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The Real Reason Your Kid Acts Out Has Nothing To Do With Your Kid · The Parent Tap

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Look at your kids right now.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you aren't careful, you're actively raising a target.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: We like to think our kids face their biggest threats out there in the world from social media, bullies, or the internet.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: But the hardest, ugliest truth we have to face as parents is that the danger might be sitting right inside our own walls.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Every single day, the way you handle stress, the way you mask your anxiety, and the way you fight your spouse is leaving a permanent mark.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Your words are becoming the exact blueprint your kids will use to either build their future or completely tear it down.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: When things start going sideways at home, it's easy to point fingers at the school, the devices, or the peer group.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: But if you think your problem child is just acting out for no reason, you need to wake up and ask yourself the terrifying question Is your marriage the actual problem?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Tonight on the Parent Hap, we are turning off the filtered, sanitized, feel-good parenting advice.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: We are confronting the threats we create ourselves.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: To help us handle the truth, our guest tonight is Chad Taylor.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's a clinical psychotherapist and the host of the raw podcast, It's You Fuck It's Me.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't do polished rehearsed insights, fake inspiration, or academic garbage.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: He deals directly with the real world mess we try to hide from in our own houses.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Parents, check out Chad's show.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's you, fuck, it's me.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: The link is pin parents, check out Chad's show.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's you, oh fuck, it's me.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: The link is pinned in the live chat and sitting right at the top of the description below.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Before we sign off tonight, take one final look at that wall.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Stop letting your words be a threat to your kids' future.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Stop avoiding the hard conversations with your spouse.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Take ownership of the environment you are building inside your house today because your kids are watching, absorbing, and building their entire world from it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button to help us clear those last few spots to 1,000 subscribers.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Smash the like button, share this link with a parent who needs a wake up call, and we will see you next time on the Parent Tap.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Parents, check out Chad Show.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's you, fuck, it's me.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: The link is pinned in the live chat and sitting right at the top of the description below.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Before we sign off tonight, take one final look at that wall.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Stop letting your words be a threat to your kids' future.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Stop avoiding the hard conversations with your spouse.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Take ownership of the environment you are building inside your house today because your kids are watching, absorbing, and building their entire world from it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button to help us clear those last few spots to 1,000 subscribers.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Smash the like button, share this link with a parent who needs a wake-up call, and I'll see you on the next parent tap.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you being here.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I know the time zone's crazy between us, but uh yeah, man.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I love, you know, I watch, you know, some of the shows you've been on.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So no, I like I totally get the vibe and it's it's gonna be a great show.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you being here.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I love the love the name of your uh your podcast that's on your hat and some good stuff, man.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, brother.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Before we get started, are you a single are you a single dad?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a relationship now, but yeah, my partner doesn't have kids, so it's kind of yeah, it's kind of yeah, like a it's probably a good conversation to have because I've met a woman, I have two daughters, one of them full-time, the other one part-time, and she had chosen not to have kids, and here we are trying to make it work.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, okay.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you have and how many kids do you have?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I got two, two daughters, two kids?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Fifteen and eight, okay, two down eight.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: That'll that'll help me here.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I did kind of 15-year-old's been with me, like in my care kind of thing, since she was two and a half.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So her mum left, and then she's been with me the whole time.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously I've had a couple of partners here and there.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's I don't know.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's um so I thought I'd be good to to speak on here.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, this is great.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's real world stuff because it's like at most, you know, most people that go through, you know, the single parenting, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so Chad, I talk to parents all the time on their show, yeah, you know, who read every single parenting book.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: They they have all the, you know, all the experts' advice in their heads, right?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: But then like like they get thrown when like their kids have tantrums or you know, the stress in the house is just crazy.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, why are we so book smart but completely useless when things get uncomfortable in reality?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Good question.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that we're very good at learning something intellectually, but I really think the experiential embodiment or understanding of that is it takes work and I think it takes developing that.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think from what I my own experience, my book here, straight into it, my book here, which was about relationships of the same name as my hat, I won't go in self-promoting.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the next book I've got coming is called It's Them, oh fuck, it's us.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think when our kids are behaving the way we want them to behave, they're little angels, and when they're behaving the way they want to behave and they've got their their little own souls and their views on the world, they're yeah, I don't even know what words I can use on here, but they're they're not the we almost force our will onto them.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it suits us.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Hey man, let it fly.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're explicit.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and you know, this is one of the ones I knew, you know, based on your book title and your podcast, like this would be one of the ones that can just kind of be free and and you know, be yourself.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, feel free to, you know, express yourself however you want.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that this channel, you know, a lot of parenting podcasts I've realized are like, oh, they're light fluff, you know, the mom's kind of talking.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, it's not real, you know what I mean?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I if you want to say fuck or shit or all that stuff, you know, be be yourself, man.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like I think that's real world too.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when we're going through, you know, when we're going through the the the trenches of our kids throwing tempers or where kids like, you know, blow it up and you got teeny, you know, teenager uh and and so you know, like I can't even imagine what's that what that's like.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes that my four-year-old neurodivergent daughter will just she'll just scream at me or tell me like she doesn't like me or doesn't want to be my friend, and that, you know, that that that shit hurts me.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So like I can't even imagine as they get older, you know, the kind of stuff that they they they tell us when they get those, you know, those tantrums.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And have you heard stuff like that from your from your kids, or are they just they think you're the coolest still?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I that that stuff I haven't that I hate you and but I have I have definitely had them give me the silent treatment if they haven't got their own way, or the youngest one that she predominantly lives with a mum and then spends time with me, she does struggle on the changeover sometimes, which is probably something I think a lot of parents, because we live in a world where a lot of parents separate, I really think we haven't got the skills a lot of the time to understand that when they're crying, it's not because they don't want to be with you, it's because they're struggling to leave their mother, who is at the time their primary caregiver.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I just kind of let her go and I just say, that's okay, Darlene.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just we're just gonna talk when you're ready.