Mind Control and the Current Times

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This blog was inspired by some harsh comments I received on Facebook. Though I understand that people are afraid of the exponential growth of the pandemic, I made a point that the mortality rate of Covid-19 was still way under the flu, cancer, car accidents, suicides, addictions, cancer or hunger mortality rates. This data can be easily verified.

An individual who is a competent professional, a family man and highly regarded in his community called my post stupid and reckless. When I disagree with someone, either I ignore them because I see there is no point in convincing someone who has already made up his mind or I attempt to have a rational dialog with them but I do not belittle them. Amendment 1 of the US constitution is freedom of speech. So why are the so-called “good and normal people” (GANP) becoming so hysterical and zealously trying to get everyone to conform to their opinion? Another GANP was calling murderers a couple that simply went hiking to the mountains while everyone knows that nature and physical exercise are excellent for the immune system. While I commented “Live and let live”, she started insulting me, removed my comment, and unfriended me on facebook. Will people who do not blindly follow the current mass hysteria be soon judged for voluntary homicide? What is fascinating is that the worst enforcement is not done by corrupt governments but by the GANP, all these hard-working people with “good reputation”, families and jobs. The GANP are actually enablers of most of the society’s dysfunctions as they carry mindlessly instructions that often come from a corrupt elite. To be able to understand this apparent contradiction, let’s dive deeper into mind control.

First, we have seen this before. After the shock of 9/11, the media were brainwashing us all day long that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we had to invade Iraq and remove him from power to guarantee the safety of good Americans. To frighten us even more, they added all the Anthrax attacks. Incidentally, anthrax was a biological weapon created by Russians in a lab back in the 1970s. In 2003, people who did not fall for the official narrative were called anti-patriotic. France opposed the USA at the United Nations to invade Irak so the Bush administration decided to rename French fries Freedom fries as retaliation 🙂 I had some French friends who lived in Texas who got their house covered with graffiti by patriotic GANP. Since, it has been well documented that the Bush administration lied to the American public to invade Irak in order to control their oil resources. However in 2015, still half of Republicans believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Politicians understand that perception is reality rather than truth, and this is why most media are controlled in order to disseminate propaganda to serve their agenda. In the run-up to the Iraq War, Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion contract for which only Halliburton was allowed to bid, the company that Dick Cheney received a $36 million severance package from when he became George W Bush Jr Vice President in 2000. Countless lives and 2.4 trillions dollars of taxpayers’ money were lost on this war, but the people responsible for this disaster continue to be covered with distinctions and honors instead of being put on trial for crimes against humanity.

My own life experience makes me qualified to speak about the subject of mind control. My parents had severe attachment traumas. My father was basically an orphan for the first 10 years of his life and my mother was raised in the foster child system. As a result, I lacked belonging. This made me a match to joining a cult when I was 20-year-old for 3 years. When I was 26, I became involved with a woman with a tight family structure that functioned in many ways like a small cult. I was too busy at work to pay attention to what was really happening as I was compensating my lack of self-love by providing them with the status they needed to compensate for their own self-hatred. But when the separation occurred after 15 years together, they alienated me against my own children, which was by far the most difficult hardship I had to integrate in my life. Parental alienation is one of the worst forms of mind control as it puts hatred where there should be unconditional love. When I turned 42, I lived a passionate love story and got married with a very popular New Age guru who was raised in some of the most malevolent, sophisticated and powerful cults of the world. Many people are viewing her as a dangerous cult leader too however the reality is far more complex. All of this made me a mind control survivor.

Through these experiences, I got to understand that people’s truth is quite subjective. While objective truths exist, they are mostly not accessible to the common man. The fact is that men and women will just consider truth what the people they love or respect consider truthful. Truth is therefore based on the social link so, by essence, it is completely subjective. I got to observe this when I was in the Fellowship of Friends (FOF) in my early twenties. Actually, many people who were in the cult were remarkably intelligent and had high IQ. There were many entrepreneurs, business owners, artists or professionals. Despite the fact that many of us were quite intelligent, we would blindly follow and believe the absurdities of the guru Robert Earl Burton (REB) whose sexual, financial and emotional abuse have now been fully exposed. So what type of idiocies would we believe? That he was more conscious than Jesus Christ, that he was best buddy with Leonardo Da Vinci (this is why we often left an empty seat next to REB), that he would have sex with members to awaken them, that we were the chosen ones to survive humanity downfall and repopulate the earth, etc… Actually, and this is a fact well-known among mind control experts, intelligent people are often easier to manipulate because they have a bigger ego, are more disconnected and less grounded. They are head-centered rather than heart-centered, and can easily let go of common sense when confronted with dogma.

I got to observe that effective mind control always happens with the same several steps:

  • Create the bond
  • Repetition
  • Isolation
  • Punition & Reward

Let me show you how this 4 step process works with examples extracted from my life experience.

In FOF, the bond was created by making connections with people who felt initially remarkably open-minded, warm, supportive and intelligent. At first, it felt like the family I never had so it fulfilled my deep desire for belonging. Then the same dogma, beliefs would be constantly spread by the members. Isolation was then created by boosting our ego (we are better than other people as we are the chosen ones) or by adopting a language or a set of beliefs that is not compatible with regular people. Once we were committed to the cult and more disconnected to the outside world, then more pressure could be applied. Good zealous members following mindlessly the corrupt leadership would be rewarded while anyone challenging the current power structure would receive fines or face ostracization. As most cults, FOF strictly forbad contact with former members so leaving the cult meant starting a life from scratch and losing all your friends and connections overnight. This is how most cults retain their members as belonging is such a strong need for all of us, and when the connection with the birth family is weak, it means facing complete loneliness. 

With the mother of my children, the bond was created by a romantic relationship and the unhealthy love dynamic between codependent and narcissistic people. The repetition and brainwashing was mostly done by my mother-in-law who kept repeating how great and loving her family was, how they were the only good grandparents, the only ones who cared about us and our children, how their daughter was the best and how I was lost before I found her and her family, etc… Of course, at the same time, she would not mention all the family skeletons that hid in the closet. My parents were first alienated as deemed unworthy as she wanted to be the only grandmother by eliminating competing grandparents. She praised narcissistic love as the only true love. If I were to challenge the narrative, I would subject myself to endless arguments and wrath. Though I took care financially of them for many years and improved their lives in so many ways, when their daughter and I mutually decided to split, I was shun by the whole family. Their daughter then rewrote the narrative that I had abandoned her to play the victim and win the children over that would be used as weapons of war against me.

For my children, the bond was created naturally by birth. They were subjected by the same constant brainwashing of my mother-in-law. They were groomed to relate to only specific people from the community however this can only go so far as children who go to school will meet people from all walks of life. The consequence of deviating from the family line was shown clearly to them by making an example with their own father: complete abandonment, constant criticism, relentless attacks and harassment. It was made clear to them that they would not want to follow my footsteps.

My last wife’s cult abuser pretended to be her real father to create this bond and it took her years of therapy before realizing he had been lying to her all along. She was made to attend some of the most horrendous rituals where the cult’s dogma would be reinforced. If she started to attach to anyone outside the cult like a boyfriend, there would face unbearable consequences such as the killing of her dog. Her cult trainer would also ensure that she felt disconnected from her brother and parents. Also, disobeying the satanic cult was out of the question as she was frequently exposed to torture, gore or even death that resulted from deviating cult orders.

While she had done amazing considering her horrific background, she was not completely healed and fell at times for the same manipulative techniques that she suffered as a child. It is a principle that the suffering that is not integrated gets passed on. The bond was naturally created by a powerful passionate love story between both of us. As a prolific writer and a very intelligent woman who had to be always right, she would need to control the narrative. Her community composed of codependent people with limited life experience and cut off from their own family would also mindlessly repeat everything that she was saying. People with different ideas would be cut off and pushed away. They would lose connection with her and her followers while she kept repeating in her teaching that connection was the most important thing in the world. After we divorced, when I came back to the Costa Rica retreat center that I had founded to pick-up my belongings, I had a zealous community member treat me like a criminal. And this was the very same member I had invited to our wedding two years prior and gave personally an opportunity to join our community.

What we are witnessing now with Covid-19 is mind-control at a massive, global scale. The bond is created by the fact that we are a social species, the respect we have for authority, experts, science and our dependence on the media. I was in France when I witnessed the transition from normal everyday life to total confinement in just 3 weeks. First, the media started speaking about the coronavirus non-stop to instill fear and prepare public opinion for compliance on the orders to come. All people with a different opinion from mainstream media would then be isolated, ridiculed, or marginalized as conspiracy theorists or even criminals endangering public health. Social contact became prohibited on the basis of safety. People disobeying the confinement would be fined 135 euros ($150) while repeated offenders could go to jail. The worst punishment is however the aggressive judgment aggressively from the GANP.

Most people are educated and rewarded to become good executants, soldiers and workers but not to think for themselves. Independent thinking is more and more scarce in a society where we are constantly flooded with new information. We are made to believe that we are free from dogma and live in a democracy as we have supposedly left behind religion and dictatorship to the benefit of science and reason, however in many ways, science has become the new cult. People blindly  believe what is coming supposedly from science without verifying with a critical mind the hypotheses, mental processes and conclusions. Science has many interesting theories, but these theories need to be challenged. This is the principle of taking a scientific approach to a problem. If we just trust science blindly just because it comes from scientific experts with impressive degrees, then we are following the same pattern of a cult. I had 2 master degrees by age 22 and I have one of the best engineering diplomas from France so people cannot dismiss me on the basis of poor scientific education. Instead, the GANP are expressing their disappointment with me for not following mainstream beliefs considering my respected scientific background.

Actually, it is very hard to know the truth when we are just fed information that we cannot verify and this is why we are so easily manipulated. As you can see, I had to survive extreme mind control environments in my life. As a result, I created my own methods to assess the truth or more accurately my truth as unlike the GANP, I have no plan to impose my limited beliefs on others. The thoughts I express here are mine and I just hope this sharing will encourage others to think for themselves, and look for their own truth. Self-reliance, inner strength and resilience have come to me as part of this process. I will now apply the same principles of independent thinking to the current pandemic and share with you my personal insights.

First, I want to trust that I have directly experienced with my senses that include sight, feeling, intuition, hearing, touch, personal wisdom, cognitive abilities rather than information from a third party. Of course, it can be argued that we are subjective and this is why I will never impose my views on others. However, I know this direct experience is always the highest truth I have access to.

I am a social person and I know a huge number of people at a personal level. To this day, I do not have a single first degree connection affected by Covid-19. I had a friend who had a bad flu for a couple of weeks after a break-up. Things continued to get worse and she ended up in the hospital. She was tested for Covid-19 and the result came back negative but she was diagnosed with pneumonia. My 78-year-old French father has been sick for several weeks too. He asked to be tested and he was denied the test because they had a limited number of tests and would rather use them on younger people. One of my close friends in Utah had a bad flu for a couple of days but did not have the money to be tested or see a doctor and he recovered within a few days. But, so far, none of the people I know personally have been tested positive for Covid-19. However I have met a few people who knew personally some people who have been tested positive. A friend’s family member that was over 80 year old supposedly died from coronavirus in Louisiana with 2 other people in a nursing home. So in truth, I know very little at a personal level about this disease and it has had no direct impact on me and my loved ones. However, it has already had dramatic indirect impact: loss of social contact, loss of revenue, diminished assets, confinement, inability to travel, cancelled events, removal of civil liberties, etc… So from my own little world, Covid-19 is mostly simply an abstract concept that dramatically affected my life due to the decisions people made about it or more precisely the fear of it. In truth, I cannot disprove it is a hoax in complete certainty and I cannot disprove the opposite as well. I have no direct experience with it, only what I have read about it. So I am keeping an open-mind about it until I have direct experience such as contracting the disease myself. I have taken no additional precautions over the past months besides keeping a healthy lifestyle while I have continued to be in contact with a large variety of people.

If I cannot have a direct experience with the subject, I do facts checking and try to rely on my cognitive abilities. To me, it is far as reliable but this is the best I can do given the circumstances. However, with the absence of direct experience, I take everything with a grain of salt and in terms of probabilities. In a nutshell, here is what I can assert so far with a 80% probability:

  • There is an infectious respiratory disease called Covid-19 and it was reported that it has killed over 60,000 people worldwide. It is more contagious and more fatal than the flu. People are concerned about the exponential growth of the disease. So far, Covid19 shows a mortality rate about 10 times higher than the flu
  • Covid-19 severe cases are concentrated with people who have a compromised immune system. 99% of healthy people that get the coronavirus heal relatively quickly from it. The mortality rate of people infected with Covid19 with no pre-existing conditions is less than 1%
  • A number of personalities have died of the coronavirus. Almost all of them were old and suffering with other serious diseases
  • There is confusion in the numbers as it appears people are included in Covid19 mortality number even if they die from something else as long as they tested positive for the virus. The amount of flu or pneumonia related death dropped significantly during the same period of time which would indicate some bias
  • There are a number of different theories about the origin of the virus. Some argue it came from animals and others from a biological weapon lab in Wuhan (whether intentionally or accidentally)
  • It was reported that the healthcare system of most countries affected is saturated due to the rapid growth of the disease. It can be noted however that many countries’ hospitals were already overwhelmed and under-resourced before the pandemic. Citizen reporters are sharing with us on the opposite movie clips of empty hospitals. Unless I visit one of these hospitals myself, I have to acknowledge that I really do not know how this pandemic has affected healthcare systems across the globe
  • Chloroquine has been portrayed as a viable effective treatment when combined with antibiotics in the early stage of the development of the disease. The mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi and other public figures who underwent the treatment had a rapid recovery.

There are however a number of decisions that authorities have taken very rapidly that I am taking the liberty to challenge.

Is the extreme confinement that has been ordered in Italy, Spain and France really effective?

The facts would actually show the opposite.

