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Family of Origin: Navigating Difficult Family Dynamics in Adulthood
01:07:02
In this episode of You Make Sense, Sarah dives into the complex layers of family dynamics, personal boundaries, and healing from past experiences. You'll learn how the dynamics within your family of origin created the roles you had to play, how those roles shape your adult relationships, and how to begin breaking free from those roles to step into your most fully-expressed self. Through personal insights and therapeutic wisdom, Sarah discusses why our family of origin often triggers or activates us the most—and why we often see our caregivers as an extension of ourselves. If you’ve ever dreaded going home or struggle to set boundaries with your family, this episode will equip you with the somatic tools necessary to release the pain of the past and move forward with more ease.
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Sarah
Hi, I'm Sarah, and welcome to youo Makesense. I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner, an expert on trauma resolution, attachment parts work, and nervous system regulation. This podcast is a manual to understanding your human experience so that you can navigate the world with freedom, ease, empowerment, and create the life that you desire. Remember, you make sense all parts always. So, something I get asked a lot is how do I navigate being with my family of origin when there's so much complexity to the dynamic. Dynamic. So for some of us, we might, you know, have a lot of great things that we love about our parents or our siblings or, you know, our extended family. And yet it's complex because there's also things that drive us crazy or that poke at old wounds, and it can feel really challenging and sometimes even impossible to be connected with them or be in space with them. And you might notice really familiar patterns happening over and over. So I want to talk about what's going on inside of these dynamics and then equip you with some tools that you can begin, begin embodying that will help you to step into these relational dynamics in a way that's filled with a lot greater ease and can also provide a lot of healing for you and for the relationship, too. So whenever it comes to the holidays, whatever time of year, you know, holiday is happening, there's a lot of people who make jokes and talk about, like, oh, family, you know, like, I love them, but I hate them, or it's challenging to be with them, but I, you know, they're also so close to me. And then some others who have a lot of deep wounds with their family, and there's a deep desire and longing to be in connection, met with this feeling of, like, ah, it's not safe. So I want to explain why it's so challenging a lot of the times to be with our family of origin. This is one of the places where our younger parts show up the most. And that's because the way our nervous system works is it's always looking for, what does this remind me of? What does this remind me of? That's kind of the MO or the way that our nervous systems operate. And so when you're with your family of origin, you're going to be reminded of your entire history of being with them, particularly your earliest childhood experiences with them, because that laid the blueprint for how everyone operates within the family system and the role that you had when you were in your early life, the things that you needed to do, the things that they were doing, that all made this Family system function. So you know, in our adult lives you might notice that you feel really capable and able like your adult self. As you're parenting your kids or you're running your company or you're with your partner and your friends. You feel like, you know, I've got this, I'm me. And then all of a sudden you go back to be with your, your family and you notice that you regress in a way and it, it's almost like it feels like I'm a child and my parents have all of the power or the control and, and that can be a really confusing experience. The reason this is happening though is because our nervous system is saying, oh, this reminds me of, you know, 40 years ago. And it's kind of like we travel time back to being that 8 year old, that 10 year old. I just said it's kind of like it actually is what's happening. We're traveling back in time and I am embodying that younger version of me. And so not only am I perhaps feeling the same kind of powerlessness that I felt as a child, but I'm feeling the same woundings that I felt as a child of maybe, maybe I was invisible, I was never taken seriously, my needs weren't met and now I'm re experiencing all of those same things. And if my caregivers haven't done any of their own healing work or their own self discovery work, then they're likely going to be doing the same exact things they did with me when I was young. So it's like we have these old wounds that are not yet fully resolved. And it's as if the dynamic in our caregivers, in what they're doing, doing are poking at that wound which just really exacerbates it. And a lot of the time what happens when we come into, you know, as an adult, come into being with our, with our parents or our family of origin, is that we can be looking for them to be the perfect parent to our younger parts, which they weren't able to do in the first place. So we're really setting both them up for failing, but we're also setting ourselves up for failing and being let down. And if we aren't the primary parent yet to our own parts, like those younger parts of ourselves, then the younger parts are going to consistently and chronically be looking for others to be that perfect parent. This happens, by the way, a lot of times in romantic relationships. This certainly happened to me where my parts were looking for whomever it was I was in romantic relationship to be that perfect parent. And that sets both of us up for failure, because nobody can be that perfect parent. And certainly when we go back into being in our family of origin, those younger parts are still holding out hope for the impossible right for our parents to somehow be this perfect version of a human being. And it's, of course, only exacerbated, as I named, if our parents haven't done any work at all. It's like the re traumatization or the re experiencing of all of those things over and over again. And I just want to give some examples of what that might look like and how it might show up as we go back into being in contact with. With our caregivers. So let's say that you have a father who loves you deeply. And when you're in distress, his way of trying to remediate that distress, because it's overwhelming for him to feel the somatic response in his own body of one of the people he loves the most hurting, his reflex is to want to fix it or fix you. So he immediately goes to problem solving. And what you needed was attunement, meaning you needed him to deeply feel with you what you were experiencing and hold space for it and acknowledge it and validate it. And that was something that was beyond his capacity. Perhaps he didn't experience emotional intimacy when he was young, so the idea of stepping into emotional intimacy is just too overwhelming. So he goes to fixing, and that leads to chronic feelings of not being seen and misunderstood. And so then in your adult life, when you are visiting your family on the weekend and you're talking about something stressful happening that's really overwhelming with one of your kids, he just goes into problem solving mode again, just like he did in your childhood. And he's not able to feel the affect of what you're feeling. So you're feeling, you know, afraid. And instead of you noticing a softening with him and him feeling it with you, there's like a disconnect or a hardening that you feel with him. Like he's just not feeling it and he's just going into practicality and sometimes may even become agitated if you don't go into problem solving mode with him. And so here's the thing. What happens is we get back into our family dynamic. And even though your father for, you know, 40 years has done the same thing over and over, if I am not the primary parent to my parts, then I'm gonna want him to do the thing he has yet to do. And so I'm setting myself up for that. That deeper wounding and failure again by going to him in a way that he doesn't have the capacity to meet. And by the way, this doesn't make it okay, of course, but it's acknowledging what is. And then we're going to talk about what we need to do after we acknowledge what is actually occurring. So another example of this is maybe you had a mother whom she just did a lot of things for you. She struggled with intimacy, and she wasn't able to deeply connect with you in a vulnerable way, because nobody connected with her, which is kind of similar to the flavoring of the example with the dad that I gave. But she was, you know, at every event, she cooked you cookies and brownies and all the things. And when you were sad, she. She bought you some clothes or took you shopping, and that