Misspelling : resTORItive

the hard stuff. But you're sort of alluding to the fact that it's possible you overuse it, right, and if you do, why, And is there some avoidance of hard moments or awkward pauses or issues that feel really vulnerable or showing up in a way that puts you in a light that feels uncomfortable. It's not like a good or bad right, wrong, past fail. It's not dichotomous. It's just going to be curious about if it's something that you rely on regularly.

have feelings, like they're there. It's hard for me to access my feelings though, Like you show me a movie with like dogs and kids, and I'm like crying like a baby. But you talk about like any feelings about my life and I'm like, nope, nothing link slate.

It's like too much, too vulnerable, too emotionally, uh, sort of draining, and we come up young with a way to get past that and through it and to not feel assaulted and violated and undoing it. You bring up something so important because oftentimes people have the insight but don't really have a place to go from there. And I often say, like, insight alone is not enough. I can't have people walking around with like an understanding of what is going on with them, but with an inability

to intervene and shift and make changes over time. I mean, you can't get to one without the other. But one alone does not lead to changes or sustainable changes, you know. So I think I'm sure it's true that some culmination of traum and experiences led you to find this way and to develop a sense of like, oh, this is

how I get value. I people please and people laugh at my jokes, and I'm now identified with this way of being through the world, and in the absence of it, I'm not like as valued and as oriented and grounded and sort of stable and so shifting that requires you, and this is the hard part and why people usually end up saying like I don't know what to do, but requires you to abandon that in a moment, you know, to stay silent, to stay quiet, to get curious about

what you're feeling, inside, and even if you come up emptier, even if you come up messy, you know that you stay with it. The messy is where everything is. And if we like won't sit next to our messy and like make friends with it, so to speak, we stay kind of swimming on the surface. And we all do that to a certain extent because sitting extra a messy is scary and overwhelming, but it really is the only way to get to like the heart and meat of our feelings, and otherwise we remain symptomatic.

in somebody else's shoes. We all look at social media and it looks great out there. That's not what's really going on. We're putting our best foot forward on social media. What lies behind that is all the stuff that only our key circle knows about if we let them in. So when I say fighter flight, and it's hard for me. I'm so conditioned in this lifetime to be labeled words since birth, like you know, wealthy, entitled, Hollywood. You know,

it's just nepotism. It just goes on and on and on that I'm very quick to say, like, oh, I'm already wanting to say, you know, fight or flight, And I'm like, but my situation's not as bad as somebody.

husband and I separated, it's been fight or flight. It's been constant with five kids, and you know, whether it's emotionally, physically financially, we've just been going and there hasn't really been that moment where it's like my soon to be ex husband used to say, put the oxygen mask on first,

and I'm like, absolutely not. I'm understanding that better now, but I just still am like, you know, the meantime, I trying, but it's just when life keeps serving you things, unexpected things daily on a daily basis, like you know, okay, you know, you're like, oh, I got past that, and then you have a plan all of a sudden boom and it's dated. So it's hard for me to take awareness to execution.

It's really important in my clinical work to conceptualize divorce that way. It is a trauma, and all the requisite things that go along with a trauma occur, and they occur in different ways. Of different intensities for different people. And this is whether or not the divorce is like mutual and ambica or something else. It is a paradigm shifting, soul altering, life changing set of events that mean reorienting in every role you embody, as mom, if you have kids,

as a single person, as a professional. There's a sort of redefining and reorienting that goes on that is nothing short of traumatic. And so I am not surprised to hear that you've experienced as many women going through divorce do. Fighter flight system constantly activated. And the fighter flight system

is sort of like an asterisk is a thing. It's a real thing, and it's in place from like all those years ago when we had to be ready to run away from like a bear or who is going to attack us, and our bodies filled with like adrenaline and cortisol, and our muscles are now ready to run and our heart is ready to pump so we can

use our body the way that we need to. That's what happens when fight or flight occurs, when we're having an emotional response, and in the aftermath of trauma, it's actually a false alarm because while you're going through something hard. You're not literally in danger, so the emotional labor of carrying around fight or flight systems over an extended period

of time is really oppressive. And I think that's what you're kind of alluding to, And so your listeners might sort of be like, well, what are you talking about. I'm sure you can get to therapy, but that's really what you're talking about is kind of an itatability to move past this false alarm that's going on filling your body with adrenalinine cortisol. It's hard to make it through the regular goings on of the day with that occurring, let alone to sort of mobilize resources to get to

a place that's going to be confrontative and vulnerable. So I think that's one piece of it that I imagine is going on for you, and that I observe going on with almost every woman going through divorce, no matter what kind of divorce it is. And then the second piece I think is a version of like, Okay, yeah, but still why aren't you there? But really, why aren't

you there? I think looking at the sort of cumulative fear, it sounds like that has been curated over years for you of like what does it actually mean to sit, as you said in my mess, you know, to sit in my vulnerability, to sit in my flaws, to sit in the part of me that's like really deserving. Like what does it mean to carve out that space for myself?