  • Countries such as Italy, Spain and France with the most confinement continue to have the highest mortality rates. I understand that people would argue anyway that things would be much worse without confinement. In any case, I would like to see better and not worse outcomes in this case. Sweden and Japan are not enforcing confinement and are doing much better than the countries above
  • One of the most highly respected experts in respiratory disease Dr Raoult is arguing for another method. He is advocating to perform testing at a massive scale and only isolating the people who are vulnerable and the ones who are tested positive. He is also recommending reducing the time these people are contagious through a medical treatment. South Korea which has taken this approach shows mortality rates 100 times lower than the countries mentioned above
  • Confinement leads to social isolation, depression, idleness, financial stress, lack of physical exercise and contact with nature which we know weaken the immune system and actually make people more vulnerable to the virus. Dr Bruce Lipton speaks brilliantly about this
  • Social distancing and masks are not that effective against the propagation of the virus
  • Social distancing is creating a society where we are even more disconnected from each other which negatively impacts our immune system. People are now unable to attend spiritual service, entertainment or social events. While I understand the logic behind social distancing, it comes with a high cost to our emotional health
  • Professor Knut Wittkowski, a respected epidemiologist with 35 years experience, feels strongly that confinement is counter productive, and goes against what mainstream media and our politicians have been advocating. As he says, he is not paid by the government and believes in science rather than propaganda. By keeping our children home, we are preventing herd immunity so we are exposing ourselves to a second wave of the coronovirus in the fall. He states that this pandemic is not that very different that flu pandemics we get on a yearly basis

We have had much worse pandemics in the past.

The Black Death was the first major European outbreak of plague and the second plague pandemic. The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe’s population. In total, the plague may have reduced the world’s population from an estimated 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people while the population at that time was estimated at 1.8 billion. If Covid19 creates as much damage as the Spanish flu with our current world population, it means that the coronavirus should kill about 150 million people. We have got over 60,000 deaths (about 0.03% of the corresponding deaths of the Spanish flu) so far with Covid19 and even if the disease continues to spread exponentially, it is hard to believe we will even come close to the 1918 influenza pandemic numbers fortunately!

Let’s now examine some so-called conspiracy theories that are circulating over the Internet. I recommend taking a closer look at David Icke’s materials for the people who are interested in diving deeper into the topic as he has done some very extensive research in the last 30 years.

Is 5G linked in any way with Covid19?

Many people have suggested that there are higher concentrations of Covid19 cases in areas where 5G has been deployed. While this could very well be a coincidence, I am well aware of the fact that governments’ secret programs have developed very sophisticated mind control technology through electromagnetic waves over the past 50 years, one of them being HAARP. Most of the results of this research have been kept hidden from the public. I researched this topic while I was married to an individual who had been subjected to the most brutal mind control technologies as a child. A human being is nothing else than a complex electromagnetic field. We all know how much our environment can affect us. We feel very differently in an impoverished polluted environment than when we are surrounded with beautiful nature. The fact that a corrupt elite could use this existing mind control wave technology to fulfill their agenda is more than likely. Secret government programs such as Operation Paperclip or Project MKUltra have been well-documented and are not conspiracy theories anymore. There is ample information on the Internet about the correlation of 5G with the coronavirus. Some experts are linking the adoption of new wave technology with past pandemics such as the 1918 influenza or the Hong Kong flu. They are also stating that viruses are reactions of the poisoned cell that, in defense against the poison itself, secretes the viruses to allow the cell to survive. If this is the case, confinement and social distance is completely useless so we would have brought an economic collapse for no reason. We live in a digital soup and the radio-frequencies coming from all of our devices is clearly affecting us. It is a fact that there are many more cases in countries that have deployed 5G technologies. Fortunately, the human body is amazingly adaptive and most of us will be able to develop immunity to this type of radiation as we continue to raise our vibration. The technologies we have developed have improved our life dramatically but they can also lead us to enslavement. Rudolf Steiner the founder of the Waldorf education, biodynamics and anthroposophy stated as early as 1917 that man needed to increase his spiritual power to adapt to the increased electrification of the earth. I understand this type of knowledge is not for everyone. People need to study it and make up their own mind.

Child trafficking

Through my 3 year relationship with a woman who was raised in a satanic cult, I got to understand the sophisticated mind control technology currently available to these secret societies. From my perspective, the best books on the topic have been written by Svali, a former trainer of the Illuminati as it matched almost perfectly with the personal experiences of my former spouse. Through her direct account, I got to understand that one percent of the population is mind-controlled from birth, and placed in key places of society. Many politicians, pop stars, judges, top athletes, celebrities, journalists, TV and media presenters, actors, business and financial moguls are mind-controlled slaves. They may have everything on the outside: wealth, fame, beauty, talent but be the most miserable person behind the curtains as they struggle with severe PTSD coming from the traumatic programming of their childhood. According to my ex-wife, but also whistleblowers such Los Angeles FBI chief Ted Gunderson or Robert David Steele, hundreds of thousands of children are exploited every year in the US alone for the benefit of these secret societies. Children are tested for special abilities through brutal training and testing. The ones that succeed become mind-controlled slaves who will be inserted in key places of society while the others will be used in pedophile rings or sacrificed in satanic rituals. For these shadow organizations, children are treated with even less humanity than pigs in a slaughterhouse. People stay mostly unaware of this terrible truth as most children come from “breeders” (cult members programmed to give birth to children to be used by the cult), orphanages or the foster care system. The whole world is shutting down because we have supposedly over 60,000 coronavirus deaths of people with an already compromised immune system, while we are oblivious to the vicious extermination and exploitation of millions of children across the globe every year. This truth is so disturbing that most people will dismiss it as a conspiracy theory. I was no different until I started a personal relationship with one of these satanic cult survivors.

Martial law, house arrest and group gathering prohibition

The pandemic has created conditions that any warmongers would have dreamed of. Curfew is imposed, and people are forbidden to meet. By extension, demonstrations are not allowed any more and fearful citizens are rallying behind their corrupt leadership. People in many countries are limited to one visit per week outside their home for basic necessities. Citizens are required to carry certificates if they go outside their home at the risk of getting important fines and even of getting arrested in case of repeated offense. Most people are happily complying with the sudden disappearance of personal freedom because they are made to believe that they are saving lives this way. All this is done without much data. Actually the countries with the strictest confinement rules are showing the most deaths at this point. Japan and Sweden are doing much better than Italy, France or Spain. We are now at war against an invisible enemy that justifies the removal of our civil liberties. This reminds me of the US government war on drugs by Richard Nixon whose aim was really to remove the competition and give a monopoly for the US shadow government to smuggle drugs into the USA to finance its black budget. This war on drugs achieved very little and on the contrary boosted the jail population to about 10 million people in the US by 2008 helping many unscrupulous individuals to get rich and profiting from the misery of others.

Destruction of small businesses

Employees are far more controllable than entrepreneurs. They need to comply with a top down hierarchical structure to keep their means of subsistence. While this is not always the case, strict compliance to a role is favored over creativity in large corporations or institutions. People lose their individuality to fulfill a corporate role. Most employees experience the fear of losing their job or the frustration of feeling controlled by a supervisor. Entrepreneurs feel more fulfilled and creative though their personal freedom comes with the price of hard-work and accountability. By shutting down all restaurants, lodges, stores, or any business dependent upon human interaction, the small businesses are the most impacted while the large corporations are here to profit. Amazon hired 100,000 more employees to meet with the increased demand due to the pandemic while small businesses are forced to shut down with almost no compensation. By enforcing strict confinement, our governments are destroying millions of small businesses while providing nothing in return. This can be equated to a forest fire that eventually will profit to the big trees, i.e. the large corporations. The large corporations are controlled by these same 1% or secret societies so it provides considerable advantage for the corrupt elite to enslave the masses by making them dependent financially. Dependent people are less likely to contest authority.

The stimulus package will impoverish the middle class even more

People naively think that the government stimulus package will save them. What would you think of a household that is already $230,000 in debt but only making $30,000 a year? Would you lend them another $20,000? Surely not if you were a bank. Well, this is the state of the US government. The US already has a $23 trillion dollar deficit but total tax revenue in any given year hardly exceeds $3 trillion dollars. It means that any US taxpayer owes the government $200,000 so the taxes that US citizens pay are really just paying interest on the money borrowed by the US government to the federal reserve, which is actually a private institution owned by invisible financial moguls. When the US government creates a stimulus package of $2.2 trillion dollars, it actually takes $20,000 from the pocket of every US tax payer. While Trump is insisting that the stimulus checks should have his name on them, this money is not coming from him but from all of us! This is not free money. All of this money printing will weaken the value of the dollar and will eventually decrease the purchasing power of all Americans. Unless small businesses are allowed to reopen soon, most of this money printing will end up in the pockets of large corporations and financial institutions. This will contribute even more to the disappearance of the middle class and we will be only be left with a privileged but controlled 1% and 99% of working poor and destitute people. The same logic can be applied to most European countries.

Vaccines and RFID

The media has already instilled a lot of fear in people to prepare them to accept any solution that will be presented to them. Along the lines of the movie Contagion starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow and Marion Cotillard, all the people become desperate for a vaccine that they see as their only means for survival as per the propaganda. The media is already brainwashing the people into viewing vaccination as the holy grail. The concept of vaccination is a big debate in our society and I encourage people to make up their own mind about it. Mandatory vaccination is however a significant infringement on our most fundamental freedom. On a personal level, I do not trust the science behind vaccination and I will do everything in my power to avoid the future coronavirus vaccine. We now have the technology to insert RFID chips during vaccination and I simply do not trust the people in power to do anything without a hidden agenda. The governing powers are arguing that people without the vaccine are dangers to society as they could contaminate others. This reasoning is flawed as if their vaccine was that effective, vaccinated people would be immune to the disease so could not be contaminated. Starting with Bill Gates and Anthony Faucy, the elite that is promoting vaccination should be vaccinated first to put their money where their mouth is. Chip implant will make us no different than the pets or livestock that are already RFID’d. 

Bill Gates

In one of Silicon Valley I founded, I had a CTO for 7 years that worked closely with Bill Gates. His boss reported directly to Bill Gates and my CTO used to have frequent interactions with Bill Gates. According to him, Bill Gates would often get into rages and use foul language with his employees. However, the public image of Bill Gates is very different. The media is portraying him as a stable and cool-headed individual, an innovator and a philanthropist. However things do not add up. Why would someone put so much energy to project an image of himself that he is not? Steve Jobs may have been a jerk but never tried to be someone that he is not. Microsoft had a poor reputation in the industry before, stealing ideas from others and practicing unethical business practices to crush the competition. After retiring from Microsoft, Bill Gates created a group of billionaires dedicated to spend their fortune to better humanity. However, his fortune (now over $100B) keeps increasing instead of decreasing while he vaccines the world away! How is that possible? He was close to Jeffrey Epstein who was conveniently suicided after being indicted for leading a prostitution and pedophile ring. He came from a wealthy family and his father had important ties with some of the most powerful American families. He warned the public years before about the pandemic to come in very exact terms. Is he simply a visionary or did he contribute to the problem in the first place? Now, he is omnipresent on the news as the media try to portray him as our new savior. He is pushing an agenda of mass vaccination and very strict confinement. It feels like he has groomed for a new and important role in the NWO for a long-time. 

Cashless society

Conveniently, central banks and big tech companies are trying to push the agenda of a cashless society by stating that physical bank notes can be a carrier of the coronavirus. While there are benefits to a cashless society, there is too much at risk considering the level of depravity and corruption of the people in power. Using artificial intelligence, they could then instantaneously freeze the assets of anyone opposing their views on the basis of national security. Money is power, and there is already too much power into the wrong hands.

The New World Order (NWO)

Technology has reached a level of sophistication that it is now possible to create an Orwellian state. Artificial Intelligence and social media can be used to precisely identify the political views and interests of any citizen. Most of us are astonished at the accuracy of the online ads we receive on a daily basis. 5G networks make it possible to transmit a much larger amount of data for analysis and citizen tracking. More and more money circulation is electronic and can be easily followed. Is the coronavirus pandemic used to implement the last stages of a new technocracy? Will all people refusing to accept the NWO become marginalized in this new society?

The topics above are quite controversial and I have mentioned them to provoke people’s critical thinking. I will now address issues that cannot be contested from my perspective

When the remedy of the problem becomes far worse than the problem itself!

Economic collapse

With over 1 billion people confined in their own home, we are creating an economic collapse that will be the worst one of our lifetime. This is nothing else than a planned demolition of economies all over the world. Confinement is a luxury of the rich. When confinement is applied in developing countries such as India, Philippines or many African countries, it condemns to starvation large sections of the population that are incapacitated to earn any income. Desperate people take desperate actions. Civil unrest follows which can then justify brutal actions from authoritarian regimes. We may even create the conditions for a global conflict. I do not think I am taking any risk in saying that the controlled demolition of the worldwide economy will create more death than the pandemic itself.

Fear compromises the immune system

Most countries’ media are now instilling fear in people about the threat of the coronavirus 24/7. Because of this propaganda, most people are getting obsessed with being infected with the virus. As soon as they do not feel well, they immediately imagine the worst and dying a horrible death from Covid19. Dr Bruce Lipton is speaking eloquently on how the fear of the coronavirus has created much more damage than the disease itself. In the medical field, we need to account for the placebo effect when testing for drug efficacy because we understand that health starts with the mind. At least 5% of all diseases are estimated to be psychosomatic. People are not only getting worried for their health but they are now getting overly stressed financially because of the economic collapse triggered by strict confinement. House arrest combined very limited physical and social activities is creating conditions that considerably weakens the immune system of the population. 