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then funny enough, even at seven or six years old, she'd almost just snap out of it, and then she'd try and apologize to me for like crying.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really sorry, Dad, that I cried and made you feel bad.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Darlene, you don't need to apologise to me for your emotions.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't mean, you didn't call me names, you were just having an emotion, and that's completely okay.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, yeah, it it I definitely have had versions of that, but not so much the tantrums.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you're lucky.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, but no, but that's great.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I like how you approach that because I think it's like if we're calm and we model that calmness, then then our kids are are typically calm too.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like I notice a lot of a lot of my failures as a parent has been when I'm too reactionary or I'm too uptight, and you know, I react to whatever the situation is, whether it be the tantrum or you know, just just our our kids being emotionally like emotionally avoiding us.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you talked about this in the book too, so emotional avoidance.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so so for like a parent who thinks they're doing a good job because they're not like, you know, they're not like you know, hitting their kids like, you know, maybe it was acceptable back in the 80s and you know, maybe when we grew up, you know, what does emotional avoidance do to a kid?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like I this is something that like I've kind of done too in the past, where like I have a two-year-old, like he'll still smack me in the face, or like, you know, he broke my TV a month ago, and I'm still kind of getting over that.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I just get kind of pissed and I'm like, I I try to avoid him because I'm like, I don't I don't know, like, if is that the right way to go about it?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, probably not, but like emotional avoidance.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, what's the damage it does to to our kids in actuality?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm just mindful of how I frame this because on any given day, and I openly say this to my clients as a psychotherapist, if I had a camera on me 24-7, I'm not this perfect parent.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just because I said then that my kids didn't scream at me and had that kind of tantrum.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely fucked it up a lot of times.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And to this day I still fuck it up.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if anybody doesn't think they fuck it up, that's the biggest problem.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's the number one problem.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is emotional avoidance, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Number one right there.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you think you don't fuck it up, that's emotional avoidance of inside yourself, which then portrays emotional avoidance externally to everybody else around you.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably the simple answer that I think most of us don't understand our own emotions the way we are.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It happened yesterday.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was with I was with client, he's 15, and we're working on anger and owning your shit, and I go to get a coffee, and I like my coffee's extra hot, and I'm pretty particular, and coffee's got real fucking expensive in Australia, everywhere, right?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I pay$7.50 for this, you know, shitty coffee, which but I ask for it extra hot and it comes back and I wouldn't even call it lukewarm.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think I sip it and I think I don't really want this.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the girl, the reason I'm saying this is the girl's maybe 16 to 18, who's who's made it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I go back over and I say, hey, look, I know I'm a pa So what I do is this is how I work with my kids, which is why I'm telling this story.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I lead in with it being about me, right?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: A bit like the name of my book, you know, it's me.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I say, hey, look, I'm really sorry to be a pain in the ass, but I did ask for this coffee to be extra hot.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was wondering if you could either heat it up or maybe make it extra hot.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then what comes back is, it's extra hot.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely made it extra hot because it says on the label, it's extra hot.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know I made it extra hot, and I said, look.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got her to feel the outside of the carton, right?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: That and she said, No, it's extra hot.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Look, I don't want to, I don't want to, yeah, in other words, I can't remember exactly what I said, but I was trying to keep my cool, but just the and then she got shitty and then huffed and puffed and like it was the end of the world.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I really had to stay calm because I think her, I don't know what sort of home she's grown up in, and this is all of us, that it's almost like to be wrong is death inside of us for the the protector and the defender.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess where I'm going with this is until we learn how to become emotionally available ourselves, which I don't think many people in this world are emotionally available.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I think until we do that, we don't actually we can't be emotionally available to our kids.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and man, that example is great because I think like, you know, I'm I'm one of those people like I'm the super, I'm the nicest person in the world.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: If if you know, if I come up, I'm usually not like a complainer, but like in their situation, you pay eight bucks for coffee, you want it right, right?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if it sucks, you're not gonna drink it, and that's just a waste of money.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't I don't think your request was unreasonable.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I feel like if people work with you, like I'll be super nice, but if they come back with that attitude or like, you know, kind of telling you you're wrong, that just completely rubs me the wrong way.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I turn into this other person completely where I'm just like, wait, what let me talk to your manager kind of person.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm just like, I go the other way completely.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think how you handle that, you know, is is great.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, like like bringing that down to our kids too, of like how we can be emotionally available to them.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's like what I'm hearing here too is like just the openness and the honesty too with them, because you know, like like you said, you fuck up a lot, and I do too as a parent.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like I swear every day I strive to not mess up, but like I do constantly.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just like I I apologize to my kids and I'm open to them and I I try to let them know, like I'm I'm trying my best here, but you know, dad, I just went through a layoff last week.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So dad's got a lot of stress, dad's got a lot of pressure, you know what I mean?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and like they don't quite understand what that means.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: My daughter's like, oh, why don't people want you on their team?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that kind of thing, like because she's almost five, she doesn't really get it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's it's also the stress mounting of you know, the the parent tab has to be something, and dad's gotta kind of find a job and start, you know, making stuff happen.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so when that happens though, it's like I can be short-tempered, I can be, you know, irritable, you know, and so like I try not to be, but I realize that like that's that's my Achilles heel.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is that kind of like somewhat what you're talking about?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or am I kind of going off the deep end here?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think it's great to identify our emotions and let people around us know them.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that because what other what happens is, and I think this is the number one issue, all psychotherapy will lead back to childhood at some point.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that you try there's two types of people.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Either I had the worst childhood in the world and how much time have you got?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or there was nothing to see here and I definitely didn't have it the worst.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think somewhere in the middle is where we want to get to, where we can accept that there was faults and and it was unconsciousness.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I really try and paint the picture in my book and the way I work with clients.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're not wrong, you're unconscious.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason it's called the unconscious is because it's fucking unconscious.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're not aware of it.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: So how can you fix a problem you're not aware of?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Einstein said that.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can't say, see, we can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is the biggest thing that we're not seeing in the world that being wrong or doing something wrong, it's generally unconsciousness.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: We don't choose to be a right fuck with to our kids and lose our shit and yell at them.