Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships (Nedra Tawwab)

Hi, it's Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread. I'm thrilled to welcome today's guest back to the podcast. It's the therapist Nedra Tawwab, bestselling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, and the wonderful new guide, Drama Free. a guide to managing unhealthy family relationships.

Hi, it's Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread. I'm an author, podcast host, and parent who built a long career in media. I grew up in a state of perpetual curiosity, investigating the world and asking a lot of questions. In this show, I chat with culture-defining leaders, thinkers, and experts about this rare moment that we find ourselves in and how to think about our own lives and experiences within a larger social and spiritual construct.

I think the biggest challenge with codependency is when a family member is catered to, when their unhealthy or toxic behavior is catered to, it makes the other people in the situation neglected you know if you have a sibling who's getting more care than you or you know more financial support that feels a certain way to you and often

we take that out on not just the person doing it but the other person involved too so the codependency just it doesn't impact one relationship it impacts many and it really doesn't set anyone up for success The best way to help a person is sometimes not helping them. You know, I think about all of the help I didn't receive but figured it out. Those were the biggest lessons.

versus someone rescuing me or doing the work for me or me never having to figure out this thing because there is someone I can call. So says Nedra Glover-Tawab, sought-after relationship expert, licensed therapist, and New York Times bestselling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself. Her new book, Drama Free, A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships, is sure to hit the New York Times bestseller list as well.

In this latest endeavor, Nedra puts her 15 years of experience to work to demystify the ways that our earliest relationships, those with our family of origin, can lead us astray, causing us to abandon ourselves to maintain connection. Like her first bestseller, Drama Free is packed with insights that are broken up in such a way as to be instantly actionable. Ultimately, she tackles what dysfunctional families look and feel like and how to break free.

Nedra is responsible for mainstreaming a cultural understanding of boundaries, and she now tackles other ideas that we all need to address, like codependency and enmeshment. In today's conversation, we cover a lot of ground. including parenting, reparenting, and what it means to offer support without overstepping. Okay, let's get to our conversation.

You have an incredible ability to take very complex relationships and distill them into themes that everyone can find themselves in, which is hard to do because people are messy. People are messy. Life is challenging. Relationships are hard. I like the general framing of drama free, too, because effectively, I mean, by using the family.

which is where we all learn to tolerate what shouldn't be tolerated, right? Like that's sort of one of the opening statements is that we tend to make unhealthy exceptions because it's family. And yet this should be the place that we learn where we feel where we can most assert our needs. Is that accurate? Yeah. It's the place to be loved, not the place to be. traumatized, not the place to learn to accept dysfunctional relationships, not the place to be unable to be yourself. It should be

a place of restorative healing, a place of teaching, a place of learning. Now, you know, you're not always going to get it right in families. You know, things are done by people. So it's not going to be perfect, but to some extent, what can we do to have healthier family relationships? Yeah. Do you feel like you're getting people?

You still have a practice, right? Although, are you sort of winnowing that down as you talk to everyone in the country? I am not. No, I literally, I just got off the phone with a client. So I have... A small caseload, but a consistent caseload. And it will probably be that way for eternity because of...

I really like the work of being the therapist. It's just getting smaller and smaller and I'm okay with that, but I'm still helping people with, you know, so many of the things I talk about. I feel like that is the center, the foundation. of my work, to be honest. Yeah. No, it makes sense. Yeah. Do you feel like you, I mean, obviously most people who seek therapy.

I mean, I think everyone should be in therapy. I'll just say that. But do you feel like your work is primarily helping people reparent themselves? Or is it to cut patterns? parent the next generation better or is it just a mixed bag like do you get to people while they're still actively forming these relationships and reforming them or do see primarily people who are the recipients of not getting what they need from their families.