How the current pandemics reflects the complete powerlessness of the human collective consciousness

People have forgotten their true nature and how powerful they actually are. They see life as random and tragedies happening for no reason. They have forgotten that we live in a divinely orchestrated universe. After over 30 years of exploration and personal experiences, I can say without a doubt that the body cannot become sick unless there is dysfunction in our mental or emotional bodies. Our immune system is our best ally and not external drugs or vaccines. Prevention is always better than cure. I do recommend taking a promising treatment such as Dr Raoult’s chloroquine in severe cases but you will see adverse effects with any drug treatment. It is about assessing if the benefits of the treatment are higher than the risk. We increase our immune system vitality through physical exercises, good sleep, healthy diet, being in nature, exposure to sunlight, meditation, shadow work when difficult emotions emerge, being creative and social contact. As long as we keep a high vibrational state, we cannot be a match to any virus. Paul Micheal Glaser was the famous cop Starsky in the 70’s household TV series Starky & Hutch. He continued to have sexual intercourse with his wife Elizabeth even after he knew she was diagnosed with AIDS. He never contracted the disease. He had so much love for his wife that he never believed that she could give him anything that could harm him. Social distancing with loved ones is actually damaging to our immune system because we are a social species. We need to connect, to touch and to love. To love and to be loved will continue to be our most fundamental need even before food. We have much more power over our health and vitality than we could ever imagine. Many cancer survivors say that cancer is the best thing that happened to them because it forced them to re-evaluate their life and switch to a healthy lifestyle. Life is not random, and if we catch the coronavirus, let it be our teacher like any other hardship that has affected our life. Whether the coronavirus was man-made or an act of nature to reflect our harmful actions, it is at the end the same. We have become a match to that experience for a reason. By taking a holistic and introspective approach, we can gain from this global tragedy. In anything negative, there is always a positive intent and it is up to us to create meaning from this experience to grow in wisdom and self-awareness. Respiratory diseases are connected to the dysfunction of the heart chakra and I invite all of you to meditate upon this. I would just add that a society based on the exploitation of earth resources, animals and people goes fundamentally against unity consciousness.

There are worse things than death

We can see people’s true character when they are under pressure. I have always liked Wayne Dyer’s analogy that you know what a fruit is made of when it is squeezed. So when we are squeezed and pushed to our limits, what comes out of us? Love or selfishness? Anger or kindness? Depression or fighting spirit? During my spiritual explorations over the last 30 years, I got to realize that self-love and spiritual enlightenment is one and the same. For this reason, I have committed not to take any actions that will impede my ability to love myself, such as profiting from other people’s distress, lying to myself, lacking personal integrity or intentionally hurting another human being. Dying an honorable man is more important to me than surviving as a scelerat. We are on earth for a very short time anyway. Let’s make it worthwhile. The rush towards buying toilet paper, foods and weapons are indicative that most people are willing to lose their soul out of the fear of survival. Once we connect to our true nature, this type of short-cuts cease to be appealing.

Our hyper reactivity of the coronavirus pandemic is indicative of our selfishness.

We freak out about catching the coronavirus and we show no concern for the millions of children dying of starvation, for the raging wars in Syria, the flooding in Bangladesh or the earthquake in Haiti while they have caused so much more human casualty. But, when we are made to believe that anyone of us can get Covid19 and die a horrible death, only then so we start paying attention. This shows the lack of empathy of our society towards each other, and how self-centered we actually are.

Some GANP did not hesitate to say I should die or get severely sick from Covid-19 to dare contesting the mainstream media narrative. Death is the great mystery. This personality and this body eventually dies and if it is my time, I will accept it but not without a fight as I love life. I am not willing to stay alive at all costs however. I believe in the aspect of me that is immortal, life itself that is everywhere, eternal, always mutating and changing. Life always finds balance and unity. I have had spiritual experiences that have convinced me that love is the greatest force of the universe. Hardship and life challenges make us more humble, trusting and stronger. I simply refuse to live life from fear and control. There is always a choice. We can wake up to our true nature or alternatively become a piece of machinery in the gigantic matrix based on profiteering and the illusion of separateness. We can believe in unity consciousness or exploitation. The choice is ours. No one can take away your freedom unless you allow them to do so. Even if your external freedom is seriously infringed, there is always a way to keep your internal freedom and to stay true to your core values. 

Growing and healing together as a couple

3 part series of the dysfunctional dance between co-dependents and borderlines

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Part III – Growing and healing together as a couple

social stigma

For the most part, my last blog on Understanding and Loving the Borderline was well received except on a Facebook group that brings together a vulnerable minority group. My blog triggered them, as they felt stigmatized and shamed. I removed the post from this private group as my intent was to make people feel better not worse, and they were unable to make use of the information. They probably suffered a lot in the hands of a mental health system that often uses labels to prescribe drugs and to scapegoate them instead of providing them with genuine support for healing. Labeling is indeed a dangerous thing. It is fine for people to label themselves as borderline or codependent as a tool for self-observation, but we should refrain from labeling other people this way, as it would just trigger their shame. Shame and self-awareness are incompatible states. This is why, once our shame is triggered, any positive change towards our authentic healthy self becomes impossible. We become frozen and what can happen instead is more fragmentation, meaning that we would build a false self in order not to experience this feeling of shame again. This is actually the process of how false cult personalities are created, and how the false “good guys” personalities are built with codependents. The borderline is however unable to cope and goes into rage. I sincerely do not know which is healthier. Every tool can be used for empowerment or to hurt people. It is up to each one of us to use this information wisely.

We mirror each other’s disowned self

the angel and demon in us

As I was doing inner work, I remember when I first met my “inner borderline”. We call this process voice dialog or parts work. I display externally little of the BPD characteristics. As I mentioned previously, I have been struggling instead with codependency in my intimate relationships. This makes sense as we manifest externally what is deeply repressed in us. This is how attraction works. As a child, the borderline aspects of my mum and stepmom terrified me but I had to bond with them for my emotional survival. I had made the depression of one and the anger of the other one unacceptable emotions. I created these parts internally to mirror them but buried them deep within my psyche out of fear and in a subconscious attempt to feel safe. I could not have been a magnet for PBPD partners all of my life unless there was a part in me to reflect them. So if a codependent is in a relationship with a PBPD, we need to remember that the borderline is the repressed aspect of the codependent, and vice versa. There is futility in blaming our partner because they are you, both representing the positive and negative aspects of you that you have disowned. The most extreme form of internalizing the people we feel traumatized from, and that we feel dependent on for our survival is well documented as the Stockholm syndrome. An example was the adoration of Nazi concentration camp SS physician Josef Mengele by his victims. Josef Mengele performed the most horrific deadly human experiments on prisoners and in particular on children twins. I recommend a quick read on other famous cases of the Stockholm syndrome. Here is how it works. When a traumatic event occurs that we are not able to process consciously, we fragment. This means that aspects of our consciousness leave our body to find escape somewhere else. In very powerless situations, these fragmented selves actually find refuge in the abuser as it feels it is the safest place to hide. As a result, we create deeply repressed internal parts of the very same persons that traumatized us. We cannot acknowledge these aspects consciously as otherwise we would live in a constant state of anxiety so they manifest externally in particular in the form of romantic & intimate relationships. We have a tendency to fall in love with people showing the same dysfunctional aspects of our parent of the opposite gender. This is why women raised with an emotionally unavailable father would attract the same in their partners. And this is why I have been with PBPD most of my life. I am not a victim. They are simply mirroring the aspects of me that I have repressed. They are helping me to become conscious. In the same way, all the PBPD I have been with had a codependent father that I was mirroring back for them. It may be depressing news but most of us are simply trying to earn back the love we did not receive as a child (from our parents). We are actually replaying the traumas and the stories of the past instead of actually truly connecting with our partners. There is only one way out, which is bringing these lost aspects of ourselves back to the light of consciousness. Seeing these parts, accepting them, loving them and ultimately forgiving oneself for reenacting this drama subconsciously are the steps to recovery.

Think of yourself as the trinity: adult, child and soul

The sacred trinity: personality, inner child and soul

In the process of integration, I have found it a helpful tool to see myself as the composite of my (hurt) inner child, my adult and my transcendental self. The codependent identifies with his adult self, while the PBPD identifies with her hurt inner child. The borderline feels too much while the codependent is hardly in touch with his feelings. For a healthy development of the individual, we need a balance between these two aspects. The inner child gives us our spontaneity, our creativity, our joie de vivre, access to more subtle aspects to our being. The adult self keeps us out of trouble, has wisdom to draw from, and helps us function in this physical reality. A genuine partnership between our child and adult has to be formed to restart an inner development that likely stopped during an early traumatic event. We do not want an overbearing internal adult (codependent) or tyrannical and out-of-control inner child (BPD). Life has its way of recreating balance. This is why children of PBPD get parentified, and why codependents are irresistibly attracted to PBPD. If you able to create a healthy balance of these aspects within yourself, the universe will also mirror it externally with a more stable partner. How does this work in practice?

  • When you feel uneasy and stuck, do shadow work to bring these aspects of you into awareness. Do not bulldoze your inner child into performing other activities that may appear more important to the inner adult. I understand that life has constraints so if you cannot attend right away to the inner child (which is the ideal), commit to schedule this inner work within 24 hours.
  • Follow personal inspiration, creativity and your inner joy whenever you can. Look for simple ways to feel genuinely happy
  • Stay aware of the consequences of your actions. Spontaneity does not have to equate with recklessness
  • Temper your internal fears with the wisdom from your personal experience
  • Know your limits, and assess your personal boundaries wisely. Follow-through, be responsible but not at the expense of your authentic self.

Try to visualize some of the healthiest parent/child relationships you have witnessed in your life. This is what you need to create internally. The inner child is the seat of the soul. The bible says “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. But the child needs to develop to become this clear channel to the higher self. And he needs a wise, compassionate and supporting inner parent to grow-up. As we enter the spiritual path, many of us will find a hurt inner child whose development stopped at a very early age. We need to take this traumatized child where he is, without judgment and patiently re-parent ourselves. Another way to look at it is to see our inner child as our essence and our adult as our personality. When these two aspects of us start working in harmony, we can consciously access the more transcendental aspects of our beings.

Authenticity

unique red umbrella among black umbrellas with city background symbolizing authenticity

To get out of codependent relationships, we need to realize that “People in the relationship are more important than the relationship”. This sentence goes against many of our social bias. Miserable married people are often advised to stay together even when they have become toxic to each other. I understand that any intimate relationship will go through their ups and down and I am not advocating to breakup as soon as there is a bump in the road. Sometimes we struggle with the relationship but we deeply care about our partner and we feel this is helping us become a better version of ourselves. This is a situation where we need to fight for the relationship because it is supporting us as an individual. Actually, as we are able to successfully survive these difficult times, the relationship will then reach a much higher intimacy. There are other situations however when the marriage brings both pain and the loss of self. These are times to get out. Staying in a miserable marriage for the sake of the children does not make sense; they are well aware of the conflicts and this is damaging to them. We want to be models that they do not have to compromise their personal happiness to be in an intimate relationship. Putting the self above the relationship is a very scary and risky choice for the codependent. We probably entered the relationship pretending we were someone we are not because of our personal shame. Our partner may feel betrayed, duped or threatened as we reveal the real us. We may be rejected, abandoned as a result, and if your partner is narcissistic, they will surely do this and also discredit you to any common acquaintances. This is a very painful experience but a price worth paying to recover your authentic self. In any case, we need to remember that any other option is futile. What makes us attractive and sexy is our individuality; not being an accessory to someone else. As we compromise ourselves to fit into the relationship box dictated by our nascissistic partner, we will stop our attractiveness and our mate will abandon us anyway. We need to remember that it is better to be alone than being in the wrong company. We can remind ourselves that we survived brutal breakups in the past, and ended in a better place once the grieving was done. As we feel depressed by the loss of the relationship and see no end to our personal misery, we can bring King Solomon’s wisdom: “This too shall pass”. Actually, when we look back at the most difficult times of our life, we can see retrospectively that these were the times we did the most growth, and created the foundations of our future happiness. Life is a series of steep climbs and flat plateaus, then further climbs. Being in a relationship should always be a free choice. This is the only way to experience a true heart-to-heart connection to our partner. While there are external forms of coercion such as the threat of personal injury, losing one’s children or litigation when attempting to leave a relationship, these are quite rare and extreme. What is more insidious and common is the coercion coming from our own personal fears. Here are some examples.

If I leave her/him, if s/he breaks up with me:

  • I will have to compromise my personal lifestyle, take care of my personal finances and probably lose financial security
  • I will be alone which I cannot handle
  • I will have to be back on the dating scene, which I detest
  • I will lose face with my family, friends and community
  • I will have to go back to work
  • I will have to move
  • I will not have sex anymore
  • I will not handle seeing my ex with a new partner
  • I will have to take care of the children on my own which I feel incapable of doing
  • I will die because I cannot handle another breakup
  • I will not handle the guilt of hurting my children
  • I will have to start cooking and do my own laundry
  • I will lose all of our joint friends
  • I will have no one to protect me
  • I will have no one to take care of me if I am sick
  • I will lose the relationship with my children
  • I will lose the relationship with my in-laws
broken chain towards independence

Can you see these are all wrong reasons to stay with someone? It makes the person a means to an end and this will destroy your intimacy. The times for selecting our partner for survival reasons are well over. In this day and age, intimate relationships are primarily for emotional nurturing, experiencing love, feeling seen, felt and understood, personal growth and enjoyment. If you are just looking for transactional relationships, you can simply use service providers as our world can offer any possible service imaginable in exchange for money. This is why it is so important to develop personal autonomy in our life as this allows our closed ones to be with us because they want to be there and not because they have to. We can move from the conditionality of love of the sacral chakra with all its cords, control drama and power struggles to the unconditional and pure love of the heart chakra. Of course, we should not take the goal of personal autonomy to the extreme to the point of being afraid of asking for support from others. The key is never to put yourself in a state of dependency that may lead you to compromise your personal integrity or stop honoring your personal boundaries. When your personal situation does not allow for this right away, just make a goal to create this personal autonomy in the future and make it a priority. Authenticity cannot strive in a controlled environment because the price to pay for your personal truth would be too high. Also, when we are incapable of taking care of ourselves, we will create expectations in our union, which in turn will create tension. This is not a conducive environment for love to flow. If you want a clean house and both you and your partner dislike cleaning, best is to hire a cleaning lady. If you are in need of physical affection but your partner is drained, go get a therapeutic massage. As a codependent, authenticity can be daunting as we are so afraid to lose everything once we find ourselves, and start sharing our authenticity with the world. It is true that the world reacts often very brutally to codependents finally standing in their truth. If you express your authentic self to your partner in a vulnerable way but s/he is not able to carve a place for your authentic self, it is best to let go. Our authentic self is our most treasured possession and without it, there cannot be the possibility of a joyful and happy life. I had given everything to my relationship but once I stood in my authenticity, the relationship did not survive. It took courage and it was incredibly painful but as a result, I received the ultimate gift of living an authentic life and stepping out of codependency. It was all well worth it.

