Childhood Survival Skills That Sabotage Your Adult Relationships: The Path to Emotional Maturity

Hey everybody, welcome to Waking Up to Narcissism. Also, this is definitely, this episode is going to play on a virtual couch feed as well because this is a big one. This is something I've been working on for a very long time because we are going to talk about one of the subjects I think does not get enough air and that is emotional immaturity. I cannot wait to take you on the journey that we're going to go on today.

But first, before we dive into today's episode, I want to share an email that is going to act as today's muse because this person's questions are so perfect that they could have scripted today's topic themselves, which I think that you'll see they kind of do.

We'll call the person Mark. Mark says, hey, Tony, I've been a devoted listener of both the virtual couch and waking up to narcissism for years now, literally listening while folding laundry, commuting, and once embarrassingly in a Sunday school class at church. When I honestly don't know what happened, but my earbud disconnected.

And thankfully, you weren't talking about your coronography recovery program for the full 30 seconds that you were loudly echoing in the church classroom while I tried to figure out what was happening. My wife also listens to you from time to time, but she definitely does not like it when I say to her things like, tell me more about that, or I didn't know what I didn't know. And that's a you thing, which I now understand is actually a me thing.

First, I want to thank you for consistently clarifying the difference between having narcissistic personality disorder and simply displaying emotionally immature behaviors. That distinction has been genuinely life-changing for me. When I first started learning about narcissism, I went through the classic phase of, oh no, is everybody in my life a narcissist? Am I a narcissist? And I agree, cats are narcissists. If anybody has listened for a while, I do maintain that I do think that they are.

But your podcast have helped me understand the much more common reality of emotional immaturity that it sounds like we all navigate, which brings me to my question. I'm getting better at recognizing emotional immaturity in others. And he says, cough, cough, my wife. But how do I honestly assess where I'm being emotionally immature myself? I caught myself last week giving my wife the silent treatment after an argument. He said, I had this moment of, oh, wait, am I being the emotionally immature

one here? And he said it was a strange mirror to look into. You mentioned several times you believe we're all emotionally immature until we're not. And he said, that really resonates with me. But I'm curious, are some people naturally more emotionally mature from the start? Or do we all begin at roughly the same place and develop at different rates depending on our experiences? And what does the journey from immaturity to maturity actually look like in everyday life?

He said, I'm realizing that while I can intellectually understand concepts like differentiation and curiosity and self-confrontation in practice, I still find myself reacting in ways that seem pretty childish. He said, thanks for creating content that makes me uncomfortable, self-aware in the best possible way. Mark. So thank you, Mark. First of all, I'm sorry to hear about the whole church thing because yeah, I've had my headphones connected various places or locations.

And I can even tell you they're the most amazing stories as a therapist of how people, I want to say, get caught or get in trouble. And one of those is where someone's Bluetooth connects to something that is not something that they are proud of or that they are not hoping that their spouse or their family hears. And the whole everything is a me thing definitely implies that everything else is a you thing. I get that. But that is definitely not the point of that concept.

What he actually did is take a brand new shiny tool and then use it as a weapon against his wife. But something tells me that there's probably an origin story there. Did you see your dad do that? Or maybe it's just what makes sense to you because you've been doing things like that since you were a small child. And we'll actually talk about that a lot a bit later in the show.

But your questions, Mark, they are brilliant and they get right to the heart of what I have been wanting to explore for a long time in detail. And it's that moment of self-awareness, the wait, am I being the emotionally immature one here? Because that's actually the first sign of growing emotional maturity. And I would like to put a counter on the board for the number of times that I'm going to say things like we are all emotionally immature until we can recognize what that looks like.

And I think it really does help to understand a good origin story because this whole journey of emotional immaturity to emotional maturity is definitely not linear. It's not a one size fits all. It's more like this relay race where we're constantly passing the baton between different versions of ourselves. And every now and again, we might have a much more mature version of ourselves that takes the baton and is running around the track.

But then they hand it off to someone that now we're at a new position in the race. We are now fatigued or we are calorie depleted and an immature version of us might show up because as we go through life and we have different experiences in our relationships and just in life in general, then it is going to provide us with a chance to recognize these new areas of immaturity or it's going to bring up some old areas of emotional immaturity as well.

Today, inspired by Mark's excellent questions, we're going to explore an emotional maturity spectrum. And we're going to go from narcissistic personality disorder all the way to the other side of that, which is more emotional wisdom, which may come with a full ponytail, a yoga mat, a gi. I don't know if they wear those outside of the martial arts, but some sort of comfortable clothing that shows that I am, I have become, I have arrived. And that is on this way to full emotional maturity.

But I think most of us hang out somewhere in this messy middle, hopefully continuing to move along the spectrum toward more emotionally mature. And I am going to spend a lot of time today exploring why certain childhood behaviors that helped us survive back when we were kids, that those actually create havoc in our adult relationships. I have recently been taking a couples training from a psychologist named Terry Reel. And I've heard a colleague of mine, Jennifer Finlayson-Fyfe,

mention Terry Reel's work on occasion. When she has quoted him, I've loved his work. So I finally Googled him. And then all of a sudden, I am inundated with ads for his stuff. Quotes of his popping up everywhere. It was almost as if my phone or my computer was listening to me. I am now inserting a dramatic pause because I believe it is. Don't call me paranoid.

Anyway, we'll explore Terry Reel's game-changing insight that he says what was adaptive in childhood then becomes maladaptive in adulthood. And that will truly be one of those things that once you see it, you can no longer unsee it in a good way. I promise I'm going to create a practical translation guide to help you recognize when you are responding as someone who is emotionally mature, when it is coming from your inner child how to gently then pass that baton to your adult self.

Because take, for example, that silent treatment that Mark mentioned, that's not a character flaw. And I think this is such a good way to look at it. That is his inner child doing exactly what worked when you were little. I'm going to go silent. I'm going to sit this one out, let the storm pass, and I survived. Our job is not to shame that part of us, but it's honestly to thank it for getting us this far.

But now, time to let the big kids take over time to let our adult self take the wheel grab your metaphorical running shoes because we're about to explore this relay race of emotional development that every single one of us is running i promise you that whether we realize it or not and trust me understanding where you are on that track it can honestly transform every relationship in your life and primarily that one with yourself so let's get started.

It's not my job, it's not my job, not to take care of you. Hey everybody, okay, I am your host, Tony Oberbe. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a certified mindful habit coach, writer, speaker, If you have not followed me on social media, I would be very honored at virtual.couch on Instagram and at virtual couch on TikTok. And my daughter, Sydney and I, my daughter, Mackie and I were doing more and more live question and answers on those platforms.