was her way of trying to fix your emotional landscape by doing. And so what that left you with was chronically feeling not fully seen and not having your needs met. And perhaps what occurred was maybe when you were young or a teenager, you got angry or you complained like, you're not meeting my. And then your mother got wounded and said, what do you mean? I do everything for you? And we're in this patterning of. Then I feel guilty, and we go round and round and round and round. Well, then what occurs? You come over your family's home and you're talking about something that feels scary, maybe something inside your romantic relationship that's happening that feels scary. And your mom walks out of the room, and she comes back in the room with some food for you, and you're like, I was just talking to you. Where did you go? And then she said, well, honey, you hadn't eaten, and I wanted to get you something to eat. I was trying to help you. And then I'm frustrated because I'm like, I was literally talking to you about something that. That feels really sensitive. And you left. And she said, I. I left because I was trying to help you. And you see, we are in the same dynamic again, where I am feeling the same kind of wounding, and I am going to her expecting her to meet a need that she has historically never been able to meet. And what we're doing in both of these situations is we're really, like, putting our younger parts back into situations that we can almost guarantee aren't going to provide them with the safety and the meeting of needs that they have. And just like for your own child, you wouldn't do that, right? You would want to protect them. From that kind of experience, part of our work is really learning how to do that for our own parts. I just want to give another example of what this might look like. So let's say that you have a hyper critical parent. So that your parent is always pointing out like something you might be able to do better. So maybe it's, you know, you've started to exercise a lot more and have a lot more health in your body and your parent is saying like, I don't know, do you think that you're actually, you know, walking enough or running enough? Maybe you need to do a little more. Because I read this thing that you actually need to do more than you're doing. And it's again that that hypercritical nature of as I am is not enough. And what we want is someone acknowledging like, wow, I'm making these really big changes in my life. Or I talk about the fact that I, you know, I'm paid off another part of my mortgage and I'm really excited about it. And then they go to yeah, but you know, it's a really good idea to pay off even further because your monthly net is so high and that really makes it challenging. And da da da da da da. And so all of these examples, or both examples I gave are sending the message as you are is not enough. Even when you are doing all of these things that are really wonderful for yourself or in your life, you are still, still deficient in some way. And if I name that right, likely the pattern could have been then the caregiver says, well I, I'm just, it's cause I love you, I'm just trying to help you. And, and you know, and, and I don't want you to be so stressed out. And so they get defensive and then I get more wounded and we go round and round and round. And for many of us, we find ourselves in these habituated dynamics where what is really going on is we are asking them to do shown us consistently that they cannot do or will not do. Maybe that's a better way of saying it because it doesn't let them off the hook. Right. You know, once we become adults, it is our responsibility to heal our own wounds from the past and not project them onto the family that we create of our own. But unfortunately most people either didn't have certainly of my, if you're my age or older, your parents didn't have a lot of access or perhaps the desire to actually do that work because it takes a lot of courage to do this work. So they Avoid it and instead perpetuate the same kind of cycling over and over again. So really want a name here again. It doesn't let them off the hook. And at the same time, we really want to be tending ourselves and getting those needs met from people, which includes ourselves, whom actually have the capacity to do it. The more we look for our parents to be what they cannot be, the more we are ingraining even deeper the old wounding that we have. And also so the more that it fractures the relationship and meaning that we're not able to take in the ways that they are trying to love us or are loving us, that all we we can feel and experience is the wounding. So I want to talk about the solution. And you know, the thing that I, that I really like focusing on in these episodes is not just what's happening, but what do we actually do about it. I feel like we're in a time in the world where we have so much information and knowledge, but knowledge without action doesn't create change in our lives. So let's talk about some solutions we can focus on. Number one, the most important thing is that we begin becoming the primary parent to our younger parts. This isn't only important in navigating being with your family. This is vital if you're wanting health in your romantic relationship or relationship and in friendships too. So that means that I have the agency and the power and the ability to give these parts what they never got. And so healing work is really empowering work. In order to do this, we have to differentiate between our adult selves and our younger selves. And a simple way to do that in terms of family systems is think about an experience in your life or a dynamic where you feel like adult you. And that might be for some people, that's like, in my work, I feel like my adult self. Or in my parenting, I mostly feel like adult me. Or with friends, I feel like adult me. In nature, I feel like adult me. You get the idea. And then I just want you to think about for a moment, when I'm with my family of origin, do I feel like that version of me? The answer may be no. If you're resonating with some of the things I'm saying, means likely the answer is going to be no. And I just want you to ask yourself, well, if I'm not adult me, who am I in those experiences? Experiences? How old do I feel? When's the first memory I have of experiencing this? Do I feel big or small? All of that will cue you into or clue you into who's actually present in your embodied, embodied experience when you're with them. And the only way that you can actually reparent your parts is by separating from them, because or otherwise, if you're too identified with that young part, how could you possibly come to their aid if you think that you are them? So we want to do that differentiation process, get clued into who that part is, and then the work is, how do I meet the need that my caregivers could not? So in all of the examples that I gave, right, those were unmet needs that were chronically being experienced. So what I want you to do is really get clued into with each of my caregivers, what is the wounding and what is the unmet need. And so we connect with that part of ourselves who first felt it. And I want you to attune with them, connect with their experience, validate them in the way that they were never validated. By the way, only you can know what it's like to be that younger self. When I'm working with people in programs that I have, one of the prompts that I have them use as they first meet their young parts is. It's two simple words. I know because more than anybody in the. In the entire universe, you know exactly what it's like to be that part. And that's the highest level of attunement we could ever experience is with those parts of ourselves. So the more that you do that attune with them, the more that you meet the need that your caregivers could not, the more that you become the primary parent to the part. And that means that that part no longer will look to your caregivers or your partner or someone else to rescue them. They now look to you. And the more that you do this, the more that it heals the past. So we actually give ourselves the childhood experience we never got. So all the ways that your parents weren't able to do the things that you needed, you can go back in time and make those different. And the result of that is it actually starts to heal that wound. So no longer is it a gaping wound, but it becomes this, like, beautiful scar. And so that means that when my caregivers are, you know, we can pretty much guarantee unless they're doing their own work, they're going to keep doing the same thing, that it's not poking at this gaping wound anymore. It doesn't feel the same way. Why? Because I am actually getting that need met from myself. And the other thing is, this is what allows you to love them from where they are or for who they are. Because I'm no longer looking for them to be what they cannot be. And I can see them more clearly too. So for example, if you have that, you know, that parent whom doesn't really know how to