Loneliness

loneliness

Loneliness is one of the most painful feelings to experience consciously. We understand conceptually that we are one and connected to everything that is alive. I remember reading Radical Forgiveness years ago from Colin Tipping, and I had an epiphany when the author stated that our experience on earth is first about experiencing the illusion of separateness. Separateness is an enduring illusion because our physical body is separate from other beings. We are one with our mother then separate from her at birth to create an individual experience. We go through the process of death and many other painful experiences alone. We cannot go through life without feeling rejected, abandoned or criticized at times. In my personal experience, there is actually no biggest suffering than losing the connection to our creator. Even Jesus doubted on the cross if God had abandoned him “Father, why have you forsaken me?” Many of us with attachment traumas are suffering from profound loneliness and we become vulnerable to a variety of addictions as a result. There is a compulsory need to fill this void at any cost. This feeling of emptiness is actually caused by our internal fragmentation as we have lost many aspects of ourselves through the traumatic events of our upbringing. Filling this void with people or various addictions can only give us a temporary relief, and this is what codependents and borderlines attempt to do. It is like the person who lost his way in the forest who gets relief by meeting someone else only to realize this person is lost too. This may bring some temporary comfort however the two people are still lost. From my perspective, this form of pathological loneliness can only be healed in two steps. First, we need to feel consciously our deep and profound loneliness without trying to escape it. This is best done in a meditation setting where we create an internal container for the painful emotion with no judgment, letting our internal torment and fears run their course. From this place, if we are patient enough, eventually grace will come in and we will remember somatically our divine nature and recover our connection with God. As we realign with our soul and our sense of purpose, we can feel complete. We may still feel lonely at times as we go through phases when we do not have special people in our life to reflect our wholeness. However these phases are temporary and they do not destabilize us because we feel the security of our connection with our higher self that is connected with everything. Overtime, we learn to be alone without feeling lonely and aloneness becomes even a means to strengthen our connection to the divine. Our deep longing for an intimate connection becomes more a thirst to reflect our divine nature than to fill an endless void. Our divine nature is love, giving and receiving love. Is there anything better in the world than intimate relationships to experience it?

Stepping out of the drama triangle victim/persecutor/rescuer

Dreaded Drama Triangle

The PBPD is addicted to the victim role. She feels so unworthy and hopeless that she believes she can only get attention through pity and other form of victim control drama. The codependent is addicted with the rescuer role. He feels so unworthy that he feels he has no value unless he fulfills a specific role or does something for someone. To break this negative cycle, the codependent needs to apologize to the PBPD for putting her in a state of dependency, disempowering her and not creating the conditions where she could solve her own problems. Without bypassing her pain, the PBPD needs to find the strength to find the hidden treasure that came from her abuse, to realize that her persecutor is just another victim like her and eventually forgive her abuser and herself for creating this painful experience at a soul level. The Hawaiian prayer Ho’oponopono “I am sorry – Please forgive me – Thank you – I love you” is another powerful way to break out of the dysfunctional roles of the drama triangle and undo the false narration. But please remember to do this prayer from the adult or soul perspective but never from the hurt inner child as this could be very damaging.

Transition plan as we rewire our brain for real love

rewire the brain

Because of his unhealthy childhood environment, the codependent actually got addicted to constant drama. He thrives with chaos, conflict and dangerous situations as this gives him the opportunity to prove his self-worth by rescuing. Drama is actually associated with love in his brain. Because it takes time to rewire a brain and examine all false beliefs, I recommend the recovering codependent to engage in more productive activities where he could experience the same adrenaline rush. He can start a more risky professional activity (reward and risk often go together), or enjoy extreme sports. On the other end, the borderline is addicted to emotionally abusive situations so that they can get attention through victimhood. Abuse equal love in her brain. One of my partners had suffered in a horrific way in the hands of one of an extremely disturbing violent cult. The abuser of her childhood pretended to be her dad but was also sexual with her. As we can expect, her intimate relationships were very unstable as a result. She would start all of her relationships idealizing her partner but then would slowly start seeing her companion through the filter of her childhood abuse. She would then replay the escape of her childhood nightmare by orchestrating the end of the romance. Then, she would enter a demonization phase where she would try to convince anyone willing to listen to her that her ex was part of the same cult that inflicted her so much grief as a child. In a similar way than the codependent, the PBPD can turn her addiction to abuse to productive use by helping the unfortunate ones. Since 2001, Angelina Jolie has been on field missions around the world and met with refugees and internally displaced persons. She also adopted 3 children. French sex symbol Brigitte Bardot has dedicated the second half of her life rescuing animals. Princess Diana was involved in over 100 charities and she made a big impact fighting homelessness and helping victims of HIV/AIDS and leprosy. Overtime, as healing takes place, both PBPD and borderline learn to enjoy a more peaceful and simple love without relentless crises. They realize that can experience intimacy and love without the roller coaster.

The 80/20 rule in seeing the positive in your partner

images

The PBPD will have a tendency to catastrophizing and only focus on the negative in herself and her partner. The codependent will often err on the opposite. He will stay positive and apparently strong any time his partner feels bad or negative. This is his way to cope and exercise control in the situation. He has a tendency to act too optimistic in situations potentially dangerous to his partner. Even if his wife struggles with alcoholism, he could say “Let me give you a glass of champagne darling, this will help you relax”. He will let his wife go out with a man interested romantically with her trusting them a bit too much. He will give his daughter to a baby-sitter with bad vibes. He will decide to go out with his friends at the time his wife feels suicidal. Wearing pink glasses is his way of coping. He thinks he can make himself safer when imagining that we live in a good world with good people. He actually endangers himself and his family with this attitude. His borderline partner, on the opposite, feels too much the potential dangers and often amplifies them. She feels she cannot trust her codependent partner to keep her safe and will go ballistic at him when her anxiety reaches a threshold. The codependent will typically only crash emotionally and display negative emotions when his borderline partner feels happy! First, he feels very threatened by her happiness as he fears that she will not need him anymore if she feels good. Secondly, he built resentment through the many crises but did not allow himself to feel any of it because of the instability in the relationship. If he sees his borderline partner doing well, he feels this is his opportunity to share everything that upset him over the last few weeks, which unmistakably overwhelms and triggers his borderline girlfriend.

It is very frustrating for the PBPD as she feels she spends most of her time in doom, and when the sunshine comes, he immediately spoils it! In my twenties, I worked as an engineer in the Silicon Valley software start-up. We had a borderline male employee called Steve with constant conflictual relationships with many co-workers. The CEO liked him however because Steve’s mind was always focused on what could go wrong and this helped avert potential business threats as he felt that the rest of the management team was too optimistic. Though there are some positive aspects in looking at a glass half empty however there is a problem in always seeing the negative in your partner. The codependent struggles with shame too. If he is constantly shamed who he is and what he does, he will start deflecting the shame and pointing to his partner her own shadows. They will work on each other non-stop. It will cease to be a relationship. It will become a self-improvement torture chamber. To support someone towards positive change, it is well known that we need to receive more compliments than criticism. By continuing to reflect the positive of our partners, we will support their development towards their higher potential. On the other hand, the codependent needs to be more connected, aware of his environment and realize that the policy of burying one’s head in the sand is not the right strategy to follow. He should ensure to stay positive when his borderline partner feels good so that she can fully enjoy these brief moments of happiness. He needs to improve his communication so that he can bring constructive feedback in a way that would be best received by his borderline partner. He needs to express things as they come so that they do not have the time to fester in him. The borderline has to learn to see her codependent partner more objectively. She goes from idealization to demonization back to idealization and then again demonization in no time. She needs to recognize that her partner has qualities and flaws just like she has. Putting in writing how she feels about her partner will help her realize her “splitting” and eventually heal from it.

Become an expert in your partner

the woman's manual

First by becoming an expert in your partner, you will learn to spend enjoyable time together while minimizing triggers. Ask lots of questions, be inquisitive and curious about him/her. The better she feels, the better you feel or more succinctly “Happy Wife, Happy Life”. By better understanding your partner’s dysfunctions, you can also better support their recovery and avoid fatal mistakes. This knowledge is best received when it is inconspicuous and unconditional. It should not be a way to score points for a hidden agenda. In this day and age, we are lucky that so much valuable information is at our fingertips. About any question we have may be answered by an insightful YouTube video or podcast. We can make our car a university on wheels during our commute time and keep improving our relationships. There are optimal communication strategies for any type of person and this is what we need to become skillful at using the right words at the right time. If you partner is codependent, here are some of the approaches that may work:

  • If he feels disconnected, be inquisitive, ask him how he feels, use his love language to bring him back to his heart, help him bring out to the surface what is bothering him deeply inside
  • If he says yes but you feel no weight behind his words, challenge him in his commitment. Either get him accountable and make it easy for him to say no. Confront him every time you feel he is lying to him and others (mostly subconsciously because he is a people pleaser). Do not let him off the hook. Point out his lack of consistency and how this is impacting others
  • If his words or actions are hurting you, become vulnerable on how he is making you feel and take responsibility for your feelings not to trigger his shame. Empower him to make things better for you. Tell him you hurt because you love him
  • Get him in touch with his shadows. Create a safe container for him to express the parts behind the “good guy”, all of the unsavory aspects of his hurt inner child. Reward him every time he has the courage to go there

It is important that we learn to clearly communicate our needs and likes instead of expecting our partners to know them telepathically. While this feels great when our partner does things what we treasure without the need to ask them, why not make it easier on them instead of constantly testing their love for us? Let us coach them to speak our love language instead of doing things for them with the expectation of getting something in return. Even the most compatible persons will have difference in their love language so communication is key. Make separate lists of your needs, what you love and share it with your loved one. Provide loving and non-judgmental frequent feedback so that both partners can improve constantly of making each other feel loved.

The importance of the commitment to self

commitment to self

Happiness comes from the simple things of life: knowing who you are, feeling love for who we are, intimacy with special people and relationships, a supportive community, feeling creative, have our needs met at a physical level, being healthy, a connection to something greater than ourselves (ideal, God, values) and practicing activities that we enjoy. This is not rocket science but it takes commitment to fill our life with the ingredients of joy. In codependent relationships, we sacrifice our authentic self for the relationship. We are so desperate to be loved that we project a false idea of us so that we may be liked. The commitment to self has to come first as the people in the relationship are more important than the relationship. If the relationship stops supporting the individuals within the relationship, it does not have to mean a break-up. People can find creative ways to adjust the relationship in a way that they will feel better supported. This takes tremendous courage as these changes may trigger our insecurities and fears of abandonment. The commitment to self requires us to be OK to be alone, as we cannot control the reactions of others. This may not be our preferred way of being but unless we can sit in peace with ourselves, we will not be able to give our partner the freedom to love us by choice. Once our sense of self is secure, the commitment to the relationship comes with less anxiety so we can navigate the ups and downs in a more astute way. We typically make the worst relationship mistakes when we are triggered. As we dive deeper in intimacy, we start including the other into our personal field so the commitment to self will naturally encompass them too. Loving oneself extends to loving our partner and eventually to the whole universe as we increase our awareness.

Own your shame

shame guilt woman pointing fingers sad

Most fights between codependents and borderline are escalated when shame is triggered. Owning your shame is the best way to de-escalate the argument. Let me give you a couple of examples. Instead of “Why did book this shitty hotel? This is the last time you do the travel reservations”, say “I felt small and taken for granted when you booked this hotel for us. I really want to feel safe with you and it is hard to do when you do not seem to see me”. Instead of “Can I have some space now? I cannot take this constant drama” say “I feel at odds with myself and I do not think I can be a good company for you until I can sort things out. May I go meditate and reconnect with you after I am done?”. Instead of “How can you be friend with that asshole? He is just a narcissistic jerk” say “I feel triggered around your friend. He always speak about himself and never seems to care to listen about things in our life”. Instead of “Being with you is like being with a cold stone. It is obvious why none of your relationships never lasted very long” say “I do not feel seen, felt or understood right now. I feel unsafe as a result. I need you to really connect to me right now”. If you can show some genuine vulnerable emotions, your communication will be that much more effective. Owing our shame starts with the courage to believe that our innate nature is lovable, which would allow us to be vulnerable and therefore to build intimacy. It is important to stay humble because unless we are willing to acknowledge our own failings, we will continuously project what we refuse to see in ourselves into our partner. I had once a partner who kept saying obsessively that I had duped her to get in a relationship with her. This was partly true because as a codependent, I would portray myself as someone I am not in order to conquer the object of my desire because I felt unlovable deep within. However, what she failed to realize is that she felt even more intensely like a bad apple and did not believe anyone could love her for who she is. There were just as many things she hid about herself than her codependent partner. Projecting this deep shame solely into her partner prevented her to own it.

Therapy

Therapy

A good family therapist is important to help us navigate through the intricacies of interpersonal relationships with our partners, children and parents. There is a significant stigma in Europe with people using therapists. They are often labeled as crazy and unstable so most people in Europe would see a shrink in secret. People in the USA and even more Californians are very open to it. When a situation triggers both partners at the same time, a qualified therapist is critical. I do not recommend using a friend because the friend would typically be biased and they do not have the professional training to rise above the interpersonal conflict. The therapist primary goal is to help release the unconscious into the conscious, support introspection and empower the stakeholders towards a creative solution as their awareness is lifted. It is important to take your time to find a good family therapist. Many enter this profession because they feel damaged and they have not done yet all the inner work necessary to help others. A skilled family therapist is important at times to any intimate partnership but it is absolutely critical for codependent/borderline couple who need all the help they can get with their rocky relationship. The best therapists would actually be the ones that experienced earlier in their life the same negative patterns. I have an absolutely extraordinary family therapist. He is an older gentleman. He was raised in a horrendous family dynamic and he had a disorganized attachment style as a result. He was married and divorced 3 times before he was able to finally develop a healthy and intimate relationship with his 4th wife whom he has been for over 30 years now. He has done immense inner work to get where he is now, which makes him incredible knowledgeable and insightful in helping his clients.