I would love for you to join us there. It's one of my highlights of the week and the magnetic marriage course. It is, it is being revamped. It is being updated. It is being refilmed. And I am so excited about it. And I would love it if you would join my newsletter. So go to tonyoverbay.com and sign up for the newsletter. Or you can email me through the contact form or reach out to me at contact at tonyoverbay.com and let me know that you're interested.

As a matter of fact, I have put together a four-pillar worksheet, a four-pillar document that I am more than happy to hand out to you if you reach out to me. And if you are struggling with turning to an unhealthy coping mechanism that rhymes with coronography, then go to pathbackrecovery.com, reach out to me. I'll give you a coupon code if that would help, because that is honestly changing lives.

It's a wonderful course that is self-guided, self-paced, but I have a weekly men's group call for that, that I think is so, so beneficial and helpful.

And today I'm going to talk a lot about emotional immaturity. And this is my passion, is pointing out where we are all emotionally immature and what it looks like to become more emotionally mature. So if you hear things in this content today that you like, that you're interested in, reach out to me because I'm starting a new men's group called the Emotional Architects. And I would love to have you be a part of it. It's going to be a couple of group calls a month. It'll be a fairly low cost.

The calls will be archived. You'll have access to the Q&As with me and we're going to become more emotionally mature and change the world in the meantime. Show up better in your relationships as a parent, just in life in general. But let's get to the show.

My podcast, Waking Up to Narcissism, has been built on a foundation that narcissistic personality disorder is only seen in a very small percentage of the population. And I have some episodes where I really go into detail about the research around that.

But if we just start grounding ourselves in some facts, narcissistic personality disorder, depending on the study, and I will always get a little bit of feedback from this when I post something about this, but it affects approximately anywhere from some believe two to six percent of the general population.

Now, the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5, which is the diagnostic and statistical manual that therapists use for diagnosis, requires a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy with at least five out of these nine specific symptoms present. Which the diagnosis concept in general can be pretty fascinating because let's say that somebody has four and a half out of those nine symptoms, then they get to say, it turns out I'm not a narcissist.

Matter of fact, I'm just really good at not being a narcissist, which is a little bit narcissistic. But I think what makes today's conversation so powerful is recognizing that there are behaviors that resemble narcissism, and they actually can be expressions of emotional immaturity. Or these narcissistic traits or states or tendencies that I believe exist on a spectrum that we all navigate.

Because I will maintain, I think I said earlier, let's put a counter on for how many times I mentioned that we are essentially all emotionally immature until we're not. Meaning that as we go through life and we're learning and growing and interacting with other people, the hope would be that we start to show up as more mature adults. So let's talk about the narcissistic spectrum, this spectrum from narcissistic personality disorder all the way through to emotional maturity.

To do so, I would like to present to you a narrative called Dinner with Daniel. Imagine that you are meeting a friend's new partner for the very first time. His name is Daniel. From the moment you walk into the restaurant, Daniel takes up all the space in the room. He is dressed very sharply, noticeably expensive clothing. And before anybody can get a word out, Daniel launches into a monologue about how his company would not survive without him.

He name drops casually. Oh, that investor. Yeah, we had lunch last week. And he frequently references very high status people or exotic places. Now, when your friend starts to tell a story about their recent promotion at work, Daniel interrupts, staring the conversation back to him. That's cute. He says, you know, when I was your age, I had already had two promotions and they were much bigger than that. He doesn't smile because he really does mean that.

Throughout the night, he just subtly puts your friend down. She's terrible with directions, he says, with a laugh when they try to describe a trip that they took. Don't worry, though. I handled the itinerary. I always have to. And he says it like it's a joke. She sure looks uncomfortable. And then when she finally confronts him very gently, very softly about cutting her off and she just wants to try to finish her story, he responds very flatly.

Look who's being pretty sensitive here. I think people really like how direct I am. Right, everybody? What are they supposed to say? So he just says back to her, you know, you should really toughen up. Now, one of my personal pet peeves, later, the waiter accidentally forgets an appetizer. Daniel turns extremely cold. Unbelievable, he mutters. You know, you'd think with the money that I'm going to pay here, they would treat us better than this.

I should have known to go to somewhere else, not this place. And he demands to see a manager and everyone is uncomfortable. And he insists that a free dessert is the very least that they can do. He comes here all the time. When the manager finally offers it, he doesn't say a word. He doesn't thank him. And he basically just waves him off muttering, okay, what else were they supposed to do? That's the right thing to do. After dinner, he insists that you all take a selfie.

Positions himself naturally in the center. Takes several shots, inspecting each one. My jawline looks kind of weird in this one. He said, let's do it again and again. And someone else finally says, hey, can I take a look? And he says, you look fine. And then later, he posts one to Instagram with the caption, keeping company with greatness. No mention of your names. Apparently, he's the greatness. In the car ride home, your friend admits, man, he's a lot, but he is really confident.

And he says, I just would never understand the pressure he's under. So, I mean, I guess he's right. So, let's break down the narcissistic traits in this narrative of dinner with Daniel. It is grandiosity at its best and a very, very strong sense of superiority. Because Daniel talks extensively about his achievements. He exaggerates his status. He dominates the conversation. He has a very inflated view of how important he is and he lacks empathy.

When his partner tries to express her discomfort, Daniel minimizes it. It's not a big deal. He invalidates her and he turns the issue back on her. He has a need for excessive admiration because this guy thrives on attention. He curates his image so meticulously from the clothes he wears, the photo taking, and he expects others to reflect his sense of greatness. Man, how lucky they are to be with him. Exploitive behavior. He takes over plans. He takes over discussions.

He certainly takes over conversations without considering other people's needs. His partner basically is like a prop. And he has a sense of entitlement that when the waiter makes a mistake, he overreacts. He demands compensation because he is believed, he's very special, and he's owed special treatment, which just is Arians. He talks down to others. He dismisses their opinions or their experiences. Unless they revolve around him or they benefit him.

And enmeshment with his own image, everything he does from his storytelling to Instagram captions is carefully crafted because he is gonna maintain this public image. And to him, everyone around him is very fortunate that he is even sharing that with them. So, this is the kind of example that I think shows how narcissistic personality disorder isn't just about someone being confident or that somebody's being difficult.

It's a personality disorder. It's a consistent pattern of behavior that is rooted in things like entitlement, lack of empathy, an overwhelming need to be admired, seen as superior, always taking that one-up position. This is the beginning of the spectrum from full-blown narcissistic personality disorder to, we'll just say, true emotional maturity. So let's stay with Daniel and let's walk him down the spectrum. And we'll say there's four stages. So stage one, the one we just covered,

narcissistic personality disorder. This is Daniel, the centerpiece. Again, he dominates attention, lacks empathy, constantly seeks admiration, dismisses others' feelings, expects special treatment, manipulates and invalidates all those around him with zero awareness, no remorse. So we got these key traits, grandiosity, entitlement, lack of empathy, emotional invalidation, superficial charm, exploitation of others, maintaining this particular self-image.

