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39. Healing Generational Trauma Through Family Constellations with Denise Warner · Constellations and all that...

• 0:00
  Tracy: Kiona and welcome to Constellations and all that.
• 0:03
  Tracy: I'm your host, Tracy Cartwright, and together we will be exploring the world of family constellations with facilitators for and clients from around the world, looking at different perspectives and experiences in the work, having a cup of tea, and just chatting with some friends around their experiences in constellations.
• 0:23
  Tracy: We'd love for you to join us.
• 0:25
  Tracy: I hope that you enjoy this series as much as I have loved making it.
• 0:33
  Tracy: Kiara and welcome to Constellations and all that.
• 0:37
  Tracy: Today I have the pleasure of talking to my friend and colleague, Denise Warner, Kiara, Denise, how are you?
• 0:44
  Tracy: Good morning.
• 0:44
  Tracy: I'm good.
• 0:45
  Denise: Thank you, Tracy.
• 0:46
  Tracy: So please do share a little bit about you.
• 0:49
  Denise: Well, I, I was, uh, uh, New Zealand, born and raised, but came to Australia 47 years ago when we were first married.
• 0:58
  Denise: Um, so I've spent more than two thirds of my life was in Sydney, and we've recently, um, moved to the, um, mid north coast of New South Wales.
• 1:09
  Denise: So, um, where my husband's retired, but I haven't, I'm, you know, a wife, mother, and grandmother.
• 1:17
  Denise: My career has been in clinical practice as an individual couple and family therapist, but over that time I've worn many hats.
• 1:26
  Denise: I think I have professional A DHD, actually I'm an educator and trainer and assessor for counseling skills and professional development.
• 1:37
  Denise: I do a lot of clinical supervision with, um, individual therapists.
• 1:41
  Denise: I run retreats.
• 1:43
  Denise: I've done that.
• 1:44
  Denise: Um, over, over the years.
• 1:47
  Denise: I'm a constellate now I've integrated into my professional practice.
• 1:52
  Denise: And, um, apart from that.
• 1:55
  Denise: I don't know, just, uh, ancestral healer and neural architect.
• 2:00
  Denise: Mm. And a bit of a travel bunny.
• 2:03
  Denise: Yes.
• 2:03
  Denise: More recently, yes.
• 2:05
  Denise: More recently we have been, um, able to do quite a bit of travel and um, last year I went to the, to Portugal, to the 10 day intensive for constellation work and I was able to meet, um.
• 2:22
  Denise: You know, and fangirl people that I've, you know, I've got their books and I've seen their, um, training like Judith, he, uh, hemming and Stefan Hausner and Berthold.
• 2:33
  Denise: And so that was fabulous.
• 2:35
  Denise: So I try to integrate, you know, some of my, um, travel with going to different, uh, constellation events has come, become somewhat of an addiction.
• 2:45
  Denise: Yeah,
• 2:47
  Tracy: it does, doesn't it?
• 2:48
  Denise: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Tracy: I like that fan girl.
• 2:50
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 2:51
  Tracy: I've done some fangirling myself.
• 2:53
  Tracy: Mm-hmm.
• 2:54
  Tracy: And also, when you're traveling, I know that you have a Wii fascination with pools.
• 2:59
  Denise: Yes.
• 3:00
  Denise: I have a list of fabulous pools of the world that I want to swim in.
• 3:05
  Denise: So I do tend to plan my travel around specific pools so I can.
• 3:12
  Denise: You know, getting them swim and enjoy them.
• 3:14
  Denise: So, um, I've got a list of 50 and I've done 30 so far.
• 3:19
  Denise: That's amazing.
• 3:21
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 3:22
  Tracy: I've seen, I've seen quite a few of them, so, and there's one behind me for those that can see me.
• 3:26
  Tracy: I have an image behind me of a beautiful pool that you have actually swam in.
• 3:31
  Denise: I've swam at that pool many times.
• 3:33
  Denise: I have.
• 3:34
  Denise: Um, that is where we are holding the retreat in Lombok, um, at a, um, resort called Uri Mass.
• 3:41
  Denise: And that is their main pool, which is gorgeous.
• 3:44
  Denise: And you can sit, sit in there in the evening, watch the sunset, um, over mounted gong in Bali.
• 3:51
  Denise: Well, you can't see it in that photo.
• 3:53
  Denise: Um, but they also have another pool up at the village, which was, is equally as beautiful.
• 3:58
  Denise: Um, so I do enjoy getting in there when we are over there.
• 4:03
  Denise: And I've probably been there about maybe six or seven times.
• 4:08
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 4:09
  Tracy: And soon to be the eighth.
• 4:10
  Tracy: So you and I and Susan Ger are heading over there in September
• 4:15
  Denise: with a, a range of intrepid souls that are joining us.
• 4:19
  Denise: Should be a lot of fun, but
• 4:21
  Tracy: have felt the call.
• 4:22
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 4:22
  Tracy: It should be lots of fun.
• 4:23
  Tracy: 'cause we have always have a good laugh together.
• 4:25
  Tracy: Hey.
• 4:26
  Denise: Yeah, yeah,
• 4:27
  Tracy: yeah.
• 4:27
  Tracy: Love your sense of humor.
• 4:29
  Tracy: So tell me, um, or tell the viewers please, listeners, how did you meet constellations?
• 4:36
  Tracy: When was your first experience of it?
• 4:38
  Denise: Well, it was, I was in Borders Bookstore in 2009 and this little book on the shelf by, by Joy Mann.
• 4:47
  Denise: I didn't have a lot of cash back, back then, and I sat down on one of those little foot stalls and I read the book because I. I couldn't afford to buy it.
• 4:57
  Denise: Really, it stayed with me.
• 4:59
  Denise: You know, I, I had a fascination with it and I, but I didn't do a lot about it at the time.
• 5:06
  Denise: There was a lot going on in my life.
• 5:08
  Denise: Um, um, but I saw a constellation.
• 5:13
  Denise: Training, um, advertised in 2017, um, with Yielded, which was a nine day training, and I immediately signed up.
• 5:25
  Denise: It wasn't one of those things I thought about and contemplated over time, or should I do it or not.
• 5:30
  Denise: I just put the money down and off I went and, um, and it was an extraordinary experience, thus began my.
• 5:38
  Denise: Fascination.
• 5:39
  Denise: Yeah.
• 5:40
  Denise: And with your coaching and um,
• 5:43
  Tracy: teaching skills.
• 5:44
  Tracy: Yeah, it's all coming together.
• 5:45
  Denise: I'm a systemic family therapist and so, you know, my work had been definitely grounded in systems theory from when I first trained, um, this.
• 5:57
  Denise: Seem to really dovetail into that very well.
• 6:02
  Denise: And so one, one of the things I'm really wanting to do is syn, synthesize, constellation, work with some of the mainstream therapies, you know, the ideas.
• 6:13
  Denise: Yeah.
• 6:13
  Denise: Um, within Constellation work, the issue with, uh, counseling very often is.