Is like a declaration of the soul. I mean, it's not a small thing, you know, if you're going to do it right, and so embodying that is a bigger thing than just I'm going to make a phone call and go to therapy. It's making a decision about yourself. And I wanted to go back to what you said, which was your ex husband soon to be x husband said you got to put on your oxygen mask first, and you said, absolutely not. And my question to you is is why why is that your reaction.

something insides like you don't deserve it. I'm like, oh, like I've kept myself small for so many years because I thought I didn't deserve it because of who my dad was. And I was handed at nine o two and oh, but I'm aware that while I was handed at nine two and oh, I created that character. I sustained that character, I embodied that character. I made that

character what it was. I'm aware of that, but I still can't get back to Sorry, I'm going like all the way back now, but it just it comes from that and it's hard to change at fifty one years old and I feel like I'm constantly climbing that hill and I'm like almost there, and then something happens. And I know everyone can relate to this on different levels, but it's like, Okay, here I am made it again on my own and booms, look back down that hill again.

different side. They were able to have certain life that I provided for them through work, and then all of a sudden, you know, things weren't stable, and you know, life goes on, and so they've now you know, they're privy to more than I think that I'm comfortable with children being privy to just because we move as a family unit now because we're just and I know I shouldn't say fight or flight, but it's like we're going.

They're on this journey with me, and I can't any longer keep things from them and be like everything's fine. And also, I have children that are old enough that read things online, and you know, they read the false stuff, but they read the semi accurate stuff and they read the true stuff.

from their parent or parents. Not necessarily the client who hasn't had ups and downs in terms of their external stability. This isn't to deny the reality of what your kiddos are going through. If things are unpredictable on those fronts, that's a real thing and it's going to have a real impact. But think it's really important for you to hold on to the intangible, kind of almost unnameable value of what you like set as a throwaway, which is love and abundance. So that's cool, it's not just cool.

It's centering, it's everything. It's orienting and owning that. Embodying that to yourself and narrating that to your kids deliberately is a really important part of moving through a crisis or a version of trauma or difficulty that you could say out loud, like you may have noticed, like things are unpredictable, like week to week, we don't know what we're able to purchase, and that is really hard. And

I'm sure that feels confusing and frustrating and upsetting. And I'm here in front of you telling you I can't fix it, and I'm validating our experience and I'm with you through it even though I can't make it all okay right now. But what I can do is like unending bottomless love for you. Are teenagers and even little kids going to turn around and be like, oh my God, thank you so much. I feel so much better. Maybe maybe not, But what we're doing is we're what I

call breadcrumbing. We're leaving them a message that they can pick up the pieces of as they begin to conceptualize and understand their life and their own story. And that story is the story everyone wants. I see many, many, many clients a week. All people want is to feel like they're loved and wanted and invested in and cared about. So make sure that you keep that as a grounding truth as you move through this time. Don't be afraid

to go to the hard thing. Meaning if you know a hard thing happened this week, a hard month occurred, a hard six months occurred, don't be afraid to say it out loud, don't deny it, don't dismiss it. Doesn't have to be this Christmas is going to be hard, but like last year's was good, Like you don't have

to make it okay. You can say I know this is hard, I know it feels bad, and like I'm here with you and til it feels just a little better, that is parenting and connecting and like community during a time of difficulty. So I think it's critical for you to feel like nothing can take that part away from you. Nothing.

make that distinction. It is all kids want to know, and when those kids become grown ups, it's part of what makes their life more tenable and resources and interventions when they face suffering and hard time more accessible. Is knowing that at their core they're valued and love so it is enough. And given what you've described so far in our conversation, say, I think that's a really important

thing for you to orient yourself around daily. That doesn't mean you don't acknowledge and narrate and take them through the suffering that they're enduring, given whatever financial dress is going on and whatever emotional hangovers they have as being children of a divorce, right, I mean, there's a lot going on for them. But the answer is yes, a relationship, particularly a romantic one, but sometimes in a friendship. Sometimes sadly with family, love isn't enough and the dysfunction and

toxicity requires separation so kurt is minimized or eliminated. Not with kids, we stay in it.

You know, it's all on me and the kids. And when I'm working and I'm gone all day, you know, it's it falls a lot on my six year old to really oversee the family and take care and I feel really guilty when I come home at the end of the day, granted I could have been working a fourteen to fifteen hour day. I come in and I feel so you know, she's also a junior in high school, she just got her learners permit. She is doing so

great and she has a full plate. And then I feel like, here I am putting what is my quote unquote in my mind, my job onto her, and it's

that feels bad inside. So, you know, during these last three months when I've been working constantly, and I was just out of town filming a movie for three weeks, and I'm grateful I was able to have someone come to stay with them during that, but it's still during this three month period of work, work, work, I'm not able to give them the individual attention on a daily basis that I would like to. They're all very different individuals. They need that. Perhaps they're used to that in the past.

So my I guess my fear is during this time, last three months, and I know it's not that long, I fear they feel somewhere deep down abandoned.