Speaker 1: Even if you've trained for it, you went to school
Speaker 1: for it, you worked hard for it, You've done all
Speaker 1: the work to be in a healthy relationship, you may
Speaker 1: feel feel like, Oh, I don't deserve this good person.
Speaker 1: It's the discomfort of being in a new situation. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 1: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how the people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Nedra Tawab, an American
Speaker 1: mental health specialist, social worker, and writer. She's the author
Speaker 1: of the book Set Boundaries, Find Peace, A Guide to
Speaker 1: Reclaiming Yourself, which was a New York Times bestseller. Today,
Speaker 1: Eric and Nedra discuss her new book, Drama Free, A
Speaker 1: Guide to managing unhealthy family relationships. If you've lost track
Speaker 1: of what's important to you, you're not alone. We often
Speaker 1: go through phases in life where we feel dissatisfied or disconnected,
Speaker 1: and when we get off track, it's easy to get
Speaker 1: stuck in unhelpful patterns like avoidance or perfectionism. It shows
Speaker 1: up as negative self talk, breaking your own rules, procrastination,
Speaker 1: or struggling to let go of addictive or otherwise harmful
Speaker 1: behaviors to make space for healthy ones. I want you
Speaker 1: to know that all of these are struggles I've had too,
Speaker 1: and if I can turn things around with the challenges
Speaker 1: I faced deep and heroin addiction and clinical depression, so
Speaker 1: can you. What I've learned through experience is that what
Speaker 1: we know is not as important as what we do consistently,
Speaker 1: and bridging this gap is the key to feeling fulfilled
Speaker 1: at a deeper level. Bridging this gap is the foundation
Speaker 1: of the Spiritual Habits Program, a non religious mentorship and
Speaker 1: accountability experience to establish simple daily practices that help you
Speaker 1: to be more present, compassionate, and connected. In your relationships
Speaker 1: in life. Over eight weeks together, you'll learn how to
Speaker 1: make small changes that have a big impact. No matter
Speaker 1: what life is serving up, you'll experience it in a
Speaker 1: more grounded, loving, strengthening, and creative way. If anything I've
Speaker 1: said is resonated with you, go to one you Feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash Spiritual Habits to learn more and sign up.
Speaker 1: If anything I've said is resonated with you, go to
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net slash Spiritual Habits to learn
Speaker 1: more and sign up. Enrollment for this year's program is
Speaker 1: open now through March thirteenth, and I love to meet
Speaker 1: you in it. That's one you Feed dot net slash
Speaker 1: Spiritual Habits to learn more and sign up. And Edrow,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you for having me again.
Speaker 1: I am very excited to have you on. We will
Speaker 1: be discussing your latest book called Drama Free, a Guide
Speaker 1: to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships. But before we do that,
Speaker 1: we'll start the show like we always do with the Parable.
Speaker 1: In the Parable, there's a grandparent talking with their grandchild
Speaker 1: and they say, in life, there's two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One's a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they
Speaker 1: think about it for a second and look up at
Speaker 1: their grandparents. They say, well, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in your work. And obviously
Speaker 1: you've answered before, but we change. Yeah, you know, our
Speaker 1: pre conversation, we were talking about the choices that we
Speaker 1: can make. So to me, that parable represents our freedom
Speaker 1: to choose. Yeah, that is very simple and succinct, and
Speaker 1: I tend to agree with you that at its heart,
Speaker 1: that's what it's about, that our choices matter, We get
Speaker 1: to choose, and our choices matter. Okay, let's jump into
Speaker 1: the book, and I just want to kind of start
Speaker 1: with a line that you say early in the book,
Speaker 1: which is the relationships that impact us the most are
Speaker 1: those with family. The wounds are deep and the relationships
Speaker 1: are filled with expectations. Say a little more about that.
Speaker 1: In families, our history is from birth until present, and
Speaker 1: so whatever challenges we have within our family for many
Speaker 1: of us, they have existed not just presently, but they've
Speaker 1: been there for a long time. And because those relationships
Speaker 1: were our primary relationships, they were the first relationships we had,
Speaker 1: the ones in which we learned about ourselves and other people.
Speaker 1: It's deep and how we connect with ourselves and other people,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's hard for us to recognize that. When
Speaker 1: we go to therapy and the therapist is like, tell
Speaker 1: me about your family, you know, most people are like, uh,
Speaker 1: why are you asking about them? It's so important because
Speaker 1: it helps us connect who you are to who you
Speaker 1: were in your family, who you were allowed to be
Speaker 1: in your family, and what happened to you in that system. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I hear the word dysfunctional family, I always think
Speaker 1: of well, my own family, of course, But I also
Speaker 1: think of the old Tolstoy quote that starts on a
Speaker 1: car and in it, which is happy families are all alike.
Speaker 1: Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's true or do you think that there
Speaker 1: are real clear patterns of the ways in which we
Speaker 1: are dysfunctional in our families. I think there are levels
Speaker 1: to dysfunction. I think what we talk about typically as dysfunctioning.
Speaker 1: When I hear the word, I think of shameless. I
Speaker 1: think of that family and their chaos with substance abuse
Speaker 1: and financial issues and you know, people stealing. Like these
Speaker 1: very big things happening. But I think it's also having
Speaker 1: a parent who won't allow you to express your feelings.
Speaker 1: I think it's also experiencing divorcing, your parents not getting along.
Speaker 1: It's also your siblings bullying you. It's also your grandparent
Speaker 1: having a very apparent favorite. You know, it's so many things.
Speaker 1: It's not just those you know, drug abuse and you know,
Speaker 1: these really big things. It can also be these small
Speaker 1: things that impact us in ways that maybe we don't
Speaker 1: consider because we're looking at the trauma, and there's trauma
Speaker 1: and a lot of stuff. There's dysfunction and a lot
Speaker 1: of things that dysfunction just means something isn't working, something
Speaker 1: isn't healthy, it's not going well. There is a problem. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. It was helpful for me to eventually start
Speaker 1: to look at it from a perspective of everybody has
Speaker 1: developmental needs, and mine didn't get met for various different reasons,
Speaker 1: and many people don't get met for various different reasons,
Speaker 1: and there doesn't even have to be fault in that.
Speaker 1: There's simply just hey, you know, some things that I
Speaker 1: needed to get I didn't necessarily get. And I think
Speaker 1: it's very easy to get into comparative suffering with this
Speaker 1: stuff to say, oh, you know, well, chiefs, I heard
Speaker 1: about this guy who went through all this awful stuff
Speaker 1: and I didn't go through anything like that, so I
Speaker 1: must be okay, I must be fine. How do you
Speaker 1: get clients kind of over that barrier? What doesn't work
Speaker 1: for you doesn't work for you. And I think sometimes
Speaker 1: we do look at other situations and we'd like to
Speaker 1: level them as bad or worse or better when we
Speaker 1: don't have to judge someone else's situation against our own
Speaker 1: for our situation to not be good. You'll hear this
Speaker 1: sometimes with siblings, where siblings will say, well, my situation
Speaker 1: was worse because I needed blank and you didn't need this,
Speaker 1: or they listen to you more they did, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever these things are, and it's like you can still
Speaker 1: have a problem and that other person can have a problem.