A step down, stage two, we'll call it on the spectrum, is extremely emotionally immature. We'll call this one Daniel the Defensive. Now, Daniel no longer checks every diagnostic box for narcissistic personality disorder, but he struggles. He struggles deeply with emotional awareness and connection. He's not as overtly arrogant, but he reacts defensively to discomfort, it, often becoming very passive aggressive or blaming others.

So now let's go back to a dinner scenario. So during a dinner, Daniel still talks a lot about himself, but now it is laced with his insecurity because he might say things like, you know, nobody even understands what I do. It's really hard to be the smartest one in the room because if his partner challenges him, he might sigh dramatically or then shut down with, here we go again. You'll always find a way to make me the bad guy.

Now, he still might snap at the waiter for a mistake, but instead of demanding dessert, he sulks and he makes snide comments under his breath. He sees himself as a victim of other people's incompetence. That victim still is taking a one-up position because it is a woe is me, look at me, how do I even deal with this? So, the key traits there, defensive posture, emotional reactivity, victim mentality, blame shifting, very low accountability, poor empathy skills.

He doesn't seek admiration as overtly, but he is terrified of being wrong or vulnerable. Here's where we've got this little kid that is in adult clothes, that is just trying to show up in a way that will get their needs met or have all eyes or attention focused on them because to that incredibly emotionally immature person, they don't even know they exist unless they're interacting with another person. And it can't be from a place of genuine curiosity or vulnerability.

It has to be from a place of, I need you to know that I am the center of attention. I am in the one-up position over you and you just need to bring something up to me and And I can let you know how you're wrong and I'm right. Or I can't even believe you said that based off of the way that I'm feeling or the things that I know or I'm doing. So let's move on to stage three. This is just good old emotional immaturity. This is Daniel the trying.

Now Daniel's starting to notice his own patterns. He's not always successful at emotional regulation, but he's starting to show signs of growth. And he interrupts far less often and even catches himself when he starts to dominate the conversation. Let's go back to the dinner scenario. Now Daniel still shares a story about work, but when his partner starts to talk, he pauses and he's like, hey, my bad. I got carried away. You go ahead.

Now, it's still a little bit clunky because he was going on, but it's there. And when she brings up an issue from earlier, he does get a little bit defensive, but then he's able to take a breath, have a pause. And he says, okay, honestly, I don't know if I was listening as well as I could have. I can try that again.

Thank you for bringing that awareness to me. He might still occasionally downplay emotions, saying things like, I don't really understand why that hurt your feelings, but I have to trust that it did. So it's imperfect empathy, but it's sincere. So, the key traits in this stage three, this is Daniel the Trine, increasing self-awareness. He is beginning to know what he did not know. There's still reactivity, occasional defensiveness. There's some basic empathy.

There's pretty clumsy accountability, but he still has this growth mindset. I am on this path of trying to figure it out. He's starting to see the relationship and he's starting to understand that they are not about performance or control, but it's more about presence. It's about trying to continue to show up and I may not always get it right, but I'm going to continue to try.

Now, enter stage four of this emotional, mature human being that is as far off of the spectrum of the narcissistic personality disordered person as can be. This is Daniel the Grounded. So, this version of Daniel is no longer seeking validation. He's not dodging vulnerability. He can sit with discomfort. He can own his own mistakes without spiraling into shame or deflection. And he remains present even if he disagrees or even if he feels misunderstood

because Daniel knows who he is and he's okay with himself. At dinner now, Daniel asks about other people first. He listens with genuine curiosity, not asking someone a question so that he can then get to whatever he wants to talk about. When his partner shares a differing perspective, he says, you know what? Thank you for sharing that. I didn't even realize that it had landed that way. Hey, I'd like a do-over. And if the waiter makes a mistake, he is gracious. Hey, no worries.

Take your time. We're all human. We're just doing our best. He doesn't need to be right. He doesn't need to impress. He is connected to himself enough to show up for others. As cliched as it sounds, he loves himself. So now he can love others. If you do not love yourself, then you're trying to figure out how to get others to love you. And if you have this narcissistic, grandiose version of yourself, you don't care at all about others.

So, the key traits of this version of Daniel, emotional regulation, high empathy, emotional intelligence, emotional consistency, personal accountability. He's open to feedback. He has authentic humility, and he is differentiated. He can hold on to his sense of self while staying connected to others. As a matter of fact, when you get really good at that concept of becoming differentiated, then you learn more about yourself in the interaction with others.

That is why we are in relationships, because I want to understand who I am. And once I know who I am, man, I can really, really want to know you. And it doesn't have to be perfect. But if I'm not sure who I am, then I'm going to view a lot of the things that you say as if you are telling me I am wrong and you are right. And then my immaturity will lash back at you and say, oh, no, you don't understand. Or I can't even believe you think that.

Or, okay, really, that's what you think? Emotional maturity, level one. On one side, we have narcissistic personality disorder. Controlling, lacks empathy, emotional impact on others is severe, it's often traumatic. And then if we move on to that second, becoming less narcissistic, but extremely emotionally immature, highly reactive, deflects blame, operates really from fear and insecurity, and is emotionally confusing and inconsistent and unsafe to others.

Now we're moving on to, we'll call it that stage three, emotionally immature. Shows effort, self-aware at times, but is inconsistent. But emotional growth is beginning to become visible, but it is messy. And then the one that comes with the gi and the ponytail, the unicorn, the pot of gold. High emotional maturity, centered, grounded, empathetic, accountable, curious, safe, and easy to connect with emotionally.

So think of that spectrum. It is beautifully complex to understand where we land on the spectrum, because I would like for you to think of emotional development less like a straight line and more like a topographical map, because it's going to have this developmental terrain. Those are our childhood experiences because they've created these certain neural pathways that become our default reactions.

You can think of situational weather, because even the most mature person can regress when triggers hit, especially when they hit certain attachment wounds. So the weather, it can be a good day and all of a sudden in comes the storm clouds and it can dump and pour rain. And no, that can be because of the cloud cover, because that can be because the clouds hit, because the rain hit. I am getting wet. I am having this experience and I am reacting to it.

Relationship climate can play a role in this topographical map because we may show up differently depending on whether we feel safe or we feel threatened. And then we have to be aware of our resources and our reserves. It's about our capacity for mature responses because that'll diminish when we are depleted. There's an acronym that's big in the addiction recovery world, HALT, if I am hungry, if I'm angry, if I am lonely, if I am tired.

