Latest / The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show / Episode 19, Season 2: Attachment Across the Generations: How Our Past Shapes Our Present

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Episode 19, Season 2: Attachment Across the Generations: How Our Past Shapes Our Present · The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Love Dog Podcast. I'm your co host
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Rana Butcher here with our host, doctor Sarah Hensley, the owner, founder,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and CEO of the love Doc relationship coaching services and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of course of this podcast. You can find her at
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the lovedoc dot com or on all social media handles
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: at doctor Sarah Hensley.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Hey, Hey, what's up.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: You know, just recording our lovely podcast. Our favorite thing
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: to do, which we say are dane to do. It
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: is the most fun part of what we Oh, absolutely,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and it's like this for me, it's therapy. It is
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: because I get to come here and like you know,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we're talking as best friends like we
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: would if we were just talking, but on this really
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: like on a deeper level.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, on a much deeper level.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And so it's a I get I get first class
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: access to the doc Herson.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's it's so fun because it's just a way
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: to be a little bit more myself and a little
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: bit and it makes me sad when people like, stop
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: talking about yourself, We don't care, Just tell me how
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: to have our relationship. And I'm like, fine, but there
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: is a part of me that's like I desire to
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: be known and understood. I'm a former FA and that
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: doesn't really go away. You just learn how to not
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: demand that people read your mind right right becomes secure.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I just I want to be cool too, Yeah a
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: little bit.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah you are cool.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe I'm not. I actually don't really
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: care that much if I'm cool, But I want to
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: be able to connect with people on a more human level.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: And the podcast just feels like we get to do that.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It feels like we get to share some of our
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: personality and some of our personal struggles and wins yep
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: with our audience, and we love to do that. We
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: are so thankful for you guys being here. Which, speaking
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: of sharing amongst diverse people, we are going to talk
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: about attachment styles across generation today, which I will preface
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: this conversation by saying, we don't have a lot of data.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: There's not a lot of data on this. Yeah, so
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of what we do have is speculative based
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: on the small amount of data that we have. So
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: side note footnote, yeah, asterisk, Yeah, and we don't have
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: a lot of data on this, so but let's talk
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And just to kind of line out, you know,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: give y'all the timeline and you might have helped me
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: with this. So we have our baby boomers, well.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: We have the greatest generation before them, so that was
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: our grand.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Poh okay, and ye I guess some of those are
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: some of them are still living? Yes, absolutely? And what
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: is that generation called?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: That is the greatest generation? The greatest they live the
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Great Depression.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I wish that was the name of mind.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Because they lived through the Great Depression.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the greatest generation. Okay, Then we have baby boomers.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And we have baby boomers. Then were their children? Right?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Then we have Gen X, Then we have Gen X,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: and then we have millennials. Then we have Gen Z,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: then we have Gen Alpha correct, and I have two.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I have one Gen Z or a one Gen Alpha kid,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: so I get to be exposed to both of those.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: The oldest Gen Alphas I think are twelve. I was
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: looking at like the timeline in terms of dates last
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: night because I was like, oh, Gen Alpha, I didn't
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: even know that exist.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: It is the skimmity toilet generation. Gimbty toilet, skimmy toilet.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Ohio Riz Sigma. Huh what did you just say? Hopefully
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I made some parents laugh in their car, Yeah, because
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: maybe the kid can't quit saying skibbity Yeah, maybe ohio
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: sigma six seven whatever. That crazy. That's I don't even
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: know what any of it. That's.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: That's a foreign language to me.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: And the gen Z language is a little bit foreign
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: to me too. Yeah, And I have a like I've
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: found myself saying low key all the time, low key,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: don't do that, legit, don't do that. And then they
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: say literally, but they really mean figuratively. They're like, literally,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I'm going to die. I was like, I think you
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: mean figuratively because you're literally not going to die because
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: you can't find your hoodie.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I do catch myself saying that a lot, because Josh
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: will even call me on it. I'm like, I'm literally
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: starving and he's like.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Are you though, are you mountain nourished?
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Are you starving?
