Breaking our family patterns

0:00:02 Hey Deb, what is going on with that McMuffin?
0:00:04 Oh, it’s a mighty McMuffin.
0:00:07 Sausage and double the bacon on one McMuffin.
0:00:08 So you don’t have to choose.
0:00:09 You should get one.
0:00:10 It’s perfect for you.
0:00:11 How so?
0:00:13 You’re not the decision-making type.
0:00:17 Oh, I can make decisions.
0:00:19 Now, should I get it with an iced coffee or a hot one?
0:00:21 Oh, maybe both.
0:00:23 Should I order in the app or in person?
0:00:24 Should I get one hash brown?
0:00:25 Oh, boy.
0:00:27 The mighty McMuffin for a limited time
0:00:28 at participating McDonald’s in Canada.
0:00:31 Your mom hates it when you leave
0:00:33 six half-full glasses on your nightstand.
0:00:36 It’s a good thing mom lives on the other side of the country.
0:00:38 And it’s an even better thing that you can get
0:00:42 six Ikea 365 plus glasses for just $9.99.
0:00:43 So go ahead.
0:00:47 You can afford to hoard because Ikea is priced for student life.
0:00:50 Shop everything you need for back-to-school at Ikea today.
0:00:54 If I told you that the way you grew up,
0:00:57 your family situation, your environment, all of it,
0:01:00 had an enormous impact on who you are today,
0:01:05 you’d probably say, “Well, yeah, obviously.
0:01:09 “You don’t need a psychology degree to connect those dots.
0:01:11 “But what if I told you that the way you grew up
0:01:14 “might be the most significant influence
0:01:17 “on your romantic relationships as an adult?”
0:01:22 On some level, this may not be all that surprising either,
0:01:24 since who we are as individuals
0:01:27 determines who we are as partners or spouses.
0:01:28 How could it not?
0:01:34 Still, even if the basic idea here is clear enough,
0:01:36 I’m not sure most of us appreciate
0:01:40 just how much the past influences our present.
0:01:45 The reality is that so much of our personality,
0:01:48 how we think, what we expect from other people,
0:01:50 what we expect from ourselves,
0:01:54 is shaped very early by the people we are.
0:01:56 By the people we love and rely on the most.
0:02:02 So, if you wanna understand why you do what you do,
0:02:06 or why you often don’t do what you wish you did,
0:02:08 it helps to look back at your life
0:02:10 and find the roots of these patterns.
0:02:16 I’m Sean Elling, and this is The Gray Area.
0:02:19 (upbeat music)
0:02:27 My guest today is Vienna Farron.
0:02:29 She’s a couples’ therapist who’s developed
0:02:32 a pretty large following on social media,
0:02:34 and she’s just published her first book
0:02:36 called “The Origins of You,”
0:02:38 how breaking family patterns
0:02:40 can liberate the way we live and love.
0:02:43 This book is an attempt to force us
0:02:46 to look closely at our own origin story,
0:02:48 to reflect on where we came from,
0:02:51 and how those experiences color who we are
0:02:52 in our relationships today.
0:02:57 Farron’s book landed on my desk
0:02:59 at an interesting moment for me.
0:03:02 I’m married and have a very young son,
0:03:04 and like everyone else,
0:03:07 I’m navigating all the challenges that this entails.
0:03:12 So this conversation, which we originally dropped
0:03:16 in March 2023, was an opportunity to explore themes
0:03:19 that are both personal and universal.
0:03:23 We’re all trying to be better partners.
0:03:26 We’re all trying to understand ourselves,
0:03:30 and hopefully we’re all just trying to do life better,
0:03:31 whatever that means.
0:03:35 But I started this conversation by asking Vienna
0:03:37 to lay out her approach to therapy.
0:03:43 So my title is “Marriage and Family Therapist.”
0:03:46 I work with individuals, couples, and families,
0:03:48 all within the context of relationships
0:03:53 and really understanding the origin, pain, and wounds
0:03:55 that we accrue in our childhood.
0:03:58 So the lens through which I see people and relationships
0:04:00 is through their family of origin,
0:04:04 the family system or systems in which they grew up,
0:04:07 to see that there is a larger system at play
0:04:09 in every moment, right?
0:04:12 When we have unwanted patterns in our adult lives,
0:04:14 we keep getting into the same conflict
0:04:16 with a partner or a parent.
0:04:19 We keep choosing emotionally unavailable people to date.