Make the couple a sanctuary

sacred union

Codependent/borderline relationships are inherently turbulent and therefore experience power struggles. Power struggles come from personal insecurity and powerlessness. We attempt to control our partner to love us because we feel deep inside unworthy of love. If someone does not feel secure in a relationship, they have the tendency to enroll their personal friends to validate their opinions and show their partner that they are right. This can do no good to the relationship. While venting to your friends can be sometimes helpful to release some of the internal pressure and frustration one may experience, enlisting them to prove your points would just damage the relationship. We need to keep remembering what is more important to us, to be loved or to be right? I was once in a very unhealthy community situation where all the community members were either employees or followers of my wife. They worshipped her and she could do no wrong. It was very tempting for her to enlist them to make herself right to me, ignoring the fact that they were all biased to start with. If I had used my close friends or French family to rally to my opinion, they would have sided with me. That would not have made me right. This was not an option anyway because they were not in our living community. And this would have just made the conflict larger instead of contributing towards a meaningful resolution of the conflict. This is why a trained therapist should be used instead of friends or community members to work through a relationship conflict. Communities are a very dangerous place for committed intimate relationships. As a young man, I remember that most couples that moved to the Fellowship of Friends community in northern California would divorce the first year. Community life diffuse the commitment between the two individuals and there is a high temptation to get one’s needs met outside the relationship instead of doing the hard work of focusing and solving the conflicts within the relationship. In my recent situation, community members that were my wife followers surrounded her. It was like living at the queen’s court. They were always fighting for her attention and it was difficult to have time where only the two of us could be together alone to simply connect. If you are looking to live in a community, I would advise to look for an equal community where members relate to each other on an equal basis and have interdependent relationships instead of dependent and hierarchical ones. It would be a model where each family knows very well their neighbors, and where the community is enhanced through regular get together, instead of a pyramidal structure. My situation was extreme and is quite rare, but it is important for any couple to make their intimate relationship a priority. As we discussed, the self is the priority because if we are not true to ourselves, we cannot be in an authentic relationship but the relationship is next in line even before the children for a married couple. The children feed from the energy of a healthy marriage and get damaged by the constant conflicts of their parents. So by putting your marriage first, you are putting your children first. Recomposed families are more complex systems and they are outside the scope of this article. It is a big temptation once we have children to put our marriage after the children, after our hobbies and sometimes even after some of our friendships. The result is often disastrous because the marriage is supposed to be the foundation of our family life but no more energy gets invested into it. You need to treat your relationship like a sanctuary if you want a happy life. The codependent and the borderline need to stop their destructive habit of enticing people outside the relationship to look like victims and instead take full responsibility for their personality disorder and their relationship.

The law of mirroring in relationships

sacred relationship mirroring

Do not fool yourself that you will jump dramatically in terms of quality of partner from one relationship to the next. Remember that your partner comes to you through the law of attraction so they are an external mirror of who you are inside. What is far more important than finding a perfect partner is to find a partner that you can grow with. If you have attachment traumas, it is then far more sensible to find an introspective partner that has done a lot of inner work, and has learned from their personal wounds. Even if you meet someone with a secure attachment style, it is likely that there will not be any chemistry unless you have a secure attachment style yourself. For this reason, my future partner is likely to be a conscious borderline. After the initial honeymoon phase of a new relationship, we usually come back to the same personal flaws that contributed to our last breakup. Intimate relationships are a personal growth accelerator so there is simply no escape to what we are supposed to work on this lifetime if we are going to share our lives with someone special. I trust in the power of attraction in terms of intimate relationships. Many people have been hurt in intimate relationships so they learned to distrust their own chemistry & attraction feelings. They would rather cut their attraction sensors and focus solely on a compatibility checklist out of fear. Our body never lies. It is all about understanding and becoming conscious of what our body is attempting to communicate to us. Attraction is the path of freedom and back to oneself. However it is critical we move into this attraction with self-awareness because of our personal shadows. If there is no chemistry, there is limited growth. Our society is addicted to the removal of pain and struggles but suffering is a fact of life that needs to be embraced instead of feared so that we can become whole again. A friend of mine has a joke about the frozen packages of processed chicken in supermarkets. He called them boneless, skinless and flavorless chicken. Do you want a boneless, skinless and flavorless relationship or do you want to be consumed by love and be transformed to the full potential of who you are?

Final words

Love and intimacy are powerful forces because they reflect the movement of God towards integration. Many of us with attachment traumas, whether we are codependents or borderlines have been damaged through relationships. We can now heal through relationships too. This is why we need each other.

Hands making heart

I was fortunate to have many experiences in my lifetime. I have traveled in many parts of the world, I have built companies, non-profit organizations, I have connected with people from many different cultures, I have networked with the rich, wealthy and famous and experienced high-flying lifestyle. Among all these experiences, not a single one ever came close in intensity and happiness than the deep and intimate connection with a beloved. This experience is available to any of us as we open ourselves to authentic love no matter what may be our background.

Love,

Vaillant

Read part I – The dark side of the co-dependent

Read part II – Understanding and loving the borderline

Guru/disciple relationship dynamics and attachment traumas

German translation of this blog by Silke Lira Blumbach

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Young Vaillant with his cat

My mother was raised in the French foster system. My father was a product of the Second World War and only reconnected with his mum when he was 10. As a result, they suffered from severe attachment trauma and shame. She was a discouraged borderline struggling with depression and he was a codependent that lost his ability to feel. Because my father was mostly absent, I was parentified and developed a fusional relationship with my mother. Both my sister and I could not receive in this family environment the emotional nurturing we needed to develop secure attachment. I coped by being the best at school and in general the best boy possible so I became the Golden Child and started building strong codependent tendencies. My sister struggled to cope in this family environment and became the Scapegoat and started developing borderline tendencies. When I was 9, our parents divorced. Mum could not cope anymore with the emotional unavailability of dad, and left overnight leaving both my sister and me behind to live with her new companion. She was clumsy in explaining to us her departure. At that point in my life, my mum was everything. She was a stay-at-home, we spent a lot of time together and I was meant to fill the emotional void my dad had left. We had a fusional relationship. While it is natural for a 9 year old to be dependent upon his mother, my dependency was even more pronounced, as she was so afraid of being alone. To make it worse, when she ran away, I was left with an emotionally unavailable father. My new stepmother was a petulant borderline. As a codependent, my dad needed to appear as the good guy so played sides instead of fighting for inclusion. As a result, she saw us as a clear threat to her relationship to our dad. This led to a second abandonment where my dad gave us away back to my mum and we hardly saw him after that. This second abandonment was very hard on me as I asked my dad to stay with him. Though he was an absent father, I had developed an intense fear around my mum unpredictability so felt safer to stay with him at the time instead of going back to mum. But he just gave me back to mum without even giving to us an explanation. As a result, my child self developed the core belief of being “bad”, in fact “very bad” for parents not wanting to be with me. And shortly after being reunited with mum, both sets of parents had a baby son. This reinforced how bad we had to be that we needed to be replaced. My goal in sharing this story is not to throw my parents under the bus as I have repeated myself many of their mistakes but to share with the readers how attachment traumas are created.

osho tarot card the master

I coped with the deep core belief of being so bad by becoming a hyper-achiever. I had a bright mind and used it to my advantage to bury my core shame of being unlovable so that my achievements could give me the positive attention I was desperately craving for. To cope with my attachment trauma, all my focus turned into the goal of being admitted to Ecole Polytechnique, the most prestigious engineering school of France. To reach that goal, I worked insanely for the 2 years after high school. I would study until 12:30 AM every night and only give myself Saturday afternoon to bike in the Cote d’Azur countryside. As it was a national exam, I was competing with the brightest and most hard-working students in my age category in France. I became interested in the occult as a short cut to become super smart as I felt being the best was the only way I could be loved. Actually many kids today that are fascinated by the Marvel super hero movies and comics feel very powerless and out of control as they feel unlovable in their present state. I ended up not making it to Ecole Polytechnique but to the second best engineering school of France Ecole Centrale Paris, which was an excellent achievement. While I thought reaching my goal would bring me happiness, the opposite happened. I had lost the goal that was distracting me from my misery. I felt distressed and I could not explain why. I did not feel I belonged anywhere. I started drinking heavily and my connection with women was limited to meaningless one-night stands. I started developing a profound disgust to myself. I had read lots of books from Osho Rajneesh (see documentary Wild Wild West on Netflix) and I enjoyed very much his provocative insights, vast knowledge and wisdom. One day, when I felt particularly miserable and was looking for an answer, I drew a card from his tarot deck. It was the Master card, the 79th card in Osho’s tarot deck. I interpreted the meaning of this card that I had to find a master because I felt so stuck. Awakening felt like the answer to my suffering. An occult group in Paris was leaving bookmarks in Osho Rajneesh books. It was called The Fellowship of Friends that proclaimed to be a fourth way school following the teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, two famous Russian mystics. Osho spoke frequently of Gurdjieff in his books. I contacted them and after three prospective meetings, I was determined to join to put an end to my misery and isolation.

Cult leader Robert Earl Burton with his followers

At first, my experience in the cult was exhilarating. I felt an intense sense of belonging, I was given a new meaning for my life, I was surrounded with many smart, mature and wise people, my mind was stimulated by new and fascinating esoteric knowledge, my ego was gratified by feeling among the chosen ones and having a direct connection to God (called Influence C in that group), I was developing deeper connections with people and my life became full of new exciting experiences and adventures. Being in a cult at that time was actually an improvement to my state compared to the powerlessness, isolation, addiction and depression that I had been struggling with. Actually, a lot of people go from substance or sexual addiction to becoming fundamentalist newborn Christians, this is actually an improvement too. There is a reason why the 12-step program is so religious.

Robert Earl Burton, Self-Proclaimed Avatar of the Age

If you want to better understand the type of cult I joined, you may be interested to watch the documentary Holy Hell on Netflix. Both my cult leader Robert Earl Burton and Michel Rostand in Holy Hell are megalomaniac and homosexual predators. They believe they are fully awakened. They are highly manipulative and believe that it is an honor to be used by them. They are very authoritative and exercise full control over the life of their members. Robert’s group the fellowship of friends was a bit larger than Michel’s as it reached over 3,000 members at its prime time. Robert demanded 10% of every member income, sex from any male member he found attractive (most of them being heterosexual and having no interest to have sex with a man) and compliance to his instructions as he saw himself more evolved than Christ himself.

Michel Rostand cult leader in HOLY HELL (2016)

In most cases unfortunately, a guru/disciple relationship is nothing else than a narcissist/co-dependent relationship. It is a dysfunctional relationship where needs are met in ways that are destructive, manipulative and covert. What is the dynamic of this dysfunctional relationship? Because of their attachment traumas, the co-dependents have developed core shame and believe they are bad and as a result, there are unable to see their own light. They have disown their light and their guru has disowned his shadow. The relationship that they are developing with a narcissistic guru will then reflect their unworthiness and they are therefore a perfect match to their cult leader because of their core belief of being bad. The codependents are attracted to the charm, boldness, confidence and domineering personality of the narcissist. The codependents reflexively give up their power; since the narcissist thrives on control and power, there is an intense attraction between them. The narcissist guru find recruits who lack self-worth, confidence and who have low self-esteem — codependents. Through smart manipulation the narcissist leader is able to conceal his lower motives and maintain an unsullied reputation—at least in the beginning. They are often highly intelligent, possess esoteric information that is very attractive to their followers, and are well aware of mind control techniques. Most use the technique of undermining the follower’s sense of self by subtle criticism or exposing personally embarrassing situations to trigger their core shame—all this in the name assisting the person to transcend ego. They establish their superiority over their followers by claiming super powers that cannot be verified. For example, Robert would claim “I have fully developed higher centers”, “I live in a pure state of presence & being”, “I am omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent”. Anyone questioning the claims of the guru is shamed for lacking faith, devotion or is seen as disruptive for the group cohesion. Because co-dependents have such fear of abandonment, they typically err on the safe side by unconditionally siding with the guru’s views with the rest of the followers. Over time, even as the disciples become aware of the guru abuse, they look the other way, as they understand that the cult leader owns the relationships in the group and any opposition would mean ex-communication, which is perceived as the worst possible punishment for people with abandonment traumas. Once we have accepted the cult as our family, we are stuck. There is another important reason why it is so difficult to leave these dangerous cults. We have disowned our relationship to our Creator, God or Source and believed we are dependent on the group and the cult leader to access it. Leaving the group is then associated with cutting our connection to the divine, which is a deeply entrenched fear in humans. We have been controlled for millenniums by the fear of rotting in hell for eternity. When I announced my departure of the cult to Robert in 1996, he warned me that I would lose my connection to “Influence C” (i.e. God). At the end, I only lost my connection to a demon 😉

I had made the Fellowship of Friends my family, I was part of the cult inner circle, I had adopted the cult beliefs and language, I had very little connection with my blood family. So how was I able to leave it when I was only 23 confronting the cult leader Robert Earl Burton on my last day while so many other more mature, smarter and experienced members stayed stuck there for so many years?

  • First, I stayed in contact with a French healer Jacques who I intuitively felt had many more spiritual abilities than my guru who claimed to be God on earth. He helped my deprogramming in smart and subtle ways.
  • I was not completely dependent on the group as I just started a programmer job in Silicon Valley.
  • I rented a room in a house with an individual that had his own teacher Elias De Mohan, a remarkably psychic man that was not cultish. This again challenged Robert’s claim that he was the most conscious being on earth.
  • After attending so many Robert’s events, he looked like a parrot repeating the same thing over and over again so I did not feel I was learning anything new anymore.
  • The cult organization destroyed my relationship with a woman I was deeply in love with and built resentment toward the cult as a result.
  • I understood how wasteful Robert was with money and I did not want him to do this with 10% of my income now that I had a good job.
  • However, I think the biggest factor came from my own attachment trauma. I had lost my family already when I was a kid and knew I could survive it. Or maybe subconsciously, I wanted to re-experience the pain of losing my family again for healing purpose. In any case, my own trauma benefited me in this situation.