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Oh you're not. It's interesting, it's interesting. So the data
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: that we do have there was a adjacent cohort study.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I believe it's made meta analysis, which is an aggregate
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: of data. A meta analysis is an analysis of a
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: bunch of different studies. It could have been a meta analysis.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not a one hundred percent sure, but I know.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: It was a generational cohort study that looked at individuals
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty eight to twenty eleven, and we saw
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: a statistically signific My goodness, it's been a while since
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I've used that term, since I'm not teaching statistics anymore.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Statistically significant finding, which just means greater than chance, Okay,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: that we see a rise in dismissive avoidance by about
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: five percent interest, so that attachment style is increasing. And
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie. It was the Baby Boomers that
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: raised them. So the Baby Boomers raised more dismissive avoidance,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: and I would absolutely say that that mirrors what I
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: see in my practice. The Baby Boomers were very emotionally
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: dismissive as a generation. Why, I don't exactly know. They
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: grew up in a lot of chaos too. Later When
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: I think about my parents growing up, I think about
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: like the Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam War, and
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: they were basically being told there could be nuclear war
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: at like every moment. So maybe they were just like, you.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Know what, we know what we had to live through,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: and theirs their parents were, you know, lived through the
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Great Depression, so they're living through like one of the
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: hardest times in terms of our nation's economic health.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So they probably dismissed the boomers as being whiny little babies,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: and then the boomers dismissed us. Yeah.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Right, there's a trickling down effect there for sure, Right.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I think so, because we don't have the data before
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: that those boomer parents. We only have this nineteen eighty
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: eight to twenty eleven data really is all we have
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: in terms of co wort effects.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: So I think though now we are seeing a rise
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: in attachment anxiety. And here's why, because I think we
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: are seeing that especially Gen Z is the most well
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: connected generation, but they're also the most depressed. So the
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: connections that they have are very shallow, which gives some
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: degree of intermittent reinforcement, like the need is partially met,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: but it's not stable enough to create feelings of safety.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: And I think that we have parents that are so
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: distracted on their phone, and I'm not going to say
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: that I am not guilty of at times being one
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: of them and having to be extremely intentional. I have
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: to be so intentional about my phone around my kids
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: because being a business owner, it's just like ding ding ding,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: ding ding ding ding, like notification after notification constantly, and
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, you know, the person
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: at the top has to eventually hear about this stuff.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: But you guys are sometimes great about putting out the
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: fires before they come home.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I really do try.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: I know you do, and I'm so appreciative of that.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And so we have a lot of distracted parents, but
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: we also have a lot of parents that are trying
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: to be emotionally aware and trying to be emotionally present
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: for their kid.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Now, millennials are known as like the therapy generation.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: We went to therapy. We did go to therapy. We
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: found out we were dismissed as children.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: So I feel like we not dismissed and we enable
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a little maybe that risks.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: So there's this fine line in parenting, fine freaking line.
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  Speaker 2: We're walking a type rope here, and it's not fair.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: You know what, Life's not fair. We're walking the tightrope
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: between not dismissing our children's feelings and raising a bunch
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: of dismissive avoidance that can't tolerate intimacy and vulnerability, versus
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: enabling every feeling as completely valid and teaching our kids
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: to catastrophize and become hysterical, and to become anxious about
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the smallest things in life, and to not be able
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: to do anything for themselves, and teaching them to be
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: guilty step over people's boundaries concre there's a fine line, right,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And so I always say Donald is the best freaking parent.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: He's just such a good parent because like when I
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: start to fail, like my girls will personally push me
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: a little bit, because the all kids push their parents, sure,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: and of course I'm their only surviving biological parent. And
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Donald has been in the picture for four going on
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: five years now, and I still think they have some
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: a little little bit of the okay, like I have
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: to do what you say. I'm not going to push
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: back on you like I would push back on my mom, right.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: But also I think there's this beautiful parenting dynamic when
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: we have a nuclear family, and again I don't have
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: a full nuclear family. I have a piece together, a
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: nuclear family that I think now operates as a nuclear family,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: which I really love because you know, Donald has adopted
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: my girls. But it really shines the light on the
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: role of a mother versus a father, where I think
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: the mother's role is to be a little bit more nurturing,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: more validating. And then it is the father's role to
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: help a child sit in discomfort and face the fact
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: that you have to be tough sometimes too, because we're
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: trying to teach our kids empathy but also grit at
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: the same time. And that is such a fine line,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: is so such a tight rope. And when we say, oh,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: you just have to be a good enough parent. Kids
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: are resilient, that's actually not true. Yeah, that's actually not
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: true at all. Kids are adaptive, not resilient. Resilient means
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I've overcome adversity and I'm still very highly functional. Adaptive
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: means I went through adversity and any behaviors that I
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: have that may be dysfunctional or a result of that
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of adapting to dysfunction.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a difference, and that's I mean, that's just
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: way more scientifically proven, I.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Would say, way more scientifically sound. Kids are not resilient,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: they're adaptive. So yes, they may be able to be
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: somewhat functional, but we are going to see adaptation to
