Kine:

Welcome back to Alveskog – Voices of the Soul. Today is a continuation of our last episode — and it grows out of a conversation we had with Thomas Myrseth. He’s trained in EQ (Emotional Intelligence) therapy and is studying psychology. We’ll tell this as a dialogue between the two of us, sharing what Thomas told us and how it landed.

Paal:

Quick primer: EQ = Emotional Intelligence — the capacity to notice, understand, and work with emotions (yours and others’) in a way that builds safety, empathy, and connection. It’s not about suppressing feelings; it’s about meeting them wisely.

Kine:

Thomas told us his deeper journey began in his 30s after a painful breakup — the end of a long relationship and life as a family under one roof. He said he “hit the floor hard.” Everything he’d pictured dissolved, and the emotions were overwhelming.

Paal:

In that crisis, he called a beloved aunt — the rock in his family. She gave him two pieces of guidance. First, set a mental North Star: From now on, every choice I make will be for the good of me and my children. Second, enroll at the EQ Institute in Skøyen. He didn’t even know what EQ was yet, but he went.

Kine:

After his very first training gathering, he came home, picked up the kids, and one of them asked, “What did you learn?” He gently asked if they’d ever felt hurt by anything he’d said or done. Another daughter leaned forward from the back seat and said, “Yeah — like when you yelled at us in the hallway before you left.” He said it hit like a shovel to the face — true and sobering. He realized he’d been an angry dad because he didn’t yet know how to feel and name what was alive in him. As he kept studying, the kids began reflecting back new language too — one time a daughter calmly said, “Dad, that’s not mine.” That moment helped him see how much he’d been carrying — and projecting.

Paal:

Thomas described walking into the EQ education space for the first time: slippers at the door, a circle of about twenty chairs, a candle lit, and a box of tissues in the middle. (That image is from his EQ training, not from therapy with us.) He said he was terrified — heart thumping — and noticed many others were too.

Kine:

What steadied him were the teachers. They weren’t afraid. They modeled the work by starting each day with their own check-in. Then came the group “in-melding”: “How is it to be you today?” Every time the question reached him, his shields shot up — and usually he waited till the very end to speak. When he finally tried, the tears came first. A teacher would rest a hand on his shoulder and say, “Allow what’s here.” He told us, “I had never been met like that.” That caring permission changed everything.

Paal:

Thomas said group members don’t start by giving each other therapy; that training comes later. His first therapy was one-on-one with a teacher, in a private room — because sitting in the middle and being watched felt impossible at the time. He hyperventilated for almost two hours, and the therapist kept offering calm reassurance until words and memories could surface.

Kine:

He was scared he’d be judged afterward — “Will you still like me if you see all this?” — and learned that the entire EQ culture emphasizes unconditional positive regard. As he put it, EQ isn’t “a technique” so much as a way of being: warm, present, non-judgmental, heart-led.

Paal:

He also discovered something fascinating: one of the stories driving deep shame and anger wasn’t a thing that happened to him, but a traumatic story he had heard when he was too young to process it. Because no one helped him make sense of it, his body stored it as if it had been his own — a powerful example of how unintegrated narratives can live in us.

Kine:

He walked us through his typical approach: Someone arrives with a “something” that hurts — the reason they’ve come. After a short talk, he’ll often invite them to close their eyes and ask permission to keep a hand on the shoulder for somatic safety (always consent-based). Then a gentle question: “How is it to be you today?”

Paal:

Sometimes tears come right there, because the question hasn’t been asked — or felt — in years. Other times a body sensation appears — a tight throat, a stone in the stomach. Thomas will ask, “If that sensation could speak, what would it say?” Often the body says, “I’m scared,” or “Help.”

Kine:

At that point he might invite a compassionate image: “Can you see little You — little Kine, little Paal — feeling what you feel now?” Images often arise: a child watching parents fight, a child alone in a scary room. In some sessions, people feel like they’re choking — and the image leads back to birth, like a cord around the neck. He’s seen how early experiences can echo somatically decades later. (He mentioned his own daughter’s birth and how tender he is with her throat — simple love, not magic.)