Speaker 1: The problems don't need to be the same. It doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be you know, I was only abused if
Speaker 1: this thing happened. It's like, there are tons of things
Speaker 1: that we might say is damaging to a child, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be well my parents like me
Speaker 1: on the porch. You don't have to have these horror
Speaker 1: stories of you know, complex sort of meaning for us
Speaker 1: to have issues with our families. And I think it
Speaker 1: takes away from suffering when we put ourselves in the
Speaker 1: position of having to have a really big worry in
Speaker 1: order to suffer. Yeah. I found the adverse childhood experience
Speaker 1: testing and score that idea of there's a whole lot
Speaker 1: of different adverse childhood experiences you can have, and that
Speaker 1: was a lens that sort of helped me as a
Speaker 1: recovering heroin addict I was twenty four years old and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, how did I get to be
Speaker 1: like this? Right? I didn't choose to end up here.
Speaker 1: And so it was really interesting because in the first
Speaker 1: part of my recovery I was told very clearly by
Speaker 1: just the circles I was in, don't think about that,
Speaker 1: don't worry about that, Just here the things you need
Speaker 1: to do to get sober. And that actually worked for me.
Speaker 1: It actually worked for me. That focus work for you.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it will work for everyone because different
Speaker 1: levels of trauma are different. But the day came where
Speaker 1: I did have to reckon with what had happened in
Speaker 1: my past. At what point would you say in your
Speaker 1: sobriety that was how many years of being sober before
Speaker 1: that reckoning occurred? That reckoning occurred about three and a
Speaker 1: half years in and my marriage fell apart, and I
Speaker 1: was in so much pain, and I realized like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you're in pain because a marriage would end.
Speaker 1: But I recognized the patterns that I had in relationships.
Speaker 1: I'd always had them. I was re enacting this same
Speaker 1: sort of drama over and over and over. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that that was all my fault. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: in our situation, it was both our challenges. You know,
Speaker 1: we met at a heroin dealer's house, so you can imagine, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we brought some things to that relationship. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was about three and a half years in for me,
Speaker 1: And again, I don't think there's a right time. That
Speaker 1: was just when it sort of came to a head
Speaker 1: for me and really forced me to really look deeper.
Speaker 1: I've worked in substance abuse treatment, and I think One
Speaker 1: part of it is being clean, but another really big
Speaker 1: part of it is figuring out why you were abusing
Speaker 1: anything in the first place. Yeah, and some people really
Speaker 1: live in that just being clean part. But if you
Speaker 1: don't figure out why you were abusing in the first place,
Speaker 1: I wonder how things show up in other ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if you've heard the term
Speaker 1: dry drunk of course. Yeah, Yeah, it's a person who
Speaker 1: is sober, but they have all the behaviors that they
Speaker 1: had when they were an alcoholic. Why they've done no work,
Speaker 1: They're just not drinking, yep, And so there's no change
Speaker 1: in the person. They're not treating people better, they're not
Speaker 1: less manipulative, they're not less violent in some instances. It's
Speaker 1: just like they're sober, and that doesn't necessarily improve who
Speaker 1: you are as a person or make your relationships better.
Speaker 1: What really makes your relationships better is figuring out, you know,
Speaker 1: why that was an issue in the first place. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was interesting for me is, you know, I got
Speaker 1: into recovery, and I really worked the twelve steps pretty diligently,
Speaker 1: and so I was doing work, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of deep work, but the work tended to be oriented
Speaker 1: towards how I was behaving and the way it was
Speaker 1: presented to me. And this is you know, Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, right, So I'm not making a judgment
Speaker 1: about the twelve steps or there effected anything. The way
Speaker 1: it was presented to me. It was very me focused,
Speaker 1: and that was good. I had to take responsibility for
Speaker 1: myself my behaviors. But there wasn't a lot of now
Speaker 1: let's untangle that thread of you know, why you feel
Speaker 1: the need to act that way. It was just sort
Speaker 1: of like, well, don't act that way so much. And
Speaker 1: I'm oversimplifying, but like you're saying, I hit a point
Speaker 1: where I don't feel like I could get onto the
Speaker 1: next part of my healing without spending some time recognizing
Speaker 1: where I had come from and what had happened. And
Speaker 1: it was interesting because then I went from there into
Speaker 1: it was called inner child work back in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: you know, John Bradshaw, and I went into that situation
Speaker 1: and that was all the person I was working with
Speaker 1: was oriented around. That was the whole game, and that
Speaker 1: was useful for a period of time. But I also
Speaker 1: hit a point where I went, wait, okay, now I
Speaker 1: need to sort of emerge from everything that happened to
Speaker 1: me and sort of integrate this my responsibility with what
Speaker 1: had happened to me. And I think that's what you
Speaker 1: do very very well in your book. You bring together Okay,
Speaker 1: there's this dysfunction, here's why you are and it is
Speaker 1: still your responsibility to work with those things differently and
Speaker 1: more skillfully. Well, many people say that, you know, depression
Speaker 1: is anger turned inward, and so when you look at
Speaker 1: substance misuse, you look at some mental health issues, you
Speaker 1: look at our relationships. Some of us, we do have
Speaker 1: a tendency to it's me, it's me, it's me, it's
Speaker 1: my behavior, what an actuality? Perhaps there's someone else we
Speaker 1: need to be angry at. That doesn't mean we need
Speaker 1: to hit them or we need to yell at them,
Speaker 1: but maybe there is some recognition that I don't think
Speaker 1: I was nurtured, yep. I don't think I was loved
Speaker 1: in a way that I actually felt. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: they were trying to be loving, but what I really
Speaker 1: needed was this. I find that when we talk about
Speaker 1: our families, when I have new clients, getting them to
Speaker 1: the point of even saying anything about their family is
Speaker 1: a victory, yeah, because they want to sugarcoat everything. It's like,
Speaker 1: my mom was great and wonderful. She was lovely, she
Speaker 1: worked really hard. She picked me and my brother and
Speaker 1: sister up and da da da, and she beat us poorly,
Speaker 1: you know, but she was a great person. It's like, okay, great,
Speaker 1: she made great spaghetti. But wait, let's go to this
Speaker 1: part about her, you know, beating you. What was that part, right?
Speaker 1: I think the other version of that is they did
Speaker 1: the best they can, which is a true statement. Right,
Speaker 1: that is absolutely true, but does not mean that you
Speaker 1: don't have impact from the best they could do. Right,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean the best they could do was okay for you. Right.
Speaker 1: Both those things can be true, and you talk about
Speaker 1: that a few different point it's in the book. Is
Speaker 1: this recognition that multiple things can be true. We can
Speaker 1: recognize the things that happened to us when we are younger,
Speaker 1: and we can have a relationship with our family. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a way to be angry about some of the
Speaker 1: things that happened and also be grateful for some of
Speaker 1: the things that happened, Right, that both those things are possible.
Speaker 1: But I do agree. I think the tendency is towards sugarcoating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really difficult for us to reconcile that those relationships
Speaker 1: aren't black and white, like it's this, or it's that,
Speaker 1: it's all these things, And it doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: don't love a person. It just means that you recognize
Speaker 1: some problematic parts of that relationship, and recognizing that can
Speaker 1: really help you move away from some of your stuck points,
Speaker 1: or be healthier in your relationship, or choose a lifestyle
Speaker 1: that actually works for you instead of one that you're
Speaker 1: trying to pretend to exist in. You know, we don't
Speaker 1: realize how much we're playing into the roles that were
Speaker 1: assigned to us. I think about some of the things
Speaker 1: that were told to me as a child, like you're
Speaker 1: so nice, You're so this. So if I was anything else,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, you're not being yourself. I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: I never said I was nice, Like you kept saying
Speaker 1: that because I was a baby that drewed or something.
Speaker 1: Now I'm twelve and I got stuff to say, you know, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this about myself. But you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: people will try to get you to be a certain
Speaker 1: way because it's to their advantage. It's to a parent's
Speaker 1: advantage to have a child that listens and sits steal
Speaker 1: and will eat anything you cook and doesn't have an issue.