Because keep in mind, self-awareness about where we fall on the spectrum is not about shame. It just is. And once I'm aware of where I'm at, then I can start making a choice. And the goal is absolutely not perfection, but it is expansion. It is moving from this, I did not know what I did not know, to I know, but man, I don't do whatever it is as much as I would like. And that's a hard place to be because you will beat yourself up there often.

But eventually, I'll move on to this next stage of where I know far more than I did. And that one is where I'm starting to give myself much more grace and I'm having more success and I'm starting to feel a shift in inside. And then I finally become, this is just who I am. This is what I do. And when we talk about our emotions, there's a belief in the emotionally focused therapy world that our emotions travel up to two and a half times faster than logic.

That is our visceral or our gut reaction. And it is an amazing thing that the body does. Our visceral reaction. We're walking down the street and then out of the corner of our eye, we see something and we recoil, but we don't even know what that is. And then we look and then we see it's just a string on the ground, not a predator, not a snake. That is miraculous the way that works because I don't even know what's happening and I am avoiding this potential danger.

So, we have these default reactions. So, we often need to accept the fact that just happens. Now, we can work to start to change those neural pathways, but I think it's important to recognize that first, they are there. Those are our default reactions. So, many of those just happen from childhood because even the most mature person can regress when triggers hit and that over time becomes actually something that's pretty fascinating.

If I become more emotionally mature and grounded, it does not mean that I will never react in an immature way again, but it will become not as much of the norm. So, when I do react in this emotionally immature way, I can say, wow, okay, that hit something. What's that about? It gives me an opportunity to dig a little deeper inside, self-confront, see what I can make sense of out of this. Now, this I think is the meat of what we're going to talk about today.

Let's talk about childlike behaviors that show up in adult bodies,

because I think these childhood patterns do become the blueprint of our adult behaviors. Now, when I started as a therapist, I determined that I would stay in the here and now. I felt like looking back at her childhood, felt like making excuses. And I remember thinking whenever I would see therapists in movies or in TV shows asking the cliched questions like, tell me about your mom or take me back to your childhood, I would think, no, I will not be doing that.

I am going to stay in the present in the here and now. I will be that therapist. Of course, having no idea what I didn't know that I didn't know. But it did not take long for reality to set in because patterns became very clear. They were too consistent to ignore. I remember learning about psychodynamic therapy. This is the therapy that was built from Sigmund Freud himself. And I'm not saying that I am a practicing psychodynamic therapist.

As a matter of fact, what I love is when I was in grad school, you started to recognize that you did not have to pick a discipline or a modality, but you became more, I think it was nuanced, eclectic, organic, dynamic, all those different words. But psychodynamic therapy, it's this approach that recognizes how our past experiences, how our past experiences, especially those from childhood, continue to influence the things we do in our present behaviors, relationships, our emotional responses.

And it explores the, and what I think is, this is the key, the unconscious patterns that drive our actions, that create these deeply rutted neuropathways. And then it helps bring awareness to these hidden influences. The reason why we react, you can think of it this way. Imagine your mind as a house where you live and you live primarily on the main floor. That is your conscious awareness. But below there is a basement or your unconscious or the subconscious.

And in this basement, there's probably some spiders, some things like that. But that's where the electrical panels, the plumbing systems, the hot water heater, the foundation are located. Now, when lights in your house flicker or pipes leak upstairs, the problem often originates in these systems that you cannot immediately see. So psychodynamic therapy is kind of like following the leaks or the electrical issues or the reason there's no hot water to the source down in the basement.

I have to get around a couple of spiders and rather than just patching the visible damage upstairs. A psychodynamic therapist might help somebody who constantly sabotages promising relationships by guiding them to recognize that maybe it's their fear of abandonment and that that could stem from their dad's unpredictable presence in childhood or their anxious attachment could occur because when they wanted validation from mom, she was unavailable and overwhelmed.

But when she needed to feel better about herself, she said, come give mom a hug. And so now the very thing that the person wants is for somebody to pay attention to them all of a sudden feels overwhelming and you feel flooded. So you find yourself pursuing the person that is not interested in you.

So the therapist doesn't just address the current relationship issues, but they would help this person understand how these childhood experiences created this unconscious pattern that now automatically activates in these relationships. So I think it really becomes pretty necessary to explore your childhood.

Because when we talk about emotional immaturity, what we're essentially doing is we're discussing this arrested development and not talking about the sitcom from back in the day, but Arrested Development, meaning I'm talking about places where our emotional growth got stuck. And these stuck points almost always connect to childhood experiences where we developed these adaptive strategies that helped us navigate these difficult situations.

What we started to do is we absorbed models of behavior from our caregivers. And we started to form these core beliefs about ourselves, about others, about the world. and without being able to examine these childhood origins, now we're just left treating symptoms instead of the causes. It's like you're trying to treat a rash without identifying the potential thing or allergen that causes the rash. And the examples from my clients just illustrate this perfectly over and over again.

And I've got a couple that just have happened recently. One is a father who told me that he put his child in the corner. When his child was acting out or being mean. And he said, I realized that I was following a blueprint that had been handed to me from my dad. And at first, he didn't question the effectiveness or even the appropriateness of it until he actually started to examine it in therapy. And he realized that is something that he said was completely unproductive for him as a kid.

And all he learned how to do was sit in that corner and just. Not feel good about himself or his relationship with his parents. And he learned to just do his time. And another example that was very recent was a client whose parents used hot sauce as punishment. If he said something that they said was naughty, they would make him eat hot sauce. This was just a kid that was responding to things in real time as a kid. They were just reactions.

And now when he started to do that, he was operating from this unexamined childhood script, not because he consciously believed it was effective because he knew it wasn't, but it was familiar. And I think what's really fascinating is that these childhood experiences, they're not even stored as logical memories, but as these emotional templates. That inner child isn't holding on to the memory of standing in the corner or tasting hot sauce to remind you what to do when your kids misbehave.

I really think that it's holding on to those memories because it actually needs healing. It needs the adult version of you to recognize that was not cool. That was not very appropriate. That wasn't fair to little me. As a matter of fact, I don't ever have to eat hot sauce again in my whole life.

And it's only when we start to shine a light on these childhood patterns that we can start to make these conscious choices rather than these unconscious repetitions, which I think so many of us are just doing. And we think that it's just normal. It's okay. But we can't change what we don't acknowledge, what we don't shine light on. And this is why I think despite my early resistance, I now believe deeply in asking that cliche question.

Tell me more about that. Tell me about your childhood. Tell me about your mom. Tell me about your dad. It's not as an excuse.

It's like an archaeological dig to understand this blueprint from where you've been unconsciously building your whole adult life. It is the roadmap to these deeply rutted neuropathways so that we can start to dig new ones. The most profound parenting work often happens when we finally start to honestly parent ourselves.