do intimacy with you. So when you are looking for like really deep intimacy with them, they go, you know, do something for you. Because that's the, that's the only way they know how to show you love. If you parent these younger parts and you are giving them the intimacy they never got, then when you're with your caregiver, you're going to approach being with them from a really different place that's much more boundaried. So as the parent to my younger parts, I'm going to say, you know what? I don't want to set you up my younger self for being hurt again because I know she's not going to be able to meet your need. So I am not going to look for her to give us that kind of intimacy. I'm going to give that intimacy to myself and then bring other people in my life, you know, my chosen family, which we're going to get to in a minute in my community, who can do that for me. So when I'm around my mom or my dad or my parent and they say, you know, so how are things going? Instead of me totally exposing myself, I might just give them a headline or a bullet point of things like, yeah, work has been pretty stressful, but you know, I'm figuring it out. So you can see there, I'm boundaried. That's adult me communicating to them, you know, what's going on. But not from a place where I am looking for them to do what they can't do. And then your parent might say, oh, I'm sorry things are so hard right now. Do you want something to drink? Right. They're going to do the same thing they always do, which is love you by doing. And from this place of our adult selves, here's what starts to happen. Because the wound is not being poked at. I can actually take in their limitations in the ways in which they are loving me to. To the best degree that they can. So when your caregiver goes and tries to do those things for you and she like, or he or they fold all your laundry while you're over for the holidays and they again, haven't deeply connected with you at all. Cause they don't have the ability to do that. But they walk out of the room. And then they come back with your folded laundry and they're like, here you go, honey. I can take that in. As they love me so much and it's so overwhelming in their system to have to be with intimacy or my pain that they. They have to go do something for me. Me as a way to show love. And I know that they love me and they're doing this because they love me. Again, this doesn't let them off the hook, but it allows us to actually see with a clear lens what's really going on. And it's what allows me to be appropriately boundaried when I'm around them. So I'm not consistently having my younger parts having to re. Experience what they experienced in the past. And the same goes with, like, the. The example of that dad who's a fixer that I not looking for him to do the thing he can't do. I have maybe a partner who does that for me or a friend who does that for me. So when he says, how is everything going? I from a boundary place say, oh, you know, dad, it's, you know, things are a lot. I feel kind of stressed about finances, but I'm figuring it out. And he goes, well, you know, I want you to watch this video. It really talks about financial planning and da da, da, da da. That I know that that's his way of loving me, and that is his limitation and his capacity. And so when we have the caveat to this is all the examples I'm giving right now, or when we have safe, loving parents, this is the type of dynamic that we can come into. I do want to say, if you have. You come from a family of origin like myself, that was dangerous for you. It's a really different situation. So for me, with my, you know, my mother, my stepfather, and some of my siblings, I don't have any contact with them because. Because specifically my parents are very unsafe people. My stepfather's obviously not a parent of mine, but not safe for me to be in contact with. And so that might be true for some of you that as you are embodying some of these things that I'm naming, it might become clear to you I need to have more of a boundary than just, I don't talk about this with my caregiver. It might be that I have to have limited contact with them. And really it's. What does my young partner need to feel safe? And then what does adult mean? Need to feel good. Both of those are really important for us to check out. And then from that place, we set the embodied boundary. So for some of us that might look like, you know, I only talk to them on the phone for, you know, once a week or every two weeks or once a month or once the conversation goes in this direction, I say, hey, I sorry, I gotta go, got this thing happening. So I begin to set boundaries that are tolerable for me and allow me to, to take care of my younger self, but also to feel good as adult me. Or perhaps it's when I go to their house, I only stay for this amount of time, or when I travel to visit them, I get my own place and I don't stay at their home or these topics are off the table and I don't talk about them with them. So the more that we are able to come into our adult self, the more we can discern what kind of boundary we need to set within them. So another thing that's really important for us to begin stepping towards in terms of navigating our family dynamics is accessing something called healthy aggression. This is a term coined by Peter Levine. And healthy aggression is simply our life force energy. So it's our ability to experience incredible joy and awe. Oftentimes he'll say, it's like, this is kind of a weird example because I don't know if everyone feels this way about an apple, but seeing like a piece of fruit that looks so delicious and then taking a bite out of it, that's healthy aggression. So I am going towards this thing. Healthy aggression is also our ability to protect ourselves. So, you know, let's say that I'm interrupted by someone as I'm telling a story, you know, maybe your partner, and you say, wait, I didn't finish talking about that thing yet. That's accessing healthy aggression. So healthy aggression always matches is the circumstance. So as you can see there in my voice, I wasn't yelling or screaming or feeling overly frustrated. I just was making sure that I got my need met. So it's appropriate to the response to the, to the situation. So when it comes to our experiences in childhood, much of the time healthy aggression was not an emotion that was safe or acceptable for us to experience, meaning our ability to protect ourselves. So if I felt angry that my dad, to go back to those examples, was not really seeing me, it might not have been safe to say, I do not need you to fix it. I just need you to hear me. If I did that, he may have gotten more angry than me and that may have felt scary or overwhelming to my nervous system. So I learned to inhibit it and I don't say anything. The same goes with the other examples that I gave of a critical parent or a mom that's constantly doing for me. And for some of us, if we experienced, you know, abuse like I did, most certainly accessing appropriate healthy aggression, like defending myself or fighting back or getting away, would not have been a safe thing to do. So we inhibit it. So a part of healing and accepting our caregivers for who they are is accessing the appropriate healthy aggression to what occurred. And that means that as you're, you know, as you're connecting with these younger parts and connecting into perhaps some of the, the, the healthy aggression they have, even the rage they might feel, we want to be able to begin building our capacity to feel that in our bodies and then process it out of our bodies so we can move, use sound to process healthy aggression. Movement things like exercise can help move healthy aggression. Pushing something, so moving something away from ourselves and working with a somatic practitioner can really, really help us to do that as well. So we need to access all of that so system can feel and experience. I was actually able to defend myself. I was actually able to name what is occurring. And by the way, this is the only way that we can actually forgive someone. And in terms of our caregivers, that's the only way that you're going to be able to forgive them is by accessing this appropriate healthy aggression to what they did or did not do. And the beautiful thing is you never have to do that work with them. You don't even necessarily have to have the conversation with them about it. This is a work we can do all with ourselves and in our therapeutic dynamics or therapeutic containers rather. And so the more that you do that, then I can see and accept them for who they are. And you get to decide, by the way, if you want to forgive, you never have to forgive. I certainly don't forgive the people that harmed me, but I have energetically disconnected from them. And that's what accessing healthy aggression can do. Like, I now become in many ways indifferent. And that's the result of what healing work can do. And if you have loving parents who you want to have closeness with and you notice, like I snap at them, I get agitated with