Paal:

Crucially, he doesn’t force re-living trauma. He keeps it relational and resource-based: the adult self witnesses and approaches the child with words like, “I’m here now. I’ve come for you.” Tears often come right there — the beginning of re-parenting the parts we had to abandon to survive.

Kine:

Then he explores needs: “What does the child need — safety, protection, love?” If no caregiver in the original memory was able to meet those needs (often the case), he may invite the adult self to step in, or symbolically invite caregivers into the scene to repair. He reminded us the brain can update stored images; when the body truly feels safer, it stops sounding the alarm each time something similar appears in adult life.

Paal:

When anger swells (a common “secondary” feeling covering fear or grief), he gives it a clean outlet — pads, gloves, breath — so the body learns it’s possible to release energy without harming anyone. After the anger moves, grief often surfaces, and then relief.

Kine:

He keeps asking, “What do you need now, little one?” Sometimes the child wants to say things to mom or dad — even wild things. Thomas doesn’t police that. He trusts that after the storm, the adult returns and integrates the truth: “That’s how it felt then.”

Paal:

They often end with connection (a hug in the inner image), a body check (“How is the knot now?”), and sometimes a new safe place — like a beach eating ice cream — to help the nervous system record a different ending. He’s careful to say it isn’t a quick fix; it’s the start of an ongoing relationship with the inner child.

Kine:

Thomas distinguishes the emotional work (what the body is holding) from the mental work (beliefs, meanings, judgments). You can soothe the child inside and still need time to work through cognitive patterns like blame or hatred. He loves integrating psychology here — so both feeling and meaning get cared for.

Paal:

I shared how my therapy brought up things I didn’t even know were there — and how, after the session, my breath simply dropped deeper. We realized later how that tied into perinatal stress imagery. The shift was quiet but real.

Kine:

For me, safety was everything — the hand on my shoulder, the sense that someone can hold me while I feel this. I also had adult-life trauma pressing in from all sides, so it mattered that I could be the mother to my inner child — even picturing her on my lap. Taking her to a favorite safe place made the work possible. I’ll be honest: I wrestled for weeks before my first session — part of me wanted help; ego kept saying, “You’re fine today.” Thomas named that tug-of-war clearly. Once I went, I needed it — I’d say 80–90% of my movement came through this kind of work, alongside other supports.

Paal:

Thomas also shared a recent story: after a brutal incident at work (not about him personally, but devastating to witness), his “health bucket” tipped over — everything spilled. His workplace offered unlimited psychologist sessions for a while, and the structured mental sorting helped him close all the open drawers, one by one. He’s a big believer in both/and: EQ work and psychology, as needed.

Kine:

He said that when you’ve been helped, you naturally want to help. He took “three trains to Skøyen every month for three years,” paid for hotels — a big commitment — and dreams of building local offerings up north so others don’t have to travel so far.

Paal:

He talked about two forces that move us to change: inspiration (seeing others grow, hearing stories that wake up our own potential) and consequence (painful patterns that finally become too costly to ignore). He gave a humble example: feeling unsafe around other parents at his kids’ football practice. Doing the work let him stand there as a steady role model for his children. That matters.

Kine:

He loved watching his teachers. Their heart-warm, non-judgmental presence taught him as much as any technique. In group, it was normal to say one Monday, “I hate him,” and the next, “I love him,” and be met with, “I believe you — that’s true for you right now.” That kind of acceptance is healing.

Paal:

He’s also drawn to group formats and recently trained in outdoor therapy, bringing emotional work into nature — which we both know can be powerful.

Kine:

For us, the takeaway is simple and profound: Emotional Intelligence isn’t a trick — it’s a way of being. Create safety, tell the truth, feel what’s here, repair what can be repaired.

Paal:

And remember that gentle question from the EQ circle: “How is it to be you today?” If you can offer that to yourself, to your partner, to your child — with real listening — the world begins to change.

Kine:

Thank you for being with us.