• 6:18
  Denise: It is very intrapsychic, you know, not relational.
• 6:22
  Denise: And one of the things that, you know, the ideas, the simplicity of, of constellation work is remarkable.
• 6:30
  Denise: You know, you know, belonging, order and balance.
• 6:33
  Denise: Um, and when, when you can apply those ideas and that systemic thinking, um, which we, we do when we, you know, facilitating constellations, but when you can also.
• 6:47
  Denise: Think about doing that in a therapeutic sense.
• 6:50
  Denise: It's, it's very, very powerful.
• 6:54
  Tracy: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:55
  Tracy: Absolutely.
• 6:56
  Tracy: Intrapsychic, I've never heard that word before.
• 6:59
  Denise: Um, well that, that is, you know, the, um, models such as CBT changing your thoughts changes your life.
• 7:07
  Denise: Yeah.
• 7:08
  Denise: So that's all about the individual and how they kind of operate.
• 7:11
  Denise: And I'm probably simplifying that somewhat, but, um, you know, motivational interviewing is the same where you are working with, you know, what the client is thinking and doing.
• 7:23
  Denise: Mm-hmm.
• 7:23
  Denise: But when, mm-hmm.
• 7:24
  Denise: When you are moving to a relational model of, of therapy, such as systems thinking, what you are doing is in, you are incorporating the entire system, which changes perspective.
• 7:38
  Denise: You move from a linear causality like it's your fault, or I, or it's my fault to.
• 7:44
  Denise: I did that and then they did this, and then I did that and, and so you get a much more circular understanding of the way that people behave within their system and a greater understanding.
• 7:58
  Tracy: Fantastic.
• 7:59
  Tracy: Okay.
• 8:00
  Tracy: That was an interesting word.
• 8:01
  Tracy: I'd never heard that before.
• 8:03
  Tracy: Great description.
• 8:04
  Tracy: So when you go to a barbecue or you meet someone in the elevator, 'cause I know that you've just moved to a new area, so when someone says to you.
• 8:12
  Tracy: So what do you do, Denise, and you are describing.
• 8:15
  Tracy: Constellations.
• 8:15
  Tracy: I dunno if you do describe it as a something separate, but how would you describe family constellations can be difficult.
• 8:23
  Denise: I've always been interested in energy and en energy psychology, and I remember I started doing EFT tapping, you know, back in the nineties and everyone thought I'd lost my marbles.
• 8:34
  Denise: Like, oh, you are the one trying to find them.
• 8:36
  Denise: Where are they?
• 8:37
  Denise: Exactly.
• 8:38
  Denise: And it's very mainstream and really has a lot of empirical evidence supporting its efficacy, um, now and, and is used.
• 8:47
  Denise: Very much mainstream.
• 8:49
  Denise: And so I, I have the same difficulty talking, um, or explaining consolation work to, to people who don't think in terms of kind of epigenetics or, you know, in terms of e energy, energy fields.
• 9:03
  Denise: And so you kind of, you can come off sounding like you're a little bit like woo woo.
• 9:08
  Denise: Um, so I think really.
• 9:11
  Denise: It's more explaining the impact that it can have on clients.
• 9:16
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 9:16
  Denise: Yeah.
• 9:16
  Denise: Rather than rather trying to get across, you know, representing and, you know, um, accessing energy for, you know, and ideas from other realms.
• 9:28
  Denise: So one of the things that I, I like to say is that sometimes we are carrying things that we don't understand or even realize.
• 9:38
  Tracy: Mm-hmm.
• 9:39
  Denise: And that the impact of doing.
• 9:41
  Denise: This work is, those things can shift, um, quite quickly and quite easily, and it, you know, what we are doing really as therapists, um, or facilitators.
• 9:53
  Denise: Well, as a counselor, you know.
• 9:56
  Denise: One of the things I'm doing is being a resonant witness, obviously, but the other thing that we do is we are looking to either change perspective or behavior.
• 10:06
  Denise: The viewing or the doing.
• 10:08
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 10:08
  Denise: And so when you can talk to, to people that are, you know, looking for answers that they can have quite significant shifts by doing some theory.
• 10:19
  Denise: Simple techniques that will give them a greater understanding of, um, you know, what it is that they're carrying.
• 10:27
  Denise: And the implications of that is that they can feel clearer, have greater understanding, and not to be carrying issues, you know, moving, moving forward.
• 10:40
  Denise: So more the impact on clients than the explanation of the model.
• 10:44
  Tracy: And you are running workshops.
• 10:46
  Denise: At present, I haven't been, I will be, um, doing more, uh, you know, I'm just, we've just kind of established ourselves on the coast.
• 10:54
  Denise: That's right.
• 10:55
  Denise: I do run a, a lot of workshops and I was running them in, in Sydney.
• 11:01
  Denise: What I did was I, when I went.
• 11:03
  Denise: When I start first started doing facilitating, I wanted to be able to practice on people.
• 11:08
  Denise: So I told all my counseling students, I was starting a neuro learning group and um, and they were all fascinated by it and got a lot of, of different, um, shifts and, um, in greater understanding.
• 11:21
  Denise: So that was really useful.
• 11:23
  Denise: But, um, yes, I will be running more workshops here on the mid north coast as we move forward.
• 11:29
  Denise: Yeah.
• 11:30
  Denise: Yeah.
• 11:30
  Tracy: Wonderful.
• 11:30
  Tracy: It's so needed this work.
• 11:32
  Tracy: Can come in from so many different angles.
• 11:34
  Tracy: Hey.
• 11:35
  Denise: Yes.
• 11:35
  Denise: Yeah.
• 11:36
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 11:37
  Tracy: Beautiful.
• 11:37
  Tracy: And I'm sure that, um, they're gonna realize what a treasure they've got with you in the area as well.
• 11:43
  Tracy: Well,
• 11:43
  Denise: one of the things that I have been doing, because I, um, I supervise a range of clinicians and teams in therapeutic work, and I do all of that by Zoom.
• 11:53
  Denise: Uh, but one of the things I have.
• 11:55
  Denise: Introduced to all the supervisees are the ideas, constellation work and um, and the, you know, belonging order and balance, et cetera.
• 12:07
  Denise: And so in supervision, when supervisees have a case that they are a little bit stuck in, sometimes we can use.
• 12:16
  Denise: Some of the techniques and, and, and they gain a greater understanding.
• 12:20
  Denise: So it's been very useful.
• 12:23
  Tracy: Fantastic.
• 12:24
  Tracy: Do you have favorite facilitators other than
• 12:27
  Denise: Oh yes.
• 12:28
  Denise: Well, Judith obviously, um, you know, I took a picture of her.
• 12:33
  Denise: At the, um, Portugal.
• 12:35
  Denise: That's right.
• 12:35
  Denise: Yeah.
• 12:36
  Denise: With me and it with her over my shoulder.
• 12:39
  Denise: And then I, I actually got the courage to ask her, could we have a photo together?
• 12:45
  Denise: Uh, you know, she's remarkable.