Both. I think there is no one way that we're still doing family stuff. I think so many people are still figuring it out. Some people are in the...

just realizing it phase and trying to change. And there are other people who have been dealing with family issues for years and years and years. So there's a mixed bag. I think that there are times when The person is beginning to notice that, you know, I'm an adult now and I don't want to go home for the holidays or I don't want my mom telling me how to be a parent or I don't want my mom to give me dating advice or I don't want my dad or sister or whoever the family member is.

is it's fresh information. And then there are other people who, you know, they might be at a fed up point. They're like, you know, I've had this type of relationship with my sister for 20 years is not changing. It seems like it's at a point where, you know, either I decide to be in it and change the way that I show up or I choose to step away from it.

It's interesting because when you're in it, and you talk about this throughout the book, I think maybe even in the context of your own childhood and experience, that when you're a child, it's what you know, right? This feels this. must inherently be normal. So it's only by living and experiencing other people's relationships or seeing what else is available that you have a wider context in some ways, right? And then it's...

From there, it's still hard to sort of change the way that you – to change those underlying patterns and to recognize what you – maybe didn't get or did get. And then how do you, you had sort of a line that was really, I think probably everyone can feel this, right? Everyone who's a parent and everyone who's been parented. You say parents might feel. quote, I did everything for them, while their child might feel my parents were never there for me.

Perhaps both things are true, but the incongruency in these realities must be explored, not denied. I mean, that's probably one of the primary things, right, is someone's experience. someone else is inherently different than how that person thinks they're being experienced. Is that accurate? Absolutely. And it's, it's worth a conversation in most relationships as an adult. I know that there are many things happening within me and a part of the many things is parenting.

So what my kids see and what I'm doing in the background could be very different things. They could say, oh my gosh, you didn't read me four stories. And I'm like, but I read you one story every night. Yeah. And they're like, well, I really want it for. I'm like, okay, well, I hear that. Yeah. It's not, well, I read you one, that's all you needed. Well, clearly this person is telling me they need it for.

And I offered one. So both of those things can be true. Do I need to say, you know, you need it too much? Or do I need to say, well, I was a great parent anyway. I really want us to understand that. Our parenting is judged by our children, not other people, not our partners, not what, you know, whatever blogger influencer says. It's the kids actually saying.

I had a great parent. I did not have a great parent. So it's really not this stuff that we do because in any relationship, we need to do the things that are important to the person. Not the things that we think are important. And often parents parent from a space of this is what my kid needs and the kid has not. said anything, they in many situations don't even have the freedom to share what they need or want.

Or to guess what they need. And then there's something in us, too, which is, it's like a cultural idea as well, that we're sort of inclined to define ourself in opposition, right, sometimes? So it's like, well, this is what my parents did. and I didn't like it. And now I will do the opposite. And then do you get into sort of extreme, I feel that way.

For context, my parents did a great job. And again, here we get into the nuance of like, yes, you can, your parents can do an amazing job and we all didn't get everything that we needed. But my parents were very, I don't know if performative is the right word for me, but like I didn't get a lot.

of rest. It was like everything had to be productive and didn't condone sort of laying around and watching TV and being lazy. It was like, why aren't you reading? All great, like nutritious things in some ways. But now my experience with my kids is sort of trying to let them, quote unquote, relax. But then I judge myself for it because...

I don't know. But it's like, is there a way to not be so extreme too? Is that one of the things? It's like temperance or grace or breaking some of these patterns without feeling like you're... Doing something that's also extreme and the opposite. Does that make sense? Well, sometimes an extreme is necessary. And then there are other times where we are being too rigid with a boundary. Rest is healthy. Should we never be productive?

