#3: Using Challenging Times to Heal Ourselves and Deepen Our Relationships
In our first two podcasts, we discussed how to handle fear and anxiety during the pandemic. But as the lockdown continues, we may be faced more with anger and irritation than with anxiety. Being in the same place every day with the same people, or being alone day after day, our activities curtailed, we may feel a rising edginess. What to do with that?
When feeling angry, most of us resort to one of two responses: we either try to ignore or push away the anger, try to control it in some way; or we let it carry us into a fight with someone else or even with ourselves.
We have a third choice. In today’s podcast, you’ll hear Marlana Qualls describe how she is finding her voice in a way that activates change.
Transcript
MQ (00:00):
So here's where the feelings come in. Sometimes when I'm feeling something, let's say I'm feeling angry because he's working too much or angry because he's not helping me get the kids to bed or, and that's usually where the anger would come up. Um, and if, if I speak from that place where I let the rage take over my body and go out, it's never received well. And in his case, in his case, the, he'll just fire back.
(00:36):
Welcome to this episode of The Last Healer, a podcast dedicated to helping us return to our original nature.
With us today is Dr. Stuart Bernstein with longtime student, Marlana Qualls.
The Last Healer, who might that be? You. We are each our own last healer. When medical intervention began thousands of years ago, all that was needed was a word from another person to right the imbalance. And that person wasn't necessarily even a medical practitioner.
Today, a few people are attempting to return to living in this way, to life as a full person. You'll hear about their journeys in The Last Healer podcast where we speak in unscripted conversation with individuals who have set upon this course. In our conversations, they arrive at new insights and understandings in real time during the podcast.
Our initial episodes explore the beginnings of our lives in our mother's womb and in childhood. How does a woman come to balance marriage, non-sacrificial motherhood, and her own fullness? How could she raise her children to be free and healthy and aware of our interconnectedness?
May the words spoken in today's podcast spark a long dormant way of knowing, hidden within yourself, and help you right your course.
Dr.B (02:14):
When I was a little boy—a wee bit—my father had a saying and his saying went like this: ‘He's just a little fellow who don't mean any harm and he can't help it if everybody loves him.’ And that was all good until the day of my tenth birthday, whereupon I abandoned my original nature, and at which point all hell began to break loose. Fast forward to a date 40 years ago to the day from this very day. On that day I had, in the course of the years leading up to that day, I stumbled, fumbled unconsciously finding my way to the door of a teacher.
(03:32):
On that very night, which would be this evening, 40 years ago, I would begin to learn of my ancestral role in the creation of our present civilization. In the days that followed, once my official schooling began, I learned how medicine began to evolve.
(04:05):
Way back when in a world very, very near, in a galaxy, even closer, there was a time when people did not need medicine—ever. They lived upright lives. They were happy. Their dreams all came true.
But then human beings began to drift away slowly but surely from their original nature. And when that occurred, the first thing that that happened was it took only a word or a sentence from another human being to get that person back on course. But then the drift went further. And as it did, diet was required. Diet as medicine, and that took care of matters, until the time came when diet wasn't enough, and when diet wasn't enough, handwork, working on the body to restore its balance, was introduced.
A day came when handwork wasn't enough, and when that occurred, moxibustion, that is a burning of the herb mugwort ,was introduced, and moxa was applied to key points on the body.
And that lasted for a good while until we drifted further. And when that occurred, needles, acupuncture, came about, acupuncture, incidentally, being a form of surgery. And that has led us down the path to eventually, in these last, oh, 150, 200 years, the introduction of modern medicine. And here we are today.
(06:23):
What I am concerned with is helping people find the tools to begin to return back to their original nature, to begin to get back to a time, where, a time and place where only a word or a sentence is needed for a person to set themselves right. So today, I would like to begin with mothering, and Marlana, I'd like you to take it from there.
MQ (07:19):
Thank you. Okay. My name is Marlana Qualls, and I am currently just about seven weeks pregnant with my fourth child. And--
Dr.B:
Congratulations.
MQ:
Thank you. It's been quite a journey. It's been a big choice for our family. I'll say that. And I think the best place to start would just be what I'm experiencing emotionally and physically in my body with the knowledge that my intention is to bring myself out of separation from my spirit, and just to my truth, my uprightness as a human being. So does this all make sense?
So back, I kind of should back up I think a little bit. Three and a half years ago, our daughter was born. We have two sons and a little girl. And after Chloe was born I felt very complete and very full and was pretty confident that our family was in its final structure.
(08:48):
It's, it's a task, it can be, the task of mothering can be very hard, but I've always found enjoyment in that. I've always found inspiration on all of it. Very rarely have I felt burdened by being a mother. And when I have felt a burden, it's been directly related to me not getting enough rest, or me, um . . . That's basically it. And it's not ever being burdened by my children. It's been burdened by exhaustion, I guess. So anyway, um--
Dr. B (9:38):
What's the source of the exhaustion?