• 12:48
  Denise: Really remarkable.
• 12:49
  Denise: Stefan, obviously, you know, in his work with physical health.
• 12:54
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 12:55
  Tracy: Um, yeah, he's, he's, oh fan.
• 12:57
  Tracy: Killed him.
• 12:59
  Tracy: Yeah, I remember ta taking my book over to Australia with me, him being really nervous and saying, would you sign my
• 13:06
  Denise: book for me?
• 13:07
  Denise: I, I remember also, um, meeting Sarah Peyton, who does extraordinary
• 13:12
  Tracy: work,
• 13:13
  Denise: um, and she does a lot of work around, um, sacred.
• 13:17
  Denise: Contracts that, that we make with ourselves.
• 13:20
  Denise: And I was really looking forward to doing her workshop.
• 13:22
  Denise: But I walked in, um, to the very first workshop that we were doing at the Constellation Intensive and, and with Eleanor, um, Elena, uh, Vago from Russia.
• 13:34
  Tracy: Mm.
• 13:35
  Denise: And there was Sarah.
• 13:37
  Denise: Sitting there as her interpreter and I just went, hi Sarah.
• 13:44
  Denise: I just a crazy person.
• 13:47
  Denise: And afterwards, the extraordinary, other extraordinary thing about Sarah is that she remembers everybody's name.
• 13:56
  Denise: Yeah.
• 13:56
  Denise: So she would see me and go, hello, Denise.
• 13:58
  Denise: And I remember we did a workshop at the end and there were about 120 people in this workshop, and she knew everybody's name.
• 14:05
  Denise: That's, uh, something that is just really, um, taken off in the last 15 years.
• 14:12
  Denise: The neuroscience and trauma.
• 14:14
  Denise: Definitely.
• 14:14
  Denise: Yeah.
• 14:15
  Denise: And Mark Woolen, uh, what a generous trainer he is.
• 14:20
  Denise: And his work was fascinating, changed the way that I, um, see individuals, um, and work individually with clients.
• 14:30
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 14:31
  Tracy: Fantastic.
• 14:32
  Tracy: Is there anything that you feel that.
• 14:34
  Tracy: That you wanna share with the listeners?
• 14:36
  Denise: Um, you know, one of the things that I think that I've found in 25 years of clinical practice is very often that, um, clients don't fully understand the implications of the things that really impact on them.
• 14:51
  Denise: And when they think about their stories and their family stories.
• 14:56
  Denise: Because one of the things that I would, um, routinely do when I see any client is a. A three generational genogram, which I would use to conceptualize and think about what may be happening for them in, you know, within their wider system and what, you know, clients have family stories and they become just a part of the fabric of the.
• 15:23
  Denise: Of the, you know, family life and very often, you know, they don't really truly think through the implications of that story.
• 15:32
  Denise: And so what, what, you know, what.
• 15:34
  Denise: What I like to do is kind of exhaust exoticizing.
• 15:38
  Denise: The domestic is getting them to see that story through different eyes.
• 15:44
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 15:45
  Tracy: Wow.
• 15:45
  Tracy: Yeah, because we can filter it down, right?
• 15:47
  Tracy: We can not even, it's just there.
• 15:49
  Tracy: It's just blended into our reality without it being something.
• 15:54
  Tracy: Important.
• 15:55
  Denise: Well, for example, um, when I was very, very little, my, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and, um, my, my great aunt lived with my grandparents and everyone talked about her.
• 16:11
  Denise: Like she was a little bit crazy, you know?
• 16:14
  Denise: But during the time that she lived with them, they did not speak at all because she was an exclusive brethren and they weren't allowed to.
• 16:23
  Denise: To talk to anyone that wasn't within the, you know, the church.
• 16:30
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 16:31
  Tracy: And she lived in the same house as your grandparents
• 16:33
  Denise: Yes.
• 16:34
  Tracy: Who weren't exclusive B brethrens.
• 16:36
  Denise: Exactly.
• 16:37
  Denise: Wow.
• 16:38
  Denise: So I, I, I started to think because it was, you know, just a story, you know, blah, blah, blah, and, you know, everyone kinda talked about it and, but I started to think.
• 16:49
  Denise: What was that like for this little 3-year-old?
• 16:55
  Denise: You know, who obviously is?
• 16:59
  Denise: Absorbing, you know, a good deal of the family belief systems at that point because, you know, our belief systems are form pre-birth main from main ones to age seven.
• 17:09
  Denise: So they're not pre-verbal.
• 17:11
  Denise: Yeah.
• 17:12
  Denise: You know what sense does odd arrangements and where people aren't communicating and moving around the house and you know, and what that,
• 17:22
  Tracy: hold on.
• 17:22
  Tracy: You froze there for a minute.
• 17:24
  Tracy: Can we go back to,
• 17:25
  Denise: yeah.
• 17:25
  Tracy: The 3-year-old.
• 17:27
  Denise: Yeah.
• 17:28
  Denise: What sense that that little person made of that very odd arrangement,
• 17:36
  Tracy: you
• 17:36
  Denise: know,
• 17:37
  Tracy: as a 3-year-old?
• 17:38
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 17:38
  Tracy: Were you able to interact with your aunt, great aunt?
• 17:42
  Denise: Look, I'm sure I did.
• 17:43
  Denise: I don't have, um, I remember, you know, I knew which bedroom was hers and I knew I wasn't allowed to go in there, but I don't have any.
• 17:55
  Denise: Particular recollection of a, of interactions, but you know, she's, I guess like this other person moving silently around the house.
• 18:07
  Tracy: That's fascinating.
• 18:08
  Tracy: Does she cook her all her own meals and did all of those things herself?
• 18:11
  Denise: I, I don't remember that.
• 18:13
  Denise: And, you know, the family didn't really talk about it, um, that much.
• 18:17
  Denise: Mm-hmm.
• 18:17
  Denise: Um, but you know, when, when people have.
• 18:21
  Denise: Um, those sorts of things that happen in their family.
• 18:24
  Denise: When you go back and you start to think about the implications and what that meant and what people told themselves about it, how they made sense and meaning of it.
• 18:35
  Tracy: Mm.
• 18:36
  Denise: What, what sense and meaning did that have to my grandparents?
• 18:41
  Denise: And how did that impact on their marital relationship?
• 18:47
  Denise: And what all my uncles and aunts and everybody that was there told themselves about all of that.
• 18:52
  Denise: You know?
• 18:53
  Denise: Yeah.
• 18:54
  Denise: What, what the underlying implications were because you know, that was somebody that actually excluded, ended up excluding herself from the family when she moved out.
• 19:07
  Denise: And, um, the family really didn't interact with her because it wasn't a, a part of her religion.
• 19:14
  Denise: So, you know.
• 19:15
  Denise: Yeah.
• 19:15
  Denise: And, and, you know, most families have a story, you know, that is, it's like, oh yeah, that happened, blah, blah, blah.
• 19:22
  Denise: But when you, you know, really think about those implications, um,
• 19:27
  Tracy: yeah, absolutely.