Absolutely not. So there are times where, you know, maybe you go to school, maybe because of, you know, how you're doing in a class, you do go to tutoring. Does a kid need an activity every single day or they need to be not sitting down? reading all the time no but there is some nuance in how we see laziness and how we see rest and productivity. There is space for both. And I do think when you experience something, I was talking to a friend about this the other day. How as a child, I was forced.

to have relationships with certain family members. It's your aunt's birthday. Call her. I'm like, happy birthday. Bye. Call so-and-so and talk to them. Like, I don't want to talk to my aunt. Or uncle, like, this is weird. You know, hey, say hi to them. I'm like, hi. You know, so now with my kids, I'm the extreme opposite. You know, I do not pass them the phone. I do not.

say, you need to call your grandmother. I'm like, if your grandmother calls you, fine. If your grandfather calls you, fine. But I will not force relationships on you. Because I've heard so many people talk about that, I'm going to go with, maybe that's okay.

You know, but there are times where I do issue some reminders. Today is your grandmother's birthday. I don't necessarily say you need to call her, but throw that out there. You know, if you choose to call her, you have that option. So that's where my flexibility lives. You know, I give you a little bit of a choice in this, but also I am doing the opposite in some ways. And I don't I don't know if it's a bad thing. I have said to my kids, you know.

How does it make you feel? Because their grandparents will still do it. Their grandparents will say, hey, talk to so-and-so. And so I'll say, you know, how does that feel to you? And they have said, like, it feels awkward. Like, I don't know that person. I'm like, yeah, so now I have to advocate and say, you know, hey, don't force them on the phone with, you know, this fifth cousin that they'll never meet. Like, don't do that. It's weird.

Why is that though? Because that's familiar to me too. I mean, that feels like a cultural or social standard. What is that? I think there's this idea that love is... Having some sort of connection, even when that connection is inauthentic. I think about family as a classroom of people. In most of our classroom settings, there may be two or three people who we really connect with. There may be 10 that we get along with, but not everybody in that class is going to be invited to our birthday party.

Or it's not going to be this close relationship. It may be, you know, when you see them, you'll speak. And some people you won't even speak to when you see them. So, you know, I think our personality determines connection. The vibe determines connection. Our energy towards people determines connection. But within families, we try to determine connection. Mm-hmm.

It's an interesting instinct or tendency that I'm sure everyone has experienced that of like checkboxing in a way where it's like, but that's, it's not real. And I think for kids, as you were saying, there's sort of a sense of... questioning that in a way that we don't necessarily question that we follow through with that stuff more as adults, even if we don't necessarily want to. Hi there, it's Laleh Aracoglu, the host of Condé Nast Traveller's podcast, Women Who Travel.

I'm here with our executive producer, Stephanie Karayuki. Hi, Laleh. So good to be here. Stephanie and I, we've been talking a lot about the new twists and turns the show is taking. The team has been working really hard at honing in on the heart of the show. Stories from women that make you feel something. Stories that change your perspective, that have depth, and sometimes stories that just make you laugh really hard.

A big part of Women Who Travel has always been to claim space that has traditionally been taken up by male voices. And that's still true today. And our mission moving forward with this show is to bring to life the travel experiences that you might not have heard while helping you figure out where to go next.

So when you listen to Women Who Travel, you not only support our show, you support the vision behind it to make travel accessible and exciting for all. New episodes come out every Thursday. So make sure you follow Women Who Travel wherever you get your podcasts. So can we talk a little bit, since I know you are actually exceptionally good at defining and then mainstreaming language, clearly there's a ton of everyone's diagnosing each other as narcissistic, but I feel like we have.

And codependency has had its moments. But can we talk about codependency and more specifically enmeshment? Because I do think that that's not something well understood, but definitely people. find themselves in that pattern, right? And meshment is unhealthy. I once talked to a person who was telling me about their close-knit family, and it didn't sound very much like a meshment. It sounds like they all agreed to do the same things and to be together every Sunday and to celebrate everybody's day.