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: dysfunction if the kids are around dysfunction constantly, as it
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: is modeled to them and as they experience it in
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: their nervous system. So our parents are our first mirrors
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: of intimacy. They are are first experience with what does
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: it feel like to be close to someone, and that
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: experience will be so profound that it will shape all
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: the rest of their intimacy experiences throughout their life. So
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: when we say have to be a good enough parent,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: don't worry, They're resilient. I think we need to take
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: a step back and say no, Actually, parenting is the
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: most important job that we have. It is the thing
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: that we should focus on the most in terms of
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: quote getting it right, and we should let everything else
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: come sort of secondary with putting our kids first, meaning
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: actually putting our marriage in our relationship first, because that
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: is their model under which they will imprint what does
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: it mean to be close to someone inside their nervous system.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I would give anything if I knew the basis of
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: attachment when JP, before I had JP.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I knew it, and I still couldn't use it. So
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: that's where awareness doesn't matter. When your nervous system is
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: shaped in a certain way, you can have all the
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: awareness and all the good intentions in the world, and
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: your nervous system will override you every single time, which
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: is why we have to understand that attachment is based
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: in a subconscious blueprint that is intimately tied to how
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: the nervous system functions around intimacy.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: So which is what you teach.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Which is what I teach. So when you earn your security,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: you're not just becoming securely attached in your romantic relationship.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: You are earning the ability to shape your children's attachment security,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: which I think is a really really amazing and profound thing,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: and I have gotten to witness it with my older daughter.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So my older daughter is now fourteen, and she's on
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: her second boyfriend now first boyfriend. She went a little
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: avoidant and I was like, oh, here's the FA right,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: like they lost her dad, they've had she's had childhood trauma.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: She I know she has fearful avoidance and we've been
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: working on it. Come to find out though, you know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I can read her phone, yeah, and she'll let me.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: She'll put her phone up, and now I go through
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: it if I want to. Come to find out, there
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: was a little too much attachment anxiety on the other
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: end of that relationship, like that high high, high, high
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: high levels of attachment anxiety. And when my dad started
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: opening up to me about the things that this boy
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: was saying and doing. I was like, baby, girl, that
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: would even make a secure person want to run. So
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the fact that you noticed that you were slipping into
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: your avoidance and you were open with him. You were saying, Hey,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling like I'm slipping into a little bit of
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: my attachment avoidance because I feel a little overwhelmed here.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: You're making Gosh, you're communicating so openly and so beautifully
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: and respectfully. And that's when I'm like, yes, you're.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Doing it, doing it, You're doing keep doing it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: And now she has this other boyfriend, and he's very
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: he's showing at least right now, he's showing up very secure.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: She's aware that you know, if you're only a couple
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: of months in, it could change, right. And so I'm like,
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: if he starts pulling wife, he starts being inconsistent, you
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: need to know those are red flash.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: She really liked this one.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: She does, but because he's my daughter. Again. She is
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: a very busy lady. She has all ap glasses, is
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: a varsity athlete. She is doing private lessons and tumbling
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: to get better. I heard that cheer. There's not a
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: moment of that child's day. I feel like where she
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: can just relax. And so, you know, a relationship at
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: this age it looks a lot different right than in adult.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Really good though, because then it allows her to not no,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: she to not get too to not get too attached,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: because I think that that's not that JP didn't have
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: things to keep him involved when he was in high school.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: He had the ROTC and that kept him busy. But man,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: once he found that girl, it was just all in.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And here we are. Gosh, we're going on three years
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: now that they've been together, and and I love you
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: so much, Jessica, I couldn't love you more. But like
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: they they're pretty consumed with each other, and they have
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: been consumed, like I keep like Josh, and I keep
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: like secretly waiting for it to kind of like fizzle,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and it it.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Has had, it has If anything, it's ramped for sure,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: for sure. So it's very hard to see your children
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: go through these things. And once you are attachment aware
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: and you see their attachment style coming out, you just
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: want to be like, oh my gosh, no no no, no, no, no,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: don't do it wrong. Don't do it wrong. Don't do it,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: and then you want.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: To teach them. You want to teach them so badly,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: like all the things that you know, But of course
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: they can't conceptualize the things that you know. A forty
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: plus year old brain knows versus you know, a teenager
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: or you know, eighteen nineteen year old.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Knows, right, And that's why it's really hard to come
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: to come to them after the fact and be like,
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: oh no, now you're doing it wrong. Right, if we
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: have the chance to start in childhood, when we are
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: their mirrors of intimacy before someone else comes into the
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: picture who does not love them like a parent and
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: is their mirror for intimacy, let's be a good mirror.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Let's be a stable mirror. So a lot of people
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: ask me in my my groups, well, what does a
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: secure parent look like? And I try to give them
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: some examples, like, say you have a three year old
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: little you on the playground and you're running around and
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: playing and going down the slide, and you come down
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: the slide and you have a hard fall and you
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: face first and you scrape your knees and your elbows
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: and you see blood and you're crying and you're three, right,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: you don't know what is this stuff coming out of me?