Speaker 1: You know, that's to their advantage. It's to a teacher's
Speaker 1: advantage to have you quiet in the classroom. So if
Speaker 1: that's what we want, of course we're going to you know,
Speaker 1: try to encourage a person to be that way, to
Speaker 1: tell them, you know, you're a good girl, oh bad
Speaker 1: girl behavior, because we are seeking a certain type of
Speaker 1: behavior from a person, but most people don't fit into that.
Speaker 1: I think some people pretend very well, yep. So what
Speaker 1: does a parent do in that situation? Because as a parent,
Speaker 1: there is a role of Okay, I do kind of
Speaker 1: need to shape the behavior of a child to some degree, right,
Speaker 1: That's part of my job as a parent, right. And
Speaker 1: there are certain behaviors that I want to encourage and
Speaker 1: others I don't want to encourage, right Like I do
Speaker 1: want to encourage being kind of the people around you,
Speaker 1: and I want to discourage hitting them. I mean, just
Speaker 1: very simple, right, So how do parents do that without
Speaker 1: doing what you just suggested, which is, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of forcing them into a box. Labeling them, making them
Speaker 1: feel if they're not that way, you know, get in
Speaker 1: shame involved. And this is a big topic, but what
Speaker 1: are a couple things that parents could think about as
Speaker 1: ways to do that that are less harmful. I think
Speaker 1: about the difference between change and behavior and changing personality.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes parents lean towards trying to change your personality.
Speaker 1: There are some people who will always, you know, be voicterous. Right,
Speaker 1: do we want to take that away from them or
Speaker 1: do we want to let them know the times and
Speaker 1: places where they can do that. I happen to be
Speaker 1: a parent of a child and the octave in which
Speaker 1: she speaks is typically very loud. I'm like, where are
Speaker 1: we We're in a car, girl, you know, It's like,
Speaker 1: why are you that loud? Are you? Mariah Carey Like
Speaker 1: it's you're just screaming, you know. So there are times when,
Speaker 1: you know, if we're at a place running around, I
Speaker 1: don't care. But if we're walking into the library, I
Speaker 1: may say to you, you know we're going into a
Speaker 1: quiet space. Remember to use your quiet voice. You can
Speaker 1: be loud. I'm not saying you should never be loud.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we try to strip the person of a behavior
Speaker 1: they have to be organized, they have to, you know,
Speaker 1: be kind to everyone. Well, there are some people who
Speaker 1: don't deserve our kindness. Should we listen to every adult
Speaker 1: because they're older, No, you know, there are some things
Speaker 1: that require further examination. I grew up at a time
Speaker 1: where you respect adults no matter what. I knew a
Speaker 1: lot of adults who didn't deserve respect. Yep. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you want me to listen to this person. I don't
Speaker 1: think that this person should be telling a kid what
Speaker 1: to do. They don't seem to have it together themselves.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting that we don't allow kids to have
Speaker 1: the preferences that we want for ourselves. Adults have lots
Speaker 1: of preferences. I don't want to deal with this person.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go here. But with kids, it's like, no,
Speaker 1: no preference. You have to do everything I do. How
Speaker 1: do we as adults allow them to have some freedom?
Speaker 1: Not complete freedom, but just a little bit. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think you're talking about learning to teach kids about context.
Speaker 1: That context matters, right, And because that's ultimately what as
Speaker 1: a grown human we need to be able to do
Speaker 1: is respond wisely and appropriately to the contexts that we
Speaker 1: are in and so if we always limit a child
Speaker 1: in a particular way and just you know, in a box,
Speaker 1: then they're not learning that context, not learning how to
Speaker 1: evaluate a situation and say, oh, well, maybe I want
Speaker 1: to respond this way or maybe I want to respond
Speaker 1: that way. So I think that's the other limitation of
Speaker 1: just this very prescribed approach is we're not teaching one
Speaker 1: of the I think key skills of being an adult,
Speaker 1: which is that context recognition. Yes, I love that context.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'd like to talk now about shame. Shame
Speaker 1: is a big one, and I think it seems to
Speaker 1: be one of the things that I in working with
Speaker 1: listeners of the show and getting to know a lot
Speaker 1: of listeners of this show, and having worked with people
Speaker 1: who are in addiction and recovery for a long long time,
Speaker 1: shame is a huge issue. Talk to me about the
Speaker 1: ways that shame gets in the way of our own
Speaker 1: healing process. Shame limits our ability to be honest with
Speaker 1: our salves and with others. We fear that we will
Speaker 1: be judged. We fear that what has happened to us
Speaker 1: will be held against us, as if we had some
Speaker 1: control over it. And Shane keeps us in unhealthy patterns.
Speaker 1: It keeps us in unhealthy relationships because we're too afraid
Speaker 1: to own up to what happened. I've heard too many
Speaker 1: adult children of alcoholics say I didn't have any kid,
Speaker 1: I didn't have any friends growing up because my parent
Speaker 1: was drunk and I was embarrassed. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: bring anybody home. You know, the shame of that isolated
Speaker 1: them in ways that they don't even have, you know,
Speaker 1: childhood memories of friendship, like other people doing sleepovers and
Speaker 1: that that connection that is so vital for kids growing
Speaker 1: up because they're like, you know, it was just it
Speaker 1: was too embarrassing. So that Shane can really hold us
Speaker 1: back from moments in life that we deserve to experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you say about people who have shame of
Speaker 1: even being seen and loved, Even that very positive reaction
Speaker 1: towards them causes them to almost want to hide and
Speaker 1: feel like they don't deserve it. Yeah, we have to
Speaker 1: learn to love ourselves. We have to learn to live
Speaker 1: with our stories. We have to learn to allow people
Speaker 1: to love us. When you haven't experienced authentic love, it
Speaker 1: can feel very weird. You know. Sometimes we equate love
Speaker 1: with pain. We equate it with dysfunction, We equate it
Speaker 1: with abuse. You know. I think of parents whooping their
Speaker 1: kids and maybe saying, you know, I did that for
Speaker 1: your own good and wanting a hug afterwards. Like that's
Speaker 1: an interesting dynamic, you know, to get spaith and then
Speaker 1: hug someone like and what sort of So it's sort
Speaker 1: of teaching, like, you know, this is a part of relationships.
Speaker 1: I hurt you and then we love each other. So
Speaker 1: how do we sort of say this is loving and
Speaker 1: this is not loving? We have to unlearn our idea
Speaker 1: of love and demand something different. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be loved in a painful way. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be loved in a way where you do
Speaker 1: things to me and I have to accept everything that
Speaker 1: you do. That's not the type of love that I want.
Speaker 1: People often use a phrase that I'm curious kind of
Speaker 1: what you think about, and it's they refer to something
Speaker 1: as self sabotage. You know, I'm self sabotaging. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense to you psychologically or is there something else
Speaker 1: you would call that? You know, I do think that
Speaker 1: self sabotaging is a thing. I think when we are
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with something we tend to move back towards chaos
Speaker 1: because that is familiar and so many of us. We
Speaker 1: can be in the most relaxing state, but because we're
Speaker 1: not used to being relaxed, it's like, where's the drama,
Speaker 1: where's the chaos? Someone's not arguing, Okay, let me pick
Speaker 1: our argument. And that's where that you quote unquote self
Speaker 1: sabotage comes in. Do I think we know we're doing that? No?
Speaker 1: I think most self sabotage is unconscious. I don't think
Speaker 1: most people are saying, you know, I really want to
Speaker 1: harm myself right now, let me mess this situation up. Oh,
Speaker 1: let me cheat in this relationship. Oh I should steal
Speaker 1: this and get caught. You know, it's not that conscious.