And it was like cool for everyone. Enmeshment is when. People are unable to be different. And when they have any differences, it is now problematic for the system. We have to do, you cannot miss this thing. You have to go to college for this thing because. that's what everybody else went to college for. You have to be married. You have to have a child because that is what this system dictates. for most people, there's going to be some diversity in your family. And when diversity is not allowed.

and welcome that's when we start to notice like oh this is an issue of enmeshment everyone has to be the same thing the only way this system can function is if Everything that you think and feel and do in your life is also a reflection of what everyone else is thinking, feeling, and doing. There is no... separation of self from others there is no joy in the helping of others it is I have to help the others I have no value necessarily but I have to do it it is more

obligatory and not necessarily value-based. And why is it important to the system for the enmeshment? What's the threat? Why does an enmeshment happen? Is it just a mindless repetition of a pattern or is there something deeper? Change. Lack of enmeshment means that something has to change. If we do something the same way all the time, that can feel good to us. And there are certain things that maybe I do the same way all the time or you do all the time.

With other people, can we determine what their lives look like? Can we determine their partnerships? You know, the amount of kids they have or if they choose not to have kids, if they choose to go to college, how do we make space for, you know, I have this expectation of you, but it's also if. I want you to be happy. Perhaps part of your happiness is this thing that you're doing that's a little bit different than what I'm doing.

In families, we have to allow that diversity to exist, just like we do in a workplace. We don't say, you know, oh, my gosh, this person wants to do something different. We welcome it. It's like, OK, 20 ideas with enmeshment. And it's like, no, only one idea can exist. Anyone who has a different idea is a problem. And is it a threat to identity? Is it that someone making different choices?

inherently makes you question the choices that you've made it's it's an interesting phenomenon because you see it but it's like I just am curious about like the the roots of it or why it feels So essential. And maybe it comes down to identity. Like we're a family where this is what happens. I don't know. Well, I love a family tree because at the top of the tree, it's usually like a person or two and then everybody branches off, branches off and forward.

We're actually not one thing. We actually are all separate. There are not two people in one square on that family tree. It's like there is a line and then the next box. And that's really how we are as people. We are separate. Although we are all connected, we're all on this same tree. We are different branches. I might have four stems and you have two. Like we are different. And I think.

When we try to make everything the same, it's problematic because now I have to look at myself and I'm like, oh, wait, so. You decided to, we don't like to think a lot about ourselves. And what helps us not think about ourselves? Everybody's just being just like us. That's the best way to not have conflict, to just have everybody be like, why is that person walking so slow? Why did that person, if everyone just did everything like me, my world would be great. I would have no chaos.

there would be no conflict. And so when you start to introduce that, it's like, oh my gosh, this is now a problem. They don't want to do Sunday dinners anymore. Now they wanted to change them to Saturday. What is wrong with them? It's like, okay, well, you know, can we consider this? It's interesting that like desire for homeostasis, that desire to not change is very real. And that...

our bids for certainty and predictability. It's interesting to think about it as like, what's the biological need for that versus the cultural programming for that? Are codependency and enmeshment always involved? Can someone feel enmeshed but there's no codependency or do they typically emerge together? There is some crossover, but with codependency, there is typically a support of unhealthy, harmful, or negative behavior.

you know, the term first came up within addiction culture, like you're codependent, you're enabling, you know, this addict, but we enable tons of things, you know, I've certainly heard of, you know, maybe a parent not being responsible for their child with a grant. grandparent really takes over and does a lot of the parenting.

Or you may have a sibling who doesn't have to pay for their share of the vacation, but you and your family have to pay for your share. So there are all sorts of ways that... enabling and codependency happens within families. I think the biggest challenge with codependency is When a family member is catered to, when their unhealthy or toxic behavior is catered to, it makes the other people in the situation neglected.

You know, if you have a sibling who's getting more care than you or, you know, more financial support, that feels a certain way to you. We take that out on not just the person doing it, but the other person involved too. So the codependency just, it doesn't impact one relationship. It impacts many. And it really doesn't set anyone up for success.

The best way to help a person is sometimes not helping them. You know, I think about all of the help I didn't receive but figured it out. Those were the biggest lessons. Yeah. versus someone rescuing me or doing the work for me or me never having to figure out this thing because there is someone I can call. I remember when I started college, I did not know how to type very well.

