The Defective Doll (Dysfunctional Relationships) - Teal Swan

The Defective Doll in this Ask Teal episode refers to your dysfunctional relationship with your parents or kids. It deals with your perception of who your child or parent is versus who you want them to be. Teal Swan explains that by seeing this dysfunctional dynamic we can truly see our relationships for what they are, and in turn heal them.

Referenced Videos:

Attunement The Key to a Good Relationship: 11:49
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OIOkd43ev4&t=206s

Self Hate The Most Dangerous Coping Mechanism: 9:31
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvhhubvTX1o

How to be Authentic: 14:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgWBIVQ1qAQ&t=565s

Toy Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3986gGp3Qs

Teal Swan is an International Spiritual Leader. She offers perspective on a wide range of topics including relationships, anxiety, meditation, shadow work, authenticity, the law of attraction, The Completion Process, healing, PTSD, emotions and spirituality

Website: www.tealswan.com
For daily updates, monthly online Synchronization Workshops join TealSwan.com/premium
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thespiritualcatalyst/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tealspiritualcatalyst/?hl=en
Twitter: TEALCATALYST
Newsletter: https://tealswan.com/newsletter
Completion Process Book: https://thecompletionprocess.com/#the-book

Teal's Meditations: https://gumroad.com/tealswan

Teal's e-shop: tealswan.com/teals-products

Beginning Song:
Kuan Yin's Mantra (c) 2002 Lisa Thiel

Help us caption & translate this video!

http://amara.org/v/9Hq9/

It doesn't take a genius to see

that the relationships on earth
today are completely dysfunctional.

It also doesn't take a genius to see

that if we don't fix this,
we, the human race

are going to self-destruct.

Today, I'm going to expose
one of these patterns

that causes the most damage between people

so that by being exposed
to your conscious awareness

we will hopefully change it.

The Defective Doll

Essentially, we don't love each other.

We love the idea of each other.

And when we fall in love
with the idea of each other,

we relate to each other as objects,
not as living beings.

Or people, we relate to them

as if they are an aspect or a player
of our own pretend game.

This whole dynamic begins

like almost every other pattern
in the human race,

in childhood.

Most parents do not have children,
for children.

They have children
to meet their own needs.

And most people are so unconscious,

they have no idea of the real reasons
why they decided to have children.

More than that,

it's very difficult for them to be honest
about their actual reasons

because if they were honest
about their actual reasons

it would equate to something
like self-centeredness.

And obviously, our ego is designed

entirely to keep us away

from those things which might
make us look like a bad person.

Perhaps a parent has a child
to guarantee closeness with a partner,

perhaps it's to feel a sense
of self-worth, value and validation,

perhaps it's for societal esteem,

perhaps it's because giving a child
what they never had

would heal their own traumas.

The thing is, is that a child is born
their own person,

with their own destiny,
with their own desires,

needs, feelings, thoughts... Everything.

So rarely does a child ever conform

to the original reason
the parent had the child.

And when a child
does not meet the parents needs,

especially, the very need
that the parent had the child for,

it's a recipe for disaster.

One of the most common dynamics
that we see in the world today,

is that a parent, usually a mother,
wants a child that will satiate her needs

in the same way that a doll
satiate needs of a 4 years old girl.

The four-year-old feels a sense
of self-esteem in having the doll

and dressing to match the doll
and pretend to be needed by the doll

and pretending they have
a connection with the doll.

This parent does not actually want a child

that is a unique and individual person.

This parent wants a doll that is animated
and a doll that is a mini-me.

They want this doll to act
how they want it to act,

they want it to be hungry
when it's convenient for them.

They want to be able to put it down
when they want to do something else

and have it shut its eyes
and open them again

only when they want to interact with it.

They don't want the doll to need them
when they don't want to be needed.

For the father, usually,
this doll of a child they want

is not about a feeling of sense of self-esteem

and personal validation
and care taking anything,

it is more about having a status symbol,
like an animated trophy.

It is about having something
that through its successes,

validates him as a person.

For this parent,
the person that the child actually is

and the needs and feelings
and wishes and preferences

the child actually has,

and how that child
is different to the parent

will not be received well.

It will be perceived as a threat
to their own self-concept.

It's going to be perceived

as if the very existence of this child

stands as an invalidation

of the self of the parent.

This child will also have needs

that don't fit into
the schedule of the parent.

As a result,

the parent will subconsciously
reject this child.

Now this rejection leads down 2 paths,

each of which are incredibly painful;

When a child is young

they cannot perceive themselves
to have a life separate from their parent.

