Perhaps like you, I’ve spent years in therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy, neuro linguistic programming, EMDR, EFT, hypnotherapy, and even couples therapy all in an attempt to reform my beliefs and behaviors into more pro-relational shapes. These approaches, some more successful than others, helped me see that my beliefs and behaviors were mailable—changeable if enough effort was invested in my own improvement. Among all of them, hypnotherapy and EFT were the most effective but none of them had me approach my problems not as a chemical or behavioral problem but as an identity problem.

Growing up in an alcoholic, codependent, and narcissistically abusive environment created within me my own codependent and narcissistically dysfunctional structures. People pleasing, a deep fear of disappointing others, and to some extent, non-empathetic ways of relating dominated my nervous system's survival strategies. Through my 20's, I spent years in therapy, tried psychiatric drugs, and made some significant progress but I found that these pernicious structures still creeped around in my subconscious—waiting for just the right situation to trigger their dominance over my self-control. And though I really can't sing enough praise for the therapies I've received, especially those of the psychedelic persuasion, only via Tantric Yoga—what Relationship Yoga is founded upon—did I find a reliable post-therapy approach to manage the trauma responses I've carried since those early years.