husband a cozy cottage in the
countryside good health financial ease a
nice job as an independent consultant
and even a beautiful one-year-old baby
boy and then one day I got up ready to
go to yet another clients and I just
collapsed I collapsed into the sofa and
I started to cry and I could not stop
anymore nobody understood I didn’t
understand my husband didn’t understand
the doctor didn’t understand so what was
wrong with me I started searching I got
a lot of advice drink bedtime tea do
yoga do breathing exercises take
sleeping pills and do psychotherapy well
I tried almost everything but it didn’t
help one and a half years earlier I was
five months pregnant
on a Friday my husband told me that he
had lost his job and from that moment on
I started suffering from insomnia after
yet another sleepless night I was
desperate there were days where I could
hardly do more than just lie in a chair
and I had my baby boy how could I give
him all the attention and the love that
I wanted to give him now he is a
wonderful young man of 24 years old and
it’s very touching for me that he’s here
so I was completely exhausted and burnt
out and nothing seemed to help the
doctor told me just let your baby cry
he’s big enough he’s three months old
now he can cry through the night and
then you will sleep so was that going to
make it better no that just made it
worse again because now my husband and I
would be lying in bed completely
stressed out desperately listening to
our baby desperately crying so there
seemed to be no solution I kept on
searching and in the end I did find
something in the meantime we were
blessed with our beautiful daughter Lana
but we did not let her cry six years it
took me four years actually to get back
on my feet again after the day I
collapsed and six years after the day I
collapsed my first book was published
and I’m so happy to say that last year
it saw its 25th printing four more books
were to follow published in several
languages and there are now seventy
therapists assisting those that need
more help than the books can offer so I
can’t say how grateful and humbled I am
to see that my suffering bore fruit and
has been of help to so many now what did
I what did I find I kept on searching
and the first thing that I found
actually was that I was sure not the
only one suffering the World Health
Organization research shows that in the
last year approximately 30% of all
Europeans will have been suffering from
mental emotional disease 30 almost 30
percent that’s not counting people over
65 if we would add those and we would
add people suffering from burnout I
imagine the figures would
more or less 50% and that’s not counting
all the people suffering from physical
disease so that’s enormous what is going
on we have all these research
institutions state of the arts we are
putting billions of dollars into them
more research we have all the medical
help all the evidence-based
psychotherapies
all the wise men and women and their
wise books but still we are so sick
what’s going on I kept on searching in
my second discovery was that the mental
and emotional suffering but also the
physical diseases are linked directly to
childhood suffering and a very big
discovery for me was that even what we
call a so-called
normal childhood caries trauma for a
small child it’s imprinted in our brains
and in our bodies it’s normal it’s so
prevalent
we all carry old pain pain from our
childhood just imagine being a small
baby being completely dependent on your
caregivers who are not fulfilling your
needs and there’s no way that you can
tell them you also can’t get out of the
situation and go elsewhere to get your
needs fulfilled you can’t fulfill your
own needs and the worst of all you have
no time perspective making the
experience feel as if it will be like
that forever this makes the experience
that we might think is normal letting a
baby cry or yelling at a child being
irritated with a child these normal
things they actually give a small child
overwhelming pain and this is something
we all carry in our
system so small children are completely
at the mercy of their parents no matter
how much parents usually love their
child like my parents did and like I did
well dr. Guevara mati the retired
physician with whom I’m happy to
collaborate and whose states that we do
not need a stitch more research it’s
that simple there is an overwhelming
body of research showing that early pain
is at the basis of mental emotional and
physical suffering however it seems that
many healthcare professionals have an
emotional bloc against this information
because opening up would mean having to
confront the childhood pain trauma and
suffering of their patients as well as
their own so what can we do if we all
carry trauma then where where is it
well it’s neatly stored in our emotional
brain it’s all up there and is that then
the real solution to just go back and
feel all this old pain no I don’t think
that that’s the real solution and that
brings me maybe to my most important the
third discovery is that life in the
first few years programs each one of us
and it’s like putting on a pair of
glasses and from that moment on we will
perceive the present the way it was when
we were very small children and not the
way it is now so imagine if I grew up in
a family with violence and hostility I
will see
and expect to see a violent and hostile
world even if it’s not there now this is
important even if it’s not there I will
be seeing through these glasses so if my
neighbor doesn’t greet me in the morning
it might well become an unintentionally
hostile act he doesn’t like me and he
wants to show me or if as a child I grew
up in a family where I was neglected or
maybe even abandoned I will grow up to
be an adult who will see a cold and
indifferent world not caring for me and
no matter how much love there might be
around me somewhere inside I will keep
on feeling that something is missing we
all know the tragic story of Robin
Williams loved by everybody but feeling
so alone inside that he had to take his
own life so we see what we expect to see
even if it’s not there and we will react
to what we perceive and in that way we
will install a vicious circle so without
knowing it we keep on seeing the world
and reacting to it the way it was when
we were very small children and that’s
what makes us sick so real true healing
is not just about feeling on pain but
it’s about discovering that we are
wearing these glasses and taking them
off so that we can stop reacting as if
we are in the past now I can talk about
PRI past reality integration the method
I created I can talk about it forever