My mother, she had amazing, impeccable typing skills. And I would go to her house and I would say, can you type this paper? I think she did it the first time. After that, she's like, you got to type your own papers. Like you're going to college. You have to type your own papers. And, you know, I'm happy to say now I type fairly well. And it's because I had to practice it. If I had her typing my papers.

you know all throughout college I can't imagine you know how I would feel when I started a job. And I had to type something or, you know, so there is a certain level of getting in the way that we do as we're trying to help people. No, certainly. And the tendency to help or fix. But then there's that line, right? As you're thinking about, as you're pondering, exploring people's childhoods between neglect and too much assistance, right? So really hard.

And I'm sure that's where so many issues in therapy come from. It's hard to find that sweet spot or that general framework where someone feels like. They were supported to figure it out themselves. Is that the sort of trick? Like how do you create a baseline net of support where we're not going to let you fall off a cliff, but you got to learn how to. Get down. Yeah. It's equipping the person with the skills first. Yeah.

before you allow them to try that thing on their own it's one thing to say cook dinner and you've never you know allowed this child in the kitchen and you've never shown them any skills they don't watch cooking shows like they have no skills so you You're telling a person who knows nothing, figure it out on your own. I'm not here to support you.

Right. That's what neglect is. You know, I hear from women all the time, you know, periods can be very traumatizing for us. And many of us have mothers who did not explain that process. Yeah. We learn from our friends. We learn from older siblings. We learn from cousins. We learn from, you know, TV sometimes how to insert a tampon. I can't, you know, just all of these wild stories I've heard of.

You know, I told my parent I was on my period and they just gave me some pads. That's a new situation. Right. You don't know when to use them, when to change them, that you're supposed to carry them with you. There's so much information that you need for that lifestyle change and not teaching someone that before allowing them to maybe do it on their own is neglectful. I wonder how many, I guess it depends on when, and now it's happening earlier and earlier, but how many...

girls slash young women are like, yes, I want to hear this from my mother versus now. I just want to watch it on YouTube. But I guess to not even offer or to not try. Well, that could be a way of caring. Here is a video for you to watch on YouTube. That is showing them something that's better than saying. OK, go to the store and get yourself some sanitary napkins. OK, like I don't like what do I do here? You know, I think most neglect is unintentional.

I don't think a neglectful parent is intentionally trying to harm a child. Abuse is intentional. Neglect is a byproduct of someone not. noticing or not paying attention to something. So most parents who are neglectful, either emotionally or physically, they don't even know that they're being neglectful until these sort of situations come up where a child is like, I had no clue how to deal with this, or I did not know, you know, this thing or.

you told me to figure out a way to get home. And I'm like, I don't know what to, you know, whatever those things are. It's like, you could say it's tough parenting, but it's actually not very helpful. I have a friend who's afraid to swim and she tells a story of someone throwing her in a pool as a way to teach her. Oh, God. Yeah.

You'll learn to swim. And I've heard that story from a few people. Like, you'll learn to swim if you're in the water. And it's like, that's actually traumatizing. I get the intent. The intent is like, you'll figure it out. That's a very unfortunate way to figure it out. trauma, you're traumatized trying to figure out how to save your life. So although the person's intention is not to traumatize you, is to teach you to swim, the situation is still traumatizing.

It's interesting, too, just thinking about all of these, the things that we're talking about are these cultural rites of passage, right? And they've been sort of passed down to families like you. teaching your kid in some ways, like what we would have called home economics, right? And that just doesn't exist anymore as a cultural construct. Like there are no initiation rights that, I mean, there are in some.

cultures and religions, obviously. But also there's like a neglect, we're a neglectful culture in terms of having any extra support for people, for kids, late adolescence as they grow up. Like we're not teaching it. I'm clearly, this is an overstatement, but we also don't have good mechanisms for teaching kids who might not be learning any of this at home, right? Like there is YouTube.