And when we give our inner child this understanding, compassion, and these appropriate responses that they really never received. And I'm going to give our parents credit for not knowing what they didn't know. Or dealing with things the way that they thought that they needed to be dealt with. When we reparent ourselves with this grace, with this love, with this compassion, then we can truly start to offer our own children something different.

There's a book I really enjoyed. I highly recommend it. It's fiction and it's called The Silent Patient. It was written by an author, and I'm probably going to butcher their last name, but Alex Michelades. And the author followed that up with another book I really enjoyed, which was not as much about institutions or therapy or set in that kind of an environment. But still, the way that the author weaves in therapeutic concepts into the story, I think is brilliant.

There's a main character who he shares the character's experience going to therapy. The book's called The Fury, and I did enjoy the story. But what drew me in was his description of therapy through one of the characters. Here's what that character said. I think it fits in so well with what we're talking about today. So the character said, my therapist was called Mariana. I remember one, she said something chilling.

It messed up my head for a long time. Looking back, I think it changed my entire life.

When we are young and afraid, when we are shamed and humiliated, something happens. Time stops. It freezes at that moment. A version of us is trapped at that age forever. A frightened child is hiding in your mind, and it's still unsafe. It's still unheard, and it's unloved. And the sooner you get in touch with that child and then communicate with them, the more harmonious your life will be. Here's the good part. After all, that's what he grew you for, isn't it?

A strong adult body to look after him and his interests, to take care of him, to protect him. You were meant to liberate him, but instead, you ended up becoming his jailer. That hit me so deep when I heard that quote in this book, because I think it just beautifully illustrates this process of emotional development. Because those moments of childhood, the fear, the shame, the humiliation, they literally freeze a part of us in time.

And we then have to develop these brilliant adaptive strategies as a kid to navigate those painful experiences. But as we grow into our adult bodies, those same strategies, they don't evolve with us. that frightened child remains and it's running old programs, but now it's in new situations. So what becomes really fascinating is how these frozen moments start to manifest in adult relationships. The child who learned to people please to avoid conflict becomes the adult who can't set boundaries.

Or the child who learned to shut down emotions becomes the partner who can't express vulnerability. The child who needed constant reassurance becomes the adult who seeks endless external validation. So, in my case, I think I'm batting three for three. And I think this is exactly what we mean when we talk about emotional immaturity. It is not a character flaw.

It's a natural part of development. And parts of us are literally operating from the emotional understanding of a much younger version of ourself.

So, I want to spend a moment and really explore what these childlike behaviors, how they appear in adult bodies. You know, what were once these brilliant survival adaptations now have become roadblocks to our relationships. And the first step toward growth isn't rejecting the patterns. It isn't a what's wrong with me, but it's more of a compassionate recognition of how those things have served us in the hope that we can begin to let them go.

Basically like a thanks junior version of me. Good looking out. You meant well. And I can't even believe how hard that must have been. I can't imagine how hard that must have been to try to navigate this as a little kid.

So when we look at emotional development, certain behaviors definitely serve children well. But let's look at how they do show up in our relationships. So let's explore these childlike behaviors that appear in our adult bodies. Because remembering that these were once brilliant survival adaptations, and now they become roadblocks to your relationship. And I think that very first step toward growth is not to shame yourself for these patterns.

It's not to reject these patterns. But I think what it really requires is to have some compassionate recognition of how these behaviors served us. And I think that's in the hope that we can then thank them, acknowledge them, and then start to let them go. When we look at emotional development, I think there are certain behaviors that really are there to serve us well as children, but then they become these relationship roadblocks when we become adults.

Because I want to just very quickly speak to something I am just so, so passionate about. And that is, I really believe, and maybe it's just my world that I live in as a therapist, my own personal experiences, but we are just now starting to really figure out what to do with our emotions. They weren't welcome in our childhood. And I just think it's because it just was. That's how things were. Our parents didn't know what they didn't know. We certainly don't know what

we don't know. We're playing out these relationships that we saw modeled. But when you're a kid, even the very best of parent, when a kid emotes, when something happens, when they scrape their knee, when they get angry about something, when they don't get something they want and they express emotion. Even a good parent says, hey, hey, calm down. Or you can't talk to me like that. Or that's not okay. Or it's not a big deal. You'll get over it.

Don't worry about it. How do you think that makes me feel? What role did you play? Are you sure that it wasn't your fault? And so the kid, instead of being validated and allowing them to feel, man, it looks like you have some big feelings or it looks like you are sad or angry or tell me how you're feeling right now.

Get a feelings wheel out for Pete's sake and point to it or one of those charts that shows all the happy face, the sad face, the angry face and saying, point to me which one of these that you are feeling. So, the first step that I don't think any of us, I won't try to go all or nothing, maybe most people, weren't allowed to really explore what I am even feeling, where I am feeling it, what the story my brain is telling me it even is.

Because over time, what we're hearing is your feelings are wrong. They are too much for me to handle. I need you to not have them and I need you to just stop doing what you're doing so I will feel better. So over time, the kid stops externalizing their emotions and they begin to internalize them. And what that speaks to is when that feeling comes up inside of them, stuff it down because it's probably wrong. You're going to bother somebody with it.

And now you're all of a sudden hiding your emotions in order to make sure and manage someone else's experience. And so now you've got this inner child, this little kid that felt all these things and apparently is operating from this place where, and those things are probably wrong and I should not feel them. So, something is wrong with me.

And if they finally boil up and come out, then I'm actually hoping that somebody tells me it's okay to feel that way, but here's what you need to do with it, even though that person doesn't know what it feels like to be you. So, we make these little imprints on our souls and our hearts, all these feelings do.

And I go back to what that quote from the book, The Fury says, I really think that our inner child said, all right, I don't know how to handle this, but someday I'm going to guess that you're going to become that big kid like all the ones that you're seeing, your parents, those around you. And hopefully when you become that big kid, do me a favor and heal us because you're the only one that can truly do that. But somewhere we lose that, we didn't get the memo.

And so we're still reacting to the world as that little kid. And instead, now is the time Even if you didn't have that support when you were young, it's time to find that support, to become that support for your inner child. It's time to heal. It's time to grow. Here comes the meat of today's episode. Let's talk about black or white thinking.

Because children naturally see the world in these absolutes. Things are all good or they are all bad. And in adults, this then shows up or manifests itself as ultimatums, where people label their partners as always or never doing something. And then the relationship cycles between idealization of it is all good, or then devaluation, it is all bad.

And when you start talking about the world of narcissistic traits or tendencies or even narcissistic personality disorder, a true narcissist lacks this concept of whole object relations, meaning that they see a person, an entity, you name it, as either all good or all bad, where having whole object relations is the ability to see a person or anything as an entire object. Where I can certainly be frustrated about something, but I can also appreciate something.