them, that those are all clues that there, there is suppressed healthy aggression. So the more that you process it, the more that you're actually able to love them deeply. And I work with a lot of people who had loving caregivers who did their best, so they feel guilty Sometimes accessing this healthy aggression. And I just want to remind you, you know, no one taught your parents how to parent. This does not negate all the good things that they did. And it's also what's going to allow you to show up really differently with them so that frustration and agitation is no longer there. And so that that frustration and agitation is also not being projected into your romantic relationships. That happens a lot when it's suppressed. We're now finding ourselves getting agitated at our partner because they're safer for our nervous system. And we're projecting all of that stuff onto them. So the more that we do this, the more that it not only changes the relationship with your family, but also with your, your chosen family, your significant other, and your friends too. And then the last thing that I want to say is it's so important that we begin leaning into finding our chosen family in our lives. You know, I think very few people are born into a family system that we feel fully gotten by. Like, like, yeah, these are my people, fully and completely. And there may be things about your family of origin that feel really, you know, connecting and you feel like, oh, they get me in this area, but there's all these other areas where they just don't get me. And that's not their fault or my fault. We just are different people. Just because you share the same DNA does not mean that you're similar sometimes at all. And so as we heal, the beautiful thing is we get to draw in people whom help to meet the need that our caregivers could not and still cannot meet. Just like we are being doing that for our younger parts as our the primary parent to them, we get to draw in people who also get to do that for us, and we get to do that for them. And then we get to draw in people who see us in the way that our caregivers cannot see us. And we create what, what I call our chosen family. Many people call our chosen family. And that chosen family does not, you know, negate the family of origin that we came from. But when we have both of those things, when we've done the healing inside of our family of origin, all the work that I'm talking about here, so we can love them as they are, so we can heal the wounds from our childhood, so we can be with them in a boundaried way that feels supportive for our younger parts and supportive for us, we actually can have a deeper level of closeness with them. And we can accept that there are parts of me that they might never be able to see because they don't see those parts within themselves because they haven't done their work. And there's also other parts of me that they don't get because we're different people. And I have my chosen family who can meet those needs because those are people who have done the work to see the parts of themselves that they can then see in me. And they're also people who perhaps are more like me in these other ways. And when we have both things, we're really able to thrive in a different way with our family of origin. Hey my friend, are you ready to step into the relationships, purpose and life you're desiring? My 10 week somatic healing program, you Make Sense is now open for enrollment and I want to share some words from a previous participant so you can see exactly what you can expect. All the changes that I have experienced are tangible and permanent and the difference how I feel compared to how we used to, it's just immeasurable. The most impactful parts of the youe Make Sense course were first and foremost the CO regulation with Sarah and the other participants. Here you're connecting with people who understand the kind of experience that you have been living and it is default that you are believed and your truth is honoured. This and so much more is possible for you, my friend. Click below to learn more before doors close on April 9th. So we're going to go into the Q and A portion of this episode and I'm so glad we have Rachel back with us today. Hey Rachel, I think we have some pretty amazing questions today so I'm excited to get into those with you.
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Rachel
We really do and this topic brings so many questions into the community. So yeah, I'm really glad that we're covering this. This first question is how do you process and integrate feeling ashamed of your family? And I also want to say thank you Sarah and Rachel for your teachings and and support.
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Sarah
Well, in our families of origin it's very common that when we come into that family system that we are made to feel like we are an extension of our caregivers. It's really, really common. Instead of coming into that family system when we're born and we're giving the the messaging that as we are is exactly right and of course we belong to this unit, but we are also our own being and they are all their own beings as well. And so because we are often made to feel like we are a extension of them, we then feel like they are an extension of us. And that means that when they are doing Something we feel like it's ourselves doing that thing. And by the way, this will then translate into our adult relationship. So then we get into a romantic partnership and you're at a restaurant with your partner and they keep going on and on to the waiter about how they just really love, love the color of their shirt and how it just complements their earlobes so much and da da da da. And you're like, what are you talking about their earlobes? This is so weird and bizarre and I'm so embarrassed because it feels like I am doing it instead of actually my partner's their own quirky, interesting, amazing, weird person. And it's not me, but we have that internalization of it is me. And so anyway, that's all really rooted in this experience of feeling like we're responsible for our caregivers actions and their experience and that not only are we an extension of them, but they're an extension of us. Another reason why this occurs is because children are self focused and this is really normal and healthy in the developmental process of kids. And eventually we develop deep ability to empathize and so on and so forth. But because of that, inside of a family system, when something occurs and we'll specifically talk about something that's not okay, maybe that's arising, a child makes meaning that it must be about them, so it must be something I'm doing that's causing this instead of, well, perhaps there's something going on inside of my caregiver or parent that is making that happen and maybe it has nothing to do with me. So we internalize it as if it's, if it's us. So for both of these reasons, we might find ourselves, you know, grown up and we are still internalizing what our caregivers are doing. So what's really important here is I think the maybe, perhaps the first step is really want to connect with what part of me is internalizing that experience or feeling shame about them. And it's usually not our most attractive adult self. So if we anchor into our adult self what you can do by simply thinking about a moment where you felt really present here, alive, safe, capable, maybe a spiritual moment, a moment you were in awe. Usually when we do that, we feel really present, clear, anchored, big, open. And from that place, if you were to think about another person that you watched, you know, someone's parent doing the thing that you feel shame around with your own caregiver, you probably experience it through a different lens because there isn't that experience of I'm responsible for their actions or behaviors, or again, I'm an extension of them, or it's my fault. And so I'd really invite you to do that because that will get you clear on how does adult me actually feel about this. And the funny thing is, there's some things that your caregiver is doing that you might even find that you feel shame about that you might find endearing, enduring in another person. Or you'd have a lot of empathy for them and say, oh, yeah, I get why they're doing that. And it's probably because they're in a lot of pain. And of course, that doesn't excuse a behavior, but it helps to make sense of it for us. So, for example, let's say that I had a caregiver whom had debilitating social anxiety. So I brought them with me somewhere, and they just literally didn't talk to anybody. And everybody else is connecting, and my caregiver is just. Just it. They just, like, look comatose. And I feel a lot of shame about that. Like, what's wrong with them? And everyone can see there's something wrong with my caregiver versus if I'm in my adult self. And I thought about someone else's parent having that experience, I would have the opposite response at a dinner. Right? I would. All I would want to do would be to go over and comfort them.