I have found that with my kids and their YouTube watching, they are learning how to do it, but you need to practice the skill. And so they're like, I've watched a hundred makeup tutorials. Let me do your makeup. I look like a clown every time. You know, or I know how to bait. And I'm like, dude, you're upstairs. The stuff is, it's like, no, like you still need that real world practice of.

whatever that is like yeah you need to practice on 50 faces before you take this show on the road before you get that line at ulta yes yes watching the video was not enough Can we talk a bit about these sort of six... I don't know what you would call them, personality types or patterns in dysfunctional families, the responsible one, the placator, the hero, the mascot, the adjuster, adapter, and the acting out child or scapegoat.

seem like sort of almost archetypes. Is that accurate? Like is this when you're analyzing a family, can you typically be like, I see all of these or some of these dynamics at play? Depending on the amount of children in the family, for sure, you know, lots of people have their way of surviving unhealthy family patterns. And so. I think the most bold way is the person who we identify as acting out, but they're really trying to call.

attention to the dysfunction. They don't get enough credit for the hard work they're doing to really say like, look at my family. So often it's like, what is wrong with this person? That person shows up in therapy, you know, when I used to work with adolescents and the parents are like, this kid is cutting school, they're stealing. And I'm like, what's going on at home? Right. But I don't nothing. Everything is great at home. Can you fix my kids?

And when you're in the middle of divorce, you're trying to get this kid to pick sight. I mean, it's so much stuff going on. And this kid's behavior is just a response, a reaction to the chaos they're experiencing. at home. It's not like they're this autonomous person with no issues and they're manufacturing drama. It's like they're 14. You know, this chaos comes from somewhere.

What's happening in these other situations that we need to maybe think about? These are the things that you can do, mom. These are the things that you can do, dad. Yeah. So they're essentially the symptom. They're the symptom of a sick family or of an ill, unwell organism. Yes, all of those things. They are the symptom of a larger.

problem. It's not them doing anything without, you know, some other things happening. I love any opportunity to get into a therapist mind. But when someone comes into practice with you, do you sort of Do you place them on this map? I'm not saying it's this reductive or easy, but do you sort of, can you within a minute be like, oh, I understand who this person is and therefore the role that they played?

the role that they played in their family and what was potentially going on? Is it like backward Jenga? I couldn't do that, but I don't. It's not very helpful because people are way more complex. Yeah. And what I find is the best way to help them is to get them to speak those things about themselves. And so my job really is to get you to say,

it out because I don't want to say that that was your role in the family. I may think it, you know, when you're working with adults, the way that they typically frame it is, oh, I was bad as a teenager. Or, oh, you know, I used to get into a lot of trouble. And then we'll talk about why. Because they, you know, even the adult, they feel like it's their fault. Like they were bad or, you know, this troublemaker for no reason. And I'm like. I don't know if you would be that way.

Without some other things going on. I don't think that's all your fault. I think you're really owning something that doesn't really belong to you. Because if the behavior stopped when you turned 18, 19, are you really a bad person? Do you find... That also like sometimes let's say that the scapegoat or the canary in the coal mine, the person who is signaling that something's wrong or a foot that, that, that.

is because that role isn't yet taken in the family? Do you feel like kids sort of assort themselves in a dysfunctional family? You were clear about that in the book, but that you won't necessarily maybe get like three. scapegoats you'll get one and then someone else is like I'm the responsible one or the hero or like do you see children

How much of it is determined by their personality and their essence? And how much of it is an expression of the structure of the family and its dysfunction? I think it's a blending of both. My personality has never been fiery. Right. And so in my family, I've always been sort of easy to get along with, I guess. Not quiet. I definitely was chatty, but I was entertaining. I mean, I could remember all the lines from A Living Color and I would do all the skits.

breaking ice all over the place. So, you know, I was like, I like to get people to laugh. I like to get people to talk. You know, a lot of people talk to me. I knew a lot of stuff. Like even the adults, I would ask them questions and I'd be like, that's why you're not married to him anymore. Always the therapist. Yeah. So I wasn't very combative. So if, if something happened, I'm like, Oh, just be quiet until this is over.