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and even that coffee situation, it's almost like in the world we use this nice, nasty approach and we use it a lot with kids, and it's inbuilt into us where we nicely say to the lady behind the counter or the the teenage girl, whatever, that my coffee isn't right, and we say it with respect most times because you know why we're doing that, I'm gonna be blunt here.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to manipulate the situation because we want to get our needs met.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're nice, and then when that doesn't happen, and what happens is then that what happened, they have an emotion, and then all of a sudden, somehow that emotion infiltrates into us, and now we're fucking angry and defensive as well, and that's what we've got to learn as parents, right?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to learn that, and we can't, I don't always catch it, but I would say that a lot of the times I catch it and I say, This is your shit in a way, even my oldest one, I will say that now.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is your shit, not mine, and you know, we're gonna we can process it, but this actually isn't coming from you onto me.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I love how you put that, and it's almost like the coffee example, going back to that.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I'm nice, when I speak to my kids in a nice way, you know, especially my five-year-old about to be five, she's gonna be five this month, and she doesn't do what I want.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like the the barista who's who's like, no, you know, like it that that just escalates me into this, there's this this fit of like, what do you mean no?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like I asked you super nicely, like you know, like I was trying to manipulate the situation, I suppose, and you didn't do what I wanted.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it it kind of takes me up a level to like, I don't know how to deal with that because like I feel like I'm being a super cool dad, you know, my request isn't unreasonable.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Usually it's like you know, something simple, like please throw away your trash, you know, instead of leaving it in my car.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if it's a no, then it's like, oh man, I go on to this different level.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to get into something like man, you you you mentioned like the emotional avoidance.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I don't want to get too too deep if you don't want to, but like your childhood, like do you remember like uh, you know, your like your upbringing if if your parents kind of had um the emotional avoidance with you?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if and if so, did it like lead to maybe any like traumas or anything you're still like kind of working through as as an adult now?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm happy to get like I my both my parents are still alive, and again, right, it wasn't definitely the worst in the street, but it was far from the best in the street.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I also don't want to They were just unconscious, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: They both, my mum come out of a super Catholic, super almost doctrined Catholic family.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then my father was a devout alcoholic, a alcoholic atheist.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of really grew up like very confused and yeah very yeah, they just they weren't a good fit for each other.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I think, yeah, my father didn't know how to handle his emotions, and I think that was a big thing for me that I never wanted to be that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I never wanted to be that person.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, most of us we grow up and we don't ever do any work around ourselves to become a different person.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love them both now for who they are, and they both got all their flaws, neither of them have done therapy.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I think with me doing enough therapy, like I even though I'm a psychotherapist, I still go to therapy now because I believe that therapists need therapy as much as anybody else, if not more.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's something that drives somebody to become a psychotherapist, as in a way of healing their own shit.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always been a big because my story was to cope with that crazy home, I ended up becoming the person I never wanted to be, the person that I disliked the most in the world, I became, so I was 22 after a crazy teenager's teenage years, and yeah, I ended up in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, which is there when I really started finding out about myself and about that, you know, I what didn't drink because I was thirsty.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I drank because I was trying to change the way I felt.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I won't go too much into that story because this is about parenting, but I've been on that journey.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So for 25 years, I haven't had a drink or a drug that wasn't prescribed by the doctor, as in, and that's what I like to say, because if something's prescribed by the doctor, it's not a relapse.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's a big thing in recovery world.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you take a if you take a drug, as far as I'm concerned, I'm not a doctor.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: If I am a doctor, I still, it's still, unless somebody's my doctor or I'm your doctor.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: So where I'm gone with that is I think the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous has made me such a better parent because it really does it.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: My book come out of that, that it really gets you to look at your own shit.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Even if, even if the barista's reaction was 95% in the wrong, if I lose my shit back at hurt, it's I'm responsible for my 5%.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess when we look at that in parenting.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll just give you a quick story.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that happened on the weekend.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm in a relationship where my partner now, she chose not to have kids, and she's come in here virtually to at the time an 11-year-old daughter who's with me full-time, and she sees a mum, but not very often because a mum doesn't live in this area.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, so and then so they're still trying to learn each other.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Two completely different my partner comes from Europe.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: We grew up in Australia, again, completely different kind of in Europe when from what I can gather, when the baby's born, they're in their own room with the door shut.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if it's summer or winter or whatever, and it's almost just like that's your place.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And where we live here, most people co-sleep, and most people have the kids in the in the room and until a certain age.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just trying to show you that there's two completely different cultures trying to meet.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I've got and I've got I feel like I'm in the middle of that a little bit, and I'm so grateful for all the work I've done on myself.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean that I've never seen them argue with each other ever, but I just feel like sometimes I'm kind of making sure that everybody else's emotions are okay, and that means that I can't, I can't absorb number one thing in the world we've got to try and learn is not to absorb those emotions.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, congrats on the uh you know 25 years of sobriety.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's amazing.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think it would have been so easy to paint you as a problem child coming up with with the stuff that you know maybe maybe you were into in your youth.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, so how do we avoid doing that to kids?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because you realize like when you when you told me that story, it's it's easy to identify there's environmental stuff going on, there's you know, you know, with your parents are completely opposite of like, you know what I mean, like with religion and and all that, like that's gotta be difficult.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, you know, like how do we avoid just kind of going like, what is wrong with our kid?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: How do we fix them?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And really just kind of getting into the the meat and potatoes of like why, why they're going through, you know, whatever they're going through at that stage.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a life I don't think it's a quick like I'll give you five tips.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Number one thing is to try and if a parent could do a little bit of meditation at some point in the day, and I'm not I don't mean sit down on a mat for 10 minutes.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean if you can start to learn to catch your own emotions, that's what meditation is about.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about sitting there and for 20 minutes and having no thoughts.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's about observing your thoughts.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it might be that, oh fuck, what time's this podcast?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh shit, it's on Riverside, I've had problems with that.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is I'm trying to do my meditation this morning, oh fuck, I hope it doesn't play up, maybe it should get on earlier.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, catch it, bring it back to the moment.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or it might be, oh, you forgot to pay those bills yesterday and this sort of stuff.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the quicker I can catch those emotions and bring them back and take another breath, the better.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And some days I'm good at it, and other days I'm really not.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I'm saying this is it's the same with our kids.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: The quicker we can catch our emotions, the better.