Speaker 1: It is a byproduct of our discomfort. It is a
Speaker 1: byproduct of not believing that we can exist differently. So, yes,
Speaker 1: self sabotage is a thing. Is it something we should
Speaker 1: pay attention to? Absolutely when we notice you're really in
Speaker 1: situations that aren't so bad. I was dealing with a
Speaker 1: situation with a family member who said, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I never get to talk to your kids. So I
Speaker 1: told them the exact data. Call my kids every week.
Speaker 1: You know these are the days where they don't have activities,
Speaker 1: they won't call on those days, and so they will say, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, I never get to talk to your kids. Now,
Speaker 1: some people might say, oh, they're self sabotaging the relationship.
Speaker 1: I would say, I'm not going to enable them by
Speaker 1: forcing this. But I also think what they're trying to
Speaker 1: do is they have this thought of people should reach
Speaker 1: out to me love is you coming to me? Is
Speaker 1: not me coming to you? And people care about me
Speaker 1: when they do blank, when someone is very direct with you,
Speaker 1: that might be off putting. And so you are able
Speaker 1: to live in your story of being unloved because you're
Speaker 1: creating this environment of not being loved even though there's
Speaker 1: a clear behavior that you could exhibit. So I think
Speaker 1: self sabotage is sometimes that where people are being clear.
Speaker 1: I've heard people say like all they want is for
Speaker 1: me to be more affectionate and I can't do it.
Speaker 1: And it's like sounds like that would change the relationship
Speaker 1: if you threw out a few I love you, But
Speaker 1: for some of us it's so hard to do that
Speaker 1: that I don't think it's like a ancious think of
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that for them. I think
Speaker 1: it's more I feel so uncomfortable doing this that I
Speaker 1: just I can't do it. I can't train myself to
Speaker 1: say it, I can't practice it. It is so uncomfortable
Speaker 1: for me. So I think of self sabotage as a discomfort. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great way to think about it,
Speaker 1: and actually a more empowering and useful way to think
Speaker 1: about it. Because self sabotage, I start saying, well, I
Speaker 1: just am doing this because I don't think I deserve it.
Speaker 1: And that may be true, but you got closer, I
Speaker 1: think to the real thing, which is when I'm doing
Speaker 1: whatever that behavior we're labeling is self sabotage, is what's
Speaker 1: going on inside me around that specific behavior. And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, that's a layer deeper and a
Speaker 1: layer more helpful. I think of the same thing with
Speaker 1: the phrase imposter syndrome. I think imposter syndrome is a
Speaker 1: manifestation of your discomfort. You receive something in you question,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, do I deserve this? Am I going
Speaker 1: to do a good job? That they picked the right person?
Speaker 1: Am I supposed to be graduating from this thing? Do
Speaker 1: you know? It's discomfort? It's really just discomfort. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to exist in new schoo space. Even
Speaker 1: if you've trained for it, you went to school for it,
Speaker 1: you worked hard for it, you've done all the work
Speaker 1: to be in a healthy relationship, you may still feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't deserve this good person. It's the discomfort of
Speaker 1: being in a new situation. So I think that most
Speaker 1: change involves some degree of discomfort. Right. If it didn't,
Speaker 1: everybody would change everything, right, But it does tend to
Speaker 1: bring us to a point of being uncomfortable. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's the only reason people don't change, but it
Speaker 1: is a big one. So what are ways of meeting
Speaker 1: that discomfort? Okay, I have decided I'm going to set
Speaker 1: a boundary with my mother about X. And every time
Speaker 1: I go see my mom, I just I'm too unk.
Speaker 1: I can't do it. I said that several times, people
Speaker 1: say I just can't do it. You know. I remember
Speaker 1: with my dad he's in a memory care unit and
Speaker 1: it's too late, But I remember I would get these
Speaker 1: ideas of like, all right, I'm going to try and
Speaker 1: talk with my dad in a deeper way. I'm going
Speaker 1: to bridge this gap between us. You know, and when
Speaker 1: I was younger, I would just for a long time,
Speaker 1: the pattern was so strong. I would just literally when
Speaker 1: I got there, I think, I don't want to. That
Speaker 1: was a dumb idea, I don't want to. And then
Speaker 1: later I got to okay, all right, a little bit
Speaker 1: past that, which was so subconscious, but it's still this
Speaker 1: is incredibly uncomfortable. So how do people lean into that
Speaker 1: feeling of uncomfortableness and actually get through? To do it,
Speaker 1: you have to want to change your life enough. You
Speaker 1: have to want to change the relationship enough. And sometimes
Speaker 1: our ambivalence as a sign we're not ready. We don't
Speaker 1: want to accept that I should be ready now, and
Speaker 1: it's like you're not ready now, you know. Sometimes I've
Speaker 1: had difficult conversations like I was forced into them. The
Speaker 1: other situations made me ready. It's like, dang, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to say this now, but I feel like my
Speaker 1: hand is forced and I have to say it. So
Speaker 1: to me, you know, that was like a beautiful unfolding
Speaker 1: of other things to put me in a situation to
Speaker 1: have to say this very clear thing. But there are
Speaker 1: times where we may not be ready, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think we don't have to you know, I think
Speaker 1: we trick ourselves to think, like I have to say this,
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes I'll have clients and for years
Speaker 1: they talk about the same issue over and over and
Speaker 1: it's like, you're not ready to change it, And that's okay,
Speaker 1: you know. I think talking about it is helping you
Speaker 1: get ready. I hope you get ready. But sometimes we
Speaker 1: never get to the point of having that hard conversation.
Speaker 1: We just stay in that processing phase. But I think
Speaker 1: that it can be quite challenging to force ourselves to
Speaker 1: do something with a level of discomfort that we're not
Speaker 1: ready to receive from that other person, right because sometimes
Speaker 1: we're not ready because we in the relationship. Sometimes we're
Speaker 1: not ready because we know that the other person will
Speaker 1: give us a silent treatment the rest of the trip
Speaker 1: if we say this thing. Sometimes the discomfort makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I wouldn't want to put you
Speaker 1: in a position where you'll have to deal with this
Speaker 1: sort of outcome. So I don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: judgment around people not having those conversation. I think conversations.
Speaker 1: I think things work themselves out in the way that
Speaker 1: they're supposed to. We had John Norcross on recently who
Speaker 1: was one of the people who was one of the
Speaker 1: early researchers of the stages of change model. And you
Speaker 1: write about the stages of change model in your book,
Speaker 1: and you say that some of the stuff in psychology
Speaker 1: is similar to the stages of change and breaking a habit.
Speaker 1: And I think what you're talking about is people often
Speaker 1: are in the contemplation phase. I know I should have
Speaker 1: a conversation with my mother, or I know it would
Speaker 1: be helpful to have a conversation with my mother, but
Speaker 1: I'm not ready. And one of the things that the
Speaker 1: stages of change model does it I think it's interesting,
Speaker 1: is it points to things that you can do that
Speaker 1: are stage appropriate. So instead of lamenting that I'm not
Speaker 1: in the action phase, there are things we can do,
Speaker 1: Questions we can ask ourselves, ways of approaching that might
Speaker 1: move us out of contemplation into action. What are some
Speaker 1: of the things that you try and do with a
Speaker 1: client when the time seems right, or if they're frustrated, right,
Speaker 1: I can't seem to get to action on this. What
Speaker 1: are some of the things in the contemplation stage that
Speaker 1: are helpful to do? You know, in the contemplation stage,
Speaker 1: I think my job is to move people towards deeper thought.