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Scary?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Scary, and it hurts and it stings. And you have
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: a parent that comes to you, and that parent goes, oh, sweet,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: do you fell down? Oh my gosh, that hurts, doesn't it.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: So a child is trying to answer the question, what
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: just happened to me? I'm feeling something? What is this?
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: And so we just had a parent that that modeled
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: you are feeling hurt. Oh that's scary. That was scary,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: wasn't it. Okay, this is fear. So you're helping a
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: child understand their emotions. But then when that parent is
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: also very regulated, what happens is that child borrows their
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: parent's nervous system so they don't feel regulated, but their
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: parent is like this oak tree that they can essentially
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: like grab onto during the storm. Right, And so what
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: that teaches the child when the parent is stable and
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: the parent is attuned and is labeling the emotions and
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: is inquisitive about them and is not trying to just
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: make it go away, which we can create some anxious
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: kiddos when we just try to bandaid their emotions, right,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: when we try to fix their problems for you and
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: don't allow them to sit into some discomfort When you
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: can allow your child to sit in that discomfort while
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: you name it and why you provide safety, that is
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: developing a securely attached nervous system because they're learning to
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: sit in difficult feelings without overreacting, while still staying calm.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And I also think another big mistake the parents made,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: speaking from personal experience here, is that when an incident
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: happens that brings about fear in the child, I have
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a specific circumstance. Jap and I were pa. He was
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: probably eight. We were carving pumpkins and he sliced his
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: thumb wide open. My reaction was fear and panic. Oh yeah,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and made that mistake plenty of times. Yeah, And so
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: of course my fear and panic he feeds off of,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: you know, And I can I can look back on
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: my parents, like my core parents in years and think,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: oh gosh, oh, I did so many things wrong.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: And the sad thing is because we don't know what
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: we don't know. And even though I knew all this
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: stuff about attachment, I had already chosen my mate. By
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the time I was learning about attachment, I was already married.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And probably super anxious because.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: It's because of who I chose to marry. So when
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I started learning this back in two thousand and six ish,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: I think that's right, two thousand and six to that, Yeah,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, I was
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: already married. Yeah, like I was already well, I was engaged,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: and I wasn't going to call off the marriage. And
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: then when I really learned the deep stuff, when I
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: knew I was in deep shi T, I was already
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: married and I was already pregnant.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you're already in it, do you well?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And and then you go into survival mode. And when
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: you're in that survival mode and that in your fight
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: flight responses, it's hard to You can't.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: And then execute anything.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And this brings me back to really the subject of
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the podcast, and you know, talking about maybe the baby
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: boomers and you know, raising the gen xers and the millennials,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: is that I think so much of their life was
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: spent in survival mode that they could never learn how
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: to build the capacity around how to regulate their nervous system.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: No, my parents were one hundred percent chronically dysregulated.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Same and my dad not so much. My dad I
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: think a lot of what helped Daddy was he was
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: a pastor, you know, faith, and he had had so
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: much childhood trauma. I mean, I don't even know the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: extent of his childhood trauma, to be honest. That it
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: made him so much more.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Aware, right, Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: With certain things and then disassociate with certain things.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I had awareness for so long, but I had no
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: ability to execute because I was in a marriage with
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: somebody who was an addict, who was cheating on me constantly,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: who was abusing me constantly, And then I was trying
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: to be a mom and I had no idea what
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: I was doing there either. And I had a lot
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: of sickness and a lot of problems with my health.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Obviously I've talked about that. But I just had no
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: capacity to execute. I was in my capacity. Isn't that
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: still tesching that what.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I was about to say, I'm still learning, you know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: so much about parenting in this new season of parenting,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: which is parenting an adult. It's it's a totally new error.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: But now knowing what I know, it's this was one
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why I wanted to have another child,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: which I have come to terms with is just not
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: going to happen, but it's because I felt so much
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: more well equipped for it.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, I get that a lot, I do. I do
