movie for you to be able to see a coaching

0:03 or therapy scene that is done really well

0:05 that actually captures that moment of transformation for somebody.

0:09 And this scene in Goodwill Hunting is

0:11 absolutely one of my favorite scenes in any

0:13 movie that I've ever seen that really shows

0:16 what that moment of transformation can be like.

0:18 What is that?

0:20 This is your file.

0:22 I have to send it back to the judge for evaluation.

0:24 Oh.

0:27 You're not going to fail me, are you?

0:31 Right away, you you get something that's brilliant.

0:33 He says you're not going to fail me.

0:35 He smiles.

0:37 And the therapist looks down, continues to look down, but doesn't answer him.

0:42 It's already showing you that somewhere in their relationship they've

0:45 already created some level of trust for this moment to happen.

0:48 What's it say?

0:52 I don't want to read it.

0:53 Why?

0:57 Again, he's building trust as a therapist.

0:59 He won't see this file, right?

1:00 This is the He has to say something to the courts.

1:03 He's obviously here because of a court situation.

1:06 It wasn't something that he picked to be in therapy.

1:09 That moment is again a trust-building

1:11 moment between the therapist and the patient.

1:14 But the second thing that is occurring

1:16 there is immediately the patient's like, "No,

1:19 I I don't want to see that." I don't like did not say, "Yeah,

1:22 let me see it." He's like,

1:23 "Why?" Which tells you that there's something in his past that he

1:27 does not want to look at, which means he has shame.

1:30 So, if we don't want to look at something as humans,

1:32 it means that there's a shame that we have in our system.

1:34 And every time we think about that thing,

1:36 that shame arises and we don't want to think about it.

1:39 That's exactly where our healing is.

1:41 That's exactly the thing to pay pay attention to.

1:44 But he doesn't want to and and this therapist

1:48 in a trust-building exercise isn't like,

1:50 "Okay, no, you have to read it." He's not pushing anything.

1:53 Have you had any uh experience with that?

1:56 20 years of counseling.

1:57 yeah, I've seen some pretty awful[ __] How many have you heard any?

2:02 Experience with that?

2:07 Personally?

2:10 Yeah.

2:11 Yeah, I have.

2:14 Sure ain't good.

2:15 So, there's that hesitation with the therapist at that moment.

2:18 Am I going to share this experience?

2:20 Am I going to share this background?

2:22 So, clearly anybody who's had that experience of getting hit

2:26 like that is going to have a combative relationship with love.

2:29 They're going to have some sort of combative situation going on.

2:32 And so, any exposure that the therapist and or coach would give in that moment,

2:38 there you should assume that there's going to be some way

2:40 in which that person is going to use that if they feel exposed,

2:44 if they feel loved particularly because if love came with abuse,

2:48 when they start to love,

2:49 they're going to go towards abuse because it's what's wired in them.

2:54 And so, he really thinks about whether he's going to share

2:56 this information because at some point it may be used against him.

3:00 He clearly goes for it, which means at this point he's going to go for it.

3:05 Like you can tell right there,

3:06 if a therapist has made a coach has made a choice like that, he's going to go

3:10 all in and that means that there again

3:12 has been some level of trust that's been created.

3:16 My father was an alcoholic.

3:18 Mean[ __] drunk.

3:22 He'd come home hammered looking to wail on somebody.

3:25 So, I'd provoke him so he wouldn't go after my mother and little brother.

3:31 Interesting nights were when he wore his rings.

3:35 Uh he used to just put a um a wrench, a stick,

3:39 and a belt on the table and just say,

3:42 "Choose." I got to go with the belt, Davian.

3:46 I used to go with the wrench.

3:48 Why the wrench?

3:50 Cuz[ __] him, that's why.

3:52 You're forced to fight.

3:53 Yeah.

3:54 Okay.

3:55 That is a great moment.

3:57 I picked the wrench cuz[ __] him.

3:58 So, what he's telling you here is that he has learned to endure pain.

4:02 And that pattern we call the endurer pattern.

4:05 And that pattern is that I can't enjoy life,

4:08 that I have to fight for everything,

4:11 that I um will endure whatever you throw at me.

4:15 You can't You can't break me because that was

4:19 the only place that he got a sense of self.

4:21 Right?

4:22 So, if you are a person who feels like you know,

4:26 you're constantly being smothered or beaten and the only way

4:29 that you can get a sense of yourself is to resist,

4:32 then that's the relationship that you start having

4:35 with not only the person but with life in general.

4:39 So, there's a way in which everything that you have

4:42 or get has to come with some sort of fight, with some sort of resistance.

4:46 And then it's like a person who's kind

4:48 of digging his heels in against love, against life.

4:53 And so, clearly if he's announcing that, if he's

4:57 saying that, and and you can see what I

5:00 would be doing is that like there's that like

5:02 little bit of a smile and and the therapist here,

5:06 it's like it's like, oh yeah, I know.

5:09 I know I've been on the other side of you picking the wrench, right?