I can love someone for the things that I love about them. I can also be frustrated with the way that they're showing up in a certain situation. And that goes back to this all or nothing black or white thinking. It's a default in us because it is easier. It's easier to just view someone all good, all bad. The problem is with the world of the emotionally immature, sure, if you are making me feel good, then you are good.

But all of a sudden, if you say no, or you disagree with something, now you are all bad. Or think about somebody, I can think of this example of a client who ended a very long friendship after one argument with someone. And then at that point, they said, you know what, you never supported me anyway. And that's the kind of person that might label somebody either as completely trustworthy, or now all of a sudden they're total backstabbers and there's nothing in between.

And I think if you really interact with someone that's pretty narcissistic or very high in the emotionally immature category, they often... Think that somebody that comes into their life, a caregiver, someone at a restaurant, it could be even food, is this is the very best I've ever had. This person is the nicest person I've ever interacted with.

And then over time, now if someone at that restaurant didn't treat them well, or if this caregiver didn't show up when they said they would, or they did not support what this person wants in their care, now all of a sudden that person, I've never liked them. They were bad the entire time. I deal a lot in the world of faith crisis, faith deconstruction.

And this is a, I call it the burning down the village behind you theory, where when someone then starts to deconstruct their faith or move away from their faith tradition or even their church, instead of being able to see it as an entire object, you know, there were things that I appreciated. These were good things, but these are things I no longer, they don't serve me or they actually cause some damage to me.

That's more emotionally mature as a way to look at something versus if now I don't like it anymore, then it is all bad and it was bad the entire time. In parenting, you might be a parent who swings between I'm failing at everything and then I am the perfect parent based off of a single good or bad day or even a good or bad interaction with your kid.

This next one is one that I think is so fascinating and I am so guilty of this in very many areas and it is the concept of magical thinking. Now, how does this show up with kids? Children believe that their thoughts can influence external reality. Adults with this pattern might assume partners should just know what they want without communicating. That alone, well, you should know. It is magical thinking. I magically assume or think that you should know.

And a lot of times, I think with an assumption comes an accusation. And now all of a sudden, there's a lot of negativity around that too. Well, you should have known. And now I'm accusing you of not knowing. And now I've made the judgment that you don't care. But another version of magical thinking is believing that avoiding difficult topics makes the problem disappear.

And what I often see in relationships is this is where someone is just not working on the relationship, but they're just thinking that eventually it will become better.

I'm here. And so, at some point, I just assume that things will just, they will be If we look back at the term magical thinking, it is a bit of a magical thought that the thing that we're struggling with right now, let's say we don't know how to communicate, we can't talk about difficult subjects, that now magically it will just disappear and we won't feel the way we feel and everything will be better. Magical thinking. You should have known, or if we ignore it, it will just get better.

I'm going to kick that can down the road. I think it's easy to think of examples of this. Think of somebody who believes their partner should just intuitively know that they're upset without communicating and then feels increasingly resentful when their unspoken needs aren't met. Or somebody who avoids checking their bank account, hypothetically, somehow believing that if I don't look, then that will prevent financial problems.

One that I see so often, and I am still guilty to this day, is I don't really enjoy opening my mail. So if I don't open it, then there will never be any problems again. Children naturally believe their thoughts can influence the external world because their cognitive development hasn't yet separated their internal experiences from the external reality. When a four-year-old says, okay, I close my eyes, you can't see me.

Or they believe that their wishes directly cause events, they are exhibiting healthy developmental magical thinking for that age. Now, we're supposed to outgrow this as we develop a cause and effect understanding, but a lot of adults still operate from this framework in emotional situations. And dare I say, we can even see things where we still go, this is where I think it's so fascinating. We go to this place where, okay, if I step on a crack, something will happen.

If I don't repeat something a few times, then there's going to be something negative that happens to somebody in my family. So, that magical thinking is still there. And I think part of what we're trying to do today is just acknowledge that that made sense when we were young. It was adaptive to our circumstances, and now it has become maladaptive. Another one, emotional reasoning. Children believe, if I feel it,

it's got to be true. What does that look like with adults? I feel abandoned. Therefore, you are abandoning me. And this could be even when evidence shows that there is no abandonment happening. There is no abandonment going on. And what I think is so fascinating about this one is that it really can look like this in a session. Someone just says, I don't know, I just don't really feel good about this situation. I don't feel good about what you are doing.

And so, I need you to make me feel better. Now, I don't even know why I don't feel good about it. But if you don't make me feel better, then I get to say that you don't care about me. And then inside, I might say, and what's wrong with me that this person doesn't care? I think that this one's really difficult because...

When we are codependent, when we are enmeshed in our relationship, which I believe most all relationships start from a place of codependency and enmeshment because we are trying to just show up and be the very best version of ourselves in hopes that this person will love me, that they won't leave me. And we will justify a little bit of that magical thinking that later everything will just be fine. It will be better later.

So now when somebody does say, I don't feel good, I don't like the way that you're handling this, then this is where the people pleaser comes in. The young child, our inner child says, okay, just tell me whatever I need to do to make you happy. I'll take ownership of something that I really don't believe has happened. You just let me know what I need to do. So in that scenario, even I put that back on you to then, hey, tell me what you think I need to do to make you feel better.

And I'm literally showing you that I will do whatever I can, even if it goes against my own sense of self or autonomy to try to make you feel better right now. Not too long ago, I had such a fascinating example of this. So, changing up things, of course, to protect confidentiality, but I had someone who was involved in a business relationship with another person and they weren't even aware of what had happened behind the scenes in this business situation.

So, when they were finally able to confront the other person, the other person said, yeah, I've sensed the tension. I knew that something's been off between us for a long time. But what was fascinating about that is that the person that brought awareness to what they had just learned about what had been happening over time in this business relationship, that person did not know that anything was off. So, they actually thought that everything was fine.

But now when they bring awareness to that, to this other person that they found out had not been showing up, maybe we'll say operating from a place of integrity. In a business situation, that person said, oh, I have felt like something has been off between us for quite a while. Well, that was, they felt like something had been off. So then it must be that they are both thinking that.

They're projecting that onto them. I feel bad. So then, of course, that means that you are also aware that there's something awkward here. That other person was not aware. So that was very much a them issue. The person who had done something that was not from a place of integrity in this business relationship, but had not taken ownership of it, which we'll actually talk about here in just a few minutes.

Or think of somebody who cancels plans with friends because, you know, I feel like they don't really want me there anyway, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Or somebody who feels intense jealousy when their partner mentions a coworker, and that'll start to create this relationship tension based entirely on an internal feeling rather than objective reality. Once you see it, it is really hard to unsee.