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Rachel
Right?
- [35:58]
Sarah
I'm sure that you would feel that way too, Rachel. Right. We wouldn't have that experience where we're like, oh, my gosh, there's something so wrong with you. And, wow, you're just like, what a terrible person. Or you should be ashamed of yourself. We would have so much compassion and empathy. So that'll actually get you clear on what adult you feels about them or about the experience that they're having and can really help to instill that empathy. Because what occurs when I think about someone who I don't have connection with is. Is there's no internalization going on. So I can really see through a clear lens. And then what we wanna do is connect into, okay, so then what part of me is actually triggered by what my caregiver's doing? And just get a sense of that. You might even think of, like, when's the first time I felt this about my caregiver? That'll clue you into who that part is. And then what I would invite you to do is through that lens of adult, you just see if you can orient towards your caregiver caregiver and really see them as not just as your mom or your dad, but as a person. By the way, it's a really important part of the healing process for us to see that our parents are people. And also that happens as we grow and develop and separate from our caregivers. But therapeutically, it's a really important process. And by the way, sometimes you might become illuminating, like, oh, my gosh, Mom. My caregiver is more in their younger parts than I am. So they're not this projected version of them that I try to. That I am, you know, that I'm projecting on them. They're really struggling and suffering. And again, that doesn't negate unhealthy behavior, but it really helps for me to differentiate from them and then see them really clearly. And usually that helps see them when. With empathic eyes and also a deep understanding of what's happening for them. So even getting curious, like, ooh, how old do they seem when this occurs? Like, what part of them seems like they're present? What is the origin or root of this? The more that we do that, the more it can help really remediate the internalization and the shame that we feel. And I think that to some degree, most people feel this about their caregivers, even if it's something as small as, like, oh, my gosh, when we. We're in public and my. My dad pronounces, you know, that word wrong over and over again and is just so embarrassing that he doesn't know how to pronounce whatever. I don't know, you know, you know what I'm saying? So I think it's something we. We, a lot of us experience. And the more that we can differentiate, the more we can accept them as.
- [38:36]
Rachel
They are, getting space from them and becoming an adult rather than intermeshed and still feeling that child energy.
- [38:44]
Sarah
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah.
- [38:46]
Rachel
So this next question is about boundaries and the pushback that we can get when we set boundaries with our families. And this is a topic that comes up a lot, like, ever such a lot in the communities, people who are still in contact with their family of origin. But it's really difficult and really hard. So, yeah, I didn't grow up learning boundaries in my family of origin. I'm trying to learn how to set them in my mid-50s. But if I don't go along with everything my family of origin wants, I get relentless, angry messages from them. And I'm terrified of that conflict. Scares me. What are your thoughts on this?
- [39:22]
Sarah
So we all have an innate ability to set boundaries and it's not something that we actually have to, you know, learn per se. It's something that we have to first build enough safety inside of our own systems to be able to come back into. Because boundaries, embodied boundaries, can only be set when we feel safe life. And a boundary is informed by my internal limits and my internal truth. And you know, think about this like in nature. If I was to ask a chimpanzee who set a boundary and they were, maybe they were being groomed by, you know, their, their sibling and they pushed them away, like that's enough, I want some space. If I was to, you know, inquire with this chimpanzee, like how did you know that you needed space? And it was, was it because like, you know, 50% of the time you need space versus being connection. This chimpanzee would be so confused. They'd be like, what is wrong with you that you don't just know what you need and then you do the thing that you need. And if you ask a child whom has had enough safety to set boundaries, they would look at, look at you just as puzzled because this is an innate process. But for so many of us as we came into this innate process of boundary setting which happens as we develop our ability to self regulate. So when we're a baby, a young newborn, we're really not going to want to be setting much boundaries. We want to be in physical contact most of the time because I cannot regulate myself. So I really, really need you. And then as I develop my ability to self regulate, my vagus nerve fully comes online and I can now work the muscle of self regulation. My system is saying, well, I have to prepare myself, myself for eventually being a full grown human. And that means that I'm going to have to learn how to be alone and you know, and, and take care of myself. So very young age we start to work this muscle of boundary setting. And anyone who, who has had a kid and they're a toddler, you know this where all of a sudden they're like, no, I'm going to dress myself. And then they put their, their shirt on backwards or they're like, they try to feed their self and they feed their self into their ear, you know, their spoons, like in their ear all the. But they don't want your help because what they're trying to do is to say, I'm going to figure this out on my own. They're setting a boundary or you're hugging them and they say, hey, put me down. I don't Want to be held anymore. All of that is being informed by their internal truth and their internal limits. Now, if that's honored, then what happens is that baby, their child says, well, it's okay to be me. But for many of us, that wasn't the case. Something as simple as your uncle's holding you, your aunt's holding you at a family gathering, and they just love you so much, they want to squeeze you, pushing away, and, like, I want to be put down. And then they say, oh, really? And then they pretend to cry in this, like, terrible acting, but you believe it because you're a kid, and what you're made to feel in that moment is, oh, when I listen to my truth and set a boundary, it hurts people. Hurts people I love, and I don't want to hurt people I love. So what we do is we. And by the way, this won't happen after one of those experiences.