5:12 [laughter] I know that you've been you are going

5:15 to endure and you're going to try everything you

5:18 can to make it so that I get upset with you so that you have to endure me, too.

5:23 And and if you know the movie, he's even enduring the entire relationship.

5:28 So, uh you know, what is it like Will has an attachment disorder?

5:32 Is it all that stuff?

5:35 Fear of abandonment?

5:38 Is that why uh Is that why I broke up with Skylar?

5:41 I didn't know you had.

5:43 I did.

5:44 You want to talk about it?

5:46 No.

5:46 Okay.

5:47 He is so pissed at himself in this moment.

5:49 Like he gave a whole bunch of body language clues to show that he's upset.

5:54 He's upset with himself.

5:56 He's beating himself up.

5:57 So he's repeating the pattern of abuse by having self-abuse.

6:03 Again, he couldn't take the love because it was an endurance.

6:07 Uh, like love was something to be endured and this was too good.

6:10 And so that happens a lot for people who have any kind of abuse in their life,

6:15 whether that's critical mental abuse, emotional abuse.

6:18 But if they get love that's too good, they can't accept it.

6:21 It makes them feel very un- uncomfortable.

6:25 And it's all because they feel like subconsciously they they don't deserve it.

6:29 There's a lot of shame going on.

6:31 And shame is anger turned inwards.

6:34 And here you can actually see him in his facial expression.

6:37 He's angry.

6:37 He's angry at himself.

6:38 He's angry at the world.

6:40 And that's the way that he got to be himself when he had to pick wrench,

6:45 stick, or or uh or belt.

6:54 I will.

6:54 [clears throat] I don't know a lot.

7:00 You see this?

7:02 Holy[ __] This is not your fault.

7:12 Yeah, I know.

7:15 Look at me, son.

7:18 It's not your fault.

7:20 I know.

7:23 So what he What's happening right now is this is the moment that I love.

7:28 The therapist sees that he is not actually letting that[ __] in.

7:31 We call this speed bumping.

7:33 Yep, I got it.

7:33 Yeah, I know.

7:34 Blah blah blah blah.

7:36 And he's addressing the shame that's directly happening, right?

7:39 This This angry at himself.

7:42 He's He's pissed at himself for breaking up

7:44 with a woman who he obviously deeply cares about.

7:48 He's And this guy is saying,

7:50 "It's not your fault." He's like, "Yeah, yeah, I got it.

7:53 Like, I know your language.

7:54 I know your therapy speak.

7:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah." But he keeps like like the therapist here

7:59 is just keeping his heart open and just keeps on repeating it.

8:03 Which of course is going to bring out what he knows love to be.

8:07 He's going to get this just direct bam of love and he's going

8:10 to respond to it the way that he has been taught to respond to love.

8:14 Let's see what goes on.

8:19 I know.

8:19 No, no, you don't.

8:21 It's not your fault.

8:25 I know.

8:26 It's not your fault.

8:27 All right.

8:28 It's not your fault.

8:33 It's not your fault.

8:35 Don't[ __] with me.

8:40 It's not your fault.

8:41 Don't[ __] with me, all right?

8:43 Don't[ __] with me, Sean, not you.

8:44 It's not your fault.

8:54 [snorts] It's not your fault.

9:00 [laughter] [laughter] [laughter] [clears throat] [laughter]

9:24 So this moment, right?

9:25 He does exactly what he learnt love to be.

9:30 The anger moves outwards.

9:31 He literally hits the therapist.

9:33 The therapist does not change.

9:37 Does it keeps the open heart and and this is what cracks him in.

9:41 And that's the whole journey of the person who is

9:44 in that endurance pattern is that they're enduring the pain,

9:48 they're not feeling the pain.

9:50 And as soon as he met that moment of okay, nope,

9:54 we're going to like see through that shame,

9:56 we're going to see through that anger.

9:59 Cuz all of that is just there to protect him

10:01 from feeling the pain that he never allowed himself to feel.

10:04 Right?

10:06 So if the dad was like whacking him with a with a a wrench,

10:11 he was like that doesn't hurt.

10:12 Yeah, so[ __] him, I don't care.

10:13 I'll take the wrench, I won't take the[ __] you, you can't hurt me.

10:17 And so he was literally learning not to feel the pain,

10:20 but then all life became pain.

10:22 It just all became endurance.

10:25 And when you go through that pattern, often times anger is a great way to move

10:29 through that pattern into the sadness that's really there underneath,

10:33 actually feeling the pain that you couldn't feel as a kid.

10:36 Because if you did feel it as a kid,

10:38 then it would just be like complete devastation.

10:41 Who is there to take care of you?

10:43 How are you going to maintain your sense of self?

10:45 You're just going to be completely lost.

10:47 [music] And so that's the moment,

10:49 that's like the transformational moment for somebody who's

10:52 in that deep endurance pattern is to actually feel

10:55 [music] the pain that they were never allowed

10:57 to feel or they never allowed themselves to feel.

10:59 They just endured over and over again.