Most of my friends in the cult ended up only leaving the cult 13 years later after all the abuse was made public through this public blog.

In summary, here is what the cult member gets from the transaction:

  • The cult member gets his core belief of being unlovable, bad and unworthy validated, replaying childhood attachment trauma. Many co-dependents have learned that they only get loved by being down on themselves and making the other better than they are
  • The cult member gets belonging & connection with like-minded individuals. He gets a new family (with conditional love)
  • The cult members gets to experience the divine and higher part of them that they have disowned through the guru
  • The cult member gets a sense of (false) security through the guru self-confidence, assertiveness, and views on the meaning of life that are simple to understand
  • The cult member gets new goals and activities so that he does not have to face his own inner turmoil and demons anymore. He is given a new direction that prevents him to dwell more on his/her own misery so feels better as a result. Actually, many of these activities allow the individual to develop his creativity far more than what he was doing in the past. The caveat is that the guru is the one benefiting financially for the disciple newfound creativity, not the individual
we are not worthy

These benefits provide enough value to the disciple that they will often surrender their free will, financial resources and even their own body to the leader. Disappointment with the leader, acknowledgement of the abuse will eventually force the follower to re-own his own power and needs, stand on his own feet to live his own life, a more authentic life. At this stage, the follower feels angry, betrayed and intense grief. What was heaven now seems hell. Eventually, they will need to digest this experience in more objective terms for true healing to take place. They feel like a victim but eventually needs to own how their own attachment traumas played a role to be a match to this experience. They will able to take responsibility for joining a cult and forgiving themselves for doing so. Actually, many people are able to create fulfilling and successful lives after a cult experience if they can learn all the lessons that came with it.

Paradoxically, cult leaders hold often even more core shame than their followers. Their shame is so repressed that they can only see it externally through their own disciples. We have to remember that cult leaders and followers, just like narcissists and co-dependents are simply the mirrored repressed aspects of each other. Many cult leaders are hyper achievers to cover up their own sense of inadequacy, and many have developed special abilities to maintain the illusion of personal greatness so that they would never have to face how bad they actually feel about themselves. Actually, both cult leaders and their members are in a state of dysfunctional and unhealthy dependency. The guru deals with his insecurity around that dependency by creating a large narcissistic supply of followers to ensure that his needs would always be met. It is actually harder for the guru to growth and heal as he has completely disowned his shame and buried his vulnerability. Actually, therapists see a lot of codependents but narcissists never come to their office. This is because narcissists can never admit there is something wrong with them while codependents are so good at finding fault within themselves as they have learned to get rewarded and receive love for showing their imperfection to the narcissist. All cult leaders suffered from severe trauma from their childhood that they never healed. Theo Dorpat wrote in his book “Wounded Monster” about the importance of Hitler’s (the most infamous cult leader of all times) childhood trauma to explain his destructive behaviors.

What does the cult leader gets from the transaction?

Cult leader Sathya Sai Baba

It feels alone at the top so actually the cult leader in most case does not get belonging or connection. He feels often alone and disconnected from others. They are unable to develop equal authentic relationships with others as they see the world in a hierarchical way. This is why so many cult leaders, especially if they are men, turn into sex addicts. Sex is the only way they can get the connection they desperately need. In general, the cult leader will get his followers to talk his or her love language whether it is act of service, words of affirmation, gifts, time together or touch to fill the void of their pathological loneliness. The bigger the void, the bigger the need for external adoration. The same pattern can be observed with stars and their fans, or with any narcissistic leader and their subordinates.

The leader gets tremendous energy from their followers and it typically feeds their lower shakras because of lack of purity and integrity: financial security with the first shakra, sexual gratification with the second shakra or power with the third shakra. This energy rarely reached the higher shakras because their character has been perverted: the fourth to experience pure love for their followers through service (ex. burning heart of Christ), the fifth to express it creatively, the sixth to lead with vision and the seventh to stay aligned with the rest of creation.

Ego is nothing else than the illusion of separateness. As the ego gets gratified, the identification with the ego becomes stronger and stronger and the connection with the authentic self weaker and weaker. They become sociopathic then psychopathic as their disorder develops. This means that they are able to cut their own unpleasant feelings through rationalization. As a result, they repress their own emotional pain & suffering which now become externalized in the pain & suffering of their followers that have not completely cut the connection to their heart.

Gurus are often high-functioning psychopath that display superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self, lack of remorse or empathy, lack of introspection, cunning behavior, lying, egocentricity, parasitic lifestyle, and more often than not, sexual exploitation. While their followers admire them, their psychological condition is often worse than the people they abuse. Behind close doors, they are deeply tormented and often resort to diverse addictions to shut the door of their own conscience torturing them. Their mental health is plagued with anti-social disorders, paranoia and self-hatred.

What do they need to heal? A collapse of their universe with people turning against them and keeping them accountable for their own actions. In 1996, during the third year at my cult, I went to Russia. The Soviet block had collapsed and there was a lot of interest for spirituality. I start giving there teaching dinners and running large meetings about the group teaching. The women were beautiful and I was falling in love every day. My success went to my head and I was becoming a mini-guru. The cult leader Robert Burton heard from others that I was taking too much liberty and I was reprimanded and fined at my return to the US. They crushed me and this is the best thing they could have done to downsize my ego that had got too inflated. Of course, the fact that he punished me for actions he would do himself behind people’s back did not sit too well for me and acted as a catalyst for me to leave.

Of course, not all spiritual teachers are narcissist or have dysfunctional parasitic relationship with their followers. What is most important for those seeking spiritual guidance is to keep their critical thinking alive as they approach any spiritual teacher. The questions they must ask ourselves are:

  • Does this teacher walk his/her talk? Does this teacher live by the precepts he/she teaches?
  • Is the teacher respectful of you? Do they automatically assume you are below them?
  • Do they have a grandiose sense of self?
  • Do you feel manipulated in any way by this person?
  • Do they require zealous, unquestioning commitment and subservience to the leader?
  • Is questioning, doubt, and dissent discouraged or even punished?
  • Is the group elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader and members?
  • Does the leadership induce feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members?
  • Do they encourage members to cut ties with family and friends outside the group? Are members encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members?
  • Does the group use subtle maneuvers to make it difficult for you to leave? Do they punish you if you leave? Are you ostracized if you leave the group?
The Last  Supper Restored Da Vinci

Once these question are answered to your satisfaction, this somewhat suspicious stance can be relinquished in order to assimilate the instruction you desire, and to create an open-hearted relationship with your spiritual teacher.

Love and Compatibility

Access the French version (video en Français ci-dessous)

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love compatibility

Years ago, I went to an Esalen couples workshop and the facilitator shared some wisdom that marked my memory. He said that intimate relationships need three key ingredients to become a lifetime commitment. First, the partners need to love each other. If the attraction is not there, they will never be able to commit and overcome all the obstacles they will inevitably face. Secondly, they need to be compatible as otherwise their differences (cultural, diet, interests, values, social class, etc…) will eventually erode the love they have for each other and turn any passionate romance into a nightmare. Thirdly, they need relationship tools and continuing relationship education to keep increasing their awareness and communication. The third point was an astute and clever way to promote their workshop 😉 I loved that recipe when I heard it. It made complete sense and it felt achievable at the time. I do not feel as hopeful today because I have observed that compatibility and love rarely go together. The person we are crazy about will always push our worst buttons. They will often stretch us to the point of collapse as they are meant to help us re-experience our deepest childhood traumas according the Imago theory. On the other hand, I have witnessed in my life and my friends’ life that we rarely experience chemistry with the people that we get along so well with. They make great friends and companions but poor lovers. We are facing a dilemma. If love & compatibility do not go together, which one is the most important to ensure a happy and fulfilling relationship? Should we favor companionship over passion?

Indian arranged marriage

An arranged marriage is a marital union where the families (parents, guardians, even extended families) of the bride and groom decide on the match based on a number of rational compatibility criteria rather than the couple choosing their own partner. In India, historically, most marriages have been arranged marriages. Divorce rates in India overall are pegged at about 1.2 percent vis-à-vis a divorce rate of about 53 percent in the US, a country where love marriages are the norm. Even in India, rates of divorce in love marriages are much higher than in arranged marriages. Actually, as many as 90% of all Indian marriages are arranged and 74% of young Indians (18-35 years old) prefer an arranged marriage to a free-choice one. So if we were to evaluate relationship success by their durability, marriages that were formed through compatibility instead of love were 44 times more successful!

the 6 types of love according to the greeks

The Greeks had six different words for love. They also valued Pragma (longstanding love) over Eros (sexual love). They did not think too of Eros as something positive. On the opposite, they viewed it as dangerous, fiery, irrational and as an addiction that will surely bring you to your demise. On the opposite, they praised Pragma, which was about making compromises to help the relationship work over time, and showing patience and tolerance even in the absence of love and passion.

Pierre Corneille

Classical French literature shares the same sentiment. Jean Racine, 17th century French dramatist, starts many of his plays with an all-consuming love story that is plagued with external obstacles: refusal from the beloved, family opposing the union, state matters, conflicting feelings such as guilt, leading eventually to tragedy. The other great 17th century French playwright, actor and poet Molière describes passion as a possession state that endangers our discerning and discriminating abilities. Reason should be preferred over passion at all times. Corneille, the other great French tragedian of that time, goes even further. In his plays, duty always wins over passion despite the initial internal conflicts. The hero is a master of himself and stays lucid in any situation.

CS Lewis

More recently, in the 20th century, the famous British novelist and poet C.S. Lewis is quite explicit in his book called The Four Loves. Lewis praises too arranged marriages over love unions. “I am not at all subscribing to the popular idea that it is the absence or presence of Eros which makes the sexual act “impure” or “pure”… If all who lay together without being in the state of Eros were abominable, we all come of tainted stock… Most of our ancestors were married off in early youth to partners chosen by their parents on grounds that had nothing to do with Eros. They went to the act with no other “fuel,” so to speak, than animal desire. And they did right; honest Christian husbands and wives, obeying their fathers and mothers, discharging to one another their “marriage debt,” and bringing up families in the fear of the Lord.” Lewis warns us against worshiping a false god in Eros “Of all loves [Eros] is, at his height, most god-like; therefore most prone to demand our worship. Of himself he always tends to turn “being in love” into a sort of religion. Theologians have often feared in this love, a danger of idolatry. I think they meant by this that the lovers might idolize one another… The real danger seems to me not that the lovers will idolize each other but that they will idolize Eros himself.” To Lewis, romantic love is simply doomed and short-lived “And all the time the grim joke is that this Eros whose voice seems to speak from the eternal realm is not himself necessarily even permanent. He is notoriously the most mortal of our loves… What is baffling is the combination of this fickleness with his protestations of permanency.”

Christian Grey Teasing Anastasia Steele

Let’s now leave these respectable historical minds and dive into the best seller (just after Harry Potter) of the 21st century “50 shades of Grey” from E.L. James that sold 125 million copies and was translated in 52 languages. I actually only got to see the movie trilogy for the first time with a friend this week. I had low expectations and actually the story plot was well thought out, at least much more than what critics expressed. I believe in the wisdom of popular success over expert opinions. Christian Gray and Anastasia Steele are clearly incompatible. He is a sadistic sociopath magnate that can only get turned on by dominating and objectifying women. She is an openhearted, sensitive and romantic virgin who wants an equal relationship with her man. Mrs Robinson, Christian’s first S&M mentor, is well aware of this incompatibility and attempts to warn the lovers about the futility of their union. Despite all odds, Christian gets actually transformed and healed through their love as he connects more and more to his heart. Anastasia gains a lot of self-confidence and personal empowerment through the relationship. The story shows the cathartic power of love. If Christian and Anastasia had been rational, saw clearly their incompatibilities and believed in them, they would have given up on each other. They chose love over reason and received the ultimate gift. Of course, this is an American novel with a happy end. The lovers get it all: passion and eternal love. Aspects of the story feel far from real life experience. The lovers handle their conflict with too much ease but we embrace this story novocain in our desperate need to believe that true love is possible and can last forever.

Phoenix raising from its ashes

It is true that most love stories driven by Eros rarely experience the same joyful fate. The statistics do not lie and love unions are marked by instability and are often short-lived. They are however more transformational and life changing than any other relationships. As I mentioned recently, I fell in love 6 times but none of these relationships have endured the test of time. Despite the pain of break-up, the heartaches, the conflicts and all of the challenges, they all have come with incredible gifts, accelerated my growth and transformed me more than any other experience in my life. Carole led me to the beginning of my spiritual journey when I was 19. I emigrated to the USA because of Laurence when I was 22. I left the cult I was a part of at 23 thanks to Janna. Danielle helped me heal the biggest trauma of my life (mum’s abandonment) and opened my spirituality to a new level. Alina catalyzed my success in the 3D world and gave me two beautiful children. Finally, Teal brought me to my authentic self, among many other gifts. Every one of these women has crushed me and it felt every single time that I would never recover. However, like a phoenix that obtains a new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor, I have been transformed and improved every single time. They have relentlessly killed the old and the false in me so that I could wake up to my true potential more than any books, workshops, spiritual teachers or organizations could have ever done. I just wish sometimes the process would be more gentle!

