Podcast Interview with Carol the Coach (aired September 21, 2020)
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Carol Juergensen Sheets
(Sex Help with Carol The Coach) ...and get ready for a fascinating show because holistic recovery, actually embraces recovery by looking at it from all different perspectives. So Patrick, welcome to Sex Help with Carol the Coach, how are you? Patrick Hentsch Thank you. I'm very well thank you and yourself? Carol Juergensen Sheets I am also doing well. We are airing at a different time than when we're going to be playing this, our audience is going to hear this on October 19 and, you know, I saw what you were offering our listeners, in regards to emotional maturity and I was so excited about it because that's what I think recovery is really all about. Once the triggers are calm, then it's about developing into the highest level human being we can so can you tell us a little bit about emotional maturity and how did you get on this road of figuring all this out. Patrick Hentsch Absolutely, yes so this is really the fruit of my own journey so I myself am a recovering addict. And my journey was long and arduous, I won't lie, and I went through many institutions, so I sometimes jokingly say that my education and rehab was as expensive but much more valuable than my Ivy League education. And that's really what led me to become a counselor. Carol Juergensen Sheets You're a counselor that, my goodness you're like an engineer or an architect I mean you've really created a lot of interest in your life haven't you? Patrick Hentsch Yes. And that's right, my background is in architecture, graphic design and I think I've blended that, it's not something I left behind completely once I got into recovery. And it kind of shows up in my work as you may have seen because a lot of my conceptualizations and models end up being diagrams, graphic, and in a sense, architectural, structural. So, I think it certainly informs the way I approach counseling as well, and recovery. Carol Juergensen Sheets Yeah. So, if you would, you have a website that talks about all the different ways one can increase their emotional maturity. So would you share with our listening audience a little bit about that journey, specifically. Patrick Hentsch Sure, yes you're absolutely right. You know, I think recovery sometimes gets shortchanged and I really want to stress that in the early stages, even though so much focus goes into addressing the addiction, which usually begins with addressing all the negative consequences, the powerlessness the unmanageable behaviors, and so forth, and a lot of effort goes into how do we stop this, how do we abstain from these behaviors, but the truth is recovery is so much more. And as you said it really is, in the end, about achieving our human potential that I believe we all have. And so from that perspective, I think we can look at addiction as a huge obstacle or barrier that separates us from our own potential, so the emotional maturity piece, I think, has to do with... well, first I think—this may be oversimplification—but I think we can fairly say that addiction exists in the first place because experiencing being alive is in fact very difficult, very overwhelming. |
I think we can look at addiction as a huge obstacle or barrier that separates us from our own potential... Addiction exists in the first place because experiencing being alive is in fact very overwhelming... We come into life ill-equipped with how to experience our own emotions as anything other than inconvenient intrusions... There are so many other ways that we humans know how to numb or avoid emotions and that we routinely engage in... We can't just selectively shut down certain emotions and not others... As comforting as it may be to avoid certain emotions, we start to notice that we don't feel very alive... |
I ask myself when in my life have I ever truly known with certainty that I would have health, employment, living relatives and friends, enough money, or any other form of security, including being alive, when the sun rises again. The answer is: never.
What I am grieving in the current situation is the huge loss and reduction in the illusions of safety and stability that we construct collectively and individually to make daily life existentially more manageable. I am consciously recognizing and grieving those losses. I am also considering that I have an opportunity now to consciously examine how I have or haven’t faced the uncertain nature of my own existence. That truth is not new, it is simply coming into unavoidable view for those of us who have grown dependent on the illusions of stability, predictability, and security to function.
I am exploring how I distinguish between optimism and oblivion; faith and denial; caution and paranoia, in the face of so many unknowns. It is a good time to practice the “Serenity Prayer”: having the courage to do the things I can do (for self care), and having the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and having the wisdom to know the difference.
I remind myself to devote as much time to acknowledging and processing my emotions with people I am close to, as to kicking into precautionary action. I try to notice whether I react or respond. I reflect to bring the values I am protecting through my behaviors into conscious view. I have the opportunity to distinguish between my authentic values and my ego-adaptive values. It is a good time to get back in touch with my personal essentials, while so much is being stripped away.
I ask myself if I can remember how often I secretly wished getting a break from the fast-turning treadmill of my life. That time has been forced upon most of us. What are those ways in which I thought I would spend my energy if/when I got that “break”? Am I doing it, or am I letting the few remaining collective distractions (worrying and compulsive data-consumption) consume my vitality instead?
Without minimizing or dismissing the gravity of the losses and the chaos of this pandemic, I remind myself that I have never lived in a world in which I have not been surrounded by loss and chaos on a massive scale at any time. It has always served me well to know how to thrive in a fundamentally ambivalent environment: one in which I must find my own dynamic balance between closing down to avoid harm and opening up to receive nourishment.
As a culture we are experiencing withdrawal symptoms from busy-ness, entertainment, distraction, externally-generated meaning & purpose, “growth & progress”, and the illusions of security that shielded me from facing the question: how do I find my own dynamic balance between closing down to avoid harm and opening up to receive nourishment.
Meanwhile our host planet is also receiving the unexpected gift of detoxification: she has been repairing and renewing her ecosystems while getting a bigger break from carbon trails across our skies, oceans and lands than we have ever found ourselves capable of affording her in our compulsively productive frenzy. Our descendants will surely enjoy unexpected gains from this gift.
In the dangerous, inconvenient, and very uncomfortable voids that have opened up, I have a chance to reflect on how I intend to shape my life and my world, both personally and collectively, when we are done lying fallow. If I choose reflection and intentional creativity over powerless anguish and anxiety, how much do I really want everything to pick back up where we left off?