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: get that. I think the gen xers were very much
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: latch key kids' clo millennial.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: They're known as the latch general.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I am one year away from being a gen Xer.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: So gen X ends in nineteen eighty one and I'm
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two, baby, and so three. Yeah, you're
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: You're always be younger than May. It's fine. So the
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: latch key kids there was just there was instrumental neglect
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: as well as emotional neglect, so parents weren't around. This
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: is really when we saw a two household workforce start
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: to become a big thing. Yep, and a worked I'm
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: not hating on two household workforce, but what I'm just saying,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: or two parent workforce, but we can't be blind to
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: the fact that a lot of kids were left alone
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: to their own devices and that there was some bitterness.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: There was one time mentioned it before I'll mention it
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: again where I pretty much pissed off all of gen
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: z on the internet.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that was pretty epic. It was epic, And
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: now it's hilarious because I said that I thought gen
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: X grew up kind of tough, and that gen Z
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: doesn't really get what it feels like to be alone
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: and isolated when all you have is a house phone
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: if that no internet, no cable and no parents.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: You know, the things that we.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Did what an awesome time in the world. Would do
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: anything to go back.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: To, Oh my gosh, where you could do stuff and
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: it wasn't just all captured in video.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: It was like true freedom.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: So what I'm just saying is I think that that
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of gen xers looking back are like,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I was kind of neglected, and there's something about just again.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: I don't think they're crying victim, but I think they're saying, listen,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: maybe there's something in between what we had to go
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: through and then how the millennials now are raising gen
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Z and gen Alpha, which the pendulum with the millennials
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: swung way too far the other ways. We can't hurt
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: someone's feelings, so.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: We have to get everything validated.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Everything is validated, every little fear, concern, et cetera. And
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: I do think that's dangerous to validate every little feeling
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: through agreement. Now, do I I really do love empathy
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: through understanding. I think our job is to understand others.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: And I think that's why Donald has just the golden
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: keys to parenting. He's he says, it's empathy plus boundaries
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: plus consistencystency and consistency is key, and He's like, one
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: thing that my kids are going to know about is
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: that I'm consistent. I'm consistent across all four of them,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: and I'm consistent with what I say and do, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: he's one hundred percent consistent. And I am more prone
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: to being pushed into dropping boundaries. And what I have
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: come to understand in earning my own attachment security and
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: parenting these kids is I'm not going to drop my boundaries,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: especially when they start getting tested. When they get to
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: the age of eight nine and all of a sudden,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: they're starting to test you a little bit more in
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: ways because they're becoming a little bit smarter and they
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: know what your pain points are and they can press
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: on your pain points. And what I will say to
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: that is, yeah, I understand you're disappointed, and it really
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: stinks when we don't get what we want, and I
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: get that you're feeling mad or frustrated, by disappointment. Disappointment
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: inherently creates frustration, That's what I'll say. And so that's
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: a normal thing to feel. And this is still what's
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: happening here, and this is the boundary, and this is
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: still what I think is best for you. End of story.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: We're not arguing about it. You got to tell me
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: how you felt. I understand, and it's not changing the boundary.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I think the boundaries in the consistency part is definitely
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the most difficult, especially when you have multiple children. And
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I can attest to this. It's interesting because my family dynamic.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I am the baby of four, but I am the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: only millennial, and so all three of my siblings are
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: gen xers, and to if you knew us all four personally,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: you could see it clear as day.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Like it is.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: So it is so so clear that I am the
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: only millennial out of that group. But I'll say this
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: about my parents. I think what ended up happening is
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: specifically with Ryan, my brother, who is the oldest. You know,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: they came in strong, they were ready, they were prepared,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: they wanted that child. They you know, I mean, I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: remember the day that my mom told me. I asked
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: her openly I was like, was Ryan and oops, baby
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and she was like, no, actually you are a baby,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: and I was like, excuse me, what what?