Chemistry between two lovers

So I am going to go against accepted norms here. I am claiming that the center that governs our sexual attractions has actually the fastest and most sophisticated brain of all. In a fraction of a second, it can see the life-changing potential of associating with a partner. It is closely associated with our soul purpose. And soul does not care about pain, permanence or fairness. It only cares about evolution, awareness, inner growth and opening your heart. An intense chemistry is always reflecting a quality that the infatuated person needs to develop. In most cases, they need to open their mind and their heart to what they need instead of what they want. If Christian Grey had stayed stubborn that he needed a person that would accept all clauses of his S&M contract then he would have stayed miserably unhappy in isolation, and continued to destroy many other women in the process. Chemistry denotes a yearning of the soul for an important missing quality in the personality. The problem occurs when the gap between the soul and the personality desires is too wide to be bridged because of unresolved traumas. In this situation, break-ups are incredibly painful. We think we keep attracting the wrong type of partners but in fact we keep sending the wrong type of signals because we are not healed. Let me give you some examples extracted from clients’, friends and personal experience about the transforming power of love relationships.

  • A shrewd businessman is attracted a very sensitive woman but his lack of attunement keeps hurting the feeling of his beloved. If he is conscious that his behavior is triggering his loved one then this relationship has the potential to restore his sensitivity that was lost in the harsh and cold corporate environment.
  • An insecure and needy woman is attracted to an independent and self-confident. man. If he shows sensitivity to her feelings and that she becomes aware that her possessiveness and control dramas are coming from her fears then this relationship has the potential to support her self-confidence, healing and autonomy.
  • A materialistic and down-to-earth woman and a spiritual and introspective man fall in love. If there is enough love between them two, the woman will become more open-minded and introspective and the man will become more grounded in his spirituality.
  • A strong willed and emotional woman and a quiet, introvert and mental mind fall in love. This is an opportunity for her to use her mind to better channel her emotional state and for him to get in touch with his repressed feelings and become more sensitive.
  • An over controlling man fells in love with a fiercely independent woman. Through that relationship, he will learn to loosen his grip on control, jealousy and possessiveness. He will learn to become more spontaneous.
  • A super ambitious, successful and boasting man fells in love with a down-to earth, humble and self-sufficient woman that is able to challenge him when he is off. This relationship will be critical for his ego not to get out of control and take the better part of himself. This way, he will stay connected to people and not objectify them.

Incompatibility with love has tremendous healing power and can support us to become the best version of ourselves. It works best when the partners are aware of their weaknesses and sees how the relationship is supporting their growth.

Vaillant in Utah Canyonlands National Park

Am I being the devil’s advocate to praise Eros over Pragma? In the center of my being, I can only hear these words resonate “Fuck Compatibility and Choose Love over Reason”. It may not be for everyone but this is my truth. The poet Khalil Gibran used to say “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”. Too much suffering can also drive a man to the psychiatric hospital. It is up to each one of us to decide how much adversity we can take and transform so that we can live our lives accordingly.

Read Love & Compatibility – Part II

French translation below – Article en Français ci-dessous

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Il y a des années, j’ai assisté à une conférence sur l’amour dans le couple à Esalen en California et le présentateur a partagé une sagesse qui a marqué ma mémoire. Il a dit qu’un couple a besoin de trois ingrédients clés pour vivre le bonheur à deux sur le long-terme. Premièrement, les partenaires doivent s’aimer. Si l’attraction n’est pas là, ils ne pourront jamais s’engager et surmonter tous les obstacles auxquels ils seront inévitablement confrontés. Deuxièmement, ils doivent être compatibles, faute de quoi leurs différences (qu’elles viennent de leur culture, leur régime alimentaire, leurs intérêts, leurs valeurs ou leur classe sociale, etc…) finiront par éroder l’amour qu’ils ont l’un pour l’autre et transformeront leur passion en cauchemar. Troisièmement, ils ont besoin d’outils relationnels et d’une formation continue sur la communication de couple et l’intimité. Bien sûr, le troisième point était un moyen astucieux et intelligent de promouvoir leur conférence 😉 mais j’ai beaucoup apprécié cette recette quand je l’ai entendue. Cela avait du sens et semblait réalisable à l’époque. Je ne me sens pas aussi optimiste aujourd’hui car j’ai constaté que compatibilité et amour vont rarement de pair. Il semble que la personne dont nous sommes fous amoureux a toujours cette capacité à nous faire sortir de nos gonds. Ils vont être ceux qui vous nous pousser à bout car ne sont-ils pas censés nous aider à revivre nos traumatismes de l’enfance les plus profonds d’après la théorie bien connue d’Imago. D’autre part, j’ai remarqué dans ma vie et celle de mes amis que nous sommes rarement attirés par des personnes avec lesquelles nous nous entendons si bien. Ils font de bons amis et compagnons, mais de pauvres amants. Nous sommes donc confrontés à un dilemme. Si l’amour et la compatibilité ne vont pas ensemble, que devons nous faire pour vivre une relation heureuse et épanouissante? Devrions-nous privilégier l’amitié plutôt que la passion?

Un mariage arrangé est une union matrimoniale où les familles des futurs mariés décident du mariage en fonction d’un certain nombre de critères de compatibilité rationnels mais aussi astrologiques plutôt que de les laisser choisir leur propre partenaire. En Inde, historiquement, la plupart des mariages ont été arrangés. Les taux de divorce en Inde est à environ 1,2%, contre un taux de divorce d’environ 53% aux États-Unis, un pays où les mariages d’amour sont la norme. Même en Inde, les taux de divorce dans les mariages d’amour sont beaucoup plus élevés que dans les mariages arrangés. En fait, pas moins de 90% des mariages indiens sont arrangés et 74% des jeunes Indiens (âgés de 18 à 35 ans) préfèrent un mariage arrangé à un mariage à choix libre. Donc, si nous jugeons de la réussite d’un mariage par leur durabilité, les mariages formés par compatibilité plutôt que par amour auraient donc une probabilité de succès 44 fois plus élevée!

Les Grecs avaient six mots différents pour parler d’amour. Ils préféraient Pragma (l’amour inscrit sur la durée et la compatibilité) sur Eros (la passion et l’amour sexuel). Ils ne voyaient pas Eros de manière trop positive. Au contraire, ils considéraient la passion comme dangereuse, ardente, irrationnelle et comme une dépendance qui vous mènera sûrement à votre perte. Au contraire, ils faisaient l’éloge de Pragma, qui visait à faire des compromis pour que la relation dure dans le temps et encourageait le couple à faire preuve de patience et de tolérance même en l’absence d’amour et de passion.

La littérature française classique partage le même sentiment. Jean Racine, dramaturge français du XVIIe siècle, commence nombre de ses pièces avec une histoire d’amour qui consume tout et semée d’embûches extérieures: refus de la famille bien-aimée, famille opposée à l’union, conflits entre États, sentiments opposés tels que la culpabilité conduisant à la tragédie . L’autre grand dramaturge, acteur et poète français du XVIIe siècle, Molière, décrit la passion comme un état de possession mettant en danger nos capacités de discernement et d’entendement. La raison devrait être préférée à la passion en tout temps. Corneille, l’autre grand tragédien français de cette époque, va encore plus loin. Dans ses pièces, le devoir l’emporte toujours sur la passion malgré les premiers conflits internes. Le héros est maître de lui-même et reste lucide dans toutes les situations.

Plus récemment, au 20ème siècle, le célèbre romancier et poète britannique C.S. Lewis est assez explicite dans son livre intitulé The Four Loves (les 4 amours). Lewis loue aussi les mariages arrangés «Je ne souscris pas du tout à l’idée populaire selon laquelle c’est l’absence ou la présence d’Eros qui rend l’acte sexuel « impur » ou « pur »… Si tous ceux qui dormaient ensemble sans être à l’état d’Eros étaient abominables, nous tous viendrions de souche souillée… La plupart de nos ancêtres ont été mariés dans leur jeunesse à des partenaires choisis par leurs parents pour des motifs qui n’avaient rien à voir avec Eros. Ils sont allés à l’acte sans autre “carburant”, pour ainsi dire, que le désir animal. Et ils ont bien fait; Des maris et des femmes chrétiens honnêtes, obéissant à leurs pères et à leurs mères, s’acquittant l’un envers l’autre de leur «dette de mariage» et élevant des familles dans la crainte du Seigneur. »Lewis nous met en garde contre l’adoration d’un faux dieu en Eros« De tous les amours [Eros ] est, à sa hauteur, très semblable à Dieu; donc les plus enclins à demander notre culte. De lui-même, il a toujours tendance à transformer «l’amour» en une sorte de religion. Les théologiens ont souvent craint dans cet amour un danger d’idolâtrie. Je pense qu’ils voulaient dire par là que les amants pourraient s’idoliser les uns les autres… Le vrai danger ne me semble pas que les amants s’idolâtrent mais qu’ils idolâtrent Eros lui-même. ” Pour Lewis, l’amour romantique est tout simplement condamné et de courte durée”. Et l’ironie est que cet Eros dont la voix semble parler du royaume éternel n’est pas nécessairement lui-même permanent. Il est notoirement le plus mortel de nos amours… Ce qui est déconcertant, c’est la combinaison de cette inconstance avec ses protestations de permanence. ”

Laissons maintenant ces écrivains célèbres et plongeons dans le best-seller du XXIe siècle, «50 nuances de Grey» de E.L. James qui a vendu 125 millions d’exemplaires et a été traduit en 52 langues. Je suis un peu en retard et j’ai vu la trilogie la première fois avec un ami la semaine dernière. J’avais peu d’attentes sur le scénario mais j’ai trouvé l’intrigue bien pensée, du moins beaucoup mieux que ce que les critiques ont exprimé. Un succès populaire de cet envergure ne vient pas par hasard. Dans cet ouvrage, Christian Gray et Anastasia Steele sont clairement incompatibles. C’est un magnat sociopathe sadique qui ne peut être excité que par la domination et l’objectivation des femmes. C’est une vierge au cœur ouvert, sensible et romantique qui veut une relation égale avec son homme. Mme Robinson, qui a éduqué Christian au sadomasochisme, est bien consciente de cette incompatibilité et tente de mettre en garde les amoureux de la futilité de leur union. Malgré toutes les obstacles, Christian devient un bien meilleur homme poussé par son amour pour Anastasia alors qu’il devient de plus en plus sensible et humain. Anastasia gagne beaucoup en confiance en elle et de l’autonomie grâce à cette relation aussi. L’histoire montre le pouvoir cathartique de l’amour. Si Christian et Anastasia avaient été rationnels, ils auraient vu clairement leurs incompatibilités et se seraient quittés. Ils ont choisi l’amour plutôt que la raison et ont reçu le cadeau ultime. Bien sûr, ceci est un roman américain avec une fin heureuse où les amants tirent le gros lot avec la passion et l’amour éternel. L’histoire semble irréaliste et les amants gèrent leur conflit avec trop de facilité, mais nous adorons cette histoire car elle réveille en nous le besoin désespéré de croire que le grand amour est possible et peut durer éternellement.

Il est vrai que la plupart des histoires d’amour guidées par Eros connaissent rarement un destin joyeux. Les statistiques ne mentent pas et les unions d’amour sont marquées par l’instabilité et sont souvent de courte durée. Ils sont cependant plus transformateurs et formateurs que toute autre relation. Je suis moi-même tombé amoureux 6 fois mais aucune de ces relations n’a résisté à l’épreuve du temps. Malgré la douleur de ces ruptures, des chagrins d’amour, des conflits et tous les épreuves, ces relations m’ont beaucoup apportées, elles ont accéléré mon développement personnel et elles m’ont transformée plus que toute autre expérience de ma vie. Carole a catalysé ma quête spirituel quand j’avais 19 ans. J’ai ensuite émigré aux États-Unis à cause de Laurence quand j’avais 22 ans. J’ai quitté la secte dont je faisais partie à 23 ans grâce à Janna. Danielle m’a aidé à guérir le plus grand traumatisme de ma vie (l’abandon de ma mère) et a ouvert ma spiritualité à un autre niveau. Alina m’a aidé dans mon succès professionnel et matériel et m’a donné deux beaux enfants. Enfin, Teal m’a amené à mon moi authentique, parmi beaucoup d’autres cadeaux. Chacune de ces femmes a cependant failli me détruire et j’ai senti à chaque fois que je ne m’en remettrai jamais. Cependant, comme un phénix qui obtient une nouvelle vie en renaissant des cendres de son prédécesseur, j’ai été transformé en mieux à chaque fois. Elles ont implacablement tué le vieux et le faux en moi afin que je puisse me rendre compte de mon véritable potentiel plus que tout autre livre, conférence, enseignant spirituel ou organisation n’auraient pu le faire. J’aurai juste souhaité juste que le processus fut un peu plus doux.