I'm not going to draw attention to it. I'm not going to, you know, ruffle feathers. But I see other people being like, I'm going to say something. And it never worked out well. I'm never I'm like, I'm not going to say anything like I'm just going to get out of here when I turn 18. And that'll be that. But, you know, I think that it is a personality thing. I think it's just my personality, because even now it's like.

I'm just not, I confront things. I definitely have difficult conversations, but even the way I do that, it's super calm. It's like, okay, here's my two sentences. We can talk about it for hours, but this is where I am. You know, I'm not like elevated. I'm not going to yell at you. That's just not my personality. There's other sort of term definition that I think is really helpful.

and drama free, where not to jump around, but I thought that this was, I'm so glad that you said this, your talk about you made a list of the signs that it's safe to be vulnerable. Because I also feel like we're living in a culture that appropriately venerates vulnerability. Or has turned it into strength. But it's not always safe. It's not always safe or appropriate to make yourself vulnerable. People need to deserve your vulnerability.

right i'm not suggesting that we need to go into every encounter armored but there's a difference if that makes sense like i don't i feel like i just learned this recently where i had this idea of myself that i should just be I should be unprotected. I shouldn't need armor. I should just espouse vulnerability in all situations. And my therapist was like, no, no, no. Vulnerability is a mutual... It needs to go both ways. Like you can't be vulnerable into a void.

And you made this list, you know, about you notice the other person is curious about your story. It's like, again, I think you do such a great job of finding this balance between What is it to not be codependent or narcissistic? What is it to have a healthy boundary? What is it to be in relationship and be vulnerable and protective of yourself? And I don't know if you've observed that.

culture as well, but not everyone deserves to hear your story, right? Whereas I think we are in a culture right now that's like, tell your story, be vulnerable. Tell your story to some people and be vulnerable sometimes. A big sign that people are open to you being vulnerable is they are themselves vulnerable. Yeah.

If they can't share anything about themselves, I'm not sure they're able to absorb anything about you. When you notice that people are keeping it very surface, or if you mention anything, oh, my dad is in the hospital. Are you going to the... party next week. Well, I don't think you need to be vulnerable with that person. I don't think you need to go back to that dad comment. I think they're letting you know, hey, not me, not today.

You're right. I think there is a lot of like, be vulnerable with people, but I also want you to be safe. mentally. I also want you to be protected in your relationships. And a part of that is not being vulnerable with everyone all the time. There are some people who they're not ready for you. No, I think that that's, again, it's nuanced, but it's important because not everyone gets to hear your story.

I love the, and this is such a human reaction, like, and I'm sure everyone shows up at your door primarily, or many are driven by, I want to quote unquote, get over something. And you're like, there is no get over. pill I would that I could dole out like a pharmacist but I wish but what's that just that that we want things to be in the past without having to actually experience and process them that's too painful to go

into them? Or is it that people have been in them for so long that they find it unbearable to be there? People don't want to experience any discomfort. Not one bit of it. We don't want to be too cold. We don't want to be too hot. We don't want to think about anything that we don't want to think about. We don't want our hands to sweat. We don't any sort of discomfort. We want to get out of it. It's normal, right? Like none of us want this. And so when we have a thought that will not go away.

Our thought becomes, how do I make it go away? How do I make it go away? Well, when we get into that thought cycle, we're actually prolonging the thought. Because now you're... focused on the thought when maybe it'll just pass naturally. There are tons of things that we think about throughout the day. Sometimes it's an X.