• 19:28
  Tracy: Like my, just made me think about my uncle, my dad's brother, who.
• 19:32
  Tracy: Um, everyone was like, oh, you know, he's a drunk and he's this and he's that, and he's unreliable and
• 19:40
  Denise: Yeah.
• 19:40
  Denise: You know,
• 19:41
  Tracy: blah, blah, blah.
• 19:42
  Denise: Yeah.
• 19:43
  Tracy: And then you dig a bit deeper and you realize that well, he was born three months premature in 1950 something.
• 19:51
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 19:51
  Denise: Yeah.
• 19:53
  Tracy: And he was taken to a hospital three months premature in 1950.
• 19:58
  Tracy: He was born at six months.
• 19:59
  Tracy: Amazing that he survived for a start and then he was taken to Napier.
• 20:03
  Tracy: Now my grandparents lived in um, tu, which is in the Waikato.
• 20:08
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 20:08
  Tracy: So that was like, Nana had to travel for days to get there in 1950.
• 20:13
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 20:14
  Tracy: To go and see him.
• 20:15
  Tracy: And she could only go for a couple of days, once a month.
• 20:19
  Tracy: And he was there, I think for about six months.
• 20:23
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 20:23
  Tracy: 'cause she had four other children to look after.
• 20:25
  Tracy: So then we know that there's the abandonment.
• 20:28
  Tracy: Right.
• 20:29
  Tracy: Well, attachment attachment, think,
• 20:31
  Denise: attachment theory.
• 20:32
  Denise: Yeah.
• 20:33
  Denise: Yeah,
• 20:34
  Tracy: yeah.
• 20:34
  Tracy: Absolutely.
• 20:35
  Tracy: Having all of that.
• 20:36
  Tracy: So, yeah, I have a, uh, a deeper understanding through this work.
• 20:41
  Tracy: Of the reasons what, you know, some of the reasons why he was like he was
• 20:46
  Denise: Yeah.
• 20:46
  Denise: Could imagine being coun in the womb for those six months and then being kind of out and then feeling abandoned and you know, that.
• 20:57
  Denise: Would be cellular.
• 20:58
  Denise: That's preverbal, isn't it?
• 21:00
  Denise: Oh
• 21:01
  Tracy: yeah.
• 21:01
  Tracy: So he would've been, so she would've birthed him in, in, uh, the Waikato and then he was transported to Napier for Yeah.
• 21:08
  Tracy: I'm assuming that they had an, a specialized neonatal unit or something there.
• 21:13
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 21:13
  Tracy: Dunno why, but anyway, I dunno why Yeah.
• 21:16
  Tracy: To be fully understand that.
• 21:18
  Tracy: But um, yeah, it made me.
• 21:21
  Tracy: Oh.
• 21:22
  Tracy: 'cause there was always a part of me that was loyal to the family system of he's a drunk, he's a s scallywag, he's, you can't trust him.
• 21:30
  Tracy: Um, my dad had a great dislike for him, and so I was loyal to that.
• 21:35
  Denise: And then, and
• 21:36
  Tracy: then, and then I, yeah, I was like, actually there's, uh, this guy's been through a real shit load of trauma.
• 21:42
  Denise: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:43
  Denise: Some
• 21:43
  Tracy: compassion and Yeah, and giving him a place in my heart, in my field of, yeah.
• 21:49
  Denise: Absolutely.
• 21:50
  Denise: Because when, when you can look at it through that lens, then you can go Of course, of course.
• 21:58
  Denise: You know, how could he be any different to that?
• 22:02
  Denise: Exactly.
• 22:03
  Denise: Yeah, that's, that's one of the things that I really value about this work is.
• 22:11
  Denise: Because you can have kind of remarkable stories where suddenly after a consolation, some, some big kind of thing happens.
• 22:20
  Denise: But it is the smaller.
• 22:22
  Denise: Realizations that your clients make.
• 22:26
  Tracy: Mm, that
• 22:26
  Denise: they can suddenly find compassion for someone in the system or even themselves that they previously didn't have just by shifting their perception and gaining a greater understanding.
• 22:41
  Denise: And I think, you know, in a world where.
• 22:44
  Denise: The individual is really, um, prioritized and there's a lot of, you know, kicking down, going on, and we see it in the news all the time.
• 22:54
  Denise: Being able to extend your, your lens to be more systemic and to be thinking about the impact of, you know, of what's happening for other people is a real gift.
• 23:07
  Tracy: Absolutely.
• 23:08
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 23:08
  Tracy: It's made me feel like I have a place of belonging.
• 23:11
  Tracy: Yes, because I didn't for such a long time through my own journey as well.
• 23:15
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 23:16
  Tracy: But, um, and, you know, being able to say yes to my, my parents, my family system, I'll never forget, and this pops into my head quite randomly at times that I remember my nana saying to me, once family's really well, I must have been having an argument with my dad and I'd gone to her place.
• 23:34
  Tracy: And, 'cause I'd spent a lot of time with her when I was young.
• 23:37
  Tracy: 'cause I'd been unwell with rheumatic fever when I was nine and they lived not far from mom and dad.
• 23:42
  Tracy: So, and, and she'd been quite, the family had this story about she was the whipping mama 'cause she would whip people.
• 23:48
  Tracy: She w who whipped her children with the jug cord.
• 23:51
  Tracy: Yeah, she would.
• 23:52
  Tracy: And she was seen running down the road and, you know, like losing it and whipping the whipping mama they call her.
• 23:58
  Tracy: But for me, she was very gentle and very kind and um, and anyway.
• 24:03
  Tracy: Back to when I was having this meltdown about family and she was like, but family's really important.
• 24:08
  Tracy: He's your father.
• 24:09
  Tracy: He's not my father.
• 24:11
  Tracy: I remember I was like, bra all as far as I was concerned, I was disinheriting him from, from my life.
• 24:19
  Tracy: But then as I've matured a little bit and um, and understand this work and have been able to say yes.
• 24:27
  Tracy: Yes, he's my dad.
• 24:28
  Tracy: And yes, it's really important to belong.
• 24:32
  Tracy: And yeah, the pain that I was experiencing from him, he had experienced in his, you know, he'd experienced a lot in his life and, and, you know, my nana, she'd lost her, the whipping mama, she'd lost her, her mom when she was 11.
• 24:47
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 24:47
  Tracy: And so there was just this flow on effect of, yeah.
• 24:51
  Tracy: Um.
• 24:53
  Tracy: Pain that was rippling down.
• 24:55
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 24:55
  Tracy: So I, so she reminds me every now and then energetically, all family's important.
• 25:01
  Tracy: Okay.
• 25:02
  Denise: I have two things that I say, say to people as, as a, as you know, a kind of classically trained systemic family therapist.
• 25:10
  Denise: One is, family is not a word.
• 25:13
  Denise: A sentence.
• 25:15
  Denise: And, uh, a lot of people say, say to me, oh, you know, you must have your family sorted out being a family therapist.