Par conséquent, je vais m’opposer ici aux idées reçues de nos culture. Je dis haut et fort que le centre qui régit nos attractions sexuelles possède un cerveau le plus rapide et le plus sophistiqué qui soit. En une fraction de seconde, il peut voir le potentiel transformateur de l’union avec un partenaire particulier. Ce centre sexual travaille donc étroitement avec notre âme. Et l’âme ne se soucie pas de la douleur, de la permanence ou de la justice. Elle ne s’intéresse qu’à l’évolution, à la prise de conscience, à la croissance intérieure et à l’ouverture de notre cœur. Une attraction intense est toujours le signe que la personne amoureuse a besoin de développer en elle les qualités de l’autre qui sont en fait latents en elle. Dans la relation passionnel, nous devons ouvrir notre cœur à ce qui nous rend meilleur plutôt que de rester figer dans nos désirs étroits. Si Christian Gray était resté obstiné à l’idée qu’il avait besoin d’une personne qui accepterait toutes les clauses de son contrat sadomasochiste, il serait resté misérablement malheureux en isolation et aurait continué à détruire beaucoup d’autres femmes. L’attraction physique dénote donc un désir de l’âme pour une élévation de la personnalité. Le problème se pose lorsque le fossé entre l’âme et les désirs de la personnalité est trop grand pour être comblé à cause de traumatismes non résolus. Dans cette situation, les ruptures sont incroyablement douloureuses. Nous ne comprenons pas pourquoi nous continuons à attirer vers nous de drôles de partenaires, mais en fait, nous continuons à envoyer le mauvais type de signal parce que nous ne sommes pas guéris émotionnellement des blessures de l’enfance. Permettez-moi de vous donner quelques exemples tirés des expériences de clients, d’amis et de moi-même concernant le pouvoir transformateur des relations amoureuses. Un homme d’affaires un peu rustre attire une femme très sensible, mais son manque d’attention et de ressenti chagrine sa bien-aimée. S’il devient conscient que son comportement blesse sa femme, cela peut lui donner le désir de redevenir sensible, et de sortir de son univers industriel rude et froid. Une autre femme instable et dans le besoin est attirée par un homme indépendant et confiant. S’il est sensible à son égard et qu’elle prend conscience que ses peurs la rend possessive et paranoiaque, cette relation est susceptible de l’aider à reprendre confiance en elle, et grandir en autonomie. Une femme matérialiste terre-à-terre et un homme spirituel introspectif tombent amoureux. S’il y a assez d’amour entre les deux, la femme deviendra plus ouverte d’esprit et introspective, et l’homme deviendra plus ancré dans sa vie pratique. Une femme forte et volontaire tombe amoureux d’un homme calme, introverti et mental. C’est l’opportunité pour elle de canaliser ses état émotionnel et pour lui de se reconnecter avec ses sentiments réprimés et de redevenir sensible. Un homme trop contrôlant craque pour une femme farouchement indépendante. Grâce à cette relation, il apprendra à relâcher son contrôle, sa jalousie et son amour possession. Il apprendra à devenir plus spontané. Un homme très ambitieux, courageux et prétentieux est amoureux d’une femme terre-à-terre, humble et autonome qui est capable de le remettre en place quand il se croit sorti de la cuisse de Jupiter. Cette relation sera cruciale pour qu’il ne devienne pas un leader mégalomaniaque. De cette façon, il restera connecté aux gens et ne les traitera pas comme des objets. L’incompatibilité dans l’amour a donc un pouvoir de guérison extraordinaire et peut nous aider à devenir la meilleure version de nous-mêmes. Cela fonctionne mieux lorsque les partenaires sont conscients de leurs faiblesses et voient comment la relation soutient leur développement personnel.

Suis-je l’avocat du diable pour louer Eros sur Pragma? Oui, je clame haut et fort: «Jetez la compatibilité à la poubelle et choisissez l’amour plutôt que la raison». Ce n’est peut-être pas pour tout le monde mais c’est ma vérité. Le poète Khalil Gibran disait: “Les âmes les plus fortes ont émergé de la souffrance; les personnages les plus massifs sont brûlés de cicatrices.”. Bien sûr, trop de souffrances peuvent aussi nous conduire à l’hôpital psychiatrique. C’est donc à chacun d’entre nous de décider du degré d’adversité auquel nous pouvons faire face et ensuite de transformer ces épreuves pour acquérir des perles de sagesse et d’aider son prochain.

Read Love & Compatibility – Part II

Healing The Un-Healable

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Teal woke me up at dawn this morning. She felt extremely dizzy. I walked her to the bathroom, as she could not do it herself. I re-assured her, held her tight and got one more hour of rest. Still in my arms, I asked her if she was feeling better. She replied that she had not slept and had been doing mental & emotional exercises to counteract the dizziness. I thought she might have BPPD (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo), a condition I suffered a couple of years ago. I started to apply the Apley maneuver on her.

Blake walked into the room and wondered what I was doing with her. He has gotten used to non-normality having lived with Teal for thirteen years. He inquired about her condition with genuine care. He had come into the room to go over the last actions on the agenda today for helping Teal make the New-York Times Best Seller list with her new book “The Completion Process”. But she was not in the condition to talk about the plans. By a lucky twist of fate, one of our community members stopped by the house and came up into our bedroom to say hello. As a victim of ritual abuse too, she realized that Teal’s dizziness was most likely not a physical condition as I had suspected but was instead a symptom of a trigger. Some cults use a variety of programs to confuse, disorganize or block the memories so that the victim cannot speak about the abuse or often even remember it.   These programs are called “scrambler programs”. Teal has unraveled several of these programs within herself over the last 10 years. We collectively decided that Teal should do The Completion Process by going into the dizziness instead of trying to take action to make the dizziness go away. But today was Mark’s birthday (Teal’s ex husband and the father of her son). So the community had several birthday activities planned. We made the decision that Teal and I should stay behind to do this important healing work and meet up with them later.

I locked the door to ensure that our process would not be interrupted. Before starting, I asked Teal if anything happened that could have created the dizziness. She remembered she had a small panic attack last night. Before going to sleep, she went to check on Winter (her son). But she could not find him in his bedroom. She went to Blake’s room and other parts of the house and eventually came to me out of breath and full of terror, saying that she could not find Winter anywhere. I went to his room that had been transformed in a fortress over the weekend. After scouring the fort, I found him. He had made his way up on top of the fort and was sleeping in peace out of view. Because of his position and the blanket fortress, it was impossible to see him from the entrance of his bedroom or from inside the fort. Teal could breath again. But the emotional damage had been done. Unfortunately, we went to bed immediately after the incident without working through any of the terror she had felt thinking that he had been abducted.

I started to guide her into the Completion Process. The first step is to get in touch with the body sensations and the feeling that pertains to the trigger, dizziness in her case. She felt her heart being torn. She was frozen and in a state of shock. She started to get the intense smell of dial soap so she dived deeper into this smell, understanding that it was part of the traumatic memory that was linked to the trigger.

Teal, 11 at the time, found herself in the basement of the mortuary where Doc’s friend worked. The man was washing the body of an older woman who was there to be prepared for a funeral with Dial soap. Teal expressed her distress at remembering the absence of bleeding, which she explained is characteristic of corpses. Doc and the mortician had put her into a plastic basin of icy water from her necks to her knees. They had waited for her to stop shivering and then Doc and the mortician spun her in circles to the right until she was so dizzy that she was falling over. Doc and the mortician were programming her so that she would forget what she had seen just hours earlier that day. I asked her to rewind back to see what had happened before she was brought to the mortuary. She saw a hand. It was a child’s hand coming out of a wooden storage crate. The memory started to unfold.

It was 1995. Teal’s mother had wrapped up cold boiled corn in a plastic bag and sent her with Doc on veterinary rounds. Teal’s parents mistakenly considered him a family friend and a mentor for Teal’s unusual extrasensory abilities at the time. He drove Teal to a dairy farm. It was the most dilapidated dairy farm they visited on rounds. The conditions were ghastly. Doc had been called to put a cow to sleep that was infected with listeria. It is a disease that makes cows turn around in circles until they cannot move anymore. Teal stood in the manure, frozen as usual, when a man came out of the farm brick house looking upset and preoccupied. He went over to speak with Doc in private at a distance in the paddock. Doc became visibly upset as well and waved for Teal to come right away.

Doc started driving in a rush with his truck. When Teal asked where they were going, he hit her very hard and angrily on the head with his fist. Her vision went black as a result. She pretended she had been knocked out to avoid further beating. After a while, he pulled into the driveway of a red brick house. Doc was so disconnected and caught up in his own thoughts that he did not acknowledge Teal. He focused his attention on a distressed man coming out of the house. Teal assumed that he had an emergency problem with an animal of some kind and had called Doc for this reason. She recognized the man as a newer cult member. He had attended a ceremony Teal was taken to previously. Doc acted suspicious as he took Teal to the right side of the house to a side entrance. It was as if he did not want the neighbors to notice them.

They went down into a cellar that was loosely attached to the main house. It was full of old rusted farm tools and some storage food. In the right corner of the cellar, there was a rectangular cement pit with a huge wooden shipping crate laid over the top of it. Teal went into shock when she saw the tiny hand of a little girl trying to reach out through the slits of the crate. She was crying and begging to be let out. She would stop for minutes at a time then start crying again and reach out through the slits. The man who owned the house was sweating. He was telling Doc that he wanted to drop her off where he had found her, like nothing happened. He had abducted her in order to be elevated in the cult ranks by offering her in sacrifice for the upcoming September 21st equinox ceremony. He was expected to keep her during that time but the despair and angst of the innocent victim that was probably only 6 had started to shake the little bit of conscience that was left in him. He was panicking and wanted to take it back. He was not yet a full-blown psychopath like Doc that had lost any capacity for feeling. Doc had been sent by the other cult members to survey and “cleanup the mess” this man had created.

Doc explained to the man that he had to keep the little girl until the next ritual or kill her and that he could not bring her back under any circumstances, as it would put him as well as the cult at risk. Their discussion continued for a while and during that time, they were fully oblivious to Teal. Doc became impatient and fed up with the man’s weakness and indecision so he took the matter into his own hands. He charged into the house and took the man with him. Teal had sat down in the cellar and was staring at this little hand in complete terror. She was mentally running through scenarios about letting her out and escaping with her. She was unsure if she could move the crate. Lost in thought, she mentally ran through all the potential consequences of making an escape with the girl.  But Doc interrupted her frantic thinking when he stormed in carrying a huge pot of boiling water. He dumped it onto the little girl through the crate. The little girl was screaming and crying. He reached back to take a second pot of boiling water from the man, and dumped it on her again. Her screams and cries came to a brutal stop. The other man then dumped a third pot of boiling water over the silence of the pit.

Teal was stuck in a state of shock, witnessing the murder of this little girl. Teal had covered her eyes and cried into her palms. She was in fact doing the very same thing in real time as the result of the integration of this memory. It was really hard to watch her cry so hard. It was tempting to pull her out of the memory. But, knowing how this deep resolution work functions, I decided to let her continue with the memory.

Still unconcerned with Teal, the two men pulled the crate up and let it fall to the side. Teal saw a little Caucasian girl with brown hair, drenched and with red and white splotches all over her body because of the burning water. Doc pulled her out and to the side of the house into the daylight. He ordered the man to get him some twine. The man came back with some orange bailing twine, which Doc wrapped around her neck three times as if he was calf roping the girl. He held it tight with enough force to break her neck. He had strangled her to be sure she was dead. Then he covered her in a brown sheet, carried her to the back of his veterinary trailer and shut the door. He said something to the man at a distance. The man seemed ashamed and conflicted but relieved. Doc then grabbed Teal by her arm and led her forcefully to the truck. They drove together to the mortuary where his cult friend was working. Doc took Teal and the corpse of the little girl into the bottom floor of the mortuary where the embalming took place. Teal was numb with shock when she entered and they walked in on the mortician cleaning the corpse of the old lady with Dial soap. When the mortician heard the whole story from Doc, he shook his head in disgrace knowing that he would have to cremate the body of the little girl to cover up the murder so nothing would be traced back to the cult group.

When they were done talking, the two men turned their attention back to Teal. They had decided to try to implant a scrambler program to try to cover up what Teal had experienced and seen that day. They put her into a basin filled with icy water and threatened that if she told anyone what happened, they would end up opening her up like the old lady on the metal table. Doc injected something with a needle into the back of her neck to sedate her.   They spun her in circles to make her so dizzy that her nervous system would shut down. They laid her on the floor and had her repeat to herself over and over again ”I remember nothing, everything is black”. They were creating a scrambler program. Doc stuck her arm with another needle and within a matter of seconds, Teal felt herself dissolve into peaceful darkness. When she opened her eyes again, she felt still very dizzy and sick. Doc had driven her back home to the end of her driveway. He told her that she had passed out at the dairy farm and he brought her home because she was probably sick. When he brought Teal back to her parents, he told them that he thought she was coming down with the flu. Her mom responded “You look pale, Sis!” and told her to go get into bed. Her mom brought her some Canada Dry Ginger Ale to help her feel better. In reality, Teal was in shock and coming out of forced drug sedation.

As Teal was re-experiencing the memory, I followed the Completion Process steps and supported her throughout the horror. I asked her gently to bring her adult perspective to the scene in order to re-create the past. She imagined that the adult self had called the police and fifteen police cars had stormed to the house, saving the little girl from a tragic death. The two men were arrested. For the first time in her life, Teal said she felt reassured to see the police. She imagined her parents being called by the police and being brought to the scene and being told about what had really been going on between Doc and her for the past 5 years. Competent therapists came to take care of Teal, the little girl and her parents. She imagined her parents moving away to a monastery with Teal and her brother to heal. She then imagined that I brought her into her safe haven. We put the transformed memory into a balloon and she popped it with a needle. Using visual techniques, we purified the eleven-year old Teal in the river there. She felt like cutting her hair so that none of this experience would be left in her body. So we brought a wise shaman woman and she created a ritual to complete her purification. Her head was shaved and they let her hair flow downriver. Her traumatized child self refused to merge back with the adult perspective but instead wanted to be held lovingly and to fall asleep that way, surrounded in downy white blankets. Teal then came back to her conscious perspective.

I can see clearly now how the panic of her son missing the previous night and the corn on the cob we bought and boiled to eat the night before had created the perfect trigger storm for Teal. This is what life is like for people who are forced to live life with Complex PTSD.

When we were talking today together in a salt bath that I put her in to diffuse some of the emotional residue, Teal expressed that from her perspective, this little girl was “lucky” to die and not to survive this trauma like she had to. I understood this perspective. I was reminded of a movie that I watched recently. The movie is called “Room”. What makes this movie unique is that it shows the aftermath of trauma. It shows how trauma leaves the victim isolated in their own torment, unable to connect with an external world that cannot see or understand them. I could see how a “reset” would feel much better than years worth of trying to heal what feels un-healable. I gently reminded her that though the last ten percent of healing seem to be the hardest, she has already done ninety percent of the healing. And I reminded her that millions of people are looking to her for the courage to believe that the worst ordeals may be healed and transformed into something beautiful.

While she still feels very vulnerable after coming out of the integration process of this triggered memory, her dizziness is gone and we were able to celebrate Mark’s birthday with the rest of the community in the beautiful city park. Most people could not survive what Teal has survived, much less end up as functional as she is in spite of it all. But some part of me wishes that anyone who doubts her history would be forced to come live with her for a month to see firsthand what she has to grapple with every day in the aftermath of such unspeakable trauma. It is not for the faint of heart. I feel extremely fortunate to share in the life of this extraordinary woman and to share her journey of healing. Every day I am fortunate enough to witness a remarkable soul diving into the darkest aspects of human consciousness and finding her way back home. And leading everyone else back home in the process.

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