Love is a Currency

Kim Sargent talks about love as a currency and the habits that boost our focus.

Emotional Health Matters Podcast with Clinical Director, Kim Sargent, founder of Neural Network Therapy®.

Learn more about Kim's counselling practice in Peterborough, ON and book an appointment at canadianfamilyhealth.ca. Neural Network Therapy® emerged in 1997, largely in response to advancements in neuroscience. We provide a practical and holistic approach to boost mood, reduce anxiety, manage anger, break unwanted habits and develop strong, healthy relationships. We believe that every form of counselling should be backed by science, so our approach is too!

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Transcript

Welcome back to Emotional Health Matters. My name is Kim Sargent. I'm the clinical director of Canadian Family Health Counselling and founder of Neural Network Therapy and today's episode is about how I believe that love is a currency. So we talk in our practice, in our clinical practice, about the idea that we've got these various emotions that we're working with and are a lot of factors  that describe and explain which one we find juiciest.

So we talk about energy as fuel. And we all tend to pick a fuel that makes the most amount of sense for us. This selection process is more haphazard than it is deliberate. What we see are people coming in going, Hey,  I'm really hooked on, you know, beer. And so I find a way to be able to consistently look at the world  find something to be worried about.

And that's a habit. It's a practiced habit.  There's a lot of neurobiology. happening here. Neuroscience describes an awful lot of how this wiring process happened to begin with and how we managed to continue to repeat that process. But the interesting thing is that, of course, love itself, appreciation, as we call it, , is also a fuel and of course, the most desirable of them all.

And so the question remains, why am I continuing to pump out that same energy or make use of, spend my life force in whatever emotion it might be? And for the most part, of course, if that's despair or shame or guilt. Fear, anger, frustration. You're not having a great time. And this is where, I mean, our clients, , come to us from around the world in our clinical practice.

And the interesting thing is, they're all begging the same question, which is, How did I get here? Why do I keep recreating the same circumstances over and over again?  And, well, the answer is complex, and there are lots of mechanisms with which to be able to rewrite this story.  The final analysis is really that as we begin to learn more about our focus and how this wiring process takes place, we also begin to understand how our physiology,   how we embody the emotions that we're experiencing day after day.

And so love is a currency means that when you are in that great expanded sense, think about the feeling of falling in love. And. , you can paint everything with that brush. So,  everything, you know, the flowers smell better, the food tastes better, everything is better. And that's because you're in this fully expanded state.

Every cell of your body is operating at peak capacity. You are in that very open and expansive state  and that's the currency. And so if you think about that as an electrical current, , it's like being. Plugged in at full power.  I would argue that in this state, I think your body has the capacity to be , at record speed for healing.

I think that our relationships thrive because they're based in a matter of grand perspective. In a state of love, we can really see where a lot of people are coming from, even if we don't necessarily agree with them. And so therefore, our interactions tend to be from a place of kindness and from understanding. 

And that's why we use the word appreciation. It's not just about the happy, happy, joy, joy kind. It's also about, I can really appreciate where you're coming from, despite the fact that I stand over here and hold a different opinion. And so this idea of love as a currency,  I think is an important one to grasp.

When we feel the contraction of emotion and the contraction, you know, we talk about sort of the shades of what a contraction might look like. So a little contracted might be frustration. A lot contracted might be despair and everything in between. There's nuance to all of this, but of course we all want to be in a constant state of love.

And,  I have talked a lot about how growing up in the 1970s, when everybody went to church, my dad is an Anglican minister. I was really that kid when you look at the old  footage of,  children with the,  everybody loves God or everybody loves Jesus, rainbows and hearts and.

clouds, that was me. I was literally, you know, singing. I had tambourine I sang all the happy songs. Um, and that was a, a,  great vibe to grow up in because , when something's not that I feel displaced, I feel uncomfortable. So despite having lots of experiences,  different traumas in my life, , you know, hard and tumbling down into various other states of currency, , I feel most at home in the currency of love. 

So if you are somebody who has struggled and is currently struggling, we know that trauma, as we've learned, has this ability to sort of sear an experience, perhaps of fear or anger or shame. It sort of sears it into our brain in a way that our brain continues to hit repeat.

And you're feeling stuck.  It's important to have the perspective to know I'm just stuck.  I'm operating on  a currency that isn't my favorite flavor. I would like to get back to that nice, juicy love appreciation one, but I might need some help in doing that.  And there are lots of ways to get that help.

I mean, of course, clinical practice, our  practice is filled with people who are working at that and working through the neural network therapy exercises to do it. That's just one of many ways of doing it though. Um, I think another way to work with our neurobiology is certainly, , making sure that we've got lots of exercise.

We're actually, Physically practicing, releasing the feel good chemistry from our muscles. It's reminding the body that we can live in this expanded state. That's what that state is. When you're eating foods that are sun kissed and rich in all kinds of, , sun, sun stored energy, that energy goes into your body that also lifts up and begins to move you up into a more expanded state, into that love as currency, into appreciation as currency. So  with that, , it's a quick one. I wanted to say this, , these bits because I think, I think we can forget that our focus is really what we're looking  to develop as a muscle. And just like we go to the gym to be able to strengthen the muscles in our body. There are places to go to be able to strengthen , this energy of focus and rather than willy nilly and life happens and we look over here and we look over there and it might be a TV show that we're watching or a dramatic relationship that we're in,  we tend to just. 

Sort of flit about with , our focus going here, there, and everywhere, our body responding, dialing into , that energy, that emotion, that currency. And then we practice it. And whatever one was most familiar to us in our family of origin is the one that's going to feel comfortable for that reason, even if it's not good. 

So if you're having a great time, of course. You're doing all the right things. You've got your focus. is within your grasp. You understand how to withdraw your attention from something that isn't feeling good and re jig it to be able to pour your focus into the things that make you feel good.

If you're feeling as though the world's having its way with you and you're sort of going this way and that , and you're stuck in those particular places, some things to consider for sure are looking at, of course, doing some work one on one with a therapist of any variety. , the other would be obviously moving into more physical fitness, which is going to help remind the cells of your body that you are a vibrant being. 

Eating those sun kissed foods, looking into meditation of some sort. And there are just so many ways to do it. I love the Calm app. It's got something for me each morning that's different. I appreciate that different. I look forward to showing up for it. , but I know people that are really diehard transcendental meditation people that can sit for 20 minutes with complete silence.

I so admire them. I am not that person. 10 minutes is bite sized. It's great. , another passion of mine, , that's been a part of my daily routine now. for over a year is the other ship app. I think it's worth exploring. There's a free version that you can do. And if you really love it, then you can upgrade to the paid one.

And this is breath work. Breath work is another interesting way  to be able to do this, but all of these things still bring you back to  that same thing, and that is strengthening the muscle of your ability to focus and working on acclimating your body, the cells of your body into a place of expansion and into a place where love is your currency.

Until next time.