Speaker 1: Is not necessarily to move people towards action. It's to
Speaker 1: move them towards thinking about their situation, the pattern of
Speaker 1: the situation, and perhaps their acceptance is it will always
Speaker 1: be this way, and I want a relationship. So these
Speaker 1: are things I have to deal with. So in the
Speaker 1: contemplation stage we talk a lot about dealing with things better,
Speaker 1: you know, not necessarily trying to change anything. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you go over there, they're going to do this thing.
Speaker 1: How will you manage it this time? Yeah, you write
Speaker 1: in the book if you feel stuck in the contemplation stage,
Speaker 1: you know, here's some questions you might consider, Right, how
Speaker 1: might change be beneficial to my mental and emotional health?
Speaker 1: You know, what am I giving up to stay the same?
Speaker 1: Who benefits if I don't make any changes? I think
Speaker 1: those are really useful questions. And as you said, it's
Speaker 1: to get people to think deeper, you know, more deeply
Speaker 1: about what is this. You've got a chapter which I
Speaker 1: think you could have just titled the book and it
Speaker 1: would have been a best seller, right, which is basically
Speaker 1: how to manage relationships with people who won't change, Because
Speaker 1: nearly everybody has something there, like if my partner would
Speaker 1: just do this one little thing, So talk to me
Speaker 1: about managing relationships when people won't change, and how to
Speaker 1: sort of sort out what is like, Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: live with that, and no I can't. I'll give you
Speaker 1: just a couple of examples maybe that you can refer to.
Speaker 1: One would be someone who would say, my spouse won't
Speaker 1: quit smoking. I love them, everything is great, but they
Speaker 1: won't quit smoking, and we've got kids and it just
Speaker 1: pisces me off. That's on one hand, versus somebody who's saying,
Speaker 1: my partner feels like they're really sort of emotionally abusive
Speaker 1: to me. Maybe those aren't the words they would label it,
Speaker 1: but they would come in with signs of that. Those
Speaker 1: are very different things, but both really significant. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: those situations, I think what we need to focus on
Speaker 1: is changing ourselves. We can certainly make requests, but we
Speaker 1: can't force a person to stop smoking. As the daughter
Speaker 1: of two cigarette smokers, and I do not smoke. You know,
Speaker 1: in my home, it's no smoking. That is what I
Speaker 1: can do here. I can't make you stop smoking. I
Speaker 1: can't say, you know when I come visit, I don't
Speaker 1: want to stay with you because I don't want to
Speaker 1: live in a smoke field environment. Or I can say
Speaker 1: you to my partner, can you smoke outside instead of
Speaker 1: smoking in the house. Or I can say to my partner,
Speaker 1: can you wash your hands after you smoke your cigarettes
Speaker 1: before holding me? Those are some possible changes you can make,
Speaker 1: But to get them to quit that is a bigger
Speaker 1: issue for them to manage. And sometimes we're trying to
Speaker 1: get people to be like us because we're so great
Speaker 1: and wonderful and we want them to be exactly like us,
Speaker 1: and they don't want that. You know, I think they
Speaker 1: are doing what they want to do, and we have
Speaker 1: to figure out how to be in relationships with people.
Speaker 1: When they are doing what they want to do, they're
Speaker 1: resistant to change. Sometimes they don't see any harm in
Speaker 1: their behavior, or they are not ready to do any work.
Speaker 1: You know, when we get to the phase of being
Speaker 1: ready to do the work, we think everybody should be
Speaker 1: at the same face. Why is this person being so rude?
Speaker 1: Don't they know about the work just like you are
Speaker 1: doing the work. If you're doing the work, you don't
Speaker 1: be rude to them. You do what you can in
Speaker 1: this dynamic it's not about them having to have all
Speaker 1: these tools. You have the tools. So often with my clients,
Speaker 1: I talk about the person that you're speaking about. They're
Speaker 1: not in this room. The only person we can work
Speaker 1: with today is you, not your partner, not your kids.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what you can do in the relationship.
Speaker 1: You can organize the date nights. I can't tell your
Speaker 1: partner that because they're not here. I can't tell your
Speaker 1: mother to start calling before she stops by because she's
Speaker 1: not here. I can say to you, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: you want to say this, or what do you do
Speaker 1: when she just comes over and she hasn't caught like
Speaker 1: Those are things that we can work on. We can't
Speaker 1: work on a person who isn't ready to change because
Speaker 1: they just want to be themselves. So the real changes
Speaker 1: you showing up as this force and saying hey, this
Speaker 1: is not Hey, this is not something that I want
Speaker 1: in this relationship. I cannot tolerate this, or hey, can
Speaker 1: you please do this thing? Or can you shift it
Speaker 1: a little bit? You know, for this reason, those are
Speaker 1: the things that we can do to manage our relationships
Speaker 1: with people who do not want to change. Because everybody
Speaker 1: is not interested in change. Yeah, there's a quote I love.
Speaker 1: I don't know who said it, but it says something
Speaker 1: to the effect of, you know, when you realize how
Speaker 1: hard it is to change yourself, you recognize how nearly
Speaker 1: impossible it is to change someone else. Right ourselves is
Speaker 1: a tall order. So let's say your client presents with
Speaker 1: what I just suggested, which is, it just makes me
Speaker 1: mad that my partner is doing X, Y or z.
Speaker 1: It could be smoking. It could be like they just
Speaker 1: won't change their diet and their doctor has told them
Speaker 1: they need to, or let's not even go into problem drinking.
Speaker 1: You know, but it's of a similar thing. What does
Speaker 1: a person do within themselves to become more accepting of that?
Speaker 1: Is that the basic things become more accepting of it.
Speaker 1: You know what I think I could have titled this book,
Speaker 1: You're uncomfortable, and you're trying to make people change to
Speaker 1: deal with your discomfort. When people won't change, it's hard
Speaker 1: to watch them be as they are. If we know
Speaker 1: smoking is better, if we know that this better diet
Speaker 1: will save your life, it's hard to watch them do
Speaker 1: these things. And so what we try to do is
Speaker 1: make them fix our discomfort, stop eating like that so
Speaker 1: I can stop feeling uncomfortable watching you eat. Stop smoking,
Speaker 1: so I can stop feeling uncomfortable about you know, you're
Speaker 1: getting lung cancer. You know, I want to be able
Speaker 1: to live my life, however I want to live it.
Speaker 1: If I want to eat five hundred pieces of candy
Speaker 1: a day, please let me, please, please let me live
Speaker 1: this life that I want to live. This is my choice.
Speaker 1: But we feel like, you know, if it's not good
Speaker 1: for them, we have to stop them from doing it.
Speaker 1: We're not stopping them from doing it. Sometimes we're making
Speaker 1: them want to do it more because they know they're
Speaker 1: already doing something that they shouldn't be doing. Sometimes we're
Speaker 1: getting in the way of their quality of life. You know,
Speaker 1: despite health issues, people may still want to eat poorly
Speaker 1: because they enjoy it. So you're pressuring them to change
Speaker 1: their diet isn't necessarily changing them as much as it's
Speaker 1: adding problems to the relationship the partners. You can change
Speaker 1: is what you cook for the household. You know, so
Speaker 1: they could go out and stop at you know, KFC
Speaker 1: or wherever and eat whatever they want to eat. But
Speaker 1: what are you cooking at home? What are you purchasing
Speaker 1: for them? To buy, what are you eating in front
Speaker 1: of them? Those are the sort of things that you
Speaker 1: can manage. You can't manage what they choose to put
Speaker 1: into their body. Yea, that is an easy thing to
Speaker 1: sort of hear and a very difficult thing to apply,
Speaker 1: to apply and live out for sure. Another thing in
Speaker 1: this managing relationships with people who won't change is you know,
Speaker 1: you say, if you want to maintain relationships with people
Speaker 1: won't change, it's up to you to make change, is right.