0:04:22 We’re chronically unhappy at every job that we hold.
0:04:26 For me, if we can’t create a quick change, right?
0:04:29 If there’s resistance there, if there’s friction there,
0:04:31 then that’s a pretty good indicator
0:04:33 that there’s something unresolved from our past,
0:04:37 and the place that I like to go is our family.
0:04:39 I like to understand the template, right?
0:04:44 That’s our first education on just about everything.
0:04:46 We obviously get other people in there
0:04:51 at different points, teachers, coaches, religion, et cetera.
0:04:52 All of these influences that start
0:04:54 to shape our belief systems,
0:04:56 but our family system is the first system
0:04:59 where that education is handed over to us.
0:05:01 A lot of times when people come in for individual therapy,
0:05:04 it’s really easy to just stay focused
0:05:07 on that one person’s experience,
0:05:08 the story that they’re sharing.
0:05:12 And I try to always keep other people in the room,
0:05:14 even when they’re not there physically.
0:05:17 We all know that we have complex histories.
0:05:18 We have a story that is rich,
0:05:21 and when we can keep that in mind,
0:05:24 when we’re thinking about relational patterns
0:05:26 that are breaking down,
0:05:28 that’s so helpful to remember
0:05:31 that our partner or our parent or our sibling
0:05:35 has a lot of context that’s worth understanding.
0:05:36 – Yeah, I’m glad you said that,
0:05:39 because I don’t think anyone will be surprised
0:05:41 to hear that our childhoods,
0:05:43 our family dynamics growing up,
0:05:46 influences how we behave as adults.
0:05:50 But why do you think it’s worth really emphasizing
0:05:53 not just how that impacts us as individuals,
0:05:55 but how it impacts our relationships?
0:05:57 Because maybe it’s the relationships part
0:06:01 that is perhaps less understood than the individual part.
0:06:02 – Yeah, right, and I think you’re right,
0:06:03 that a lot of people can say,
0:06:05 like, sure, I can connect some of these dots,
0:06:07 and that makes a lot of rational sense,
0:06:11 but I am a big believer that the unresolved pain
0:06:14 from our past comes along with us.
0:06:16 Our pain is not out to destroy our lives.
0:06:18 Our pain is not out to ruin us, right?
0:06:22 Our wounds are tugging at us because they want attention,
0:06:24 and they find these really clever ways, right?
0:06:28 Like our internal system is brilliant and super fascinating,
0:06:31 the ways in which it will bring us back into contact
0:06:33 with pain that is unresolved.
0:06:37 And what we know to be true is that relationships
0:06:40 are the greatest way for that pain
0:06:42 to play itself out over and over and over again.
0:06:44 So whether it’s a romantic partnership,
0:06:48 whether the listeners who have children who know our children
0:06:50 are such great mirrors for us,
0:06:52 and they bring us into contact with a lot of that stuff,
0:06:56 it’s like relationships are where so much of that plays out.
0:06:58 You know, you have so many people who are like,
0:07:01 okay, I’m here to understand it,
0:07:03 but understanding only takes us so far.
0:07:05 There’s only so much that we can do
0:07:08 as individuals thinking about,
0:07:10 and yeah, maybe processing on our own as well,
0:07:13 but I find that if it’s relationships
0:07:14 that contributed to our pain,
0:07:16 then it’s relationships that need to contribute
0:07:18 to our healing as well.
0:07:21 And so yeah, why we really need to explore this
0:07:23 through the context of relationships.
0:07:25 – I’m curious, what is the first thing,
0:07:26 if there is a first thing,
0:07:29 do you want to know about someone’s family history
0:07:32 when they come to you with relationship problems?
0:07:35 – There are many things I want to know about.
0:07:37 Probably one of the first questions is,
0:07:40 what did you want as a child and not get?
0:07:41 That’ll bring us right to it.
0:07:43 You know, even noticing like, oof.
0:07:46 Yeah, is there like a little bit of feeling sensation
0:07:49 just hearing that question right now.
0:07:52 You know, my parents, part of what got me into this work,
0:07:54 of course, is my own personal story,
0:07:57 unsurprisingly for all therapists.
0:07:58 People are like, how did therapists get into this work?
0:08:00 It’s like, yeah, we’re figuring out
0:08:02 how to resolve our unresolved pain, right?
0:08:06 My parents, they went through a nine year divorce process.
0:08:11 It was the longest divorce at the time for New Jersey.
0:08:12 It was intense.