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there's not gonna I'm not gonna give you guys five tips, but and the what I want to say is, and I'm sure you know this stuff, but all com all behaviour is communication.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: All behaviour is communication.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I went back, I think that that girl yesterday, she probably would have expected when somebody's unhappy with their coffee, they end up wanting to unload that emotion onto her.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So in her defense, I was probably the only person who's come back and didn't say, hey, like I'm in a fucking rush.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: This coffee says on it, look, it says here on your sticker that it's meant to be extra hot.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, fucking fix it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: So she's already, and who knows what home she's come in.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that with our kids, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like all behaviour is communication.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can understand the communication they're trying to communicate, I think, and it doesn't mean as well that you let the kid have a tantrum and you don't kind of yeah, like we don't I believe we don't want them to rule the roost either.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a fine line again.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I see a lot of parents where there's either they don't let the kids have the emotions or the kids have all the emotions with no consequences.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I think everything sort of nothing is black or white.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's somewhere in the middle.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and no, that's That's I totally understand that.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: It makes total sense when you put it that way.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so how do we like separate a kid's bad behavior from just like the, you know, the the symptom of maybe their parents' relationship, their their broken behavior?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say, you know, like you mentioned you were you were you've been with multiple partners and let's say like your kids will probably have a different, you know, experience with different partners, you know, like just based on my wife's experience, you know, growing up with a stepmom that she didn't necessarily like, and you know what I mean, like the different people that you know, maybe that you've dated over the years or been with over the years.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that has any effect on a kid's like behaviors or uh, you know, because even my wife and I, we've been together for a while, but you know, we go through patches where it's like you would know we're together because, you know, like like stuff happens and we're not really on the same page and you know, we're living together, but we're not we're we're more like roommates at times because of, you know, the the the straight, you know, the whatever the turmoil is going on.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a bit of column A and a bit of column B on that one.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely think that, and the way I try and explain this to clients is if we want to talk about nature or nurture or biological or environment, if me and you were go down the street, me and you met each other picking a new puppy out, right?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go away, and then two years later, me and you meet up at the dog park with our named pup, whatever name we've given it, which would be completely different.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: They've got the same genetic DNA as two dogs, but I can guarantee we're gonna have two completely different dogs.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: But they might look the same, they might have some s some similar similarities in their behaviour.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think the way we've trained them, them you know, I could take mine, not that I would because I'm not into it, but I could take mine and create like a pig hunting dog, and it could be really super aggressive, and you know, it could be bloodthirsty, and yours could be almost turn up in a I don't know, a pink jumpsuit and have little sockettes on, and could be two completely different dogs.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I like to sort of point it out.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I use a lot of analogies in my therapy because I think it allows us to see it out there, and then we can, you know, we we've always personified everything.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is religion.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: We've tried to personify an experience onto a we won't go down that path, but we've tried to personify, and I think what I'm trying to say here is I think I was never accepted as a child.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't the child that I wasn't the boy that my father wanted.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: My father wanted a little man that was almost like loved hunting, fishing, and killing and was tough.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and I didn't really like I'd play rugby league, you guys your equivalent of that is gridiron, right?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd play that as a kid, and I'd do a good tackle and I'd do a hard tackle, and the person wouldn't get up, and I'd be there sort of asking them if they were okay.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And my teammates would be like, mate, you can't fucking do that, you know, reaping me off.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: My dad took me away hunting when I was about six with a group of other men and their sons, right?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about like a men's rite of passage, and I cried for fucking a day and a half, and mum had to come and pick me up, and he, I don't think he spoke to me for a month after that because I brought shame to him.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's something I really wanted to bring up.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't do that on purpose, he was just, he wanted probably to go away and have this amazing weekend shooting, and you know, the men's and the the men and their boys, and I was such a little, in his eyes, I was probably such a little sulk.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was so overly sensitive that for him it just wasn't what he wanted.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: A bit like the no different to me with the coffee lady.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: The coffee wasn't what I wanted.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: I probably wasn't in that moment the son that he wanted.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one thing that I'm sure you talk about is like when we reject our children for their behavior, it creates shame.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And shame in them is the difference between shame even with an adult.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: The difference between shame and guilt, Brene Brown says this.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: I stole it from her stuff.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: She says, shame is I did a bad, sorry, shame is I am a bad thing or I am a bad person.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Guilt or whatever that emotion is above shame, which is usually guilt as an adult, is I did a bad thing or my behavior was bad.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where one, if we could just change one thing, if anyone listening to that could change one thing with their kids where we stop saying that they're bad and we say that that behavior was bad, that one extra word, hey mate, like you, you, you know, even there I went to say it.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: You've been really bad.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like writing on the wall, mate, was really bad.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like if we can call the action out rather than the person, I think that changes a lot.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like just kind of removing that label.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I got that a lot as I, you know, I have young kids and when they were babies, like people would come over and be like, oh, it's such a good baby, or like, you know, if if if someone is sitting uh babysitting the baby and they're like, oh, they were a bad baby today, you know, like it's like good or bad based on if they cried or not.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just like kind of a a natural thing for babies, right?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: They they do it because of their that's their language, right?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: They they're just trying to communicate whatever the heck they're trying to communicate.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're hungry, they're tired, that you know, they need changing, that kind of thing.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think it's yeah, man, as a parent, it's so easy to label our kids sometimes like uh, you know, my daughter's been going through something lately where she just she just has her tantrums at us and like, you know, and I just I I want to be like, oh, why are you so why are you this way?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: What's wrong with you?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh wait, that's completely fucked up.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, don't do that, you know what I mean?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like she's trying to communicate something to us.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: We just not really sure what it is, but she's not getting what she needs, you know what I mean?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like as a parrot, like it's it's it's my responsibility to stay calm, cool, collective, even though my coffee is is messed up, you know what I mean?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not getting quite what I want from my kid.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, it's my responsibility to not, you know, like kind of raise the stakes even more or like escalate it, you know, escalate that that that fight or argument because uh that's the opposite of what I should do.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, de-escalation should be what what I'm working on and being calm and like I I could just tell from your demeanor, like that that uh as a psychotherapist, man, you just I don't know.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel it's a very comforting like kind of talk that you have, and you know, I could see how your clients would benefit from that and your kids as well, you know what I mean?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: To like have that kind of calm, calm demeanor.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I wanted to bring up was like the the stress.