Speaker 1: You have to do the work to accept the situations.
Speaker 1: Another thing I think this is really helpful, which is
Speaker 1: like if you're in a difficult relationship and you're not
Speaker 1: ready to go, and I was this way for a
Speaker 1: long time in a marriage that was really bad. I
Speaker 1: just was in this place, but saying to myself, I'm
Speaker 1: choosing to stay in this relationship despite what the relationship is.
Speaker 1: I am not stuck, I'm not powerless, and I am
Speaker 1: making a choice. We have to acknowledge the role we
Speaker 1: play in our own discomfort. We have to acknowledge the
Speaker 1: role we play in our own healthy relationships. We often
Speaker 1: feel like the relationship is put on us to deal
Speaker 1: with when dealing with anything is really a choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not this thing that happens to us, even in
Speaker 1: family relationships, even in marriages. It's like you're making a
Speaker 1: choice daily to be married, You're making a choice daily
Speaker 1: to answer that person's call, You're making a choice to
Speaker 1: go to this event, You're making a choice. You have
Speaker 1: to on your power in these situations. I think those
Speaker 1: choices often feel very constrained though. They feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm making a choice, but I'm choosing between several really
Speaker 1: terrible alternatives here. And it's not like there's a good
Speaker 1: choice on the board. If there was, I would pick
Speaker 1: that one. But I'm choosing between things that seem almost
Speaker 1: equally bad, which I think is why it's so hard
Speaker 1: to get out of a relationship, particularly if you've got children.
Speaker 1: And I mean, there isn't a great choice there. You know,
Speaker 1: the great choice would because I'd roll back the clock
Speaker 1: and you know not have gotten here. But we do
Speaker 1: have the choice, and it often feels like those choices
Speaker 1: are constrained by a series of not good options. For sure,
Speaker 1: think that we stay because we are fixated on other
Speaker 1: possible outcomes and family relationships just because you end a
Speaker 1: relationship with one person doesn't mean that you'll never see
Speaker 1: that person again or you won't hear about them. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: they may still come to the holiday gathering because other
Speaker 1: people have a relationship with them. They might steal come
Speaker 1: up in conversation because other people have a relationship. Other
Speaker 1: people may ask you about this person and where your
Speaker 1: relationship with them is. So there are so many different
Speaker 1: things that you can do that, you know, I think,
Speaker 1: further damage your ability to leave the relationship. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: like the idea that you talked about earlier, which is
Speaker 1: recognizing that we are in a contemplation stage and maybe
Speaker 1: allowing ourselves to be there for myself. When I was
Speaker 1: in that difficult marriage, one of the things that was
Speaker 1: the most painful, and it took me a while to
Speaker 1: realize it, one of them painful things was how bad
Speaker 1: I felt about myself because I couldn't figure this out.
Speaker 1: You know, I felt like I should know what to
Speaker 1: do and I should do it, and it was complicated, right,
Speaker 1: It felt complicated to me. And one of the ways
Speaker 1: that I existed better in there, and maybe I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have existed. I don't even know the answer now what
Speaker 1: I should have done. But one of the things was
Speaker 1: to have some compassion for where I was in the
Speaker 1: process and recognized like that this was an easy choice.
Speaker 1: Made it by now, you know, And I see lots
Speaker 1: of people who are in difficult situations who are very
Speaker 1: hard on themselves because they feel like they should have
Speaker 1: solved it. Yeah, some of these are not easy problems
Speaker 1: to solve. Like you said, there's lots of consequence to action. Yeah.
Speaker 1: With families, I mean, the relationships are so long standing.
Speaker 1: To terminate a relationship you've been in for thirty years,
Speaker 1: or to terminate a relationship with a parent, I think
Speaker 1: it it's such a big deal and it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: taken lightly. You should take your time to figure out
Speaker 1: if this is really what you want to do now.
Speaker 1: There are some instances that will speed up their process,
Speaker 1: like if there's a safety issue, but you know, for
Speaker 1: many other issues, this is sole process. I used to
Speaker 1: work with kids in foster care and they were removed
Speaker 1: from their homes, you know, sometimes for some very severe reasons,
Speaker 1: and most of those kids wanted to go back home.
Speaker 1: They weren't like, you know what, I'm done with my mom.
Speaker 1: She burned me in the bathtub. I never want to
Speaker 1: talk to her again, it's like, when can I see
Speaker 1: my mom? So even them in those you know, horrific situations,
Speaker 1: sometimes there was no idea that I could be without
Speaker 1: this person who has given me life, even if they
Speaker 1: harmed me in a very severe way. So it takes
Speaker 1: many of us some time to get to the point
Speaker 1: of acknowledging that this relationship is more damaging than I
Speaker 1: am able to live with what you just told. That
Speaker 1: story points to how thorny these things are and how
Speaker 1: difficult to sort out for so many of us in
Speaker 1: so many ways. I want to continue down the thread
Speaker 1: a little bit about managing relationships with people who won't change.
Speaker 1: Chapter and you talk about a couple things that might
Speaker 1: be problematic for us, and one is you say our
Speaker 1: beliefs about others' abilities. Say more about what you mean
Speaker 1: by that. Yeah, we expect people to be like us.
Speaker 1: So if we've changed something, we think they should be
Speaker 1: able to change it. And we don't all have the
Speaker 1: same ability to change. We don't all have the same
Speaker 1: desire to change, we don't all have the same capacity
Speaker 1: and support to change, and we have to recognize that
Speaker 1: in others, that their disempowerment is really where they are.
Speaker 1: They are disempowered. Everybody's not empowered enough to make these changes.
Speaker 1: I think about, you know, in families where people are like,
Speaker 1: I'm a cycle breaker. I'm the only person in my
Speaker 1: family who acknowledges you know, the abuse, or only person
Speaker 1: in my family who you know, stands up against this issue,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, it must be herd being really different.
Speaker 1: I'm not shocked that there are tons of people who
Speaker 1: are like, Nope, don't want those problems. You know, most
Speaker 1: people are like, now I'll I'll just stay down here
Speaker 1: and do the thing and we'll be all happy. No
Speaker 1: one wants to deal with the blowback of that. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's not necessarily about like they have the
Speaker 1: information as much as they need to also have the ability,
Speaker 1: the support, and many other things to actually implement some changes.