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: No?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I think by the time that mama,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: you know, it came to me coming of age, she
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: was exhaust tired. She was tired, so tired, and so
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the consistency fell off, and you know, I think it
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: shaped me and molded me in ways that you know
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: is for a totally different episode, but it made me.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: It made me pretty much dynamically, very different from my
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: three siblings.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I think. I think a lot of millennials they got tired.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: They got tired, I agree, and they were just like,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: you know what, do what you want. You're going to
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: do it anyway. Yeah, and at the end of the day.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: But then then they would scream at you when you
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: did do something wrong.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Right, And then I was like, you know, I'm like
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: nine doing my own laundry, you know, like because my
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: mom was like, you're I'm not doing this anymore. I'm
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: exhausted and you're on your own. You're you either you know,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: wash your own clothes or you have dirty clothes. And
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: so there was like, like you said, there was this
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: intermittent reinforcement of I felt one percent loved by my parents,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: but then at the same time somewhat dismissed and and
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know. And it happened later too, when I
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: went off to college. Because not throwing myself a pity
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: party here, guys, I'm just saying, I'm just talking about
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the dynamics of my family, you know, when my sister
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: went off to college, when my other sister went off
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to college, like daddy was paying for it, you know.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: And then my parents divorced, and then I went off
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: to college, so it was like, sorry about you. You're
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: on your own here.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we ran out of money.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have no money. We're going through a divorce
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and sorry, you're on your own, which made me extremely resilient.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to say it's not fair for
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: me to say that I'm more resilient than my siblings,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: but I am.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: But you are here. And here's the thing, too, is
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: boundaries create safety. Boundaries create safety for your kids because
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: your kids are constantly trying to test where are the parameters,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: where are the lines in the sand, and they want
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: it is inherently in human nature to see how far
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: the boundaries go if you were in a wide open
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: field all of a sudden, just I don't know what
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: am I trying to say. Beamed beamed made me up, Scottie, right,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: like you were just beamed into an open field and
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: would you not walk forward and to see where it ended?
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Of course your kids are going to test boundaries. Doesn't
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: make them bad kids. That make some curious humans, right,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: that's human nature. But boundaries in place let them know
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: what's safe, and so they might not like them in
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the immediate, but in the long term, it trains their
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: nervous system to trust you, and to trust closeness and
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: to trust intimacy because you've set parameters around what that
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: looks like. And I think what's so interesting is when
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: we're boundary less in our relationship, can we really fault
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: our part for them testing them and pushing them because
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you've never held them? And so we teach people how
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: to treat us. When you don't hold boundaries in your relationship,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: do you sit there and wonder why your partner's not
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: treating you well? I think it is human nature to
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: test how far can I go with something? And subconsciously
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: very much so, and kids will test this. They will
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: act out, they will do things because they're saying to you,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: if I act out, am I still safe? If I
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: am annoying? Do you still love me? If I break
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: the rules? Are you gonna throw me away? Does that
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: take your love away? They're trying to see how conditional
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: your love is. And so when you validate through understanding,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: you're showing them that you still love them, that they're
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: still important, that they still matter, that their feelings matter.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: But then when you set the boundary, then you give
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: them trust you and you can trust me because I
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: know what's best for you and the line ends here.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: And I'm sorry that that frustrates you in the moment,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: but guess what long term, that's going to teach you
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: that intimate relationships are actually safe and you know where
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: you can move within them.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the beauty of like what let's
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: say the baby boomer generation gave us, because I think
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: their boundaries were set because they had to be set right,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: like they had no choice. But then that trickling down
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: effect of that has created, you know, the gen X
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and millennial generation that's raising these gen zers and who
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: are but we're more self aware and what those boundaries
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: need to look like And you know, again, I think there,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: this isn't about me and the ways that I failed
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: as a variant. But I can't help but just go there,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: like my brain cannot help, but go there.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: I go there too, I go there too. I go
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: there a lot, I go there a lot. And then
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: I have to realize Donald's really great about saying and
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: you can't change it. Yeah, And we're not going to
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: sit in self pity and we're going to say that
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: things are okay now. Yeah.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: And I'm grateful for okay now to have you know,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Josh as a partner for that same reason. And I
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: often think about, you know, in this empty nest era
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: of my life, because you know, you've heard me talk
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: about in other episodes about you know, I'm moving into
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: this era of empty nest, and but I've never really
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: gotten into you know why, I think it is so painful.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And I think the reason why it is so painful
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: is because you're letting go and looking back on all
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the ways that you could have done things differently, and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: then you come to face face to face with that
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: at this time more than any other time.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Right, you come face to face that with who what
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: kind of adult did I create? Yeah, yeah, exactly, and
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: that's I'm and you're like, I'm seeing in the future