• 25:20
  Denise: And I say, I'm the only one that did the course.
• 25:23
  Denise: You know, none of the rest of them did the course.
• 25:26
  Denise: So, uh, you know, we, there are just so many layers.
• 25:31
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 25:32
  Denise: Within, within a family.
• 25:34
  Denise: Everyone is born into a different family.
• 25:37
  Denise: Um, you know, the conditions are different.
• 25:40
  Denise: Every single time, you know, a, a new child enters a family, and, and then we have all the ancestral stuff as well, plus the nature versus nurture, you know, and so it's very complex.
• 25:55
  Denise: One of the things you know, that is really useful is to have an examined life, you know, is to think about.
• 26:04
  Denise: The belief systems that you've incorporated, thinking about the experiences your parents and grandparents and great grandparents have had and how the, you know, how they've managed what resources that we have, um, from them.
• 26:23
  Denise: Not just the kind of ancestral trauma we get, but, um, the resourcefulness and, and the conditions that they've had to actually manage, you know.
• 26:33
  Tracy: What are some of the gifts that you've been able to receive from your family that you can
• 26:38
  Denise: Well, I think, you know, one of the things is it's given me a great independence, particularly, you know, leaving my hometown.
• 26:47
  Denise: I grew up in a, a, um, in the dairy farming community in Taranaki, in a small, you know, w west coast, um, town and ca came to Sydney when I was 21, you know?
• 27:02
  Denise: Um.
• 27:02
  Denise: And pretty naive didn't really have a lot of, um, external experience.
• 27:08
  Denise: So, you know, I, I sort of had some family support in that, in, in that I, you know, kept a connection.
• 27:17
  Denise: Um, but, you know, I think that gave me a certain independence.
• 27:23
  Denise: Um, my grandfather was the first to be born in New Zealand.
• 27:28
  Denise: His, my great-grandmother.
• 27:31
  Denise: Um, was pregnant with him when they sailed from England.
• 27:38
  Denise: They, they arrived in Wellington and got on a small packet and came up to New p Plymouth, and so he was one of 14 and he was, I think, the ninth to be born.
• 27:50
  Denise: And the first one to be born in New Zealand.
• 27:53
  Denise: So when, when you think about the resilience it must have taken for that family and that grandmother, they buried a couple of children at sea, you know, it wouldn't have been a comfortable journey.
• 28:06
  Denise: They weren't wealthy people, the fortitude and the stoic stock of of that.
• 28:13
  Denise: And then starting off in a new country, um, and.
• 28:18
  Denise: You know, just getting by and making, do you know?
• 28:21
  Denise: Yeah.
• 28:22
  Denise: So, you know, and that's on one side of my, my family tree.
• 28:26
  Denise: So just that keeping on going no matter what.
• 28:31
  Denise: Um, you know, stoicism, um, I think are, are resources that have embodied.
• 28:38
  Tracy: And what about your humor?
• 28:40
  Denise: You, you have to develop that.
• 28:43
  Denise: It's, um, you know, I, I don't know whether that's because of, or in spite of my family, you know?
• 28:53
  Tracy: Uh, yeah.
• 28:54
  Tracy: I love your humor.
• 28:55
  Tracy: I'm so quick witted.
• 28:57
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 28:57
  Denise: Yeah.
• 28:58
  Tracy: Have you got any examples?
• 29:01
  Tracy: The, of anything that you, anything that you've read, anything that you've experienced or witnessed that you could share that, as I always ask, that is not gonna cross any confidentiality lines or 'cause people love to understand or, or to know a little bit more about how it can be experienced.
• 29:22
  Denise: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:24
  Denise: Um, well there's a few, um, one of them was.
• 29:29
  Denise: A constellation I did with a woman whose brother wasn't talking to her and hadn't spoken to her for six months.
• 29:37
  Denise: And when we set up the family, it, it was obvious to me that, and to her, that her mother had, you know, removed herself and was, you know, off, off in the distance with her back to the family, um, looking out.
• 29:56
  Denise: The opposite during, but all of the brothers in the family would in a circle around, um, the rep. Looking at her.
• 30:07
  Denise: So she'd stepped in to her mother's place and so we, we just did this simple task of lining her family up in order and, and having her look at where she was in the order, you know, and.
• 30:22
  Denise: Kind of realizing, oh my goodness, you know, like I'm about the fifth or sixth one along, right?
• 30:27
  Denise: Because she'd been just really parentified and, uh, that, that night I received a phone call from her and she said, what did you do?
• 30:37
  Denise: And I said, all care, no responsibility, you know, and she said, my brother's just turned up for dinner.
• 30:44
  Tracy: Wow.
• 30:46
  Denise: So that's how quickly things can shift.
• 30:48
  Denise: You know, sometimes they do, do, do that.
• 30:51
  Denise: Sometimes it's a lot more subtle.
• 30:53
  Denise: Another one was a woman who had had significant amount of, um, therapy from a range of other therapists and had come to me around the, uh, depression.
• 31:03
  Denise: And, um, her father had passed from depression.
• 31:08
  Denise: Depression by his own hand.
• 31:11
  Denise: One day I said to her, what if, what if this depression is not yours?
• 31:15
  Denise: You know, kind of externalizing the, the depression in a narrative sense is like the depression.
• 31:23
  Denise: Maybe, maybe it isn't yours.
• 31:26
  Denise: Maybe this is a way of you remaining connected to your dad and maybe it's a, a way of you trying to relieve the burden of his depression by taking it from him.
• 31:37
  Denise: So we did a constellation whereby we handed it back to its rightful place.
• 31:43
  Tracy: Mm.
• 31:45
  Denise: And the shift in her was remarkable.
• 31:47
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 31:48
  Denise: It really, really changed.
• 31:52
  Denise: So many things about, um, her and her perception.
• 31:58
  Denise: She, and she said, I, I've never felt like this before.
• 32:01
  Denise: You know, there was a, there was a real freedom in, in the release of that burden and, you know, we, we just use a floor anchor, but he was more than happy to take it back, you know?
• 32:13
  Tracy: Mm-hmm.
• 32:14
  Denise: And, um, it created quite a significant shift in the way that she kind of moved through life after that.
• 32:21
  Tracy: Beautiful.
• 32:22
  Tracy: When you say a floor anchor, what do you mean by that?
• 32:26
  Denise: You know, when you are working with individuals, you can work in a myriad of different ways.
• 32:32
  Denise: Mm-hmm.
• 32:33
  Denise: Work with them in terms of them just closing their eyes and visualizing it as you step them through particular things.
• 32:40
  Denise: You can use little figurines, um, you can, um, use.
• 32:46
  Denise: You know, floor anchors like cushions on the floor or most, um, facilitators use felt pieces.
• 32:52
  Denise: So I remember once with my neuro learning group, what we did is some con, I just asked them all to bring a bag of rocks and, um.
• 33:04
  Denise: Just said to them, we're gonna do some stone therapy today, not stoned therapy.