Speaker 1: A really clear example of that in my life was
Speaker 1: watching my partner Jenny's mom develop Alzheimer's. We were the
Speaker 1: primary caregivers for her, and you know, there was a
Speaker 1: period of time where I felt like, in my mind
Speaker 1: it was like, well, she should be able to do that,
Speaker 1: and then it became clear at a certain point I
Speaker 1: just really realized like, well, hey, how do I know
Speaker 1: she's well, she's capable of right, and the fact that
Speaker 1: she can't do it is probably a pretty good sign
Speaker 1: she can't do it right now. And in that case,
Speaker 1: it was really easy to let go of because it
Speaker 1: was very clear, like, oh, there are tangles forming in
Speaker 1: her brain that are shutting down parts of her brain
Speaker 1: and that no longer works at all. Easy to let
Speaker 1: go and go, well, that's her ability, right. It's a
Speaker 1: lot harder to see that with other people. But when
Speaker 1: we realize that there are so many countless causes and
Speaker 1: conditions that make anybody who they are, and we don't
Speaker 1: know even a fraction of those. Usually we don't know
Speaker 1: the story of everyone in our lives, even if we
Speaker 1: spent every day with them. You know, we often think, oh,
Speaker 1: I know everything about my mom. I don't. I wasn't
Speaker 1: with her during her childhood. I have no clue what happened. Yep,
Speaker 1: you know, so I can only guess some of the
Speaker 1: things that I know. I don't know every experience that
Speaker 1: my partner has had. I only know the ones that
Speaker 1: they've mentioned to me. And now there may be others
Speaker 1: that shapes who they are and makes them think a
Speaker 1: certain way about their abilities. We have to be very
Speaker 1: careful to not project who we are and what we're
Speaker 1: capable of onto other people. Yeah, because even in that
Speaker 1: case of like, okay, I know about my partner's past,
Speaker 1: they've told me everything, there are things that affect us
Speaker 1: that we don't even know about, right, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are countless things that have happened to me
Speaker 1: that shaped me or moved me or in some direction
Speaker 1: that I couldn't tell you they did. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm the way I am. There
Speaker 1: are some big things I can point to, but I
Speaker 1: think we're always shaped by so many factors, and we're
Speaker 1: shaped in different ways. Yeah. Yeah. The next line that
Speaker 1: you say in this chapter about you know, managing relationships
Speaker 1: with people who won't change, is that expectations are healthy,
Speaker 1: but they should be based on the individual, not their
Speaker 1: role in your life. Say more about their abilities versus
Speaker 1: their role. All people are not all things. There are times,
Speaker 1: particularly with parents, where our expectation is that they're nurturing,
Speaker 1: their loving, their supportive, their kind, They're this, They're that
Speaker 1: your mother is not nurturing. You could want that to
Speaker 1: be an idea of a mother, perhaps on TV, perhaps
Speaker 1: in other people's lives, but you have to look at
Speaker 1: the person you're talking about. Does this person as your
Speaker 1: mother their role of mother, do they exhibit those qualities?
Speaker 1: And often it's a no. So you can want someone
Speaker 1: to be something and that's you know, that's fine, but
Speaker 1: to try to make them that way, particularly after you're
Speaker 1: an adult and they've done all of this parenting and
Speaker 1: they're continuing to be themselves, is quite challenging to you
Speaker 1: request or require that from a person. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the healthiest for your relationship to say, you know, my
Speaker 1: siblings should be like this, or my grandparents should be
Speaker 1: you know, this particular way because this is what grandparents do.
Speaker 1: It's like, what in particular are your grandparents doing, because
Speaker 1: that's what they're capable of. What in particular are your
Speaker 1: parents doing, that's what they're capable of. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about people on TV. We're not talking about things you
Speaker 1: read in books. We're talking about the reality of your
Speaker 1: particular situation. Yeah, that line, you should do this because
Speaker 1: of like you said, your role. You know, that's what
Speaker 1: a sister should do, that's what a partner should do.
Speaker 1: That can cause a lot of suffering in a hurry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. I think it's a way that we continue
Speaker 1: to harm ourselves by holding people to their role and
Speaker 1: not to you know, who they actually are. And it's hard,
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to accept that a person isn't
Speaker 1: what you need, and many of us will try to keep,
Speaker 1: you know, looking for signs of that, was that the
Speaker 1: thing I needed? It's like, nope, that's not it again,
Speaker 1: because some people just don't have certain qualities in them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had a good laugh reading your part about going
Speaker 1: card shopping and how like we go card shopping and
Speaker 1: the cards are just so positive. That most of our
Speaker 1: relationships are not that clear cut, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: maybe some good things, there's some bad things, and then
Speaker 1: that cards don't show any of that nuance. And I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of funny to imagine writing cards that
Speaker 1: would be, you know, a dysfunctional family card line. I
Speaker 1: think I think I may have just found the job
Speaker 1: for my partner in this show, Chris, who's the editor.
Speaker 1: He may be uniquely suited to do that. Given a
Speaker 1: sense of humor. It does bring up feelings of Okay,
Speaker 1: it's Mother's Day, you know, these sort of holidays I think,
Speaker 1: and Mother's Day and things like that can really be
Speaker 1: difficult for people because we do have to acknowledge on
Speaker 1: some level when it's happening that our relationships aren't what
Speaker 1: we wish they were. Yeah, and I've seen people pretend
Speaker 1: on social media. You know, I'll know their personal situation,
Speaker 1: but on social media on Mother's Day or Father's Day,
Speaker 1: they have this heartfelt for the father who gave me
Speaker 1: everything I ever needed. Who was you know, they write
Speaker 1: the card on social media and I'm like, you just
Speaker 1: reconnected with this guy two years ago? What are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know? So there is this internal pressure, you know,
Speaker 1: for us to fit inside of the card, and sometimes
Speaker 1: what we really need is to, you know, maybe go
Speaker 1: to the card section where the card is super basic
Speaker 1: that just says Happy Father's Day, Happy Birthday. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't we don't like those cards. We like the
Speaker 1: ones with the beautiful messaging, but you know, we just
Speaker 1: need to congratulate them on the day. We may not
Speaker 1: need to speak to the quality of the relationship because
Speaker 1: what we're saying in the card is not necessarily true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were just discussing our upcoming spiritual Habits program. Although
Speaker 1: by the time listeners here this. It may not be
Speaker 1: upcoming anymore. I don't know. Anyway. It happens every Sunday,
Speaker 1: and we were looking at one of the Sundays was
Speaker 1: Mother's Day and we're like, should we have the pro
Speaker 1: grandma Mother's Day or not? Easter felt like, well, Easter's
Speaker 1: a pretty major holiday, will skip Easter Mother's Day. The
Speaker 1: debate was interesting because on one hand, we were like, well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who are gonna want to
Speaker 1: spend time with their family. Mothers are gonna want to
Speaker 1: be with their children. You know, people might want to
Speaker 1: be with their mother. And then we went, well, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people too who Mother's Day is a
Speaker 1: difficult day for you know, my partner, you know Mother's Day,
Speaker 1: her mom has just passed. Other people, I know Mother's
Speaker 1: Day is difficult because they don't have a good relationship
Speaker 1: with their mother or with their children. And so it
Speaker 1: was just interesting to have this debate about how this
Speaker 1: day is not the same for everyone. Yeah, it's really not,
Speaker 1: and we need to be sensitive to that. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe there's another card line to people who lost their mothers,
Speaker 1: who are grieving that loss. You know, maybe they need
Speaker 1: a card, because that is a real thing that this
Speaker 1: day doesn't have the same meaning to all of us
Speaker 1: like many holidays, you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, you know, all
Speaker 1: of those holidays. Some people, you know, they're men, memories
Speaker 1: of holidays are terrible. It's like, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the time of year when you know, this horrible thing
Speaker 1: happened to us, or this is a time of year
Speaker 1: when my grandmother died, or this is you know. So
Speaker 1: it's not like this day or this experience is happy
Speaker 1: for everyone, and so we do have to be sensitive
Speaker 1: to people who maybe have some family issues. This is
Speaker 1: the day I have to spend with a bunch of
Speaker 1: people that I barely know and pretend that we are
Speaker 1: really close, I mean, on a more benign way. I
Speaker 1: think that's a lot of people's experience. You know. It's like,
Speaker 1: why am I with these people that I only see
Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving? And I don't even particularly necessarily want to,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I should. So here we all are,
Speaker 1: and and everybody feels uncomfortable. I wouldn't know anybody like that,
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm throwing out there, throwing out yeah,
Speaker 1: things I've heard about, things I've heard about. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: talk about an Instagram post that you had recently that
Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting, which was ways to end
Speaker 1: a circular conversation. So first, what is a circular conversation.
Speaker 1: A circular conversation is one that just goes back and forth.