As in every crisis, there is the possibility of revolution. Since this is a big crisis, the revolution can be correspondingly deep.
I ask myself, “Have you been wanting personal revolution? Have you dreamed of societal revolution? Have you had a vision of a healthier world? Your world? If so, you can choose to make this the moment for it. Dangerous, inconvenient, uncomfortable, but why not also exciting and life-giving?”
What I am grieving in the current situation is the huge loss and reduction in the illusions of safety and stability that we construct collectively and individually to make daily life existentially more manageable. I am consciously recognizing and grieving those losses. I am also considering that I have an opportunity now to consciously examine how I have or haven’t faced the uncertain nature of my own existence. That truth is not new, it is simply coming into unavoidable view for those of us who have grown dependent on the illusions of stability, predictability, and security to function.
I am exploring how I distinguish between optimism and oblivion; faith and denial; caution and paranoia, in the face of so many unknowns. It is a good time to practice the “Serenity Prayer”: having the courage to do the things I can do (for self care), and having the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and having the wisdom to know the difference.
I remind myself to devote as much time to acknowledging and processing my emotions with people I am close to, as to kicking into precautionary action. I try to notice whether I react or respond. I reflect to bring the values I am protecting through my behaviors into conscious view. I have the opportunity to distinguish between my authentic values and my ego-adaptive values. It is a good time to get back in touch with my personal essentials, while so much is being stripped away.
I ask myself if I can remember how often I secretly wished getting a break from the fast-turning treadmill of my life. That time has been forced upon most of us. What are those ways in which I thought I would spend my energy if/when I got that “break”? Am I doing it, or am I letting the few remaining collective distractions (worrying and compulsive data-consumption) consume my vitality instead?
Without minimizing or dismissing the gravity of the losses and the chaos of this pandemic, I remind myself that I have never lived in a world in which I have not been surrounded by loss and chaos on a massive scale at any time. It has always served me well to know how to thrive in a fundamentally ambivalent environment: one in which I must find my own dynamic balance between closing down to avoid harm and opening up to receive nourishment.
As a culture we are experiencing withdrawal symptoms from busy-ness, entertainment, distraction, externally-generated meaning & purpose, “growth & progress”, and the illusions of security that shielded me from facing the question: how do I find my own dynamic balance between closing down to avoid harm and opening up to receive nourishment.
Meanwhile our host planet is also receiving the unexpected gift of detoxification: she has been repairing and renewing her ecosystems while getting a bigger break from carbon trails across our skies, oceans and lands than we have ever found ourselves capable of affording her in our compulsively productive frenzy. Our descendants will surely enjoy unexpected gains from this gift.
In the dangerous, inconvenient, and very uncomfortable voids that have opened up, I have a chance to reflect on how I intend to shape my life and my world, both personally and collectively, when we are done lying fallow. If I choose reflection and intentional creativity over powerless anguish and anxiety, how much do I really want everything to pick back up where we left off?
As in every crisis, there is the possibility of revolution. Since this is a big crisis, the revolution can be correspondingly deep.
I ask myself, “Have you been wanting personal revolution? Have you dreamed of societal revolution? Have you had a vision of a healthier world? Your world? If so, you can choose to make this the moment for it. Dangerous, inconvenient, uncomfortable, but why not also exciting and life-giving?”
RSS Feed | Whether addict or partner, we are all in the same boat when it comes to issues of trust and discernment. We’ve all grown up accustomed to being gaslighted. Recovery means recovering the ability to trust our own experience—with a huge caveat: this is one of the greatest selling-points for sobriety. There’s not much effectiveness in trusting our own experience when we are gaslighting ourselves, which is what we’ve learned to do as addicts and/or co-dependents. So as harsh as it may sound, we earn the gift of trusting our own judgment through abstinence and sobriety. That alone should be motivation for all of us to get and stay sober. Without clarity of thought and feeling, life is a terrifying mind-screw; a labyrinth of mirrors of who and what to trust. This is very tricky since part of self-deception is the faulty belief that my own thoughts and feelings are clear. That is what makes isolation so dangerous, and healthy confrontation with consensual reality so important. And yet if I end up in a cult-like environment, I can be gaslighted by the consensus reality of the culture. But we might take note that in cults, there is always a singular “master”—with servile disciples—who has the last word on what is right or wrong, true or false, healthy or unhealthy. What makes cults so alluring (after all, they’ve persisted for centuries), is the false illusion of certainty: at least my guru knows the truth and I can rely on it to avoid the terrifying prospect of self-doubt. And yet moderate self-doubt is the only empowered way to face life with the possibility of growth. We only grow when we discover that what we thought was true is not accurate or complete enough. Think about it. If everything I think is accurate and complete, I can either love the life I’m experiencing, or not. If I don’t, I’m in trouble. Nothing will ever get better. So I may as well self-medicate while I wait for it to end. Most of us are looking to experience our own lives in a way that we love. We call that “happiness”. If you honestly love how you’re experiencing your life (which is completely different from loving what happens to you in your life), then I would say you have reached the higher levels of living in recovery. In my opinion, not possible without sobriety supporting it, and in turn abstinence from escaping experiences supporting the sobriety. The ultimate abstinence is not about not doing this or not doing that... As we know, there are infinite ways to evade the experiences we don’t want to experience. It is abstaining from any effort to make something that is real go away. What are you experiencing today to which you say “I wish it were not so”? |  By Trailer screenshot - Gaslight trailer Recovery means recovering the ability to trust our own experience. We earn the gift of trusting our own judgment through abstinence and sobriety. What makes cults so alluring is the false illusion of certainty. We grow when we discover that what we thought was true is not accurate or complete. The ultimate abstinence is to abstain from any effort to make something that is real go away. |
Patrick Hentsch
Founder of Empowered Maturity™
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