TDC_21: the secret sauce to awakening? paradox.

There are some episodes that meet you where you are. This is not one of those. This episode is for those standing at the threshold where healing is no longer purely about “symptom relief” and starts becoming a deeper confrontation with reality itself. If you’re beginning to sense that “the work” isn’t as simple as a life-long unpacking of what happened to you, but instead a process of becoming the kind of psyche that can hold complexity without shutting down, this conversation will have arrived right on time. We’ll spend this entire episode talking about Paradox as a living structure within the mind. Drawing from the work of Elaine Pagels, we’ll explore how the confrontation with polar opposites (sanity and madness, suffering and meaning, spiritual sovereignty and communal longing, control and surrender) drives the intellect into exhaustion and invites a different kind of knowing. And I believe that it is this exact kind of knowing that leads to spiritual and emotional growth that leads to what we call “awakening,” This is the lived experience of anyone trying to walk the long and painful path from fragmentation to wholeness.We also explore the archetypal tensions inside many of you. The Rebel Mystic who trusts intuition but distrusts systems, the Exile who craves belonging but resists conformity, the Alchemist who transforms pain while secretly fearing they’re beyond repair. Often we treat these tensions like problems to fix instead of what they really are: the terrain of psychological maturity. And learning to hold them without forcing resolution may be the most advanced spiritual work of all.This episode will not be for everyone. Some will hear it and feel nothing. Others will feel recognized in a way that changes how they see themselves forever. If you’re in the latter group, you’ll know. For those with ears to hear, this is the one you might return to again and again. You won’t find answers, but you will find the rare permission to live inside the questions. That’s the secret sauce. To unlock the full version of this conversation, visit patreon.com/backfromtheborderline using your browser and search the title of the episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Om Podcasten

I don’t want to talk to your personality; I want to talk to your soul. Imagine if your most painful and debilitating mental health symptoms and self-sabotaging behaviors aren’t evidence of 'disorder' or 'dysfunction', but adaptive strategies that once kept you safe. My goal is to help you shift from asking ‘What’s wrong with me?’ to ‘What happened to me?’The word ‘borderline’ in this podcast has nothing to do with psychiatric labels. It has everything to do with coming back from the inner psychological brink we all experience. Everyone has found themselves on the edge, in that liminal space where the old self falls apart and the new Self emerges. Here, we explore what it means to undergo true emotional alchemy: that ancient and primordial process of falling apart, confronting the underworld of our psyche, and falling back together into someone stronger, wiser, and more whole.Many highly sensitive people who identify with the seemingly never-ending list of diagnostic mental health labels contained within ‘the bible of psychiatry’ (the DSM) share the same underlying sense of being irreparably broken, disconnected from their intuition, and paralyzed by life’s existential questions. I believe the resulting—and perfectly understandable—chronic feelings of emptiness and spiritual starvation are the TRUE causes of our current collective ‘mental health crisis.’Together, we’ll dive into depth psychology, mythology, human consciousness, critical psychiatry, and the impact of trauma to help you begin the process of emotional alchemy. This exploration will help you get to the root cause of your suffering and free yourself from the toxic shame, limiting beliefs, and mental programming that have kept you locked in the chains of your past.In an era where mental health and spirituality are too often commercialized, I’m not here as a guru with a quick fix to sell you. I don’t believe anyone is ever truly ‘healed’ or ‘cured.’ There is no return to some mythical state of pre-trauma purity, but rather a continuous spiral of unbecoming, unlearning, and transformation. As a fellow seeker, I will be there in your ear, walking alongside you on your path toward wholeness as a sort of parasocial big sister. That, I can promise.By integrating the concepts we explore together, you’ll begin to see that anyone—even you—can come back from the borderline.CRAVING MORE? Visit backfromtheborderline.com to dive into my universe, connect with me, access my Patreon, and discover more about my journey and work. Don’t forget to follow Back from the Borderline so new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays automatically drop into your podcast feed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.