Richard Lloyd Jones: This is Healing Through Consciousness.
Cláudia Bernhardt Pacheco: You expect your life to be saved from external people, medicines, but you don't realize that real medicine will come from within you.
Richard: Welcome. You know, a number of years ago, I initiated a series of call-in shows with Dr. Claudia Bernhard Pacheco. Listeners wrote or called in to deal with real-life problems, from new work initiatives to relationship challenges, even to drug abuse, death and suicide, those everyday situations that hit all of us. Integral psychoanalysis is the name of
the therapy we do from our clinic in Sao Paulo, and it goes out to the world through our psychoanalysts who attend clients in person and online, reaching people all over the planet. And having been personally helped by Norberto Keppe's psychoanalytical method for the past 22 years, I've always felt there's a tremendous need to get this out to the world. So, I'm rekindling our previous idea and opening up our online therapy sessions again. And you're invited. If you have a long-standing or even a short-term chronic issue you'd like to treat anonymously,
our Healing Through Consciousness call-in therapy show is for you. Just write me at joneshealing at gmail.com and I'll set it up. Today, a listener is looking for help with traumas from past relationships that are blocking her even today. Well,
I went through a really awful marriage and I experienced betrayal, lies. I was used. I mean, it was a whole gamut of things. And I want to get past it, but I don't know how to overcome all those issues.
So it's not just one issue I'm trying to deal with. I'm trying to deal with it all. And I just don't know, you know, how to proceed to go forward, you know, in doing this.
Cláudia: Well, you need to go back to those times when you chose the person that you got married with. How was your life? Speak more about your past, what you do, what you did, who you are. it's important to know
more about you. Okay. Well, you know, honestly, I think one of the
reasons I married him is because my mother objected to him. And she told me, I guarantee you, you will be divorced within 10 years. Well, we were divorced in five. And so, you know, he wasn't the right match for me, but I think I either didn't see red flags or I chose to ignore the red flags because when we were newly married, I thought, well, this is, we're just going through a period of adjustment. I mean, we're newly married, you know, this will go away.
And it
didn't. It just got worse and worse. So it's totally my fault for marrying the man. I should have never married him, but I did. And then all these things happened. So I'm just trying to get on with my life, you know, and get past all of this. But at the same time, I don't want to make the same mistake. And, you know, I don't know if I can trust somebody again.
Cláudia: Yes, for sure. Now, we need to understand, and you mostly need to understand,
what was wrong with your inner life? What was your pathology at the time that that led you to this wrong choice, the reasons you didn't see him as he was or you didn't accept these red flags that you had, you spoke about your mother, told you not to get married. So there were some signs that were very obvious that your mother realized and she must have talked to you. So anyhow, if you don't understand your pathology that was very active at that time
and must be still active inside of you, you will not go forward because the problem is not who you choose. The problem is within you. So that's why I'm keeping asking you, how was your life? What did you do? How was the life in your house, with your parents, your home? Give us an idea.
Okay, well, at the time, I was living on my own. I was in my early 20s. And I was very close with
my father. But I had never had a good relationship with my mother. So there was friction between us. and one of the things she didn't like is that he called her out on certain things and she just didn't go along with it so that was one of the reasons why she didn't want me to marry him now she never verbalized any other reason other than you know she just didn't feel he was he was right for me. But she was very much a women's libber.
And he was Hispanic. And so his background
was totally different. And so there was, you know, friction between the two of them from the very beginning. And, you know, I was working and I didn't realize at the time that I had these pathologies. Tell me
Cláudia: a little bit about the relationship between your father and your mother. Do you have siblings?
I have an older sister, and it was a dysfunctional family, okay? It was as if there were two families living under the roof of one. I was my father's pet,
and my sister was my mother's pet. And so my mother was very much a manipulator and she could manipulate my sister very easily, whereas she couldn't do that with me. And she always said, you're just like your father. You're so stubborn. So we never, ever got along, you know, growing up. She thought my sister was just, you know, perfect kind of thing. And she also felt that I was retarded. And so there was never any kind of encouragement or guidance or anything.
So I was
kind of left to my own devices growing up. And my mother came from a very wealthy, affluent family. my grandfather was a diplomat. She literally lived all over the world. And so she was brought up by maids and nannies. And so she really didn't have a clue as to really how to raise children, either did my father. And he was a teacher and he was great in the classroom. But when it came to his own kids, he really didn't know what he was doing.