MQ:
The source of the exhaustion is not getting enough sleep—not—and usually for me at night that comes from, there's two things that have happened for the exhaustion. One of them is not getting enough sleep at night because my head is running or I'm feeling worry or anxiety about the future or circumstances that I don't want to have happen. Or, I schism between me and my husband. That will keep me up and that will be very draining as well, which I think is good to tap it into or to talk about that part, too. Um, my--
Dr.B (10:28):
So you're saying you have tension sometimes between you and your husband?
MQ:
Sometimes.
Dr.B:
I'm so sorry to hear that.
MQ (10:46):
[laughter] Sometimes it's not perfect. Actually, I would have to say that our marriage has taken a lot of work to keep it together.
Dr.B:
Oh, what a shame.
MQ:
But in hindsight, it's all been very divine and I wouldn't change it. I don't want to go back to those moments of challenge, but I'm happy that we've worked through it.
Dr.B (11:00):
So, would you expand on, you said it's been divine. Would you expand on that?
MQ:
I'm happier now than I've ever been and I feel more whole in myself and in my being, and more confident in who I am and what I'm here for than I've ever felt. I feel like at the beginning of our relationship I was very lost. And that loss feeling coming from, the source of that was not being in touch with what I was feeling, let alone being able to relay that information to somebody else because I was so far away from it. Does that make sense?
Dr.B (11:39):
Yes.
MQ:
And so, as--
Dr.B:
So, you couldn't convey--
MQ (11:45):
Anything.
Dr.B:
Anything. You didn't know.
MQ:
Um-hmm. I just wasn't in touch with any of it at all. I was very far separated, very far removed from my pain and my feelings. And from where I stand today, I feel very close to all of that.
Dr.B (12:08):
Yeah, Marlana was gapped.
MQ:
Sounds so sad. And it is sad. So, yeah. And I feel like while I could paint a picture or paint, write a story that my husband was insane and my husband had all these issues and I had to hold us all together, um--
Dr.B:
But that was all right. Wasn't it all true? [laughter]
MQ:
To a certain extent. It felt that way. Yeah. There were some trying times or I felt like everything was riding on my, my inspiration to not lose my family. There were, but again, I didn't, I don't feel like I had the tools to convey those things appropriately. And so what ended up happening was just fighting and more, more separation just building and building and building. So--
Dr.B (13:17):
But you were getting closer together?
MQ:
In a weird way. Yeah.
Dr.B:
[Laughter] Well, I'll be.
MQ:
In a weird, weird way, we have. Yes. Yeah. And where we stand today, I've not ever felt closer to myself or to him. So maybe I should talk about that.
Dr.B (13:43):
Yeah, please.
MQ:
I want it to make sense. I don't want it to bounce all over the place, but we can edit. Okay. Where do I start?
Dr.B:
Where do you start?
MQ:
Maybe I need to start with Tay’s birth.
Dr.B:
No. Please go back to when you met.
MQ:
Okay.
Dr.B:
Why, what, what made you want to marry this guy? [laughter]
MQ:
Well--
Dr.B:
He was loaded, I know.
MQ:
No.
Dr.B:
Oh, okay.
MQ:
He wasn't. he was actually in a really, he would call it a very sad part of his life.
Dr.B:
Okay.
MQ (14:39):
He was, he was using drugs and alcohol.
Dr.B:
No.
MQ:
Yeah.
Dr.B:
In this day and age?
MQ:
[laughter] Really a lot. He was an extremist. He would say that. I'm not saying that out of, like disrespect. He would, he would say he would agree with me.
Dr.B (14:49):
I'm recalling the time he came in, it was one morning and it was just after you had met, and he came in for a treatment completely tanked, drunk as could be. And I had to send him away. [laughter]
MQ:
Oh, I believe it. Yeah.
Dr.B:
I think he was hitting bottom then.
MQ:
Yeah. He was hitting bottom. Yeah. But I'll, I, and for some reason when we met, I wasn't, I drank wine or whatever with my friends, but I never was heavy into that culture, so I wasn't very, it has always been around me, my parents with my parents, my family, all of that's really been always near me. But I didn't register how deep he was in it. I somehow just had my eye -- I felt something in this man that I had never felt in anybody before.
Dr.B: (15:38):
He was a dreamboat.
MQ:
No.
Dr.B:
[laughter]
MQ:
He was very cute, but that wasn't what was capturing me. What was capturing me was a magnetism in my belly. It wasn't from, oh, he's seeing this. Oh, he's handsome. Oh, he's this. There was a magnetism from my belly to him and I knew, I just knew that I was going to be with him and I never -- in other relationships I've gotten, I kind of had been dreamy about that sort of stuff, but I never felt it so surely before like that when I met him. And I remember when we first started dating, he invited me to one of his performances and he came down the stairs at the little bistro where they were performing and it just like locked in in my stomach. I will never forget that feeling was like, okay, okay, this is it. And I was on, I was committed from that moment on. So that's kind of where I was when we met.
Dr.B:
And as John Lennon would say, [in mimicry] ‘And the rest is history.’
MQ (16:50):
Right. It is history.
Dr.B:
So it was all good.