but I think the best way to explain it
to you is to give you a first-hand
experience so let’s give it a try are
you ready yes oh
take a few deep breaths and then go back
today or yesterday in search for just
some normal situation but that was
somehow unpleasant for you and once you
found this normal situation yet
wonderful then zoom in on this situation
and try to find the detail of the
situation which was most unpleasant for
you usually it’s something that you see
or something that you hear so it could
be a tone of voice it could be
particular words maybe it’s a look maybe
it’s a gesture trying to scan the
situation or the person and see the
detail which is most upsetting to you
and once you’ve found it please raise
okay then zoom in even further on this
detail imagine the detail becoming
bigger and bigger while at the same time
you imagine yourself your body becoming
smaller and smaller and then ask
yourself the question which message do I
feel coming towards me from this detail
so now this is not about the present
this is not about your rational mind
allow your emotions to speak so
exaggerated make it worse make it bigger
and put it in the words of a small child
for example what are you doing here
or I can’t stand you or get out of here
so try to feel inside only you can feel
what is the message that seems to be
coming towards me from this detail and
please raise your hands once you’ve
okay and then lastly ask yourself what
was my reaction in the situation did I
start to become anxious did I start to
feel inferior did I start to become
irritated angry or judgmental
did I starts becoming stressed and
trying to please the other person or did
I just shrug it off as if it was not
important and then please once you’ve
found your reaction open your eyes and
okay and then when you open your eyes
please take a few deep breaths to be
back here so now you have a small taste
of what your glasses look like first of
all the normal yet unpleasant daily
situation somehow reflects something
about your repressed and denied pain
from your childhood which activated your
defenses in order not to feel that
repressed pain that’s stored in your
emotional brain the message that you
felt coming towards you
echoes something about the way that you
were treated as a small child and your
reaction shows you which defense mode
was activated actually it’s like a
survival mode that you go into without
knowing it and once we’re in survival
mode we will see the present the way it
was when we were very small children so
knowing these five defenses and how and
why they are activated by a normal
everyday situation and then knowing that
behind these defenses actually is pain
that you needed to repress as a small
child because remember the pain of this
small child we were was overwhelming
knowing all of this then enables you to
come back into the present as the adult
you are instead of living in the past in
the survival mode of the small child you
were so pure I can give you the concrete
tools to do this now I’d like to share a
few examples with you of how this works
out in daily life people that recognize
their glasses were able to take them off
and access the pain and come back into
the present one of my clients was a
woman who had been suffering from a
phobia of driving for 20 years we found
out that
what her fear was really about was being
hit from the back by another car then we
found out that as a small child
two-year-old child she would be sitting
playing on the floor and her father
frustrated angry because he had lost job
sometimes would come up from the back
and actually kick her while she was
sitting there playing her mother in the
kitchen too afraid of her aggressive
husband wouldn’t do anything and just
left the child now imagine the link
between her fear and her old pain was so
direct I mean it’s the exact link now
this woman drives around everywhere
happily even after her worst nightmare
came true and she was hit by a truck
imagine from behind she managed to stay
calm throughout the whole ordeal and no
fear came back another example is that
of a 65 year old man who had been taking
a cocktail of different antidepressants
for 15 years because he was unable to
connect emotionally to others he was
feeling no joy he was feeling numbed and
especially with his children he was not
able to have a good relationship he
found out that as a child emotional
connection was really lacking because
first of all his mother died when he was
only six then his father started
struggling with alcoholism then he was
dumped with an aunt who felt obliged to
take care of him but who didn’t really
want to and now he is able to live
without pills completely he’s able to
feel joy again and he is able to connect
to his children emotionally and to
others in general and standing here in
front of you is a woman who used to
suffer from a fear of speaking in public
that was enormous I would have rather
died
then stand here tonight I discovered
that behind my fear was childhood
rejection and now public speaking is
part of my life so during my burnout
I was not suffering from some mysterious
physical disease nor from some chemical
imbalance in my brain nor from some
genetic predisposition what had happened
was that my husband’s losing his job had
actually touched upon all pain of the
small and helpless child that I was
without me realizing it and my babies
crying had awakened directly the old
pain of myself crying as a small baby so
the two events without me realizing it
had touched my own old trauma from the
child I was activating my defenses
putting me in survival mode and thus in
total stress now what would have
happened if back then I would have met
someone who would have said you know in
a war what what’s happening what do you
perceive when now that your husband is
out of work and what do you perceive
when you hear your baby crying in a work
do you know that there is a direct link
between your perception and something
that you experienced as a small child
putting you into survival mode and thus
in total stress and that’s the reason
why you can’t sleep and something can be
done about that if I would have known
that those two events have put me in
survival mode perceiving the present
through the glasses of my childhood how
much suffering
how much disconnection from myself and
others with such vast consequences could
have been prevented now you can do this
you can take off your glasses you can
get out of
you can live in the present and
ascetically connect to yourself and to
others imagine the difference this could
make for the world that we live in thank
you very much
[Applause] [Music]