• 33:08
  Denise: We're not gonna get stoned.
• 33:10
  Denise: We're just gonna use the rocks, as you know, as ways to personify whatever's going on.
• 33:18
  Denise: Yep.
• 33:18
  Denise: So all I did was I asked.
• 33:20
  Denise: One person to set up the rocks is, you know, their family or an issue they had in their family, and the other person was only allowed to ask kind of therapeutic questions.
• 33:32
  Denise: Curious, neutral questions.
• 33:36
  Denise: Not, not offer suggestions, nothing.
• 33:39
  Denise: It's just like, oh, what's that doing there?
• 33:40
  Denise: And, and how can you put that there?
• 33:43
  Denise: And if you move that somewhere, where would you move it?
• 33:46
  Denise: Just simple questions like that.
• 33:49
  Denise: And it was remarkable.
• 33:51
  Denise: I gave them very little instruction and they, they did this work and everyone got so much out of it, so much.
• 34:01
  Denise: So one of my students who was a therapist.
• 34:04
  Denise: Was seeing a client or a couple in the next, um, session and she did some work with Stones and um, she talked to her line supervisor at work about it who had supervision with my supervisor and then my supervisor said to me the next session I had with her, I hear you're a really good stone therapist.
• 34:28
  Denise: And it was just simply, is that on your resume?
• 34:30
  Denise: Yeah, stoned therapist.
• 34:33
  Denise: It was remarkable because just you using objects and just asking curious, neutral questions, um, rather than, you know, offering advice or, or coming up with your own interpretation of what's going on.
• 34:47
  Denise: And that's one of the things that we have to do as facilitators and counselors is.
• 34:52
  Denise: To not offer.
• 34:54
  Denise: What we think should happen is to stop rescuing, is to make this neutral inquiry and remain curious.
• 35:03
  Denise: So, yeah, so you can use anything, you can use anything, um, to, I did some work, work with Michael Reddy as well before he passed away and mm-hmm.
• 35:12
  Denise: He did a lot of work with alters and just grabbing objects from around the house.
• 35:18
  Denise: And I remember doing that with a client once and, um, I just said, grab, just grab.
• 35:23
  Denise: Random things around you to represent members of your family.
• 35:28
  Denise: And, um, she grabbed it from one of her sisters.
• 35:31
  Denise: She grabbed a, a vase and she said, oh, it's got a dead battery in it.
• 35:36
  Denise: And I said, oh, okay.
• 35:39
  Denise: I said, tell me a little bit about your sister.
• 35:40
  Denise: And she said, oh, she's really low in energy.
• 35:43
  Denise: I just thought the objects that she had.
• 35:46
  Denise: She hadn't consciously thought about it.
• 35:49
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 35:49
  Denise: The objects that she had chosen really suited, you know, there was a little square steel clock for one of her, um, siblings who was very structured and not warm, you know?
• 36:02
  Denise: Um, so it was just interesting watching that process as people, um, you know.
• 36:09
  Denise: Intuitively grab an O object that, um, really suits the personality of, um, who they're trying to personify.
• 36:18
  Tracy: Absolutely.
• 36:19
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 36:19
  Tracy: I use, I often use invite people to find objects around the house and
• 36:24
  Denise: Yeah.
• 36:24
  Tracy: Um, and it, and it's quite amazing what people come up with.
• 36:28
  Tracy: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:28
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 36:29
  Tracy: And my floor anchors, I, as you call 'em, because that was the word I hadn't heard before.
• 36:32
  Tracy: I was like, floor anchor.
• 36:34
  Tracy: Okay.
• 36:34
  Tracy: Um, I had these vinyl discs.
• 36:38
  Denise: Yeah.
• 36:39
  Tracy: And, um, silver ones and gold ones, but on the back of it's gray, so you kind of get a select selection of colors and they're great.
• 36:47
  Tracy: 'cause you can stand on them.
• 36:48
  Tracy: They're easy to clean.
• 36:49
  Tracy: Um, yeah, I thought about the felt ones, but I have a four-legged assistant who is, uh, quite hairy and sheds a lot.
• 36:59
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 37:00
  Tracy: So we've opted off out of, um,
• 37:03
  Denise: well, um, mark, mark Woolen uses, um, um.
• 37:07
  Denise: Flooring is in the shape of feet in all different sizes.
• 37:11
  Tracy: Hmm.
• 37:11
  Tracy: So
• 37:12
  Denise: he's got, people tend to cut them out of like yoga mats and so they are really kind of resilient.
• 37:17
  Denise: And so you can have a set of all, all different size, uh, feet.
• 37:23
  Denise: And that's, um, fascinating to work with as well.
• 37:27
  Denise: Hmm.
• 37:28
  Denise: Brilliant
• 37:28
  Tracy: stuff.
• 37:29
  Tracy: There's so many different ways that we can do this.
• 37:32
  Denise: Absolutely.
• 37:32
  Denise: And, and you know, working online you can, um, you know, you can set up another camera for Zoom that is looking at, at the, um, surface level of the.
• 37:45
  Denise: The field that you are using to set those objects in?
• 37:48
  Denise: Mm-hmm.
• 37:49
  Denise: Or you, I've just
• 37:49
  Tracy: done that over the weekend with my trainees.
• 37:51
  Tracy: Yeah,
• 37:52
  Denise: yeah.
• 37:53
  Denise: Or, or there are a range of other, um, you know, you can use a whiteboard, Sarah Payton use a whiteboard and she draws all over it.
• 38:01
  Denise: Um, but some, there are some constellation tools that also online tools that you can use.
• 38:08
  Denise: I think, um, Cecilio now, what's his last name?
• 38:13
  Denise: He has one, and there's an another one as well that, that clients can interact either in groups or individuals.
• 38:21
  Denise: So, you know, there's some really excellent, um, tools that, um, can be used for distance work.
• 38:29
  Denise: And it's equally, as, you know, impressively, um, shifting energies as, you know, the, the group work face to face.
• 38:39
  Denise: Although there's something about, you know, getting a group together and doing a constellation that, um, and creating that kind of sacred space and that energy that, um, you know, is, you know, very appealing to be a part of.
• 38:55
  Tracy: Absolutely.
• 38:56
  Tracy: And yet it's also just as powerful.
• 39:00
  Tracy: In a group, right?
• 39:01
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 39:01
  Tracy: Have you, have you, um, seen the ripples within your family system for as you are working, you're noticing, um, things Absolutely.
• 39:11
  Tracy: You think of your children or your siblings?
• 39:14
  Denise: Yes, absolutely.
• 39:15
  Denise: Uh, absolutely.
• 39:16
  Denise: Um, you know, the shifts, yeah.
• 39:19
  Denise: Sometimes they, they can happen really quickly and you'll, you know, get almost like immediate feedback.
• 39:27
  Tracy: Mm-hmm.
• 39:27
  Tracy: And
• 39:27
  Denise: other ones will happen slowly over time.