MQ:
Somehow. Somehow it was all good and where we are right now--
Dr.B:
In the deepest sense, it was.
MQ:
In the deepest sense, challenging as ever, but so healing for me because I feel like what was happening--I'm just feeling this right now--is that he, he was my person because he somehow he's helping me heal whatever I came in with that led me astray from myself.
Dr.B:
Can you say how?
MQ:
I have been surrounded by tragedy, alcohol, drugs, fighting since the moment I was born, in some fashion, and I feel like my love for this man and my knowing that he was who I was supposed to be with allowed me to face all that stuff. He reflected it back to me. He brought it like on a silver platter to me. He was like, you're going to have to deal with this, not knowing that's what he was doing. He was working through his own karma, but it was like that so that I could get to the confidence in my own self to say, "No more. I'm not participating in alcohol, drugs, tragedy, fighting, separation anymore. This is not what I'm here for." That's really what, that's what he's done.
Dr.B (18:34):
Yes.
MQ:
And I'm so grateful to him because no one else could have done that. No, no one else had done that. It would all been too nice or too clean or not-- While he carried all of that stuff, he also carries a dignity about who he is and a dignity about what his life is about. Even though sometimes in the past that's been neglected, I should say so, yeah. No one else could have done the job to get me to where I am. There's just no, I have no doubt about that. Yeah. That's interesting.
Dr.B:
Yeah, thank you.
MQ:
Yeah, it's really helped me see my way through all that and helped me find my voice.
Dr.B (19:23):
Your voice?
MQ:
Yeah. This is a big one because I feel like there are two ways that, there are three ways it can go. The voice. One is to the fight, and then one is it just disappears and--
Dr.B:
Your voice.
MQ:
The voice disappears. Just gets shut down. Or three, it gets activated in a way that actually promotes change, and that's what I feel like I am getting to now, is really being able to activate that.
Dr.B (20:03):
The first one is a fight?
MQ:
A fight.
Dr.B:
Okay, and the second one?
MQ:
Is when it just goes away. When you just don't talk--
Dr.B:
Do you override it?
MQ:
You override it or you, yeah. You just shut up, and you don't speak.
Dr.B:
And what happens--
MQ:
When you do that?
Dr.B:
Yeah.
MQ:
Oh, you just get angry. You just get, I've just, I would just get angry and just feel further, further away from myself, further and further away from him. And like I was trying to, trying to, what's the word? Capitulate? I was capitulating.
Dr.B:
Yes.
MQ (20:30):
Out of fear or something. But the thing with that--
Dr.B:
And make peace at any price.
MQ:
Peace at any price. But with that, it's a double-edged sword because that, the man I married doesn't want me to be quiet, doesn't want me to be quiet. He doesn't want me to stuff my feelings. He married me because he wanted to heal too. So. He told me that.
Dr.B:
Yes.
MQ:
Yeah. So we're in alignment in that way.
Dr.B:
Yeah. You both carried that into the marriage.
MQ:
Yeah. And we still, that's--
Dr.B:
And it continues.
MQ:
Yeah. It prevails. Yeah.
Dr.B:
What about the fight?
MQ (21:17):
So here's where the feelings come in. Sometimes when I'm feeling something, let's say I'm feeling angry because he's working too much or angry because he's not helping me get the kids to bed or, and that's usually where the anger would come up. Um, and if, if I speak from that place where I let the rage take over my body and go out, it's never received well. And in his case, in his case, the, he'll just fire back.
Dr.B (22:04):
And that's the rage at who, take over your body?
MQ:
Well, it seems like it's towards him.
Dr.B:
Yeah.
MQ:
It's, it would appear to be that it's towards him and that, so when I feel that -- let me step back -- when I'm feeling in my body that I mad at him, that it's his fault that he's neglectful, and not a good dad, and not a good husband, all those words -- in my body, I feel hard, overheated, and like all my energy is in my head or even outside of myself and I feel angry. Uhh. And it feels really bad. It feels really bad to feel that way, and I've learned not to go there. I've learned not to do that anymore.
Dr.B (23:02):
What have you learned to do?
MQ:
I just, I just, well, to just stay connected.
Dr.B:
How do you do that?
MQ:
[laughter] Well, for example, if I know that I'm going to need help at night, or I know, or I can start to feel that he's working a lot and I can feel that we're missing him, I can just gently speak to that.
Dr.B:
Oh, so you're staying connected to him?
MQ:
Yeah.
Dr.B:
Only?
MQ:
No. Me. What I'm feeling and my kids and I can say, "Hey, we really miss you. We, I'm, I'm feeling like we're really missing you." And when I talk, like he'll say, yeah, I'm missing you. I feel like I'm really pushing.
Dr.B:
Ah.
MQ:
And that changes everything.
Dr.B:
Yes.
MQ:
But we've had to work to get to that place. Both of us have had to work. I've had to work on my karma, and he's had to work on his karma to be receptive to hearing all that. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it. It takes two people. That's what I'll have to say.
Dr.B:
Perfect place to stop for now. Thank you, Marlana.
MQ:
Thank you, Stuart.