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: to that. Yeah, but I can only imagine that. Yeah,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: it's hard, and regret is really painful, which is why
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I always tell people try everything before you end your relationship.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Be christ. Regret is very painful. You don't want to
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: end your relationship and then go. But I maybe if
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I would have shown up differently, Yeah, right, So start
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: showing up differently, and then if your partner doesn't respond
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: to you, then you know, well, I did everything I could.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: I showed up well on my end and they didn't
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: match me. So I can actually leave and feel good
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: about leaving because I did the work first to show
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: up as the most secure partner I could be. And
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: if that doesn't create enough safety and allow my partner
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: to sort of lean into that and stabilize into their
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: own security, then I can go and I can be like, Okay,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: it wasn't ever going to change no matter what I did.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: And regret is so painful, and I think it's easy
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: to look back as a parent and regret a lot,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: and I know that I do, and it is a
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: fact that again all we have is now. Life is
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: made up of many moments of now.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's what I was going to say too,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: again bringing it back to the generational topic, is that
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I think we are better as parents at the repair.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: At the repair, yeah, because my God love them, you know,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: there's no repair, no, no, and like there would be
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: blow ups and like I don't know, like I just
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: remember blow ups and then my mom would either just
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: always be mad and they're like I don't know if ever,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and then my dad would just kind of disappear, and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: so I don't ever recall and even like when there
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: was a blow up between my mom and me, I
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: don't know if there was ever any true deep repair.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: And here's what I'll say after kind of beating myself
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: up through this episode about like, oh the regret, the regret,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: is that one thing that I have tried to do
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: differently in my parenting journey is when I do mess up,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I make sure to always go back and repair.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: It absolutely, And I think that that's what we need
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: to focus on as parents. It's not perfection, it's repair. Yeah.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: And if you are finding yourself having to repair all
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the time because you're so dysregulated, then I think it
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: is worth checking into your attachment security and doing the
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: nervous system work and the work around intimacy because your
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: kids will trigger you too, trigger you in a different
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: way than your partner does. Your kids trigger you as
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: a mirror of yourself one hundred because when they do wrong,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: it's a subconscious reflection on you. Right, You're the one
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: that grew them and taught them and model model to them,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: and so when they do wrong it feels personal. It
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: feels extremely personal, but it's not personal. Yes, we may
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: have made them, but at the end of the day,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: they are going to have to as adults, be responsible
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: for their own own well being and their own behavior.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: And do we help shape that, Yes we do, But
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: they still have some of their own true personality, their
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: own temperance, temper their own you.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Know, I mean societal things that they're genetics, waited by peers,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: that they're persuaded.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: A situations can't control that they've interacted with. There's a
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: lot of variables that we can't control. But one of
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: the things I think we can control and we should
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: try to control as much as possible is modeling love,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: respect and repair, communication, communication, empathy, and having good boundaries
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: with our kids and when there is a blow up,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: you go back and you make it better and you
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: take accountability. And I think that was one of the
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: things that was really hard for the Boomer generation. It
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: is still incredibly hard.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Oh and I mean, think about it. Their parents didn't
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: do that. Oh my god, listen. My mom grew up
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: her entire life and had a mother who never even
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: said she loved her. So, I mean love was just
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: too hard for her to express period. She couldn't even
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: say the words. And I mean, could you imagine now,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: could you imagine living your whole life and never telling
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: your children that you love them?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: No, I couldn't imagine going one day not telling my
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: girls that I loved it.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: But that the greatest generation, that was just kind of
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the norm. It was.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: I think it was the norm. Children are to be
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: seen and not heard, and speak only when spoken to
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: and deal with your problems and get over it and
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: life is tough. And then that transferred to the boomers,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: and then the Boomers were also part of.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: A huge group of dismissive avoidance.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Radical rebellious group too, kind of so we have some
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: rebellion from that. And I think the boomers are kind
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: of a mix of fas and das, but certainly a
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: lot of avoidance as the theme.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Right, They did have a lot of childhood trauma for sure.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, like hiding under your desk thinking there's
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: a nuclear bomb coming. I think they did that a lot, apparently, apparently,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: and our kids are doing it with school shooter drills.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe we're just no different. I just don't
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: want the pendulum to swing so far in either direction,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: so far in the direction that we're just life stuff.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Get over it. Dismiss all your kids' feelings, which is
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: going to make them not know how to be intimate
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: with others, not know how to be vulnerable, not how
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: to repair not They're going to disassociate or dissociate and
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: suppress all of their feelings. Versus. The other side of
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: going too far is validating every little discomfort, trying to
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: make sure they don't experience any discomfort, trying to save
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: them from too many hardships and struggles.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Of life, because then they have no coping scus, then.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: They have no coping skills, because then you just coped
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: for them, and then you have one great ball of anxiety.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: And then if we have a combination of the two,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: then we get a fearful avoid it because they both