It'll sound a lot like, well, I don't want you to think that I am angry, so I didn't say this thing. Well, give me a chance to feel. I might not feel angry. I might actually feel good about whatever you're doing. It starts to get really complex. Well, I didn't want to tell this person that because I was worried that they would think this. And I don't want them to think that. And I don't want them to get mad. And I mean this with love and kindness and all due respect. But that is...

Also dipping into that magical thinking that I have this power and I can control everyone's emotional experiences. But in reality, emotional maturity is I need to be willing and able to allow people to have their own emotional experiences. I'm worried that you might get mad. Well, I appreciate that worry, but give me a chance because I may not be mad.

Or if I am going to get mad, that's a me issue. And that might be the exact thing I need to start to grow or to really self-confront and see why does that make me mad? External validation. Children need constant reassurance from caregivers.

So in adults, this leads to excessive approval seeking. It's difficulty maintaining your self-worth without continued affirmation, without continued validation. An easy one here is think of somebody who posts on social media, they check their likes compulsively and their mood is directly tied to the response. Or somebody who changes their opinion based on whoever they're talking to. They adapt almost like this chameleon to gain approval rather than expressing their authentic views.

What I've been having my couples do for a little while now is any chance you get, whether it's a movie or a TV show or a meal, that if you need to type it in your phone, write down what your opinion is, and then almost this one, two, three, share it. Instead of saying, I don't know, what'd you think? Oh, I didn't really like it. Yeah, me neither. or I really liked it. I kind of did too. And I think that's a great place to practice that it's okay to have your own thoughts and your own opinion.

And that is getting your reps in of trying to figure out who you are. It's okay to have your own thoughts, opinions, emotions, feelings. Another one is difficulty with accountability. Children instinctively, they protect themselves by denying responsibility. Gaslighting is a childhood defense mechanism. So now in adults, This shows up as blame shifting, as defensiveness, as gaslighting and an inability to offer genuine apology.

Because going back to this concept of gaslighting as a childhood defense mechanism to a kid, if they did not see parents that were modeling apologies or taking ownership of the their own behaviors then to the kid it's coming across as if i admit this or if i get in trouble then i may be booted out of the family or i'm going to be punished and that's the last thing that a kid wants to feel like they are getting life wrong.

So they will just sit this one out and hopes that the storm will pass of emotion and then they survived. Or if I say I didn't do it and I blame it on somebody else, literally like the dog ate my homework and I stick to that story, I stick to my guns and that passes, then I am learning that that is something that definitely helped me adapt as a child, and it's very maladaptive in your adult relationships.

You can think of somebody who responds to feedback at work by immediately listing all the ways that others contributed to the problem. Or somebody who says, hey, I'm sorry you feel that way, instead of I'm sorry that I did that, when they've hurt their partner or subtly hurt the person that's responsible for their own pain.

And I will say, and we'll save this for another episode, as you become more emotionally mature, as you start to know who you are, there are two versions of I am sorry that you feel that way. There's a, I'm sorry you feel that way, passive aggressive, that's a you issue and that's not my fault. And there really is a, I am truly sorry that you feel that way about something that I said or something that I did. And it isn't that I'm not taking ownership of it.

I'm genuinely very sorry. And I want to take a look at what I said and why you feel the way you do, but let's do this in a collaborative effort.

Another one that is just, you cannot unsee this and that is mind reading. Children assume that others see the world exactly as they do. And adults with this pattern, they make assumptions about their partner's intentions without checking. And they feel hurt when unstated expectations aren't met. You can think of somebody who arrives home angry because their partner didn't text during the day, having created a complete narrative about the partner's indifference without checking.

They must have not cared. And now I'm coming home and I know their intentions, even if they're not willing to admit it themselves. So this one, it's mind reading. also has a little bit of magical thinking, or somebody who withdraws affection as punishment, assuming their partner knows exactly what they did wrong without having a discussion.

And I think this just connects so well to the concept of projection, because in projection, we attribute our own unacknowledged feelings or our thoughts to others. So when we're feeling insecure, then we might mind read that our partner is judging us. Or when we're feeling guilty about something, we might know our partner is disappointed in us.

Mind reading creates this concept of a double bind. We react to what we imagine the other person thinks, which creates then the very tension that we feared. One or two more. Poor emotional boundaries. Children naturally merge their identity with their caregiver. Again, they get their sense of self from external validation. Now, in adult relationships, this will manifest as taking responsibility for other people's feelings or making others responsible for yours.

You can think of somebody who falls apart when their partner's sad, taking on the emotion as if it was their very own emergency to fix. I'm so sorry. I can't believe you feel that way. I'm just so sorry. What can I do to help when their partner might just be expressing an emotion or. It goes back to the, I'm going to dump my frustration or my anger into the relationship

and see who will pick it up. My spouse, my kids, somebody who expects their partner to manage their anxiety, saying things like, you know what happens when you bring up that topic? You are beginning to make me upset. So let me go back to what I shared earlier. Those moments of childhood, fear and shame or humiliation literally frees a part of us in time. And we develop these brilliant adaptive strategies and that helps us navigate

these painful experiences. But as we grow into our adult bodies, those same strategies do not evolve with us. They served us well. We are literally still alive. But that frightened child remains and it's running these old programs in these new situations. Let me share something that happened recently in a therapy session. And I think this speaks to this concept in life. I was working with a couple and we were discussing these patterns that I just went over.

And we were identifying those childhood behaviors that no longer serve them in their adult relationships. Now, one partner was actively engaged and they were recognizing a lot of these patterns from the list. But when I turned to the other partner and I asked what came up for them, they just simply said, I don't know. And they seemed to just check out. So I gently asked, hey, what are you feeling right now? What is coming up for you? And I really felt like what they shared was pretty profound.

This person said, honestly, I feel like I'm back in my high school chemistry class. And the teacher would call on me unexpectedly. And I never knew really what the answer was that they were looking for. and I just felt like I was in trouble. There was a right answer, but I didn't know it. And I feel that way right now. So, we dug a little deeper and as we explored a little further, they revealed that this wasn't just about chemistry throughout childhood.

Questions from their authority figures, such as parents, teachers, coaches, Sunday school teachers, they never felt like they were neutral or like they could just express themselves and what they were thinking or feeling. Questions felt like tests that had right and wrong answers and wrong answers meant shame. You are bad. You should have known this. So this person we identified developed an adaptive strategy, silence.

You know, the magical thinking was if I don't say anything, they'll either move on or eventually they will provide the answer they want. And then I can pretend that's what I was thinking. It's a brilliant childhood adaptation with a child that doesn't even, they're just existing. They're just trying to figure out how to survive, but they would freeze to avoid shame. And now that was showing up in the marriage.

So whenever their partner asked their opinion or wanted to discuss something important, they would mentally check out just like they did in my office. So what had protected them from criticism as children was now preventing authentic connection as an adult. And I think this is exactly what we mean when we're talking about emotional immaturity, that it is not a character flaw.

It's a natural part of development. Parts of us are literally operating from the emotional understanding of a very young version of ourself. These childlike behaviors. They show up in our adult bodies and they were wonderful survival adaptations, but now they're roadblocks to the relationship. And growth is not about rejecting the patterns, but it's about having a compassionate recognition of how they served us.

Let's change gears a bit. Some people may think that the internet is sending the whole world to heck in a hand basket. And then you Google something so obscure and you find it that you realize that despite all the calamity in the world, there's still hope. And that hope has a name and it has been found on the Reader Rabbit Wiki. More specifically, Reader Rabbit's preschool, Let's Start Learning.

The year was either 1997 or 1998. and the pattern parade was accessed by clicking on the pattern parade banner or by popping these balloons that then Ben, the adorable aunt, is holding outside. Now the player then has to create patterns by moving animals. They're dressed in different colors. They play a variety of instruments into various positions on the parade line. I played this a lot for my kids. Sure. I kind of enjoyed it.

Now the completed parade will then play their respective instruments and then walk-off screen before being replaced by another set of animals. And yes, there is a website that not only tells you this, but also shows you all the various instruments and animals involved, but I digress.

But let's talk about pattern recognition, or this is why we choose the familiar over the healthy. A client recently came to therapy and they joked about feeling nauseated when hearing the common idea that we marry our parents. During our sessions, we explored what I call the familiar, how we're drawn to relationship dynamics that echo our childhood experiences. This client grew up with parents who never really saw him.

They weren't curious about his life, and they either dismissed his experiences or compared them unfavorably to their own. They did everything better than he did. The only validation he received came from major achievements. So, he ended up marrying someone who, while so different than his mom, he realized recreates this same emotional dynamic. A quiet, avoidantly attached woman who doesn't show curiosity about him and then often misinterprets his interest in her activities as criticism.

And he finds himself attempting to increasingly up the ante, perform these grand gestures to gain her recognition, just like he used to do with his parents. And the pattern became even clearer when he mentioned that he had had this college girlfriend who was deeply attentive and interested in him, which he now has acknowledged that just felt too uncomfortable.

She was too much. So he ended that relationship, despite sometimes now wondering, is that the level of connection that I really needed or desired. So, what felt familiar to him was this emotional invisibility and the need to perform to get attention, not the superficial personality traits. And I think this concept is fascinating and it's really relevant to emotional maturity. Okay, so let's talk about this pull of familiarity because our brains, they desperately want certainty.

They are prediction engines. They are pattern recognition machines. So, what we experienced in childhood becomes literally wired into our neural pathways as normal. And that creates our attachment template. So, even when these patterns cause pain, they feel kind of bizarrely comfortable because they're predictable. They're the familiar. Our brain knows exactly how to navigate them.

And I believe this ties into that acceptance and commitment therapy principle where our brain, bless its little pink squishy heart, is it's not always the smartest thing in the world because it thinks it's operating from this finite amount of electrical activity. So, it continually wants to habitualize things and use less energy and less electrical activity under this belief that we'll live forever.

That is adorable because it keeps us though from doing things that actually would give us a sense of purpose and help us live a more connected, in a more fulfilling life. But part of this as well is a thing that I think is fascinating. It's called Freud's repetition compulsion. We're talking about Sigmund Freud. And. I think a lot of modern psychology can debunk some Freud things. So, we're just talking about this as a muse. It's pretty interesting.

But Freud observed that people unconsciously recreate these painful situations from their past. And what his theory was that we do this because we're attempting to master past traumas by recreating them in hopes of then having a different outcome. And then it will go away. So, he's saying that the unconscious mind continues to work through unresolved conflicts by repeating them. And the belief is that there's this primitive comfort in the familiar.

Again, we know what that's like, even if it's painful. And even some modern neuroscience has validated a lot of this, that our brains are drawn to recreate what they know, regardless of whether or not it's healthy. It's as if that healthy is, it's a judgment call that the brain is not really willing to make. This is just what we do. So if I go back to this example with my client, then his childhood conditioning showed that his parents didn't truly see him. They had this lack of attunement.

He received validation only for the things he did, performance, achievement, and he experienced a very consistent emotional dismissal. So what does he do with his adult relationship choice? He married someone who, despite the superficial differences from his mom, recreates, for better or worse, that same emotional dynamic. Where he feels fundamentally unseen and unheard. He believes that he has to perform to receive recognition.

And then he experiences this misinterpretation of him trying to be authentic and share as if he is criticizing. I think this is really the essence of familiarity trumping health. So, even though he's consciously joking about, quote, marrying his mom, I think his nervous system, though, unconsciously sought what it recognized as this is relationship. This is familiar. This is the feeling of striving for connection while being fundamentally unseen.

And that girlfriend who was too into him represented the unfamiliar. Even though he could tell himself, that's what I want, it was so uncomfortable that his nervous system literally didn't have the wiring to process and feel comfortable with being genuinely seen and valued without performance or even at all. So, the unfamiliar, even though it was healthy, felt threatening because we don't have established neural pathways to navigate it.

And I think this pattern shows what we're talking about today, the emotional immaturity, that it's not a character flaw, but it's a natural outcome of what we could call his attachment history, his childhood adaptation, performing for attention, was a brilliant survival strategy as a kid, but it keeps him locked in, unfulfilling patterns and unfulfilling relationships as an adult.

So, what does his path toward emotional maturity look like? First, recognizing these patterns, these adaptations. They're not character flaws. There's nothing wrong with you. And then start to build tolerance for this anxiety of unfamiliar but healthy dynamics, the things we don't know that we don't know, the great unknown, and start creating these new neural pathways through consistent new experiences, growth through the discomfort.

And I just think what's so powerful about this concept is just how it illustrates that we don't just marry a personality type. We probably marry a little bit of the emotional dynamics that recreate our most fundamental relationship patterns for better or for worse.

So I have quite a bit more, but we're well over an hour at this point. So I think I want to wrap this up and we'll move into a part two. And what I love about doing a part two is that if you have thoughts or questions or comments or anything about this episode, please reach out to me at contact at TonyOverbay.com. And I'll maybe start the next episode off by answering some questions around what we've talked about here in the first part.

Thank you so much for your support. I love the feedback. I really enjoy being able to put content out and help. And I so appreciate those of you who've taken the time to subscribe or follow or like, or go find me on YouTube or Instagram or TikTok. It is so much appreciated. Share this episode if you think it resonates and taking us out as Riley Hope. It's not my job. And we'll see you next time on Waking. Music.