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: So like the the unspoken stress that that we bring into uh the house, right?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's work, whether it's uh, you know, you you mentioned bills, financial stuff, uh just the amount of crap we have to do, you know.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: You you mentioned this earlier, like sometimes it's like I don't know about you, but for me, it's like I go to sleep at night and then I'll think of something.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be like, oh wait, did I do that?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Did I turn off the light or did I lock the door?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this this or that, like I kind of have this like checklist in my head.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: So how much does that like affect our kids uh like as they're growing up, but just us being kind of always like in this panic mode of like this is wrong or I gotta do this, or you know, just kind of the busyness of adults, does that kind of relate or you know, kind of affect our kids' uh development as well?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's everything.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: That that level of stress is everything.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: And just going back to what you said, because I don't want anyone to think that I, when you said I'm calm and and the way I speak, I still, just for anybody out there, I still lose my shit.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to always say that as a therapist, I don't think enough people own their shit.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: They'd like you to believe you listen to this and oh wow, that guy's got it all together.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I ain't got it all together.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if, you know, maybe we should get one of my daughters, my uh teenagers just got up.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in Australia, so I'm coming to you guys from the future.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's Friday morning here, not Thursday night.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I could bring in her her in and maybe she could give you a few times where I have fucked it up.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And but on the whole, I think we have a pretty good relationship.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I also just wanted to go back to that because it leads into exactly what you said.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: If I if I run a business, or I think you might have just said then you got laid off, or work's changed a bit at the moment.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Secure, everything comes back to social security and sexual instinct.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I write a lot about this in my book.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: That whenever we're triggered, so even yesterday with the coffee, I am answering your question, by the way.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just giving it to you.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: If we go out and see the story of it, I think it'll land when we come back to it.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is all teachings were done like this until the last 50 years.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: So when I'm stressed, what that means is that my prefrontal cortex or my frontal lobe, the place I can make decisions from, it's numbed.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: A bit like when I've got drugs and alcohol in it.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: That it's numbed, and therefore I can't make the decisions that I would make when I'm not stressed.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what that means is that I'm back in the instinctual brain in the middle part that animals have, and in there lives social security, sexual instincts.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever I'm disturbed, and this is maybe a good thing to think about your daughter, generally, whenever you're disturbed, it's due to sexual not for her.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: So really it's easier.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can cross one of those off, right?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's either a social instinct where she feels like there's something that she's not getting.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: When I say by social, social instinct means, and we've evolved with these to evolve and stay alive.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: The reason we have those in us is because we wouldn't survive as a species.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: If we're a herd of animals and we're crossing the river, the safest place to be is right in the middle of the herd.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: If the crocodiles or the we call them crocodiles, you guys call them alligators, right?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if they're gonna peck us off, the safest place to be is in the middle of the high, in the middle of the herd, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think so.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I'm talking about this to answer your question is that we're always coming from that.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm if I'm stressed about money and work and everything, and then my daughter, I don't know, breaks something, even though I don't equate it that, oh fuck, I'm already stressed about money and she's just broken something and I don't know if I'm gonna have enough money to fix that, say the TV, right?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: You just mentioned the TV.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: My reaction, if we look at a, if we look at a, you know, if you're a millionaire and you've got a million bucks in the bank and you've got a barometer of stress, when the TV gets broken, it might go from 20 or 30 to 70.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you're at 80 already and then she breaks the TV, right, and you have that same 40, like 40, well, let's just call it, you know, 40 unit activation, you go from 80 to 120 past boiling point.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I try and use this a lot with my clients, and even again, Brene Brown talks about when she gets home from work with her husband and her kids, they all give each other a number, and my kids don't want to do it, and me and my partner communicate pretty well, so we don't really read need to use the number.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: But we give an up, she gets she says they give a number on where they are from zero to ten.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, ten being I'm amazing and it's the best day of my life, and zero or one being it's the worst day of my life.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes even being able to communicate that with your kids, it's like, hey, dad's at a seven, against dad's at a dad's gonna have a less a lot less tolerance.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that they need to behave.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have to turn around and go, I need to be this good kid because dad's at a seven.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I think at least if they can start to identify they're at a three before they lose their shit, you can maybe catch.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, see this prefrontal lobe.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Once they're in tantrum, they can't make a decision, they can't actually tell you what's wrong with them because it's in here, right?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's in here, and that's why it's fight, flight, freeze, dad.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: I hate you, or dad, go away from me.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't ever want to come near you, I don't like you.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're in fight, flight, or freeze.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're their body, their brain is protecting them from whatever it seeks that danger is.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't talk about this enough and we don't learn it as parents.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good to know.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, that's something honestly I do too, is when I see red, like I get really pissed off.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say stuff that's just like I don't even realize I'm saying what I'm saying until my wife rehearses it back to me.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh my god, like I I just like I go off the off the rails.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel it, I see that in my daughter too, where she just she'll just like she gets so damn angry that she doesn't realize what she's doing.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And she tells me like she doesn't do that at school, she only does it at home because she doesn't want her friends to see it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's almost like in a way, it's like a blessing that she that she feels comfortable enough to be herself to have those emotions, and so I need to kind of view it that way, but it it is hard in the moment, and like I I I want to blame other people for my stuff too, like you know, the the TV breaking too, like I'll be like, what the hell?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like why'd you do that to me?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like like like like he meant to, you know what I mean?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just a kid being a kid, but in the moment when you know I'm already kind of going through it and that happens, I'm like, what the hell?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like if my kids, you know, uh misbehave tonight, you know what I mean?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and again, me going through everything I'm going through, we gotta take them to swim tonight.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: I have to get into the pool with a two-year-old, and like you know, like I don't want to do this like at all.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't want to, I don't want to go to swim night.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a rush.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's always like I'm jumping in this pool with like hundreds of kids that have been in there all day.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows what's in the water?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like the chlorine is just like super high.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like it irritates my skin.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta come home and then put them to bed, and it's always like this rush job.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, like if they do something to act out, like I'm just gonna be like, like you said, my threshold is already small.