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: have neglect and lack of boundaries and son and potentially
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: heightened emotionality from seeing dysfunctional emotionality. So we have to
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: model regulated emotions. We apps. I always tell my daughter,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: You're welcome to talk about your feelings, but I'm not
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: going to let you scream them at me. When as
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: long as you're screaming at me, I'm going to step
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: aside and you don't get access to me. But I
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: will always be here when you want to talk about
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: your feelings. So you can even cry about your feelings,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: but you're not going to scream them at me.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Secure parenting might be, like you said, the most important
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: thing we can do in our lives.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: The most important thing. And I wish, I wish we
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: could earn our attachment security before we have kids. Yes,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: and do it right from birth, do it right from pregnancy.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: We're shifting. I think we're shifting as you know, our
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: consciousness around it, as a as a as humanity. I mean,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I want to believe that because it gives me hope,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and you know, the generations to come, and it gives
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: me more hope, you know, based on the episode you
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: know that dropped last week and what happened, you know,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: because I want to believe that the generations to come
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and the generations that are to come after us will
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: have the ability and the level of consciousness that we
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: cannot yet reach. Yeah, because that's the goal. The goal
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: is to have to reach your higher self. And the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: only way to do that is through a level of
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: consciousness that you and I might not even fully understand
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: as we sit here talking about christiousness. Consciousness, Yes, christ consciousness.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, there's one unifying
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: factor and that's love. And love doesn't just mean agree.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: It doesn't. It doesn't always mean agreement, and it doesn't
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: just mean validating. Sometimes it means telling hard truths and
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: sometimes it means holding hard boundaries. Because enabling someone's bad
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: behavior isn't love either. That's the furthest thing.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: All the time. Love without boundaries is not love.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: It's not love. It's enabling and it's teaching people that
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: they're bad behaving.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: It's abandoning.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: It is abandoning yourself. Yeah, and there is a self
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: sacrificial part of love, but it shouldn't be one hundred
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: percent self sacrificial. It's a balance between sacrificing some of
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: what you need and in giving and receiving right and
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: your partner sacrificing some of what they need. It's about
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: leaning in with compromise. It's not about taking on someone's reality.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: And again, we only get if there's a winner and
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: a loser in your relationship. You have a losing relationship.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Let me just say that right now, whether that's in
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: your parent child relationship or whether that's in your romantic relationship.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: It shouldn't be about winning and being right. It should
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: be about are we being productive and are we being healthy?
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: And are we collaborating to make sure that we are
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: reaching shared goals?
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: And I know a lot of you at the.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Bottom of the episode here, we're going to kind of
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: wrap it up here.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that you know this just leads
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: me into wanting to say, in terms of your practice
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: for our listeners and all of your followers, I think
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: an ultimate goal of ours is to introduce, you know,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: an element of you teaching secure parenting because it is
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: so very important. It's not just about your becoming securely attached.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Isn't just about your romantic relationships. It's about every loving
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: relationship that you have, or any relationship, even relationships with
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: coworkers and bosses. It plays into every aspect really of
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: your life when it comes to relationships. And so maybe
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: that will be to come. But in the meantime, doctor
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Hensley does have a free guide that you can download
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: on specifically the fearful avoidant, and there's also one for
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: the dismissive avoidant. But if you are wondering, because a
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: lot of people I know come into your practice and
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: they're often confused, right, are they fearful avoidant? Are they
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: anxious preoccupied? Because of course the fearful avoidant has both
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the avoidant and the anxious side, and it's sometimes hard
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: to tell because a lot of fearful avoidance live in
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: that anxious side.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely or the dismissive side. And so a lot of
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: people come into my practice they really think they're one
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: attachment style and they're not. And so the first step
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: and healing attachment is being aware of what your attachment is.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: So yes, you can go to courses dot thelovedoc dot com,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: slash DA or the courses dot the loovedoc dot com,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: slash FA and download those free guides if you want
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: to deep dive into both of those attachment styles, because
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: just calling someone attachment avoidant doesn't do anybody any favors
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: because the two different types of avoidance are so different.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: And really we have two different types of anxious attachment too,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: because fearfuls can absolutely be anxious, and the majority of
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: the fearful avoidance I see are anxious in my practice.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: So please go check out those free resources. We would
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: love for you to have them and to start your
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: journey through awareness. And if we can be here to
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: be helpful on any part of your journey, we want
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: to be. So please keep writing us, Please keep sending
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: us you know, messages that help us grow, you know,
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: positive feedback or constructive feedback as well. We thank you
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: guys for listening in.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we love you guys so much. Course we also
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  Speaker 1: I'm biased, but I think she's the best of the best.
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  Speaker 1: I continue even after eight years of friendship, I still
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  Speaker 1: I'm still encouraged to like sit in on group. Like
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  Speaker 1: the other day when I was at the house, I
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  Speaker 1: was like, you know what, I think I might just
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  Speaker 1: sit here and like listen to group for a little
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  Speaker 1: all of you, so continue to tune in and until
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  Speaker 1: next time, peace, love, and perspective.