• 39:30
  Denise: But I think it's also the internal shifts and, and the way that you can change perspective
• 39:36
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 39:37
  Denise: Is the most significant.
• 39:40
  Denise: Is, is being able to understand something from a, from an, you know, another perspective, um, you know, that hadn't seen it before, is also really layered.
• 39:54
  Denise: You know, it can be kind of a complex process, you know, allowing that to settle and to work through it.
• 40:01
  Denise: But, um, you know, I, I did.
• 40:03
  Denise: I have seen that and I've definitely, from a personal perspective as as a parentified child, being able to not pick up the burdens and seeing those shifts within the family and, you know, obviously we have no control over how other people respond to that.
• 40:23
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 40:24
  Tracy: And I think this work shows you too the the different things that we take on, right?
• 40:28
  Tracy: So you can have different members of your family, siblings and they'll have very different experiences in the family.
• 40:35
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 40:36
  Tracy: And maybe they've got different, they've taken unconsciously, taken on different roles.
• 40:40
  Tracy: Um, and you would think that if you're talking to them, they were from two different systems.
• 40:45
  Denise: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 40:47
  Denise: You know, you can sit around with your siblings and all talk about the same event and have a very, very, very different perspective.
• 40:55
  Denise: You know what people tend to do is go, that's not how it happened.
• 40:59
  Denise: You know?
• 41:01
  Denise: And so, you know, we can have my way's the right way.
• 41:04
  Denise: Exactly.
• 41:05
  Denise: Exactly.
• 41:06
  Denise: But for that person, and this is what I do in couple therapy or family therapy, is I say, do you have a similar or different perspective to that?
• 41:17
  Denise: I never say, do you agree or disagree?
• 41:20
  Tracy: Mm. You
• 41:20
  Denise: know, 'cause you're only gonna end up being the ref.
• 41:22
  Denise: Let's face it.
• 41:23
  Denise: That's also introducing the idea to the, to the clients that, oh, okay.
• 41:28
  Denise: You can have multiple perspectives and that's okay,
• 41:31
  Tracy: because that might not be something that they've ever experienced in their, in their reality growing up either.
• 41:37
  Denise: Exactly.
• 41:37
  Denise: And so, you know, uh, people are either right or wrong and you did it or you didn't do it, you know?
• 41:42
  Denise: Mm-hmm.
• 41:42
  Denise: But when you can say, what was your perspective and how did you arrive at that?
• 41:48
  Denise: You can create a much greater understanding within the family system about how come someone, um, thinks or acts the way they do that you, you wouldn't have that opportunity if you didn't stop and examine that in that way.
• 42:04
  Tracy: Yeah, totally.
• 42:06
  Tracy: Totally.
• 42:07
  Tracy: I think in this work, like you shared before, you know, sometimes it's a really big movement or it's a little subtle movement and I've been witness to people being disappointed that they're not having this great big movement that other people have had.
• 42:24
  Tracy: You know, like it's not, I haven't had the big, wow, there's a big secret in my family system, or there's been a subtlety end.
• 42:31
  Tracy: They've come with expectations, basically.
• 42:33
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 42:33
  Tracy: That they're gonna have a, a big experience and inviting them to just to be with it.
• 42:39
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 42:39
  Tracy: That sometimes, sometimes we have layers and we have to peel off one or two or three layers before we can get.
• 42:48
  Tracy: To other things, and maybe that it's just not, your system's not ready to reveal things.
• 42:54
  Denise: Exactly, but also, you know, it is, it's like, uh, pebble in a lake.
• 42:59
  Denise: You don't know how far and how wide those ripples are gonna go and where, you know, what it is that they're actually gonna touch as they move across, you know, across the lake.
• 43:09
  Denise: It's so wide reaching and it's not just, you know, the, the, the system.
• 43:17
  Denise: It's the.
• 43:18
  Denise: It's the, the ripples below the surface as well.
• 43:21
  Denise: And sometimes those things may not happen.
• 43:24
  Denise: You know, you may not get something immediate, but down the track there's something that's shifted.
• 43:30
  Denise: What, what I always said to students, you know, I'd always terrify them in the first week that I had them.
• 43:36
  Denise: Not, not on purpose, but anyway.
• 43:38
  Denise: And one of the things that I would say is, you, you, what you are going to learn, you're going to shift from a. Linear causality thinking like it's your fault, you know?
• 43:49
  Denise: Um, which most of our clients come in with, you know, he Here fix my kid, you know.
• 43:55
  Denise: And they'll say to the kid, and when you're finish, we'll take you to McDonald's.
• 43:59
  Denise: It's like, fabulous.
• 44:01
  Denise: Um, but you know, our kids' got an issue.
• 44:04
  Denise: They need to be fixed and then we'll all go home and be happy.
• 44:07
  Denise: You know what parents don't understand from a systemic perspective as your child is acting in a particular way because of.
• 44:15
  Denise: What's happening in the family system.
• 44:17
  Denise: And children do an excellent job sometimes of getting their parents in for couple therapy, you know.
• 44:23
  Denise: But, um, I'd say to um, students, you are shifting from a linear causality into systemic thinking.
• 44:31
  Denise: When you start to think systemically, it's like as sending a staircase, but the stairs disappear behind you.
• 44:39
  Denise: You can never go back.
• 44:42
  Denise: So be prepared to have your life shift in ways.
• 44:46
  Denise: That you can't even begin to imagine And, and how many people leave the room at that point?
• 44:51
  Denise: That's right.
• 44:52
  Denise: It's like, whoa.
• 44:54
  Denise: And then, you know, because, uh, you know, as a part of training, and whether this is consolation training or, or it's, you know, training and, and counseling is you start to examine you, you know, your beliefs, how you make sense of things, the meaning that you attach to everything, your perspective within a system.
• 45:15
  Tracy: Mm. And,
• 45:16
  Denise: and you are thinking about, you know, A causes B, causes C, that causes A to do B, but whatever.
• 45:25
  Denise: And so it really shifts that.
• 45:27
  Denise: And you can't go back.
• 45:28
  Denise: You can't, you can't just sit there and go, it's everybody else's fault.
• 45:32
  Denise: It's not my fault.
• 45:34
  Denise: You know, you, it invites you.
• 45:37
  Denise: To take responsibility.
• 45:39
  Tracy: Absolutely.
• 45:40
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 45:40
  Tracy: It's definitely changed the way I see my family system and, and myself and my role as just my role.
• 45:47
  Tracy: I won't give myself a label.
• 45:49
  Denise: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:50
  Denise: Well, you know, it's, it's, um, we've had a conversation about this not so long ago, Tracy.
• 45:54
  Denise: It's like a, it can be a hard.
• 45:59
  Denise: When you are that person in the family that is doing this work and gains that perspective, if, you know, other members of the family aren't gaining that perspective.
• 46:10
  Denise: And I hear a lot of fairly unflattering descriptions from people that are doing the work are talking about people that aren't doing the work.
• 46:20
  Denise: And I, you know, and I think that is, can be very really judgy.
• 46:24
  Denise: You know, we, we all, mm-hmm.