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's I'm gonna have a reaction and I'm gonna blame them, or I'm gonna blame my wife for having the swimming and I like it's it's hard for me to take accountability.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is one of the things that I'm learning from you is like you look in the mirror and you actually do take accountability for that.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: So for anyone listening right now, how like how is it like how are you able to do that?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because like I know my first reaction when something goes wrong, I almost want to like blame somebody else or blame, you know, like because it's easier to do that for me than to like actually look inside and take accountability for like what is actually going wrong.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like for my job, for instance, I want to blame like my company.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't want to blame me, like I don't, you know what I mean?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, it really wasn't work performance-wise, but it's like I want to blame somebody for that, or you know what I mean?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for for all this shit that's wrong in my life, I'd love to blame other people because it's easier than actually like taking the responsibility myself.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you do that, man?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Chad, how do you kind of go about that?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, you you just have this honest assessment of how things are going and how, you know what I mean, like how like it's not always someone else's fault.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's been 25 years for me of like I said, in in Alcoholics Anonymous, we really look at like everything is about our side of the street, our side of the street.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And to give you a quick rundown, they use almost, and people aren't going to learn this here, but getting some sort of action where you can, some sort of action or journaling or something where you can try and catch your your reactive behavior.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, say in say we'll use, I don't know, I'm just saying the TV.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Say I was you on the TV, right?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I lost my shit at my son.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you did, but I did.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then afterwards, you feel pretty shit, right?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: If if you've done that to your kids, you're like, fuck, like that.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then what most of us do is then we re-justify it.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost like the black wolf in us reacts, and then there's a bit of white wolf that says, hey, Ryan, like, fuck, that wasn't really called for.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then the black wolf goes, nah, fuck that.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they need to learn, right?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's what happens.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're in this battle.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Christians called it the god and the devil inside of us, and then, you know, the Buddhism talks about Semsara being all these kind of like the black wolf in us.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: American Indians, I love their analogy because it's so simple that we're born with a black wolf and we're born with a white wolf, and they're in a fight to the death, and the one that wins is the one that we feed.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess for me, say for instance, I'd write your son's name.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I don't, I can pretty much do it in my head these days.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes after the event, after I've fucked up, don't get me wrong, not always during the event.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it might be your son's name, and then what happened?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: He broke the TV, and then what does it affect in me?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, really, it affects your social instinct and it affects your security.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it might affect your sexual if your wife doesn't like the way that you've spoken to him and it puts you guys another little bit apart, you might not be getting any sex because she doesn't respect the man you are because of your behaviour to your kids, right?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it does affect all those instincts.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why the main one would be security, because it costs a lot of money to buy a new TV.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: So straight away, the reason you're reacting is because it's affected your security instinct.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Money equals security, right?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next column, we look at, you know, where have we behaved that way?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: When have we broken something through being careless?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or when have we broken something because we haven't been on, even if it's when have we broken something as a kid and then been yelled at it for it and it wasn't really our fault or we didn't really understand.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next column being, what can I do differently?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: So doing that for 25 years consistently all the time, thousands and thousands and thousands of them, I think what it's slowly teaching me sometimes is when I get offline, how quickly can I get back online before I overreact?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we're all gonna get, and it all comes a lot of it comes back to childhood.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like little things we don't I talk a lot about men with anger, and I say, Do you ever remember that game musical chairs, right?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: As a kid.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Fun game.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: The game isn't the problem.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: The parents are the fucking problem.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the way I explain it.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: You see two guys, you know, we we're in a car park and there's one car park left, and one person thinks they got their indicator on and the other one doesn't.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the next minute, two grown men are punching each other out and hitting each other with a pole out of the back of their work you'd or work truck, I think you guys call them, over this car park, right?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we rationally go, fuck, like get over it, mate.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: But then when we're in that situation, so I sort of try and trace it back and I say, when's the first time I felt like that?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there was many times, but I really started thinking about, I closed my eyes because I got this out of a meditation in my lunch break one day after this guy who'd come in because he'd had a road rage incident and got charged for it, right?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: And like, what is it?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, like games like musical chairs, right?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Ten kids, nine chairs, the music stops, and you've got to race and get a chair.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody gets kicked out of the herd, literally, that's what's going on for us internally.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not so much the game that's the problem, it's then come on, Ryan, if you're gonna carry on like that, we're gonna go home, mate.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a game, right?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: The parents don't realise to the child, they've been banished from the tribe.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I'm saying this stuff, if we can understand this, if we can understand why we're doing something, and most of my work lies around repetitiveness, that the problem actually, you don't need to learn five tips on every podcast, how to become a better person.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: You need to learn how to catch yourself in the moment or how to catch yourself and make amends, and you'll get fucking better.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like whatever that process is for you.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when people say to me, I don't need therapy, because a lot of people say, Oh fuck, you must work with some real people that need therapy.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, and I think like we all need, and I'll say to them, we all need fucking therapy, and they just sort of shrug down and mumble because it's like I don't need therapy.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how dare you say that I could need therapy?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I sort of say, Well, look, you know, the day that I can have a video camera follow me around like a GoPro, follow me around 24-7, and that's like portrayed to the world almost like the Truman show, and I'm not ashamed of my behavior at all, I'll stop going to therapy, right?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll stop working on myself.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean the nose pick or the way that I strain when I'm trying to go to the toilet.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean the shit where my kids come and make me a picture or something, and I'm too busy because I'm stressed about the security instinct's too busy and I've got to do some case notes or something on the computer, and they want to see me, and I reject them even though I don't know I've done it.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: I go, yeah, done, I'll come and have a look in a minute.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for them, that is a rejection, right?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, there's no other word to use for it.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean I'm a bad person, but it means maybe I can get a bit more aware.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I do that all the time, unfortunately, and I don't realize it in the moment.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Usually I'm, you know, last night I was uh getting ready to post an episode and my daughter comes up to me with a picture she drew, and I was like, wait a wait a second, honey.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know what I mean?