A baby cannot actually preoccupy itself.

A Baby also cannot sooth itself.

So, a baby that is rejected
will experience a void when this occurs.

A void like a pet or a sentient toy

that is put on the shelf.

I highly suggest that to grasp
the horror of this condition

you watch a Pixar movie called
A Toy Story.

Except for,
when you're watching this film,

I want you to pretend
that the two children in that story,

Andy and Sid,

are the parents of the toys
which they keep.

The horrific experience
that so many of us have with our parents

is the horror of being a toy.

A Toy for our parent's gratification
or lack thereof.

We are either the toy

that is born,

and lives, and dies on the shelf
never being valued,

or we are the toy

that looks so good to a child
when it's on the shelf,

but the minute they unwrap it,

there's a massive disappointment
and a rejection,

and so we're put on the shelf.

Or, we are the person who is loved

and adored for a certain period of time,

before someone loses interest,

or we are replaced by a better toy
(another sibling).

Or, we are the toy that is loved forever,

on the condition that we become
exactly what our owner wants us to be.

What we long for
is for someone to see that we are real

and to love us forever
for what is real about us.

If we are the toy
that was perceived to be defective

because we could not control our animation,

to perfectly fit in with
what our parents wanted,

Then we are the one that is rejected
and put on the Shelf.

Often at an age where we could not
actually preoccupy ourselves.

Or we are punished for it, directly.

Like a toy or a neglected pet,
we may be fed and clothed

but we do not have a life.

Our life only has movement
and meaning and emotional breath,

if we are interacted with.

So when we are not, we experience
crippling separation anxiety.

We dissolve in the hell of knowing
we have no value to the person

upon whom our life depends.

We feel we are not real without them.

We feel the potential eternal hell
of our living and self-concept

being completely at the mercy
of another person

who we can't make value us enough,
to play with us.

And we do not know if or when

that other person will come to claim us.

And even if they did,
it wouldn't erase the fact

that we were rejected by the person
who mattered to us so much.

And when we try to cry out
to get the love back,

and our life back with it,

there is no response.

Our parent goes on with their own life

as if we were screaming inside,
but not making a noise.

Or they shame us
for reaching out for them

with our voice or actions.

On the visceral level,

it feels like someone
has run through our chest,

solar plexus, lungs and ribcage
with an old-fashioned lawnmower.

We often resort to addictions

to try to numb the pain
of this ineffable wound.

We grow up to be the type of people

who feel like we actually
have no life without our partner.

And what happens is,
we line up with partners

who follow the same pattern
of rejecting us.

Either they don't value us
in the first place,

or they love us for a time,
and then put us on the shelf.

If we are the doll
who could control our animation

to perfectly fit in with what
the parent that we had wanted,

we are like the G.I. Joe
sitting at a tea party.

We too are not loved for what we are,

but instead of being discarded
for exposing what we are,

we pretend to be something else.

The pressure of this inauthenticity

makes us not feel
as if we have an individual life.

Our identity is consumed.

Therefore we must push people away
and be alone to feel a sense of self.

On a visceral level,

it feels like we are a fly
caught in the spider's web

being slowly spun
to the point of suffocation

and simultaneously being eaten alive.

We grow up to be the kind of person
who feels as if we can't have a life,

unless we push
the people in our life away.

When we grow up with this type of pattern,

what will happen is,

we will want to be in a relationship

and so, we will misrepresent ourselves,

we will be the G.I. Joe that pretends
that it's Little Miss Muffat.

If that's what the person
in our life wants.

But we can only keep up this act
for so long,

before suddenly, the pressure builds

and we have to make
a blow for our freedom

by declaring that we're
a completely different person

than we made ourselves out to be,

and that we better be loved
for who we are.

Not only does this make it so that we
put relationships entirely on our terms,

which, nobody can say yes to,

but we also set ourselves up
for rejection.

The same kind of rejection
that we experienced

with our parent, to begin with.

Or didn't let ourselves experience.

The experience of the person saying:

"But I'm not in love with you for you,

I'm in love for what you
pretended to be."

In both scenarios,
we receive the message

that we are not valued
by the person who gives us life.

We either had to be what they wanted,
instead of ourselves, to be loved

or couldn't be who they wanted
us to be in order to be loved,

so we are innately rejected.

Our self-concept
is complete and total shame.

Self hate occurs in us

because we either
are not lovable as we are,

or if we were discarded emotionally,

we could not become
what would make us lovable.

We are so desperate to be loved,

that we want to cut these aspects

that make us reject it,
away from our being.