And so they did some things that were
really, really awful. Like they were going to separate, but they never let us know. They tried to keep it a secret. And then, so what they did is they shipped my sister off to Catholic boarding school and they shipped me off to my aunt and uncle so I could go to Catholic school there. And once we were gone, they had our dog put down. I mean, they didn't even try to find a family for her or anything.
And it was just really, really awful. And so it wasn't a good situation. It was really a bad situation with my aunt and uncle. And I felt like I was just an in-house slave. It was just really awful. and I told my father numerous times, get me out of here. And nothing was done. And finally, it got so bad that I told him, I said, if you don't get me out of here, I'm going to do something
drastic. And I gave him full warning, you know, and nothing was done. And so one day I woke up, got into my Catholic school uniform, went to school, spent the whole day at school. And then I said to myself, this is the day that I'm going to do something. And so I went to my girlfriend's home. And so basically I ran away. And so eventually the state troopers came and got me and they brought me back home. And about a week later, I was on a plane back to New York.
It was just so awful. And I just felt so desperate that I would never have run away under normal circumstances. But I just was so desperate and nobody was listening to me. And so I just did it as a last resort. So I did not have a great childhood. And so when I was old enough to move out, I moved out. I mean, I was like 18 when I moved out.
There are a lot of issues that I'm sure stem back to this time. And that may have been why I was maybe a little attracted to him. Also, what happened at that time, I had just broken up with my boyfriend. And then I met him. And I thought, okay, maybe this is the one, you know, kind of thing. And so but it turned out he
Cláudia: wasn't.
How old were you when you ran away? Eleven. And what was happening in the house that you felt so horrible?
Well, my uncle is a professor of music. And so he taught at the University of Miami in Coral Gables. And my aunt was a very, very accomplished piano player. And she also taught, you know, in the home as well. So when I would come home from school, I wasn't allowed to have any time with friends or anything like that. And I was studying classical
flute. And so I would have to practice for several hours on the flute. And then I would have dinner. And then after dinner, I would have to clean up the kitchen and do dishes and things like that. And then after that, I had to do homework. There was no time for me to unwind or spend time with friends or anything like that. So it was a really awful time for me. I see.
Cláudia: So let's try now to bring this universe to your inner self
so you can better understand what goes wrong with you that you cannot be more friendly with yourself because what you did was a sort of a suicide, right? Because of what happened, you sort of jumped to a suicidal setting, right, with your ex-husband. Mm-hmm. Okay. So now you need to do free associations. When I ask you something, you don't use your intellect, but you use more your intuition and your feelings. What do you associate your ex-husband
with? A nightmare. Yeah, nightmare is what you felt. But his attitude, his person, what did you see in him when you dated him for the first time?
Well, he was very different from anyone I had ever known before. So that was one of the things that attracted me to him. In what way he was different? Well, you know, he is Hispanic, and so it's a different kind of culture. And his mom was an at-home mother. You know, she didn't work.
She just took care of the house, her husband, and the children kind of thing. And I wasn't used to that. So it was very different. It was a total different experience. It was a different language, different customs. So that's what attracted me to him. My father always said, you fell in love with his family. And I
Cláudia: did. I really did. Okay, so what do you associate his family then with? With happiness, with
caring. They weren't very educated.
His parents weren't very educated, but they were very loving and devoted to their
Cláudia: family. And your husband, what attitude did he have? In
the beginning, he was very much like that. But then as time went on, he started an affair shortly after we were married, And it went on for the entire length of the marriage.
Cláudia: So the horror you felt was more related to his infidelity?
Yes. That was a big part of it. But there were other things, too.
He was mentally abusive. And so that was very hard to deal with. How
Cláudia: was this in practice, this mental abuse? What did he do and say?
Well, it was things like he would ridicule me, he would humiliate me. If I were like, you know, 10 minutes late coming home, it would turn into a huge fight. You know, we lived in New York. And so I worked in Manhattan, Midtown Manhattan, and we lived in the Bronx. So there was a lot of traffic I had to deal with.
And so sometimes I would be a little late and anytime I was, it would turn into this huge fight and it didn't make any sense to me like why I was going off on this. Yes.
