Emotional Connection with Raphael Cushnir
In each podcast episode Raphael shares a session recorded with a client facing a particular challenge. This gives you, the listener, a chance to see the process of emotional connection in an up-close, unedited fashion, applied to practical, everyday concerns.
The episodes are listed in reverse order of their release, with the most recent Podcast always at the top of the list.
Linda described how she keeps trying to “fix” her dad by choosing broken partners she can then help mend. Even with her understanding about this, as is common, nothing seemed to break the pattern. What will break the pattern, Linda learns, is the keener kind of awareness that comes from Emotional Connection. Specifically, it turns out, just by tuning into this awareness Linda can determine within ten minutes of meeting a new man whether or not he’s a healthy choice for her.
G.’s partner died suddenly after they’d been together for seven years. The mother of his partner blames G., and sometimes he blames himself as well. Exploring these issues via Emotional Connection, G. comes to see how grief and acceptance will provide him with the greatest degree of peace.
Karen’s “perfect” older sister died at age 6 and her mother never got over the loss. This caused Karen to develop a fierce inner drive and a hyper inner critic. To heal and find contentment, Karen explored how to soften her expectations both of herself and others. She accomplished this using a special Emotional Connection technique called “Cradling.” Karen’s report: “It was like a fog lifting.”
Karyn believed the key to her desired weight loss and relief of depression lay in The Secret. She also had some powerful beliefs the life on earth was unsafe for her, and that at least some of that was connected to her past lives. Through her work with Emotional Connection, she came to see that change was possible completely apart from all that. She grasped a simple truth—the unhealthy need for food is never present when Emotional Connection is.
This session took place one week after the previous one. In the interim, Mindy had experienced three days of expansion and peace, but then a phone call from a police detective restimulated all her feelings of danger and mistrust. It soon became clear that Mindy couldn’t “be with” her most vulnerable feelings because she was living in a state of extended trauma. It wasn’t PTSD, but rather TSD. Therefore, the most important thing for us to accomplish was figuring out what concrete steps she could take to eliminate this trauma.
POSTSCRIPT: Mindy’s life situation has taken several positive turns since this interview. Stay tuned for an upcoming podcast that will fill in all the details. And thank you, Mindy, for your courageous openness.
Mindy, a successful psychotherapist, had been married for ten years, with two young daughters, when her physician husband revealed to her that he had been using drugs for the past five years. Separated, but living together, Mindy and her husband were not able to find a peaceful way out of their upset. In this first session we focused on what it really means to “be with” anger, and the vulnerable emotions underneath it, without constantly blaming another person in the process. We also explored what’s been missing in Mindy’s approach to the situation, and what might help provide her with a break from so much stress. To be continued.
Carol’s father was hospitalized as a clinical depressive. She inherited his “What’s the use?” feeling about all the endlessly accumulating clutter in her home. She can do big, one-time de-clutter events for others, but in her case it’s the endless repetition within her own home that seems overwhelming. The key for Carol was exploring how her physical body would shut down during this overwhelm. Right there, amid our exploration, it began to open back up and feel energized. Carol grew excited to try clearing her clutter with the aid of this new, positive feeling. After many years of doing deep personal work on this issue, Carol felt something had finally begun to shift.
Mark and Sara are each divorced, and each have six kids. They’ve been using the tools in “Setting Your Heart on Fire” to release patterns of withdrawal and abandonment in their relationship. Now they’re ready to get married, but their kids are very rude and resistant about it. Mark says he won’t ever get married if the kids don’t change, which troubles Sara. But together we zero in on a plan that stems from the fact that they are the adults in this situation. We agree that it’s their job to model what it means to stand up for, and sometimes fight for, an authentic life.
Francesca is trying to transition from a familiar “same-old” old job to one that’s more passionate and joyful. She’s also exploring how to make that work financially. As we discussed these goals, Francesca noticed that she often chooses to do things that support the old way rather than the new vision. We delved into that and found that there’s a small place in her that doesn’t feel deserving. She almost laughed at this because her life is so much about actualization, so much about promoting the idea, in herself and others, of great value.