Sometimes it's this situation from childhood, but the more that you focus on, I should never think about this situation. You have a brain. You should want to think about stuff. That's a sign of a healthy brain. that you're able to think about this old stuff, even if, you know, it's things you don't want to think about. You don't want to be fixated.

on those things. If you find that every day, multiple times a day, you're thinking about something, perhaps that is problematic. But sometimes things come back up. And the work could be, why is this coming up now? Is there some work that I still need to do here? Is it I saw something and it reminded me of this? Is there a conversation that perhaps I need to have? You know, are they just thoughts?

Sometimes we just have thoughts and that's OK, but it's not an indicator that there's anything wrong with you. I've worked with people who are, you know, at the beginning stages of grieving the loss of a loved one. And you'd be surprised how many people want to. get over it so quickly. Their whole entire relationship with their parent in two weeks. I'm like, I can't help you.

What I can do is sit here with you every week while you're crying. And I'll tell you, there will be some point where you stop crying. You keep coming. I promise you, you won't cry the whole session. But these next few, you will cry the whole entire session. That's natural. We want you to still, you know, engage in your life in some ways, but you don't ever have to get over the loss of a parent. Right. Not ever. Now, we want you to be able to function better. That is a goal.

Yeah, I want you to be able to function better. I want you to be able to live with this death. I'm not here to help you get over something that has been so big and so important. Now, you know, it could be death. It could be, you know, some unfortunate argument. It could be the loss of something. But we don't have to get over these, these sort of things to continue on in life. Yeah, no, absolutely. And obviously we have a culture that also.

is does not like discomfort so there's a lot of messaging about getting over death or getting over loss which is very very pernicious and painful and it's Beautiful to think about as a therapist being able to say, You can just cry. Like you can, we can spend 50 minutes and you, and that's a good use of that time. Like we don't have to do work on this or that having the emotions is part of the work and maybe it's inappropriate to call it work, but.

That, you know. I've had a client who, you know, for many months she would just cry. And I thought to myself, gosh, I hope somebody missed me this much. I mean, because this is some love. This is love. And that's, you know, that's what I eventually said to her. I said, you know. This grief is hard because it is a manifestation of how much you love this person. Wow.

wow, how impactful this person has been on your life. Because I've talked to people and they are, you know, they may, you know, be so, oh, this person died. And then you're talking about all this other stuff. But the way that you're sitting in this. whoa yeah that is that is some deep love and you know i i think you know that person it sounds like they really worked hard at that relationship and it is a loss

That is a loss to, you know, not have that person in your life. But, you know, this is a part of the process. Near the end of the book, Nedra says. The trick is to keep living and stop trying to change the people who refuse to understand you. And that hits. It also, I think, speaks to sort of the core of what her book is about. which is going back to the beginning to understand how you learned how to relate and how you came to understand who you are.

in comparison to other people, right? Like this is where we learn these things and adapt to these roles. and feel those first expressions of personality. And it's certainly not all family, right? You look at anyone who's a parent, or you can look at your siblings, and you're like, wow, we came into this world different. and somewhat defined. And then in our relationships, in our families, and with the wider world, it's like a polishing, right? It's sometimes distorting, sometimes polishing.

process where you come to understand yourself in relation to the whole and I love books like Nedra's that just sort of boil that down so you can really, in quite, even basic isn't the right word, just clarified language, see it. Because as she has said, people are very complex and interactions are nuanced and you can get really lost in the tar pit of relating.

But when you sort of boil it down to basics and understand who am I and then who am I in the context of this family? What do I need? What needs were not met? And again, the other great...

gift of this book is that in some ways it lets everyone off the hook while holding them accountable. But this idea that as a parent, you're never going to meet all of your child's needs. I have that conversation with my kids all the time where I'm like, you're gonna... have a laundry list of complaints, and it'll be really interesting to see what they are.

And to recognize that I might be able to anticipate some, but I certainly can't anticipate all. And that it's not an indictment. It's this living, evolving system. And it's my personality and my husband's personality and my kids and we're all. trying to coexist and trying to be ourselves within the context of a larger system. Anyway, it's interesting stuff. Thank you, as always, for listening. See you next week. Thanks for listening to this

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