• 46:27
  Denise: Doing things when, you know, as as we evolve.
• 46:30
  Denise: Right.
• 46:31
  Denise: But it can be difficult if you are the only person in that family system that appears to be doing, actively doing something.
• 46:41
  Tracy: Mm. It can be, but also I think that it also brings, it comes a time when it brings a sense, you can find a sense of peace in Yeah.
• 46:49
  Tracy: Acknowledging that they are ex exactly where they are meant to be and yeah.
• 46:55
  Tracy: Whether they're doing the work or not, it doesn't matter.
• 46:57
  Tracy: They're, everything is perfect alignment for them and for you, and if we are focused on them.
• 47:05
  Tracy: Um, them having to do the work.
• 47:06
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 47:07
  Tracy: Quotation marks.
• 47:09
  Tracy: Then we're not actually being present in ourselves.
• 47:11
  Denise: Absolutely.
• 47:12
  Tracy: We're not, we're not focusing on us.
• 47:13
  Tracy: This is
• 47:14
  Denise: but, but you are also handing your power
• 47:16
  Tracy: over.
• 47:17
  Tracy: Exactly.
• 47:18
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 47:18
  Tracy: You know,
• 47:19
  Denise: in order for me to be, okay, you have to do this, there's no power in that at all.
• 47:24
  Denise: Mm-hmm.
• 47:25
  Denise: It's like, in order for me to be okay, I need to do my own work and I need to respect where.
• 47:33
  Denise: You know where you are at right now, and sometimes that does mean that you have to put up boundaries and you, and you can't have relationships, you know, with, with, with people who don't expect your boundaries.
• 47:46
  Denise: But, you know, it's important that we are still able to include them, our family system some way, and know that they actually have a place whether or not, you know, you can have like a, you know, a, a, a face-to-face relationship with them.
• 48:03
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 48:03
  Tracy: Wow.
• 48:04
  Tracy: And it comes to, you know, like my, my husband love him to pieces and he has no idea what I do, and he's not interested in doing the work as such.
• 48:15
  Tracy: I think there's a bit of osmosis that does ripple out in our, you know, in our togetherness.
• 48:21
  Tracy: But if I was to focus on him having to do the work to be up there with me in that way of thinking,
• 48:29
  Denise: yeah.
• 48:30
  Tracy: Then I would just be like giving it all away.
• 48:32
  Tracy: Right.
• 48:33
  Tracy: Whereas I'm doing my stuff, he's doing his, he's there.
• 48:36
  Tracy: We do, we love each other and it doesn't matter.
• 48:39
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 48:39
  Tracy: And he's not doing the same thing as me.
• 48:42
  Tracy: And in, in some way I think he's doing, you know, he's, he's my rock.
• 48:45
  Tracy: He's my grounded rock.
• 48:47
  Denise: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Denise: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Denise: And it's the same with Rob.
• 48:49
  Denise: You know, he's probably got 25 years clinical experience, but he's a builder, you know, and, um, he'd be able to tell you the ethical considerations of a range of different case presentations.
• 49:00
  Denise: But if you asked him to sit, sit in the chair.
• 49:04
  Denise: You know, or, or stand up and do a constellation thing.
• 49:07
  Denise: He'd run for the hills.
• 49:09
  Denise: Like
• 49:09
  Tracy: that's why him and Peter going fishing and golfing.
• 49:13
  Denise: Right.
• 49:13
  Denise: Fishing and golfing when they're in Lombok.
• 49:16
  Denise: Yes.
• 49:16
  Denise: And lying.
• 49:17
  Denise: A lot of lying around the pool.
• 49:19
  Denise: No doubt.
• 49:20
  Tracy: Hopefully they get to relax and then just enjoy it.
• 49:22
  Tracy: Reap the benefits.
• 49:23
  Denise: Yeah.
• 49:24
  Denise: Yeah, definitely.
• 49:25
  Denise: Of
• 49:25
  Tracy: having two amazing wives, you know, like.
• 49:29
  Denise: Lucky.
• 49:30
  Denise: Lucky them,
• 49:32
  Tracy: aren't they?
• 49:32
  Tracy: You hear the trumpets?
• 49:34
  Tracy: Yes.
• 49:34
  Tracy: So looking forward to spending that time with you, uh, on the island.
• 49:38
  Tracy: Are you and Susan?
• 49:39
  Denise: Yes.
• 49:40
  Denise: It'll be fabulous.
• 49:41
  Tracy: Yeah.
• 49:42
  Tracy: Well, thank you for joining me today.
• 49:44
  Tracy: It's been amazing as I knew it would be.
• 49:46
  Tracy: You are such a wealth of knowledge as well and so much fun to be with.
• 49:50
  Tracy: So
• 49:50
  Denise: thank you.
• 49:51
  Denise: Thank you.
• 49:51
  Denise: I appreciate the, the work you're doing.
• 49:54
  Denise: I appreciate you as a facilitator and a person and you know, keep on, um.
• 50:01
  Denise: You know, bringing constellations to mainstream as well.
• 50:04
  Denise: I think it's a fabulous thing that you are doing, so
• 50:08
  Tracy: thank you.
• 50:09
  Tracy: I do need to ask though, how can someone get in touch with you, because I know you are doing some, you've got some shifts happening in your, um, background in your business.
• 50:19
  Tracy: Yes.
• 50:20
  Denise: I'm, I'm rebranding and I'm just rebranding under, under My own name.
• 50:25
  Denise: I have a business called Caring for myself with a numeral four, but I'm just going to move to Denise Warner because I'm reasonably kind of well known, definitely in counseling circles here, here in Australia.
• 50:39
  Denise: But you know, you can email me on Denise J. Warner at hotmail.com and I will be.
• 50:47
  Denise: Um, or on LinkedIn?
• 50:49
  Denise: I'm on LinkedIn.
• 50:50
  Denise: I'm, I'm not a real estate agent in Tampa, Florida.
• 50:54
  Denise: Um, she
• 50:56
  Tracy: could be a travel agent'cause she's really good at coming up with some ideas.
• 51:01
  Denise: So if anyone wanted to contact me, connect with me on LinkedIn or send me an email to Deni Denise jayWarner@hotmail.com.
• 51:09
  Denise: Um, that'll, that'll definitely get to me.
• 51:12
  Tracy: Fantastic.
• 51:13
  Tracy: Thank you so much my friend.
• 51:15
  Tracy: So I hope everyone has enjoyed this conversation today as much as I've enjoyed bringing it together with you.
• 51:22
  Tracy: Denise, thank you for listening.
• 51:25
  Tracy: Head over to Instagram and tell me what's resonated for you with this episode.
• 51:29
  Tracy: You'll find me at Tracy dot Cartwright.
• 51:33
  Tracy: That's Tracy with no e dot Cartwright and the or head over to my website, Tracy cartwright.co.nz and receive a free audio with the gift from your ancestors.
• 51:46
  Tracy: So until next time, be kind to yourself and have fun doing it.