We want so desperately to become
what will make us be loved,

and to be that, it's just not
the truth of who we really are.

Basically, we internalize
the original message

that our parents subconsciously sent us

by treating us like dolls
that were there for their disposal,

than like human beings.

This is the root of self hate.

To understand completely
how this dynamic works,

watch my video titled:

Self Hate
(The Most Dangerous Coping Mechanism)

If we are born to parents

who wanted us to be something
other than what we are,

then we hate ourselves erroneously.

I Want you to imagine that somebody
really wants a horse figurine,

but they go out and they buy a horse.

This is a setup.
It's a recipe for self hate.

Why?

Because they're gonna hate the manure,

they're gonna hate how big the horse is,

they're gonna hate
that they have to exercise it,

hate that they have to groom it...

Inevitably, what they're gonna be doing

is leaving this horse by itself,
completely neglected,

until they eventually,

hopefully, give the horse away.

Now, should this horse hate itself
because it's not a horse figurine?

Or is it really that issue of the person

who decided to buy a horse

when what they really wanted
was a figurine?

The reality is that so many parents

do not really want a child,

they want an animated doll.

Because parents saw us as their thing,

like an object,

obviously, they can't be attuned to us

Any more than a child is really attuned
to a toy if it's sentient.

But they're dragging it around
by the neck.

This is the terror of our life experience.

And not attuning we cannot feel loved

because we can't take something
as part of ourselves

if we cannot even perceive
the reality of that thing.

It is merely a player
in our own pretend game.

Being raised in this reality,

makes us feel as if we are objects
in everyone else's reality.

It makes us treat other people
as if they're objects in our reality.

It makes it so that
no relationship we have

means more than the use
that person serves for our needs.

It makes the entire world

a world of playthings and penny candy.

It makes it a world where we can't see,

hear, feel and understand each other

or value each other for who we really are.

A World where we cannot find people
who are compatible to us

and can therefore,
be in harmony with us

and make us feel loved.

We cannot attune to each other.

We must learn to attune to one another

to stop this dynamic.

To learn how to do this,
watch my video titled:

Attunement
(The Key To A Good Relationship)

We need to become very very clear

about the deep and often very dark reasons

why we want to have a child,

before we have them.

We need to accept that a child
is born its own person,

with its own life.

It is not an object.

It is not a doll.

It will not operate
according to our schedule.

It will have needs
when it is incredibly inconvenient

for them to have those needs.

It will have its own feelings,

its own wants, its own desires,

its own preferences

and its own destiny.

And often,
it will be very different to our own.

What we need to teach our children

is that they can have all of that

selfhood

Without losing us at all.

That they can guarantee

that with that,
they can have us, and permanently.

We need to break free
from our single family households.

The destruction of the child

rests upon our continual separation
from the group.

The more that we segment ourselves

into single family households
and now broken homes,

the less resources
a child has available to them.

All that they have at their disposal is

the parents, or sometimes parent

that is in their vicinity.

And let's be honest,

as parents, we can't always
be there for our children.

But we better believe
that it's our responsibility

to find someone who can be,
when we can't.

This way, they will not feel
as if they must be a doll in our reality.

And they will never feel
put on the shelf.

Imagine being loved
for what you actually are, and forever.

We need to see that we have a life

regardless of whether people
are or are not interacting with us.

But it is a personal choice
to have interaction in our life.

We need to learn how to have ourselves

and have other people too
at the exact same time.

Having people must never be contingent

upon becoming exactly
what they want us to be

The time has come
to live an authentic life

and to choose to see people
for who they really are,

instead of to hold them to a role
in our game of pretend.

If we do this from the get-go with people,

we will find people
who are compatible to us

and who really will love us
for all that we are.

To know how to do this,
watch my video titled:

How To Be Authentic

People are worth infinitely more
than their use to us in our life.

If we approach the world
in any other way than this,

then what we're doing
is treating people like objects.

We're treating people like dolls.

We're expecting them
to fit into a game of pretend

that we are playing
in our own individual reality.

By doing this we are perpetuating
the isolation on this planet,

we're perpetuating the dislocation

of each person from each other's hearts

and from the web that connects us.

If we perpetuate this,

we will continue to create disconnection.

The very disconnection
that is at the heart

of every act of terrorism and war
that you see on this planet.

The time has come to demolish
the self-concept of the defective doll.

And the doll that was able
to operate perfectly

in accordance with its instructions.

The time has come
to learn how to love what is real.

Have a good week.

Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte