[SPEAKER_02]: therapy chat podcast episode for ninety-five. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the therapy chat podcast with Laura Regan, LCSWC. [SPEAKER_00]: The information shared in this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health professional. [SPEAKER_00]: And now, here's your host, Laura Regan, LCSWC. [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host, Laura Regan.
[SPEAKER_02]: This week, I'm bringing you a conversation with Vanessa Bennett, exploring the themes of motherhood, depth psychology, and the various wounds that women carry are typically including the mother wound, sister wound, witch wound, and the father wound. [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about the societal myths surrounding motherhood and the importance of reclaiming oneself [SPEAKER_02]: and reconnecting to our intuition as women.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was a really deep and interesting conversation. [SPEAKER_02]: Like last week's episode, I felt that it was very soulful and I'm looking forward to diving in. [SPEAKER_02]: So let's get started. [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host, Laura Reagan, and today I'm so happy to be talking with Vanessa Bennett. [SPEAKER_02]: Vanessa, thank you so much for being my guest on Therapy Chat today. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me, Laura.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really excited to be here. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I'm so excited too. [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be talking about your new book, which is literally coming out today on the day we're recording, the motherhood myth, a depth therapist, guide to redefine parenting, reimagine intimacy, and reclaim the self. [SPEAKER_02]: It's about fall, the thing, you know, I'm a huge fan of the triple, this and this and this. [SPEAKER_02]: So that resonated really well with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so I'm super excited to talk to you because I'm a mother. [SPEAKER_02]: I work with a lot of mothers and we're in this world and it's not easy out there. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm dying to get into this with you. [SPEAKER_02]: But before we start, will you just let our audience know a little bit more about who you are and what you do? [SPEAKER_01]: So like you said, you know, the motherhood meds why I'm a mother myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, my background's in depth psychology, which we can go into as well. [SPEAKER_01]: I am the co-author of another book previous this called, it's not me, it's you, which I co-authored with my partner now husband. [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, this is my new book. [SPEAKER_01]: I have a podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: I do all the things. [SPEAKER_01]: I've got the community. [SPEAKER_01]: I've got a coaching academy like what else, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I add to the play? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you actually are doing them all and you're doing each of the things. [SPEAKER_02]: Each of the things. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: I was let's start off with talking about the depth psychology because that was something that really made me excited to speak with you and many people may not really be familiar with what depth psychology is. [SPEAKER_02]: So let's just start there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, depth psychology for sure, people are not still not really familiar with it. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when I took my licensing exam, I remember there was one question on the entire exam about depth that it just said, what is depth psychology also known as and the answer was the psychology of the soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, there was no other mention of young, even though one would argue, you know, there's this term that we use where Freud is the father of psychology and young as the mother of psychology. [SPEAKER_01]: And nobody talks about him still, which is fascinating to me. [SPEAKER_01]: But here we are, and we're doing it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're trying. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to find you a base. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm trying to find you a base.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on the East Coast. [SPEAKER_02]: You think nobody talks about it there. [SPEAKER_01]: I had to move. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm originally his coat. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a New Yorker. [SPEAKER_01]: I actually left New York to move to California to go to the school because I knew that that's where my soul was kind of pulling me to. [SPEAKER_01]: And I had looked all over New York all over the East Coast that I could not find a program that was death oriented.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there was only two. [SPEAKER_01]: And they were both in California, right, which is not super surprising, but I had to make the move, you know, so [SPEAKER_01]: Deb's psychology, this psychology of the soul, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of the umbrella term that we use to to describe Jungian psychology, archetypal psychology, an analytical psychology. [SPEAKER_01]: So based in the work of Carl Jung, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's really an emphasis in depth on the soul to soul connection in the work that we do. [SPEAKER_01]: There's an emphasis on really leaning into the language of the unconscious, right, which is the language of dream and myth and metaphor and image, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Because our unconscious and our soul doesn't speak in the more tangible kind of left-brained way that, you know, of language.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're really trained to understand [SPEAKER_01]: what is being said in a different way, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And really tap into a person's kind of trajectory, their path of individuation, understanding that the collective and the individual cannot be separated. [SPEAKER_01]: So when I'm working with an individual, I'm working with an collective framework and vice versa, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no separation, which I think that has been a huge part of and had a big impact on the way that I wrote this book, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Or like the aha, as I guess that I had in writing this book, [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, at least I can say as a social worker trained in systems theory. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: The collective and systems aren't exactly the same, but it's that same contextual approach to understanding someone's experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we are talking about motherhood and we talk about this greater context, what are you talking about related to that in the book?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, the reason why I titled it what I did was I started realizing that while I go into many myths in the book that kind of overarching myth, the motherhood myth that I talk about is really this concept that if motherhood does not come easily and naturally to you and it does not fulfill you in every way that there's something wrong with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: And I started realizing that that was a myth that we carried in our culture and it was a myth that was actually used in essence to control just like a lot of our cultural narratives are. [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say, you know, I break the book in a three sections, motherhood, sex and relationships. [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say that the myths of all three of those are similar.
[SPEAKER_01]: If motherhood doesn't come easily and you're not fulfilled by it, if sex and partnership doesn't come easily and not fulfilled by it, if interpersonal relationships don't come easily and you're not fulfilled by them, then you're the problem. [SPEAKER_01]: Right, there's something wrong with you. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: In terms of motherhood, you know, we're talking about female bodies. [SPEAKER_02]: There's this really strong, I mean, I will say my own perception.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's really strong story in our culture that all women should be mothers and want to be mothers and if you are a woman, if you're doing it right, you are going to mother. [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm. [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to partner and you're going to mother, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And hopefully in that order too, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and this is actually a conversation I've had more recently with some people I would say that are, let's say like elder millennial gen X, I was having this conversation actually with my partner on that long ago, where I said, you know, I think all of us in our healing journey, it's important for us to hold our upbringing objectively, right? [SPEAKER_01]: We have to be able to hold to seemingly opposing truths, right? [SPEAKER_01]: My my mother or my caretaker loved me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also they did these things that had a tremendous negative impact on me, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And one is at cancel the other out. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was talking to him, but I've now said this a few times where I said, I think that in that objectivity, we also need to continue to remind ourselves that not every woman should actually be having children, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But they didn't have a choice up until very, very recently.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when we look at generations of wounding that has been caused by, I don't even just say mothers, let's just say people because parenting period that potentially could have been avoided by people being able to have the choice and the option to not be a parent, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And trying to like hold that objectively as hard for somebody to say, my mom probably shouldn't [SPEAKER_01]: have been or didn't want to be a mother, right, to be able to depersonalize that, but to see her as a human being who until her he recently didn't have many choices in her life. [SPEAKER_02]: It's something that in my own healing journey, I've sort of more recently recognized. [SPEAKER_02]: It was always there is that my mom had four kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm the youngest and came from a second marriage. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was born in [SPEAKER_02]: around nineteen seventy seventy seven my mom was like I'm done with this and so you know a lot of my wounding comes from the fact that my mom left and kind of just didn't really want to be a mom anymore yeah and let me that hurt me of course greatly in my life and my mom really tried to explain to me many times over the years that [SPEAKER_02]: It was a survival thing for her.
[SPEAKER_02]: If she hadn't, sort of like broken the bondage of the life that she was just sort of performing that wasn't really hers, that she would have died. [SPEAKER_02]: And her soul was dying. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, her soul was dying. [SPEAKER_02]: My mom had to be liberated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And I can now, as a middle-aged woman, [SPEAKER_02]: I can say of course, yeah, I wouldn't have wanted my whole identity to only be that I could be a mother and she raised me in a way where when she was raising me until she wasn't that I could do anything I could what career did I want and [SPEAKER_02]: But she didn't have that. [SPEAKER_02]: She really didn't have that choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even though the pill and the pill was available and row versus Wade had had been passed or had been decided before I was born. [SPEAKER_02]: So she did have those options in a way. [SPEAKER_02]: But culturally, did she really? [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And did she even know that there could have been a path for her that wasn't to include motherhood. [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, the way my grandmother became mother, it wasn't really a choice either.
[SPEAKER_02]: No. [SPEAKER_02]: So seeing that my mom needed to be liberated is seeing my mom as a full person. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And there are both things can be true. [SPEAKER_01]: And it still hurts, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And the wounds are real. [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm. [SPEAKER_02]: And yet the story of even healing often is just like your, you know, your mom wasn't a good mom or she was a bad mom.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it sort of just is like she wasn't a good person. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: And that can be so limiting to our, to our healing process in a way. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's part of the individual versus the collective narrative that we actually started speaking about, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the chapter that I talk about the mother wound and I have a chapter about the father wound as well, I talk about how there are two things happening when we're talking about those wounds. [SPEAKER_01]: There's the individual mother wound that we experience through are very real human connection with another human being, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And then there's the archetypal mother wound.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the bigger [SPEAKER_01]: wound that we're talking about that we all share, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Every one of us as humans has this longing for [SPEAKER_01]: warmth and connection and to be held to the bosom and be seen and heard and validated. [SPEAKER_01]: Basically, everything that this ideal air quote, the perfect mother would essentially provide. [SPEAKER_01]: And unfortunately, there's no such thing because we're all humans and we're all inherently flawed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so collectively, there is this kind of shared wounding here. [SPEAKER_01]: But because we don't have language for that necessarily, many times I find that we're pointing our fingers at the individual person.
[SPEAKER_01]: right and and I think that that can do a real disservice to our eventual healing right because if we're just looking to your point like oh this person she did she did this she didn't do this if so fact that she's a bad person in a way number one I think that keeps us in a real victim [SPEAKER_01]: stance, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But also, I think, again, it keeps us looking at our parents and these very like one-dimensional perspectives, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't allow for humanity. [SPEAKER_01]: And if we're not able to allow for their humanity, that I guarantee we're not able to allow for our own, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: I say that all the time, if they are, if they had to be perfect, yep, or they are nothing, then we're believing the same about ourselves, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's an impossible bind to try to, because the whole, this archetypal need that you named would require a real human to completely [SPEAKER_02]: subvert their own needs and all my give to the little being that they're taking care of. [SPEAKER_02]: And that wouldn't be sustainable for any person. [SPEAKER_02]: But I think that is what we expect of ourselves when we become mothers, especially maybe for those of us who's mother, you know, our experience with our mother.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, I mean, even in that chapter. [SPEAKER_01]: throughout every chapter I use either a myth or a fairy tale or an archetypal feminine form to kind of talk about the theme of the book, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And I call a myth as maps. [SPEAKER_01]: And in that chapter that we're talking about, I actually use the archetypal form of mother Mary.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I talk about how I go, I go back in history to how did we get to this image of Mary that we have, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And so I go back historically into how she's a bit of a compilation from multiple goddess figures of the time and you know, pull a little bit from this one, pull a little bit from this one. [SPEAKER_01]: And then what happens is you start to see the kind of patriarchal paintbrush.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, get kind of glossed over on top of her to to start to make sure that the qualities and the traits of piety and martyrdom and, you know, suffering in silence and putting herself last and, you know, all these traits that we kind of associate with her purity right that they start to be painted on top of this character. [SPEAKER_01]: as a way to show women like see, this is what you should be. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're falling short, you're falling short, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's something wrong with you again. [SPEAKER_01]: So it becomes this unattainable, air-cool mother figure or feminine figure. [SPEAKER_01]: And so long as it's unattainable, it's just out of reach, right? [SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna be constantly attempting and proving. [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say hustling, right, for that belonging, like trying to prove ourselves worthy. [SPEAKER_01]: When society says that if you don't fit this mold, you're not worthy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, then what are we gonna do? [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to spend a lifetime trying to prove it, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And isn't it true to historically that those goddess goddesses that the Mary concept would have been cobbled together from were more fully fleshed out. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, one hundred percent. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Candidates. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Brush came in.
[SPEAKER_01]: They kind of took the different parts of her, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That were not. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, in essence, any fully kind of formed feminine figure is going to encapsulate the shadow and the light. [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to encapsulate, you know, across cultures, most of like the mother archetypes across cultures are actually the archetypes of death, just as much as the archetypes of birth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so we think of Colley, and we think this is just part of our understanding of nature and of the world, which is birth and death are inextricably linked. [SPEAKER_01]: Right, you can't have light without shadow. [SPEAKER_01]: And so when we attempt to do that, which I think is that brush that we're talking about. [SPEAKER_01]: We cut off a large part of our humanity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here we are reporting fingers were looking at this woman and saying, well, clearly, she's messed up. [SPEAKER_01]: She's a bad person because she, right, because we're dismissing, we're putting so many of these things in the shadow, rather than saying, no, every one of us is this like completely fully formed being that has elements and facets to us that. [SPEAKER_01]: are both, again, good, bad, light, dark, whatever terminology you want to use.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is so fascinating. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're talking about the wounds. [SPEAKER_02]: I want to ask you there were a couple other wounds that, I mean, you just named that you also talk about the father wound and that wasn't one that was going to bring that. [SPEAKER_02]: I think it would be valuable if we do talk about that and then there's sister wound and also the witch wound.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, the mother wound has its own chapter because I think it's worthy of it if it's own chapter. [SPEAKER_01]: But I do also talk about the mother wound as part of what I call the Trinity wound, which is like you mentioned the which wound, the sister wound and the mother wound kind of combined. [SPEAKER_01]: And so when I started writing this book and doing research, I started I actually and I say this in the book like.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually feel a little almost embarrassed as a clinician to admit that while I'm very clear and well versed on epigenetic trauma and the way in which all the new research has shown that it imprints on our DNA, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So obviously it's been shown in, you know, descendants of slaves. [SPEAKER_01]: It's been shown in people who have families, you know, that survive or didn't survive the Holocaust, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So it would stand to reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: that most women carry a similar gene, genetic kind of imprint of trauma from the close to eight hundred years and actually still going right now currently in certain parts of the world in certain parts of Africa and Asia of the witch of the witch trials. [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and not just those of us who have European descent because it wasn't just in Europe, that's the area that we know, you know, I think when we hear it think of social studies, like that's what we learned about in history classes. [SPEAKER_01]: But like I said, it's still happening in places in Africa right now in South America. [SPEAKER_01]: I would say that it's I'm guaranteeing it's imprinted on the DNA of those who would be considered indigenous in the Americas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: So, [SPEAKER_01]: How is that showing up and what does that do to us currently? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I would say that it taught a lot of women to not stand out, to not bring too much attention to themselves, to not take up too much space, to not be different or other in any way in order to protect themselves because who were the ones that were targeted?
[SPEAKER_01]: everybody had just checked all those boxes I just said right and then the sister wound is kind of connected to that in part of what made the witch trials so successful was the strategy that was used of turning women against women right and it was a strategy like make no mistake about it it was strategic and it was calculated right so let's turn friends against friends let's turn family against family mothers against daughters right and essentially it was
[SPEAKER_01]: eat or get eaten. [SPEAKER_01]: So turn this person in and you'll save yourself, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And so there is this long standing wound of women not trusting other women, of women believing it's me or them. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, put capitalism on top of that. [SPEAKER_01]: And then we've got, oh, there's only so much pie to go around. [SPEAKER_01]: So let's climb on the backs of everybody, you know, in order to get ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I first started writing this kind of have a bunch of examples in the book, I pulled my social media community. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, give me some examples, you know, of sister wounds rather that you've experienced. [SPEAKER_01]: And the details and the intricacy of these stories that I got were heartbreaking, but also so fascinating, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Hearing female family members talking about other female members when they're not in the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stories of the workplace, like women being pitted against other women to get ahead, smaller things, like waking up at a sleepover and hearing all of your friends talking about you. [SPEAKER_01]: All these ways that women, again, are in competition with other women, right? [SPEAKER_01]: and how that still keeps us where we're at right now. [SPEAKER_01]: It still keeps us pulled down. [SPEAKER_02]: This is so thought provoking.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just so struck by the parallels between what's happening society to have all of us not trusting each other. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: They're the threat. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we'll all band together against them. [SPEAKER_02]: And no, they're the threat. [SPEAKER_02]: Tell us those time, right? [SPEAKER_02]: It is, but you know, I think it's really almost, it's weird to say, but it's kind of brief to say that women are subjugated now.
[SPEAKER_02]: This isn't the past. [SPEAKER_02]: This isn't from before we had voting rights or before we could make reproductive choices legally. [SPEAKER_02]: This has been a pattern for centuries, thousands of years. [SPEAKER_02]: And there was a time when women had an embodied and empowered place in culture that was completely different, where women were oftentimes leading and also partnering with male leaders in collaborative partnership level, not power over structures.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like that was [SPEAKER_02]: That was how it was all supposed to be. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the conversation, right? [SPEAKER_01]: When you say the word patriarchy and people, you know, I'll say that their panties in a bunch about it, because they think, oh, well, what do you want? [SPEAKER_01]: You want patriarchy? [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, no, actually. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think swinging to the other side of the pendulum. [SPEAKER_01]: right is is healthy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's still a power over. [SPEAKER_01]: It's still a dominator model of society, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's it's just the opposite. [SPEAKER_01]: So I would say the same thing as politics, right? [SPEAKER_01]: People that are as far right as you can go or just the mirror image of people who are as far left as you could go, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You you become a mirror of each other. [SPEAKER_01]: And so no, I don't call for another dominator system.
[SPEAKER_01]: I call for what, you know, Rand Elsa would say is a partnership model, which is what you're speaking to, which is really what I think we used to be prior to, you know, agriculture and then development of capitalism and and all that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there are many people who would say, what are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_02]: These are normal roles that women does this, the man does that and not realizing that it's part of a construct that was created for domination and subjugation of anyone who wasn't the most powerful man. [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what better way, right, to hoard wealth and to hoard control and power, but then to write subjugate, and then also going back to what you were saying a second ago, having us in a constant state of well, two things, one, pointing our finger at other people, right, and thinking it's their fault that we're suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we're focused on them, the other, then we're not focused on the real problem, right, which are those above us that are actually, again, hoarding all of these things. [SPEAKER_01]: But also I would say in those same systems, right, these myths that I keep talking about and referring to in the book, it keeps us perpetually locked in this cycle of shame and not being worthy. [SPEAKER_01]: And so we spend a lifetime trying to prove and outsource our worth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, if we're so consumed with shame, and we're so consumed with, I mean, what late stage capitalism is produced, which is like we're barely putting food on the table now. [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm way too exhausted at the end of the day to challenge the systems that are keeping the structures in play. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's all by design. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's not accidental. [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am totally picking up what you're putting down. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm glad you're saying it. [SPEAKER_02]: So let me ask because I don't know if I got full clarity on like how the witch wound shows up now. [SPEAKER_02]: I get the sister wound and then if we can talk about the father wound too, just a little bit. [SPEAKER_02]: So everybody's on the same page and then I want to talk more about just how all of this affects women now as their mothering. [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the which we're now, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like how it shows up would be again, how we as women are afraid to be different, are afraid to take up too much space, be too loud, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Call too much attention to ourselves. [SPEAKER_01]: All of the things that would have essentially gotten us flagged, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Burned at the stick. [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the sister wound is the betrayal by other women, which leads us to not trust each other. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And feel we have to be competing with each other. [SPEAKER_02]: And then what's the father wound? [SPEAKER_02]: It seems obvious, but like I want to make sure we all know what we're really talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, similar to the mother wound, I would say there's more of an individual tangible version of that wound, which is the relationship with the direct father or your descendants of fathers, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so again, we're speaking generally here, obviously not every father falls into this category, but, you know, emotional withholding or emotional neglect, you know, quick to anger, all these things that we look at when we think of like patriarchal masculinity, or I would say like wounded masculinity. [SPEAKER_01]: But again, there's this archetypal father figure. [SPEAKER_01]: that I would say were kind of missing the boat here on both the mother and the father wound, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the figure of the the archetypal father is really that the force behind us, all of us, not just men, this is not gendered, going out and finding our purpose, having drive, having a mission. [SPEAKER_01]: And so for a lot of us, I think even more so now the father wound is what I see kind of leading the charge with us
[SPEAKER_01]: outsourcing our power so looking to politicians to be the savior looking to the politicians to have the right answer right like looking for this again kind of archetypal father figure right who would say to us this is right this is wrong this is what's best for you this is what you should do with your life this is what you should focus on right all of these
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, energetics that we would hope for in an air-cooled, perfect father figure, right, or that archepal father figure. [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of that has to do with outsourcing power. [SPEAKER_01]: And so for many of us, we do look outside of ourselves. [SPEAKER_01]: And again, I just use politics as one example, but I think we do it all the time. [SPEAKER_01]: We do it in our relationships. [SPEAKER_01]: We do it in our relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do it in our relationship with our children. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we do it with our relationships to ourselves. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think some of the work around healing the father wound is really, again, doing this inner belonging work. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I can come home to myself. [SPEAKER_01]: What do I believe? [SPEAKER_01]: What do I want, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And then finding purpose, finding mission is really important.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I see a lot of that in, in honestly, men nowadays. [SPEAKER_01]: I think the struggle in having purpose and mission based on the way society is changing. [SPEAKER_01]: is actually becoming more and more pronounced, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if I'm not a provider and I don't you don't need me for that anymore, which is what patriarchy is taught men, who am I now, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And so we're seeing a generation of men kind of floundering in purpose and like meaning, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who am I? [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of that I would say is kind of the the father figure showing itself tangibly or the father. [SPEAKER_01]: Excuse me, the father wound. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and when you were talking about that outsourcing power, I was thinking about like, who's going to save us? [SPEAKER_02]: You know, again politically with what's happening, a lot of people are going, well, is this someone going to do something?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And no, no, they're not. [SPEAKER_01]: No one is. [SPEAKER_01]: No one's doing any of us. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: We have to save us. [SPEAKER_02]: We, and we can save us, but not if we are hiding, waiting for big daddy to come and save the day. [SPEAKER_02]: Superman. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm buddy. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also not only not if we're hiding, but also not if we are trying to save ourselves by acting in the same dominator kind of patterns, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That has always been before. [SPEAKER_01]: All right, that's also not going to save us. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not it's not meeting domination with domination, right? [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like maybe this is just an example of the cultural problem. [SPEAKER_02]: But there's a real absence of what could it be like?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like the absence of imagination there. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I know people are thinking about it and talking about it. [SPEAKER_02]: And but I think for most people, it's really hard to even understand how could things be if they were different. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you just nailed it. [SPEAKER_01]: You said imagination. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the feminine in all of us, again, not gendered, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But the feminine is imagination.
[SPEAKER_01]: The feminine is creativity. [SPEAKER_01]: The feminine is flow and the unknown and loss of control and [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: And so you're exactly right. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're we're as a people were so cut off right over centuries of living in these ways in these models. [SPEAKER_01]: We've been so cut off from anything that I would consider a more feminine quality of our soul. [SPEAKER_01]: Right, that we don't even know where to begin.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think part of that is some of the work that we do, whether it's with an individual clients or in groups or whatever is actually connecting people back to their soul. [SPEAKER_01]: It's connecting people back to the feminine that is intuition. [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: That is care and love in these ways that we're attempting to get back to. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think as a society, we're facing a bit of a reckoning right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't solve the current day problems that we created with the same methods that created the problems. [SPEAKER_02]: There it is. [SPEAKER_02]: I guess with the time we have a good question to ask you would be with the current situation that we're in as a as a society and both relation to in relation to motherhood and just the whole picture. [SPEAKER_02]: How do you feel that intuition can help or regaining access reconnecting to our intuition?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that, you know, I talk a lot, a lot of my career has been around the concept of codependency and codependency recovery. [SPEAKER_01]: And I talk about it a lot in the third part of this book. [SPEAKER_01]: I believe that we are a codependent society. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that most of us have been taught that love looks sounds, smells taste like codependency, which is really, again, a version of outsourcing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's using someone or something external to sue myself because I don't know how to be with myself any other way. [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, whether that's people pleasing, whether that's lack of boundaries, whether that's not speaking up, not rocking the boat. [SPEAKER_01]: There's all these behavioral ways that we essentially use other people to keep ourselves kind of level to kind of manage our own relational anxiety and our existential anxiety.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say that through this work of reconnecting to the self-building up that intuitive voice again, what happens is the stronger we build that sense of self. [SPEAKER_01]: So I like to use this image of a house. [SPEAKER_01]: You build a house brick by brick. [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say it's the same thing as building a sense of self capital as self, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's say for example, boundaries is the thing that you struggle with the most and you're like, okay, I got to focus on this. [SPEAKER_01]: So when somebody asks you something and your first response is to say, yes, that instead you say, yeah, actually, you know what? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want the capacity for that right now. [SPEAKER_01]: I can't, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what I call a micro moment, but it's a brick that gets laid on that foundation of self. [SPEAKER_01]: Right, and every time you do that, what you're doing is you're telling that voice inside you. [SPEAKER_01]: That's always been there, but it's just been turned down so low in favor of the external voices that we can't hear it, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So every time you lay a brick what you're doing is you're telling that intuitive voice that that feminine side of self.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I do hear you. [SPEAKER_01]: I do listen to you. [SPEAKER_01]: I am honoring you. [SPEAKER_01]: I do see you. [SPEAKER_01]: I value you right. [SPEAKER_01]: And so it gets a tiny bit louder and a tiny bit louder and a tiny bit louder over time. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think for a lot of us because we're so obsessed with the external because this is how we've been raised again in this society that has us cut off from the self. [SPEAKER_01]: This is where you see group think happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're so terrified of being other that we fall into group think rather than saying, what do I believe? [SPEAKER_01]: What's who I value? [SPEAKER_01]: What do I want and know, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And it's okay that somebody doesn't agree with me. [SPEAKER_01]: It's okay that somebody doesn't, you know, value what I'm saying. [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't shake or wave my sense of self. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't need to prove it because I know it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're all to me inextricably linked because sure, some could say, OK, how are you going to dismantle dominator systems by teaching somebody boundaries? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think leading it through like I just did is exactly how. [SPEAKER_01]: Because the stronger that sense of self becomes, the less likely I am to again, join in the finger pointing of a group, a marginalized group and say, they're the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually going to go [SPEAKER_01]: What do I really believe? [SPEAKER_01]: What's happening for me inside, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And you're going to have that foundation where you don't have to go along. [SPEAKER_01]: You can go, hmm, what is it that I want, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Or what is it that I know? [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I think that the work that we do again, what we're talking individual clients are all the way up to the collective.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're so connected, right? [SPEAKER_01]: They can't really be disconnected. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that makes sense. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it does. [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I think one thing that we've talked about a lot here on this podcast is that what we do ripples out like, you know, the energy that we put out, it does go beyond ourselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think, you know, as I listen to what you said, although what you said was clear inside it gets kind of confused because one is, one part is, if I say no, what does everyone say when they're going to say no? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I feel bad. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: But then the other part is when I'm pointing fingers at someone else, when I'm in a group, it feels good sometimes because I'm accepted by the group.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, in my true self, I'm not saying that that's true for me, but that's sort of what we do as humans myself. [SPEAKER_02]: When I see someone who's suffering, I feel, I feel some suffering myself. [SPEAKER_02]: I want them to be safe and I don't want them to be going through that. [SPEAKER_02]: So I want to do something to help. [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much fear that makes us immediately shut down the part of us that says, well, they're not all doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like, I want to help them. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, they're not all doing that. [SPEAKER_02]: And I want them to like me. [SPEAKER_02]: And this yard's just stronger. [SPEAKER_02]: Or maybe we feel too disempowered to actually pull away from this and say, but this is where my heart is, you know? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that we're a social species, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I said existential, I mean, I mean, it like that it's the feeling of potential death to be ostracized, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Because that's what it meant for our ancestors at some point in time. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that in a lot of ways, we as a species right now, the world has changed much faster than we've been able to evolve. [SPEAKER_01]: right as actual species. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that that's kind of the same for a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we're not meant to actually be inundated with all of the suffering and every corner of the globe. [SPEAKER_01]: Our nervous system wasn't designed to hold that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And we're seeing impact of that now. [SPEAKER_01]: And then what that looks like right, generationally, like look at Gen Z, right, highest rates of anxiety and depression we've ever seen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, not just from that reason, but I would say that's one of them, you know, being far too connected in those ways. [SPEAKER_01]: I would also say that, you know, my girlfriend today says, you know, you can't hate anyone up close, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So it's also a lot easier to hate somebody and other than from a distance and from afar. [SPEAKER_01]: And when you get up close with an individual human to human, that changes, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that some of this work going back to my original point of, we've evolved a little bit too quickly, or maybe we haven't, is more what I'm saying. [SPEAKER_01]: We've got this fear that we will actually die if we're, if we're othered by society or by our group, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's not actually true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think this is one of those things where we need to actually start to challenge some of the internal systems a little bit that are going, don't do that, don't do that, you're going to be ostracized, you're going to die, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And say, no, what I actually need to work on right now is being with myself through the discomfort of being othered. [SPEAKER_01]: Can I be with myself? [SPEAKER_01]: Can I sit with that fear?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I sit with that discomfort? [SPEAKER_01]: Can I sit with that judgment and that shame and that all the things that are coming up, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And know that I'll get through it on the other side. [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think that's like an individualistic. [SPEAKER_01]: I get that a lot. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, you're calling for being more individualistic. [SPEAKER_01]: No. [SPEAKER_01]: What I'm calling for is being in better relationship with yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that in a collective, you can be in relationship from a sovereign place. [SPEAKER_01]: This is who I am and I can relate to you based on who you are. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't need you to be any other way to love you and you don't need me to be any other way to love me. [SPEAKER_01]: But that's kind of start from us, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I have to have a solid sense of self in order to do that. [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know all the answers to it, but to me, it really feels like it's connected to this idea that I think it's just, it's moved too quickly. [SPEAKER_01]: And we haven't caught up evolutionary wise, you know? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I feel you so much on that and the way that, you know, I've started to think myself of how like social media is a world. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a little world that you go into through your phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you're in there, there's this whole reality there. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: And it might be completely different from the reality in your actual real life. [SPEAKER_02]: But it's so influential to your life. [SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, now that, you know, since social media is a commodified experience, it's there to sell us. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it didn't used to be that every third thing you see on Instagram was an ad. [SPEAKER_02]: But now it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we're all being sort of trained [SPEAKER_02]: in how to exist or even subsist in this culture through, you know, just for the purpose of buying stuff in a lot of ways and for keeping a really tight hold on who has the power. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's all in service of, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So what does sovereignty look like for someone who's mothering now if they were to be able to do that from a place of sovereignty? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to think it starts with honesty, being honest, not only with yourself, but I think being honest to those around you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've said very frequently and I started saying this maybe a couple years into my mother, a lot of year or two of my mother in journey, where I used to say, and I still believe this. [SPEAKER_01]: I love my child. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't love parenting. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're different things. [SPEAKER_01]: And I got a lot of slack for that. [SPEAKER_01]: Like I said it on the podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm already, you know, getting all these DMs about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I'm talking about. [SPEAKER_01]: That's sister wound right there is what I'm talking about. [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: We've got to be honest about the fact that not everyone loves and has to love every aspect of the motherhood and the parenthood and the partnership experience. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not realistic. [SPEAKER_01]: So number one, honesty, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But honesty, even within your partnership, I'm honest to my child.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm honest to my partner. [SPEAKER_01]: And that was a lot of work for me as a recovering codependent was just to own my truth and be honest about it. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not saying burn bridges and be hurtful and be a jerk people in your life. [SPEAKER_01]: But what I'm saying is, no, I'm not available for that right now or no, that doesn't feel good for me. [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't feel honest for me right now, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or [SPEAKER_01]: This is a silly example that just popped into my head very early on with my daughter. [SPEAKER_01]: I would say to her, you know, she'd be upset that I was leaving on a Sunday, little little, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say, Mommy's going to move her body. [SPEAKER_01]: I have to go work my body out because I love my body and I care for my body. [SPEAKER_01]: And I, and I will see you when I get home. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a silly example.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I'm telling her is like, I value myself. [SPEAKER_01]: And I cherish myself, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And in this instance, it's coming through with a workout, where I might say the same thing if I was going to see some friends, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I love you. [SPEAKER_01]: You'll be fine tonight with Daddy. [SPEAKER_01]: You guys are going to have a good night. [SPEAKER_01]: Mommy loves her friends. [SPEAKER_01]: And just like, you get to go have fun with your friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get to go have fun with my friends too. [SPEAKER_01]: And those relationships are important to me. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's being honest. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, this does or doesn't work for me. [SPEAKER_01]: And then owning it. [SPEAKER_01]: And I know a lot of people are going to be like, yeah, right, good luck. [SPEAKER_01]: But this is this is hard earned, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've worked very hard. [SPEAKER_01]: in this realm in my life to kind of be able to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'll tell you, our children learn by what they see, not by what they hear. [SPEAKER_02]: I know. [SPEAKER_01]: So, the end of the day, if I want my daughter to also be able to have that solid, sovereign sense of self and say, this is who I am. [SPEAKER_01]: This is what I like. [SPEAKER_01]: This is what I don't like. [SPEAKER_01]: These are my non-negotiables. [SPEAKER_01]: These are my boundaries, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, I value and respect myself enough to live a life that is full of arrows and of passion and of love and of excitement. [SPEAKER_01]: Then she has to see me prioritizing that and doing it too, because of all she ever sees me as as murdering myself, then she's going to look at that as the blueprint of being a woman, right, or just being a human. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so true. [SPEAKER_02]: So true.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could say so much more in support of that, but I'll leave it there for now. [SPEAKER_02]: But now so thank you so much for spending some time with me today on therapy chat. [SPEAKER_02]: I love this conversation and really excited to deeply dig into your book. [SPEAKER_02]: I know that it's going to be really important. [SPEAKER_02]: It feels [SPEAKER_01]: I hope so. [SPEAKER_01]: I hope so. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's honest. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it keeps saying honesty.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some very personal stuff in there, you know, that I had to go through in order to have some of these understanding. [SPEAKER_01]: So, hope it's in service of kind of helping other people. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I thank you for seeing that, too. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not like you just are this person who had it all figured out. [SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's a hard one process. [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard work to get there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a lifelong process. [SPEAKER_01]: We're not done. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: And we will continue to do the work until the day we die. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the way I see it. [SPEAKER_02]: So where can people find all of these fabulous things that you do? [SPEAKER_01]: Everything's on my website. [SPEAKER_01]: So Vanessa Bennett calm. [SPEAKER_01]: I would say in social.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm mostly on Instagram at Vanessa as Bennett, but I'm across all the platforms and they're all kind of connected to the sites. [SPEAKER_01]: You can go there and check out all the things that I do. [SPEAKER_02]: beautiful while I will put a link to your Instagram and your website on the show notes and thank you again for being my guest today. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thank you so much. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to Therapy Chat with your host, Laura Reagan, LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_00]: For more information, please visit Therapy ChatPodcast.com.