- [42:26]
Rachel
It's.
- [42:26]
Sarah
It's after chronically having experience where when we try to set a boundary, we were either literally unsafe, love was withheld, or we were told we were bad. So what we do is we learn to disconnect from our truth because it is a much worse consequence to be harmed for love to be withheld or to not belong. And so I disregard that, and then I become what you want me to be for the greater good, which is belonging and safety. And then we grow into adults, and we have no idea what our truth is. We have no idea how to set a boundary. And boundary setting feels like pretty extreme danger for us if in the past, it would have been met with something like the things that I just named. And so this is why so many of us struggle to set boundaries. And specifically with our family of origin. Another reason why it's so challenging with our family of origin is because when you go back to be around them, this is where your younger parts are going to show up the most, besides your romantic relationships, because your threat detector is saying, whoa. Oh, well, being with them reminds me of being a kid. And then all of a sudden, those very young parts are here in my body. And so I don't feel like this capable, able woman. I feel like this little girl who doesn't have any power control, and the grownups have all the control and a lot of people listening. I'm sure you know that feeling where you are the grownup. But then all of a sudden, when you're with the elders of your family, you're like, I'm not the grownup. They're the grownup. And I Feel like I don't have any agency. And then lastly, I just want to say that another reason for this is because when we're. When we're born, we are born into a family system. And I think of that like a play. Like, literally, like a theatrical play. And everybody has a role in the play, and they all have lines they need to say in order for the play to function. Like, just like you would if you were going to read a play out loud. Like, do a table read. I just said table read. And I'm realizing that people who are not in film or TV or theater might not know what that means just sitting around reading a play, right? So we all have to read our lines for the play to find function. And we have different roles. Like, maybe you're the achiever, you're the scapegoat. You are helpless. You have no needs. You're parentified. You know, we all have different roles. When you venture on your healing journey, essentially what you're doing is you're looking at the play, and a lot of times you're like, I actually don't like this play. This play kind of sucks. Or, this part of the play is not something I'm interested in. And I don't want to have this role anymore. Actually, I want to have a role of someone who has needs. And, yeah, I do get mad sometimes. And maybe part of your role was you could never get mad. And so then guess what occurs? You come into the family system, and you've done a lot of your own work, and you're like, I have a new role. And in my new role, I set boundaries with you. Guess what? I now use the word no. And your caregivers are. As you do this, you play, you set a new role for yourself. It really messes up the play. Now the play can't function. And so that is really threatening to everybody else inside of the family system. Because if you don't play your role, the whole thing can crumble. So what they're gonna do is when you try to set. To set a boundary, they're gonna do everything in their power to stop that from happening. Like, shame you and stonewall you. They're gonna make you feel like you're unkind or that you're hurting them. And all of that is a way to try to get you to pick up the old play. Like, please just read your old line. So I just want people to know, as you begin setting boundaries, you can pretty much guarantee that people on the other side of that, especially in the family of origin, if they haven't done the same level of work as you, that they might really struggle with your boundary. And even if you set a boundary with somebody whom has done a lot of work, but you're changing the dynamic. Like, I remember I did this with a friend of mine and they had done a lot of work and they were like, you know what, I'm so happy you're doing this. And I'm noticing that I have some things coming up around you not being available to spend as much time with me anymore. And it's just poking at some of these things. So, you know, maybe that's the best case scenario. But that isn't usually what a lot of us experience. So what do we want to do? It is incredibly important that before we go into being in the family of origin and set that boundary, I want you to marinate in what you're trying truth is. And that essentially means I want you to feel that truth again and again in your body. So you know like, you know, like you know what the truth is. So for example, let's say you're going back to, to visit family and there are some topics that you really aren't open to talking about with them and marinating in. Yeah, my truth is that I, I am not available for that. I am not available to talk about politics with them. I am not available to talk about that experience I had in my childhood that they minimize because it was a big deal. So I'm not available to it. And so what we want to do is feel into that again and again and again. I know like, I know like, I know like I know this is my truth. And the more that you do that, the more that it anchors you in your adult self, it anchors you in this somatic knowingness. So then when you go into contact, being in physical contact with them, that it, there's a strong cemented embodied experience for you that you can readily and easily access. When they say something like, you know, they try to gaslight you or they're talking about politics again and you really don't want to do that, that you can from that place set the embodied boundary. And the second thing that's really important is to be anchored in your adult self as much as possible. Again, family of origin, your young parts show up a lot. So before you go to be with them, really anchoring in your most adult self, your highest self, truest self, soul self. And then when you're with them, when you notice you're getting activated into a young part, maybe going For a walk or going to the bathroom and reconnecting with that adult you. And it's the adult self that we want to communicate the boundary for us not expecting the young part to do it.
- [48:36]
Rachel
Oh, yeah, that's really important. Otherwise, you're setting your young part up for getting told off again. And that's what shut us down in the first place. To then not be able to feel what our boundaries are for when we set them before, you know, we would have got. Well, I definitely did get, you know, told off, shut down. So, yeah, showing up as your adult self, you become a new version of you who they probably haven't met that many times. Sometimes.
- [49:00]
Sarah
Oh, it's. That's so true. By the way, a lot of. And in a lot of our relationships, you might have, like in a lot of people's romantic relationships, your partner may not have met adult you a lot, or your. Your caregivers may have not met adult you too much. And so the more that you're anchored in adult you, the truth is on an energetic level, even if they aren't conscious of what's occurring, there's a difference in how they're going to act with you. Like, I know for me, if I am in adult me, there's a real difference of how even if I go out into the world, how people interact with me, how people think they can treat me, me, versus if I am in a young part. And if I'm in a young part, then people are going to feel a sense of power over us. So the more that we can anchor and adult us, the more we're really empowered.
- [49:46]
Rachel
Great. Okay, let's go to the next question. Ever since a recent family medical emergency, my nervous system has felt like it has been completely overwhelmed. I feel like I have no control over going into fight flight, freeze, or shutdown down. I'm getting waves of sensations in my body, lots of anxious thoughts and periods of low mood that feel uncontrollable. A psychiatrist has said I have an adjustment disorder temporarily due to the traumatic event. How do I bring my system back into regulation and get through this phase?