Speaker 1: There is no end. You say something, they say something,
Speaker 1: they say something, You say something, and you keep going
Speaker 1: round and round. And sometimes we are doing that because
Speaker 1: we want to convince the person of a thing. We
Speaker 1: want to get them to agree with us or think
Speaker 1: like us, because we think that that is the true
Speaker 1: way to change their behavior. When an actuality, people can
Speaker 1: change their behavior without being convinced or agreeing to what
Speaker 1: you say. We you know, spent eighteen years as children.
Speaker 1: I certainly did a lot of things that I didn't
Speaker 1: understand or respect. You know, it was like stand over here, Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I wasn't like, why convince me to stand here? It's like, no,
Speaker 1: we often do things that people ask or request, So
Speaker 1: in circular conversations, we're just really just you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like paying tennis. We're just going back and forth,
Speaker 1: back and forth, back and forth, and not everything has
Speaker 1: a resolution. Yeah, and often these circular conversations are not
Speaker 1: only circular. They repeat themselves over and over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. It's like the circular conversation that just
Speaker 1: keeps happening every two weeks. You know, it's a circle
Speaker 1: within a circle, I guess. So what are ways of
Speaker 1: ending circular conversations that are constructive? Agree to disagree? Now,
Speaker 1: you can get really creative with your agreeing to disagree.
Speaker 1: You know, I've heard your position. It doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: you know, um, we agree on this. Let's just tap
Speaker 1: out for now, or you know, thank you for your perspective.
Speaker 1: Mind is different and I'd like to revisit this in
Speaker 1: the future. Or I'm right you're wrong. Interesting, I'm right
Speaker 1: you're wrong. Let's right you're wrong, and let's move on.
Speaker 1: Go on. You know, there are so many ways to
Speaker 1: get out of that conversation without continuing to be on
Speaker 1: the wheel of I have to convince them. It's like
Speaker 1: you know or not. You know, I've heard adults argue
Speaker 1: over really interesting things, like this person it is a
Speaker 1: better singer. It's like singing as a preference, Like you
Speaker 1: don't have to have this conversation with a person like okay,
Speaker 1: great snice, you think that moving on? I disagree this
Speaker 1: is an old drunken argument. But and it's stupid, but
Speaker 1: it just came to mind when you said it, which
Speaker 1: was I was getting me and my partner at the time.
Speaker 1: We're arguing about whether the white stripes or the strokes
Speaker 1: were better, and it was actually getting heated, and you know,
Speaker 1: I look back on them. That is just preposterous, Like
Speaker 1: there is no better in this sort of situation, right,
Speaker 1: there's just preference. But I was young and didn't apparently
Speaker 1: fully recognize that in my drunken state. But you're right,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of conversations that really are that way.
Speaker 1: It's like, but there isn't a right answer here. There's
Speaker 1: just your preference and my preference, and preferences can be
Speaker 1: respected without being you know, agreed upon. Okay, So that's
Speaker 1: one way agreeing to disagree. What are some other ways
Speaker 1: of getting out of a circular conversation. I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about this anymore, you know, so not even saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I agree to disagree, but I'm out of here. I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about this anymore. You know, this
Speaker 1: conversation is starting to get heated, or you know, this
Speaker 1: conversation is moving in a direction that I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: want to go, so I will tap out. So let
Speaker 1: me ask a question about that. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: a little bit of gender stereotyping here, which is a
Speaker 1: dangerous thing to do, but I'm gonna wade into it
Speaker 1: for a second, okay, And I'm just going to say
Speaker 1: that that is a complaint that many women have about
Speaker 1: the men in their life, and let's do away with gender.
Speaker 1: One person is saying, I bring up this thing that
Speaker 1: matters to me, and you always say I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about it, so we never really get the
Speaker 1: chance to talk about it. So maybe that's not a
Speaker 1: circular conversation. That's something else. Yeah, I would say there
Speaker 1: is a continuation of back and forth in a circular conversation.
Speaker 1: If you never want to talk about anything that is
Speaker 1: problematic because you've never talked about it, so do not
Speaker 1: want to talk about it, is interesting you're just shutting down.
Speaker 1: But if you're having the conversation with someone like I've
Speaker 1: noticed sometimes, you know, in disputes, it's like my point,
Speaker 1: your point, counterpoint, counterpoint, this point, and another example and
Speaker 1: another example. It's like we have five examples, we have
Speaker 1: two counterpoints. When will we say okay, got it, thank
Speaker 1: you for all of this information. I'll take it back
Speaker 1: to the team. That was enough. I think I know
Speaker 1: exactly what you're needing in this moment. So it's not
Speaker 1: saying I don't want to talk about it, but it's
Speaker 1: like we've talked through it. Because sometimes we think that
Speaker 1: arguing for a long time makes a conversation more productive
Speaker 1: when there are things we could say in a shorter
Speaker 1: window of time that would be more productive than arguing
Speaker 1: for four hours. A four hour conversation is guaranteed circular. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I sometimes think one of the worst pieces of marital
Speaker 1: advice I've ever heard was never go to bed angry,
Speaker 1: you know, because what that ends up causing is lots
Speaker 1: of circular conversations well into the night when both people
Speaker 1: are way too tired to be having a useful conversation
Speaker 1: about anything. Yeah, you know, I think it's one of
Speaker 1: these things we have to learn how to communicate with
Speaker 1: other people. And just because you communicate well in one
Speaker 1: relationship doesn't mean that those same communication skills work in
Speaker 1: other relationships. So it's not just about you know, you
Speaker 1: leaving the interaction, it's about the other person knowing when
Speaker 1: to stand down. You know, it's like how long should
Speaker 1: we argue about something? And those are conversations you can have,
Speaker 1: particularly in a partnership. In a marriage, you would want
Speaker 1: to have that conversation, like what are healthy arguing skills?
Speaker 1: What are the things we shouldn't do? I remember when
Speaker 1: I started dating my husband, we were like no arguing
Speaker 1: via text or when we're out with our friends, Like
Speaker 1: you can't call and be like hey, like those are
Speaker 1: just not good time. So how do you say, you know,
Speaker 1: like after thirty minutes, we need to take a break.
Speaker 1: We have to set some parameters around how we talk
Speaker 1: to each other relationships. I think that's a great point.
Speaker 1: We had a guest recently. I can't remember who said it,
Speaker 1: but they said, when there's communication problems or something's not working,
Speaker 1: it's always good to try and talk about the way
Speaker 1: we talk about things, Like here's how we and now
Speaker 1: we're on the same team, are going to talk about
Speaker 1: these things. You can't implement that rule in the middle
Speaker 1: of an argument usually, but outside of that, to agree
Speaker 1: to some guidelines can be really really helpful. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it really sets the stage for future communication because sometimes
Speaker 1: we get it wrong, you know, like sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: in a conversation, I'll say something in the wrong way
Speaker 1: the intel nation is off. But when you talk about
Speaker 1: how you talk and disagreements, you can correct that in
Speaker 1: future interactions, like Wow, I didn't notice that I was yelling,
Speaker 1: but you know, in the future, I could be more
Speaker 1: mindful of my tiel. So that's really helpful in our
Speaker 1: relationships to talk about the way in which we communicate. Well, Nedra,
Speaker 1: that is a great place for us to wrap up.
Speaker 1: I always love talking with you. I think we have
Speaker 1: great conversations. Your new book is wonderful again. It is
Speaker 1: called Drama Free, a Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships.
Speaker 1: And we'll have links in our show notes to where
Speaker 1: people can get access to the book and all this
Speaker 1: stuff that you do. So thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on. You're welcome. Thank you for having me again.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
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