I explained how even in the most evolved among us there are pockets of belief and feeling that are unhealed and un-integrated—in other words “not with the program.” If we dance around them, pretend they’re not there, or push them away, the stronger they’ll inevitably become. Once we see these parts of ourselves as normal, acceptable, and needing some compassionate attention, everything else begins to take care of itself. Rather than having a bright front and a shadowy, hidden back, instead we become a fully radiant whole.
A long-time activist, Rae describes herself as burnt out. It’s as if, sometimes, a needle comes in and drains the life out of her. What’s the point, she wonders. Why do anything if it’s all for naught? We explored the feeling component of this burn-out that showed up in her throat. Tears came, then great relief. We discussed how emotional self-care is a job requirement for every activist, and how she must perform this very type of emotional connection every time the burn-out re-appears.
In addition, it became clear that Rae must make a regular practice of emotional connection before and after every workshop she leads, to ensure that she’s really practicing what she preaches. We ended by discussing the idea of approaching social activism as a privilege, rather than focusing mainly on whether a particular campaign succeeds or fails in the short run. Rae saw that accepting her own despair from time to time is related to honoring the darkness that exists in the world. As without, so within. At the end, she described the session as a “bottle brush that cleared the crud out!”
After being married for twenty seven years, then divorced eleven, Anita has had lots of short relationships but can’t find a good one to last. We explored the imprint of her demanding parents, the message of “never good enough,” and how that led to the critical component in her first marriage and lives on today in the way she treats herself around food, weight, and distractions at work.
The key in this session was applying true love of oneself to debilitating feelings of unworthiness. In addition, we covered what I call “internal akido.” Finally, we discussed how to choose self-acceptance over will-power, how to perform “done deal delay,” and how to institute a personal “no fail zone.” Putting all this into motion is what Anita needed to begin co-creating that long-sought partnership.
Josh shares his concerns about not being validated in business and dealing with the feelings of rejection that causes. We explore what it really means to embrace one’s felt experience instead of resisting it. We also cover how this process can lead to a deep peace with how life actually is, which in turn releases maximum creativity. Josh comes to recognize that our truest legacy comes not what we achieve, personally and professionally, but rather from living passionately and lovingly. The rest is out of our control.
Maureen is frustrated, angry, and resistant to her disability. She wants some peace. We discover how “cradling” and “surfing,” two key aspects of emotional connection, can liberate Maureen from her suffering. She also sees how the same approach could apply to her emotional overeating, and how the future actually looks very bright when she approaches the present with profound acceptance.
Debbie is plagued by a deep feeling of unworthiness, which manifests as persistent negative beliefs that cause her to get in her own way when pursuing a life of greater freedom and service. In her exploration Debbie learns how the real source of her beliefs is unfelt wounding, and then in finally learning how to feel those wounds and heal them, a new peace is possible that will jump-start her dreams. The key for Debbie is understanding that she has trouble receiving, letting the world come to her with its gifts. This is the result of early trauma that wired her body both to keep the unsafe world at bay. Emotional connection, in Debbie’s case, is literally “rewiring” her mental circuitry.
Rhoda has many skills to bring to emotional connection, including careers as a yoga teacher and a yoga therapist. Yet, beginning life in a new city, she has issues. On the one hand she wants to follow the flow of new opportunities, and not push so hard, in a salesy way, as before. Yet the survival focused side of herself resists. To really thrive, Rhoda needs to bring a rich sense of beingness into her doing, to align with Spirit and realize that these two realms aren’t really separate. Approaching her to-do list with real presence, she’s able to see that even the toughest tasks can get accomplished with the aid of their own internal momentum.
In this premiere episode, Raphael works with Hana, a perfectionist who can’t stop working overtime. Her compulsion for endless work isn’t about doing a great job, but instead is revealed to be an old stragegy for staving off feelings of shame and fear . The session focuses on the role that Hana’s “primitive mind” plays in the process, and how she can release its resistant grip. Hana comes to see that emotions aren’t really dangerous in the way she was wired to perceive and respond to them. Once her primitive mind begins to let go, Hana is able to access her emotions directly and begin feeling healthy and whole.