- [50:21]
Sarah
So I think there's two things occurring here. One is when a traumatic event occurs and we do not have the conditions necessary for that traumatic experience to process through our bodies, it can become stuck. The two things we need to process trauma through our bodies. Again, trauma is really the overwhelming of energy in our bodies in the face of helplessness are safety after it ends and a mutually empathic witness. And that is somebody, again, who has predominant regulation in their nervous system, they can witness us, hold the experience with us, empathize with us, but not try to change us. And when we do that, it's so incredible. Our organism, our system, our mammalian body, it knows how to do this. It's so wisely intelligent. So it doesn't actually need a lot of manipulating or prodding. It will do its thing if it has those conditions. And the other thing that's really important to know is that trauma can process through much easier when it's, I guess, the best way I can say it is fresh, meaning if it's recently happened. This is a prime time for our systems. Our systems have a lot of capacity to be able to move it through versus something that did not have safety or mutually empathic witness. And it's 30 years from 30 years ago. Of course, we both are absolutely. We have the ability to heal. But when something is right there on the surface, we really want to optimize on that and do everything we can to create those conditions. So the first is we really want to orient towards safety. So think about what things in my life bring me into this experience of feeling cocooned and safe. Really important. And consistently going back each day to experiencing that. Whether that's being in nature, like going on a walk, doing meditation, or even things like listening to a sound bath. Moving our bodies is a really important way to process energy out of our bodies. And then secondarily speaking, we need, or secondarily we need to have a mutually empathic witness. So this would be a very important time to find a somatic practitioner or clinician, somebody who's an expert in this work that can help your nervous system usher out the energy that's stored inside of it. And then being around people, people who register as safe for you, all three of those things are going to be really imperative right now. And then the second thing that I want to share that's, that's really important is likely what's occurring here is a young part got activated because this has to do with someone in your family. And that young part may be saying, if they're not okay, I'm not going to be okay. Like I'm going to die if something's not okay with them. Them. So this is also a really vital time to be doing parts work and connecting into your most adult self. Just the same thing that I talked about in the answering the first question, anchoring an adult, you figuring out who is this young part that feels so scared and terrified and comforting, that young part with as your adult self and also bringing in other people whom are sources of safety for that part heart. Because, you know, if adult me, if I have one of my loved ones, a member of my family experiencing, you know, some kind of trauma or something really dangerous for them, that, that's a really hard thing for adult me. But adult me knows the truth is adult me knows that everything changes, meaning everything evolves and cycles and, and we leave these bodies and I don't, you know, know the magic of what happens after. I have some ideas, but I don know fully what that is. But I, but in adult me, I'm okay with, with that to some degree. Doesn't mean I, I love that doesn't mean I don't feel incredible heart wrenching pain from it. But I know it's not annihilation. That's really the difference. I know it's not annihilation, but for our young parts and our parts experience trauma, it can feel like annihilation. So it's really important to do parts work around that too.
- [54:41]
Rachel
Wow. It's incredible how different situations and scenarios feel when you're in your younger part to your adult self. Like they are poles apart really. So. Yeah, well, I hope that's really helpful for the person who sent that question in. And I just love that piece you said about the empathic witness being able to be present and safe but not trying to change, not trying to fix it. So yeah, that was an interesting point.
- [55:06]
Sarah
We can do this with people we love or people who love us can do this where we kind of play God in someone's life intentionally. But it's coming from a place of love. Like, I just want to fix this for you or you know, like help make it different. And what I really hope from list people get from listening to this podcast is that each of us are extraordinarily have such extraordinary internal intelligence and that your system knows exactly what to do to heal. It just needs the parameters or the circumstances circumstances to make that happen.
- [55:41]
Rachel
Yeah. And there was another phrase you used, cocooned in safety. And I just thought that was really beautiful. It reminded me of a time I was going through a really, really hard time and the most I could do in my day was drop my children off at school and then literally have a four hour bath and just keep topping up the water. And then I'd get out, get ready and go and collect them again. And for a while that was what I had to do. And it just reminds, reminded me, oh, I cocooned myself in safety to, to get through a hard time and actually yeah. Finding out what those things are for us and allowing ourselves to spend longer, to have time in that cocoon. Yeah. It's really beautiful.
- [56:20]
Sarah
Thank you for sharing that, Rachel, because I think so many of us feel like we're. You know, this goes back to what happened in our family of origin, but can feel like we're babying ourselves. Like, oh, I don't. You know, I don't need to do that. But when we actually listen to what our system needs, we feel better faster. If you think about, like, having a child, right. If you listen to what they need and you meet that need, they quickly feel better. Like, if a kid's crying and they're upset and you. You stop what you're doing and you empathize with them, and you get down on their level and you make time for them and you hold them and create safety, Literally, within a couple of minutes, they might be laughing again, and they're like, I'm gonna go play, because you met their need. And so when we do that for ourselves, it's incredible how quickly our state can change.
- [57:04]
Rachel
Oh, and this next question is very tender. I'm in my 50s. I was sexually abused for six years as a child. When I go back to my hometown, my body swells up with autoimmune issues. I've had various therapies in the last couple of years, including EMDR and holistic pelvic care, both of which have been helpful. What moves the needle so my past doesn't become my present? Thank you.