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like that kind of thing.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm almost done here.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: I need like one more minute to do this.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I do that a lot, unfortunately, because I am just trying, I I have ADHD tendencies, so I'm just like, I get very distracted easily.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, if I don't finish a task, it kind of like gnaws at me until I get that done.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just trying to finish something, check it off, and then I can move on to the next thing.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I do that a lot with my kids, unfortunately.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: And man, I love how you admit that you need therapy too, because it's like I think a lot of people out there will pretend that they're they're they're above that, you know what I mean?
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like personally, I have therapy too.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: I have actually therapy this afternoon after this call, and like, you know, it's been it's been definitely something that's kept me on the the right path, and you know, something I can kind of go to for accountability and to kind of, you know, re readjust myself because it's like I I realize that like I get off on these bad, these bad habits, and like it's like the therapists like kind of like they call you on your bullshit, right?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like I think we all have that bullshit tendency, like we try to get away with stuff and the justification, you know, you brought up the the the TV example, you know, that I had, and like my justification is almost like after the initial being pissed is like I come back and I'm like, well, you should have seen what my dad would have done if I did that as a kid, right?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like like my dad would have, you know, like I would have been done, you know, or or see what his dad would have done to him, you know, as a kid.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like that's that's such a that's such a weak excuse, though, because it's like I don't know why I'm like comparing myself to other people or how other people would have handled that because of because I didn't handle it, you know, well.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like literally was like Bobby Knight, like throwing chairs.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know who Bobby Knight is, but he's he's famous for throwing a chair across the the gym floor as a basketball coach.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so like I I literally like that that's what I resorted to with the TV because I'm like, oh my god, like 100 inch TV, just a year old, you know, that kind of thing.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: That was before I lost my job, and now it's like I feel it even more because it's like, damn, that's that's not easily replaceable right now.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: So man, that's you know, that's rough.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then one thing I just I wanted to say, man, I can't read my notes.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, this is embarrassing.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: Blame your kids for her.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Blame your kids for your notes.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we can do.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm joking there, but that's kind of like I wanted to blame your notes.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's your fault.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: My kids' fault.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, I wanted to blame, I I just ran a half marathon this weekend and I fell.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and my wrist, like I thought I broke my wrist.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was in urgent care on Sunday night, and like it hurts like hell.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: So like I my writing is real shitty right now.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to blame that.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh man, and it was it's because my you know, that someone trudged me on my marathon or whatever, you know, like it's it's still stupid, or blame my kids, or yeah.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I'm not sure.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe the universe didn't want you to ask me that question, right?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is what we don't I didn't think we don't do this enough that when something goes wrong, maybe it's maybe it's that it's not meant to happen.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm sure you would have heard, and I'll give you the quick version, the man on the horse parable, where there's this Chinese parable and it says this farmer and he uses his horse to farm the paddock, and all of a sudden.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: One day they wake up and the horse is gone, and the neighbor comes over, and the neighbor says, Oh, isn't that terrible?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Your horse is gone.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's so fucking terrible.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe it.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Such bad luck.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the Chinese farmer says, Could be good, could be bad, who knows?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then the day later, they wake up and the horses come back and it's brought back five wild brumbies.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: So now they've got six horses to farm the paddock.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the neighbour runs over and he says, Wow, isn't that amazing luck?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the farmer just calm and collected says, Could be good, could be bad, who knows?
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: That day later on, the farmer's son, teenage son, is trying to break in one of these brumbies and he gets bucked off and breaks his leg.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the neighbor comes over.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that terrible?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot believe this has happened.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is so terrible.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the farmer again just shrugs his shoulders.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, could be good, could be bad, maybe, who knows?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, fast forward three days later, there's a war happening.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: They come around to conscript all the teenage, able-bodied boys in the area, and they turn over the farmer's son because he's got a broken leg and he can't he can't go to war.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the neighbor comes running over and what great news, isn't that amazing?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: What great luck?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the farmer is almost like, maybe.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the reason why it goes on and there's more, but the reason I'm I think you've got it, that again, we don't know what's good and bad.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we we love to define as humans what's good and bad.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like that TV, who knows?