Cláudia: So you have then two possible behaviors within you, bringing this to your inner life. One is these loving, caring, soft, beautiful feelings and attitudes. And there is another one who terrifies you. That is your attitude to make like a huge problem when you see a mistake.
this can be within your inner private life with yourself and maybe with other situations too so instead of acting always in a loving and caring way sometimes you have this reaction who causes you a nightmare, an inner nightmare. Every time you enter in this criticizing things that are little in yourself or in life, you get terrified. You break up this inner peace, inner loving and good feelings. Do you understand what I mean? I think so. you yourself gave a sign or a lesson of life to us today how you should behave what you have to
pay attention what your bigger pathology is which is this attitude creating a huge problem out of small things. Do you perceive how you do even with yourself? I didn't realize I
was doing that, but I can see where that is, you know, the case, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
Cláudia: Sorry to laugh, but this is not something for you to be worried now. Now I brought you a pathology, and I brought you also a healthy side of you.
So if you see more, if you understand it better, this is the solution. So you can have the free choice to act in a loving, comfortable, affectionate way, or you can crucify yourself and be very intransigent, demanding, or seeing small problems, a big, huge problem that causes you suffering. It's a matter now of being more and more conscious of this and having the free choice. What do you prefer to be? How do you prefer to act and react?
If you want to fix it, you are entering also in this field of censorship. Oh, how can I be like that? This is censorship. Well, I know
that it is something that I have to deal with. And I'm just not sure really how to fix it. I mean, I'm very, very close with my daughter. and she has married a wonderful guy and they have a beautiful little boy. And so I have that around me all the time.
So that part of it is good. But like when I get into my, I'll call it my negative side, that's what I'm trying to figure out how to stop that from
Cláudia: happening. Do you have an example? that we could treat in this last five minutes of how do you enter in this negative side?
Well, like, if I'm worried about something, I think sometimes what happens is I create more of a problem than what it really is.
Cláudia: Yeah, like you described your husband. Yes, yes. So you do the same thing. Right. But can you give an example of a problem that you oversaw? Overreacted to? Oh, gosh. Very practical.
Very simple. Well, I won't say that I overreacted, but I did get upset. I am a diabetic, and I have to be on particular medicines, and one of the medicines I cannot get. And one of the reasons I can't get it is because other doctors have been overprescribing it.
And it's a medicine that people who don't have diabetes have been using to lose weight. And it's so irritating to me that I can't get medicine for an actual physical reason. I mean, I need it. And then I've got these people who, you know, are taking it just to lose weight. Like people like Oprah Winfrey, the Kardashians. I mean, it's like so many people are using it to lose weight. So it's really causing a problem. And I have only one week worth of medication left.
and it's not available and they don't know when it will be available. And so I call my doctor's office and I told him, I said, it is urgent. I need to get this medicine. And if I can't get the full dosage, let me at least get one milligram at least so I get some medication in me. And so they said, oh yeah, we'll take care of it. We'll call you back tomorrow. Well, they never called back. The following week, and this was on a Friday, I called back and I told
them, I said, I cannot wait until somebody gets around to this. I need something done right away. I said, I've called all over creation. I found a pharmacy that does have a supply of the one milligram. You need to do something right away. Okay, I'll expedite it. Someone will call you today. Well, nobody did. So again, today, I have to call back. And so it's so frustrating. And it's just working me up into a tizzy, you know. And so that's the kind of thing that I'm dealing with.
Now, this
Cláudia: diabetes, have you ever considered the possibility that this is a result of your stress? It could
be. It was diagnosed when I was about, I don't know, maybe 55. And so, you know, it definitely could be that. I mean, my dad did have it when he was in his 80s, but he didn't have to go on medication. They fixed it with nutrition. So that's what I'm trying to do now. Along with the medication, I'm doing very specific nutrition, and that does seem
Cláudia: to help.
Now, in one word, what do you associate your medicine with? Just one word.
Well, it's something I need. You know, without it, you know, I'd be in bad shape. And I'm afraid of
Cláudia: the complications. So can you give one word? What does it mean, this medication? One word. A lifesaver. Okay. So you expect your life to be saved from external factors. Material, external, people, your ex-husband. now the medicines, but you don't understand, you don't realize that your life-saving
real medicine will come from within you and come from within us. Your inner energy, your inner pharmacy, all that you have inside of you and you don't realize yet. You are very much dependent on external factors, and this makes you to become weaker, and more stress you will get from the situation, and your diabetes will worsen. Right. All we need comes from within us, mostly from our emotional and psychological and spiritual life, mostly spiritual. And these energies, they act even in our cells, our DNA, and can heal and can cure many sorts of diseases.
So that's it for today. Okay, thank you so much. You're more than welcome.
Richard: Healing Through Consciousness is on the Stop Radio Network. For personal help with anything in your life, write me at joneshealing at gmail.com. and I'll set it up with Dr. Claudia Bernhard-Pacheco. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. Great to have you tuned in.