- [57:31]
Sarah
Well, I relate so much to this person, as I was sexually abused for most of my childhood, and anytime I would go back, well, I'm not in contact with my stepfather who abused me or my mother or a lot of people in my family of origin. And I don't have no reason to go back to my hometown. But in my 20s, I used to go back sometimes to visit friends and different events I needed to be there for. Anyway, my point in sharing that is, anytime I went back, it was like I was transported back to being that young child, and I would dissociate to such a high degree, I would feel like I was in a dream, like I didn't know what was happening, what was real. I would binge drink and binge eating, all to numb myself, because I was reliving all of the things that transpired in the past, which is exactly what's happening for this person, and there's good reason for it. So it all goes back to such a broken record here. But it's. But it does all go back to our nervous system. Most of the time, we have that threat detector, remember, called neuroception, in our brainstem, and it's always trying to figure out if we're safe or not. That's just what it's doing. Every millisecond, it's trying to see is this safe, is this safe, is this safe or not. And it will. Will pick up on the most subtle cues. And so in doing its job to keep us safe, it resources our internal database that I talk about a lot that has every lived experience in it. So that's how it decides if our present moment is safe. And it doesn't need identical matches. It just needs similarities to make a decision. So here's an example of what that looked like for me. I grew up in northern New Hampshire in the United States. It's a very rural part. Like, I grew up with 2,000 people in my town. The closest movie theater was two hours away. So really rural. And there was a lot of evergreen trees. So it's forest, evergreen trees. So even when I would go to. And I live in Los Angeles, California, I moved here 17 years ago. And, you know, it's not lost on me that I moved basically as far away as you could possibly get in the United States besides, you know, moving to Alaska or Hawaii. So very far away from where I grew up. When I moved here 17 years ago and I moved to an environment that reminded me, that did not remind me at all of where I came from. Palm trees. Here, it's a desert right on the ocean. So very, very different. But if I drove into the mountains outside of LA and I was surrounded by evergreen trees, I noticed that I would start to feel depressed. And I just feel like. Like heavy and hopeless and small and really bad. What was occurring is my threat detector was saying, whoa, you're into the forest, around mountains with evergreen trees. That's not a safe thing. So what I'm trying. My point I'm trying to make is that even me being over 3,000 miles away, I was nowhere near my home of origin. But my. My system was saying, this really reminds me of where you came from. And when that occurs, it's as if it travels us back in time to that experience. So if that was happening in California, imagine what happened when I actually went back to the eye of the needle to the. To the place where everything happened. It was intensified, you know, by a thousand. So much more extreme because my system is saying, whoa, this is really where it occurred. And it's as if I'm re experiencing it. So that's what's happening, happening for this person. And that's called an over coupling dynamic. My system has over associated, you know, this place or you know, evergreen trees for me, but this place with danger. And so what we need to do is we need to tease apart that over coupling. So it's really important that what we begin doing is we feel into and I would recommend working with a somatic practitioner or clinician around this. And you can also do some of the work by yourself. But we need to, number one, we need to connect with our adult self. So parts work is really vital here. And from my adult self I need to then connect to that vulnerable part that was harmed. Because if you don't protect those younger parts that were harmed, your nervous system does in the form of dysregulation which is what's happening to this person. So the more I can anchor an adult me and tenderly connect and care to caretake them. But also even more importantly around this is connect to the appropriate healthy aggression and protection that they never got. So I want to work on allowing myself to feel into that righteous rage. I want to say that healthy aggression again, that's life force energy. But healthy aggression always matches what occurred. So if someone cuts me in line at you know, know the grocery store, the appropriate healthy aggression is quite small. It's just to say hey, actually I'm in line, you know, the line's over here, can please get behind me. That's healthy aggression. Now if I was sexually abused or sexually assaulted, that's a much higher level of healthy aggression that was called for that wouldn't have been safe at the time to express. So that kind of energy is the, the sort of energy of pretty extreme self protection. So we want to build our capacity to feel that in our body and move that through. And working with a professional around that can be really helpful. Also things like, and there's lots of research on this now weightlifting is an incredible way to feel into our access our healthy aggression. And being present to your body as you're lifting the weights and trying to be as present as possible and noticing what that is like to access that kind of energy in your system, making sounds, squeezing things, moving things, all of that accesses healthy aggression. So we want to become that protector for the younger part. And then we want to begin feeling into some of the stored traumatic emotion and begin titrating that out of our body. All of those things are going to be really supportive to decouple my over association with this place. Being a place or a source of danger. And I just want to name my deeply feel for them, and I also want to name this, that there's so much hope here. Years ago, so my aunt and uncle are like my mom and dad, and I feel so grateful for them. And they live about two hours south of where I grew up. And we were going skiing just with my cousins, who were like my siblings. And we were driving. Actually had to drive through the town that I grew up in, and I hadn't been there in, I don't know, eight, nine, 10 years. And we were driving down the street, and they said, do you want to go by the house? And I was like, I don't know. And then I decided, you know, actually, I think I do. So we drove by the house, and I got out and I. I remember this moment where I started to cry, and I looked at the house and I said, it's just a house. Can make me cry thinking about it now. It's just a house and there's nothing bad. Yeah. It makes me emotional, actually, thinking about that moment where, like, the past was actually the past. I looked at my bedroom window. I lived in the basement. And as I looked at it, like, that little girl isn't stuck in that basement anymore. Anymore, and she's safe inside of me. And that house has no power over me or the people who harmed me inside of it. And so I just want to name, like, you know, not that. That I. I don't. I don't ever actually want to go back to that town, but I could is the point. And the past was no longer my perpetual present. And that is what's possible when we actually embody this work.
- [65:19]
Rachel
Oh, and that's so tender. Like, you're nurturing and tender. Tendering to that younger part and also building that strength as a prot? For yourself and. And all your parts, too, so. Oh, wow. Oh, Sarah, I want to give you a big hug and that person a big hug. And. Yeah, send my love.
- [65:39]
Sarah
Thanks, Rachel. And I. I shared that just because I want everybody to know what's possible. You know, I think. I think that trauma is what hell is. All these religions talk about hell. I don't think hell is some dungeon somewhere. I think hell is unresolved trauma. I think that's really what it is where I am trapped in this experience that's so much worse. Certainly for me, I can speak for myself than what I thought dying would have been. And the beautiful thing is healing is our freedom. And when we do this work, we can actually get free. We don't have to stay stuck in these experiences forever, so you don't have to have the type of more extreme trauma like me or this person. We've all had things that have happened in our lives and until we address them, they're perpetually following us around and causing us some struggle in our relationship, in our purpose, in our life. I just can't seem to live the life I want to live or same kinds of problems happen over and over again. And when we heal the past, it sets us free to actually be who we are, to live the life we are here to live. And that's what my hope is, that this podcast is helping people to do so. Thank you everybody for being here today, sending you lots of love and we will see you next week. Enjoyed this episode and want to go even deeper into somatic healing. You can join my email community for free. Weekly Teachings, More resources and live Events Sign up using the link in the description.