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it would have, but that TV could have blown up and shorted all the electrical circuits out in your whole house and burnt all the wiring and you had no power.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's I know that's an exaggeration, but we don't actually know what is a redirection and what is a rejection and why things happen for a reason.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, totally.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I try to think about that too, like when you when you encounter traffic or you encounter someone on the road that's like driving really slow, you're like, what is going on here?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I just try to think like sometimes I'm like, oh, maybe this is the universe's way of keeping me out of some sort of fatal accident or you know, something bad happening, or something like that.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to think like that.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is hard though in the moment to do that.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I love how you put that.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's sometimes we we want to come to these judgments right away of like assessing the situation.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is bad, or oh, this this is definitely good.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: And like we were not really sure.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have all the information yet.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's a great, great start.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: I love how you brought you brought the real real world examples and and the analogies to this, man.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like for me, it's like I'm a very visual person, so it makes a lot of sense for me to kind of see it in action and have those stories in my head right now as I'm kind of trying to interpret everything that that we've talked about.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: Dad, man, you you're gonna have to come back when when the new book comes out.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this was awesome, you know, awesome show, man.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, no BS, just kind of just you know, telling telling us how it is.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, man, I just want to thank you for being here.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Could you tell us, uh the viewers and everyone listening about your podcast and how we can connect with your work and get your book as well?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my book's on Amazon.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: For you guys in the US, it's probably cheaper to buy it on Amazon than it is to buy it through it cost me more to send it and what the book's worth from Australia, as much as I'd love to write your name in it.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just pretend my name's in it.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: You my name's writ I've written your name in it.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: Chad Taylor psychotherapy.com.au.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: See my podcast.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm running weekly online groups, just process groups with a bit of I bring a parable or something like this, and then we all go around and we have a share and we kind of make it a bit real as to where this happens in our lives.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: So in a way, it's almost a form of group therapy without the deep stuff, because I think we've lost the tribal living, and I'm not going to rant on about that.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so Chad Taylor Psychotherapy, I'm framing it around almost a gym membership for your soul, where it's it's a very fairly priced, like 80 Australian dollars a month, which would be about 50 for you guys, and that's for a weekly session for an hour and a half, not recorded live.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because we, like you said, you go to therapy, you go to swim school, we do everything, but I'm trying to frame it around that it's just something that we add into our life once a week or twice a week, and it becomes a natural way of being because I think that's what we've lost.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, really podcast of the same name, it's you, oh fuck, it's me, in session with a psychotherapist.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: If anybody reads my book and wants to come on, you don't need to be, I just want real life, real people.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to have you on, Ryan.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna send you a link to book onto my podcast if you're happy to come on, because it's just it's quick, it's raw, it's you know, where where did the where did that even that title, even if you haven't read the book, where where do you see that play up in your life, right?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it it's pretty, it's a pretty quick, raw podcast, a bit like this one.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love that sort of stuff.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, gonna stop self-promoting now.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: But for anyone out there, just you're not a bad person, like going back to that good or bad.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you yell at your kids, you're not a bad person, but there could there's work to be done rather than it looking at as bad, looking at as okay, well, I was 98% unconscious just then.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: How can I become 95% unconscious?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that extra 3% consciousness I've acquired through the reading, podcast, meditation, the things I'm doing to catch myself.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: How can I use that to catch myself in the moment before I react?
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to leave you with.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: Damn, dude, that's that's good stuff, but I appreciate it.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've never been invited on a podcast, I know it's weird, like as a podcaster.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: So like think that's like that's a huge like accomplishment to uh just like a generous thing to to to offer.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate that.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'd obviously take you up on it, man.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like we've covered a lot of ground here today, and uh, you know, like I know we're super, super far apart, but you know, it's it's always great to develop friendships uh, you know, across the country and man, just like learn learn from each other because I feel like I've learned a lot from you, and uh, you know, hopefully like you know, my stories can kind of like help other people too.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the way I put it too.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like I try to be vulnerable, I try to be genuine, because like I feel like other people, even uh if it even if it's not a TV or even if it's not a coffee shop situation, like other people have gone through stuff that's similar, or they can put in the same like right framing, right?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they can just kind of you know carry it with them and be like, oh yeah, I didn't I didn't handle that the best way, or yeah, like this is how I should kind of readjust my uh behavior because like I again like what we're doing is you know affecting our kids, and like that's the last thing I want to do is raise kids that that that grew up with trauma because of my own shit that that I don't I didn't handle, right?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: So dude, this is awesome.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: I will definitely get this out.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm gonna shoot for uh tomorrow, that's cool, and just kind of get it out for the weekend.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: In the US, you know, we have we have the long holiday, but just try to get it out as soon as possible now that you know this is kind of my full-time thing, man.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, let me know when uh I don't think because we met on Matchmaker, right?
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what a shit name.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know, right?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I get a message from that and I'm next to my partner, I've I showed the phone and say, hey, just let you know this is this podcasting fucking Tinder I told you about.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: I fucking hate it.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, no.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that's you because I was like, matchmaker, it sounds like a dating app.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like that's what I use at first now, and I've been I've been on actually different platforms mostly, but yeah, man, like I I will I'll definitely reach out to you and let you know when the episode goes live.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll like I said, I'll put all your stuff in the description and the all the podcast um platforms, like I'm sure that you do on your show.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then yeah, man, let me know when the when the new book you you feel like the ETA is is coming on that and we can kind of get you back on the show.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, man, I'd love to be on your show too if the opportunity presents.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: So man, I I feel like we've kind of uh developed a cool, quick friendship here, man.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate you, chat, and thank you for being so open and honest with with the audience.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you having me on, and I appreciate anybody that's got this far through the podcast.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, just want you to leave thinking you're not a bad parent at all.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing's good or bad, and I really do want to leave that because we can beat ourselves up.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just you have a responsibility to yourself and your kids just to become a little bit more aware.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and amen.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's powerful stuff, dude.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.