Many of us find healing through learning about trauma - especially childhood emotional neglect, dysfunctional family systems, and the lasting impact of parental misattunement. That language can bring relief, perspective, and a sense of validation. But over time, it can also shape how we remember the past in ways we don’t always notice.In this episode, I explore how the process of trauma recovery can quietly distort memory, leading us to overlook the real moments of joy, connection, and care that existed alongside the pain.

I share my own experience of getting stuck in the all-trauma lens, how that shaped my identity for a while, and what it took to begin the slow (and painful) process of moving into emotional adulthood. We’ll talk about the difference between trauma literacy and trauma identification, the psychology of memory and how it works, and why psychological integration requires remembering both what hurt and what didn’t.

This conversation also looks at how cultural narratives around severance, no-contact, and scapegoating parents can become another form of stuckness. I reflect on what it means to truly grow up (spiritually, emotionally, and relationally) and how remembering the good doesn’t erase the harm. The ability to hold complexity is a true marker of healing.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How trauma content can quietly reshape your memories over time
• Why emotional adulthood means holding grief and joy at the same time
• The difference between trauma literacy and trauma identification
• How cutoff culture online encourages black-and-white thinking about family
• What Jung’s “divine child” archetype can teach us about growing up
• Why remembering good memories is part of psychological integration
• How over-identifying with pain can drain relationships, creativity, and self-trust
• Why spiritual maturity requires an aspect of contradiction

✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it. Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.

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Desire is meant to be a creative force. Something within us that fuels connection, expression, intimacy, and imagination. But for many of us, that force has been warped and inverted. That means instead of feeling energized by what we want, we chase it compulsively. We convince ourselves that attention + intensity = love. In the process, we end up exhausted, numb, or locked into patterns that THINK are passionate but instead is just living in survival mode.

In this episode, we explore what happens when desire becomes distorted and when it stops being life-GIVING and starts serving the parts of us that are still trying to EARN love, safety, or power. We move beyond diagnostic frameworks and into a more symbolic, metaphysical approach that treats desire as something sacred, but easily rerouted through hunger, grief, or unmet developmental needs.

Together, we’ll walk through three common distortions of desire: the hungry ghost self, which seeks constant romantic highs and external validation; the aestheticized self, which curates identity as performance and confuses visibility with intimacy; and the numb hedonist, who turns to pleasure not to feel more, but to feel less. You’ll see that these aren’t character flaws or signs that something is inherently wrong with you, they’re merely coping strategies built from pain.

Along the way, we’ll draw from esoteric traditions like the Tree of Life, archetypes like Dionysus and Apollo, and depth psychology’s view of the daimon as the inner force that carries both our gifts and our grief. You’ll learn how distorted desire is a pattern. And the thing about patterns is that they can be recognized, interrupted, and re-aligned.

This conversation invites you to trace your desires back to their source and ask what they’ve been trying to TELL you. Not in the language of performance or perfection, but in the quiet truth of what you’ve longed for all along.

If you’ve ever felt addicted to intensity, emotionally flat from too much pleasure, or caught in the loop of wanting what harms you, this episode offers a new framework that doesn’t shame desire, but helps you reclaim it.

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In this episode, we explore the deeper truths that may be hiding beneath the surface of today’s “Disclosure” discourse. While headlines focus on UFO sightings, UAP whistleblowers, and NHI (non-human intelligence), the real story may be something much more unsettling and much more important. What if the biggest secret isn’t “recovered craft”, but the nature of reality itself?

Drawing on current events, ancient spiritual frameworks, and emerging scientific cracks in the materialist worldview, we walk through three destabilizing realities that challenge everything we’ve been taught to believe. We’ll begin with the idea that consciousness is not created by the brain, but exists independently and uses the brain like a receiver. From there, we explore the participatory nature of reality itself and how perception isn’t passive, but actively shapes the field around us. Finally, we examine the roots of psychological suffering, and the growing evidence that mental illness may be more about spiritual disconnection than chemical imbalance. If these ideas were widely accepted as reality overnight, entire systems would have to fall: psychiatry, education, media, tech, the pharmaceutical industry, and even most organized religions.

This episode offers a grounded, non-performative way to re-enter these questions without falling into conspiracy, spiritual bypass, or new age clichés. If you’ve felt something shifting under the surface of daily life and sensed that the world is not what it seems, this conversation will probably feel pretty validating. Now more than ever, it’s time to reclaim our perception, question our programming, and start listening to what reality is trying to tell us.

✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.

Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.