0:08:16 And there was just a lot of high conflict.
0:08:19 There was a lot of psychological abuse, manipulation,
0:08:22 gaslighting, paranoia, emotional flooding.
0:08:26 Like it was not an easy system to grow up in.
0:08:27 And I’m an only child.
0:08:32 So as a tiny little human, I was really there on my own.
0:08:34 And I think my parents obviously did what they could
0:08:36 and all of my main needs were taken care of.
0:08:41 But I took on this role of seeing the adults in my life
0:08:43 crashing and burning around me.
0:08:46 I believed that there wasn’t room for me to not be okay
0:08:49 because my perception of them was that they were not okay,
0:08:52 that not only were they not okay, they were drowning.
0:08:55 And so I started to fly under the radar.
0:08:57 I started to pretend like I was fine.
0:08:59 I was unaffected by things.
0:09:02 I didn’t want to add any type of stress or burden
0:09:05 to their already full plates.
0:09:10 And that role, I took on and I kept it for decades.
0:09:15 I wasn’t until late in my 20s.
0:09:18 And it clicked in at one moment in a conversation
0:09:21 with a friend, just like this needless little girl
0:09:24 who pretended like she was unaffected by all of the things
0:09:27 that were going on in her life and in her family
0:09:29 became a needless woman who was presenting
0:09:31 as the quote unquote cool girl, right?
0:09:34 This woman who, yeah, do whatever you want.
0:09:35 I’m totally fine.
0:09:36 I’m totally unaffected.
0:09:36 No worries.
0:09:38 I was fully boundaryless.
0:09:40 And that role had come along with me.
0:09:45 And I was maintaining this position in my relationships.
0:09:48 You know, I couldn’t speak up in romantic partnerships.
0:09:49 I couldn’t speak up in friendships.
0:09:54 I just was pretending that I was so unbothered
0:09:55 and unaffected by things.
0:09:57 And it wasn’t until that moment where I could make a pivot
0:10:01 and actually for the first time say, I’m not okay.
0:10:04 I am affected by this.
0:10:06 That might sound so simple,
0:10:08 but that was a life-changing moment for me
0:10:11 to let those words actually come out.
0:10:15 And I share that story because we can sometimes see
0:10:17 so clearly how our past comes with us.
0:10:20 But other times it comes in such subtle ways, right?
0:10:23 Whether we’re recreating and repeating certain patterns
0:10:25 or whether we’re taking a path of opposition
0:10:27 where we don’t even see what’s going on.
0:10:31 And, you know, for me, it is so important
0:10:34 to not just understand, but to do the processing work
0:10:39 in order to shift that and find a new path forward.
0:10:41 – Well, let me just first express some solidarity
0:10:45 with you as a fellow only child, also from a broken home.
0:10:50 So I can relate in some ways to that.
0:10:52 I encountered that question in your book, you know,
0:10:54 what did you most need as a kid and not kid?
0:10:57 And boy, that was a big one.
0:11:01 I thought about the answer to this and it’s huge.
0:11:04 – Yeah, it points us though to, you know,
0:11:07 in the book, I talk about five origin wounds.
0:11:11 And, you know, my answer to that question
0:11:16 led me to an origin wound that really needed my attention.
0:11:21 I wanted to know that it was okay for me to not be okay.
0:11:24 – And that origin wound for you, that’s the divorce.
0:11:27 – Yeah, so in the beginning of the book, I share a story.
0:11:31 I was in first grade and that particular weekend
0:11:32 was supposed to be the three of us.
0:11:35 And, you know, my dad was watching a Yankees game.
0:11:36 My mom wanted to go to the beach.
0:11:39 He didn’t want to go and she invited my grandmother
0:11:41 to come along with us.
0:11:45 And, you know, I’m this little girl behind a closed door
0:11:50 in her bedroom and I hear if you leave, don’t come back.
0:11:55 And the next thing I know is that my mom’s barreling upstairs
0:11:58 having me pack a bag and we’re leaving.
0:12:01 And there’s a lot that happens after that.
0:12:02 You know, we don’t go home.
0:12:04 We go to my grandmother’s home, police are involved.
0:12:06 I’m hiding in a closet, you know,
0:12:08 instructed to not make a sound.
0:12:13 Yeah, there’s this rupture that makes me have to split
0:12:16 my loyalty, like how do I take care of mom and dad?
0:12:19 How do they both know that I love them?
0:12:21 And all of a sudden I’m in this position
0:12:24 where I’m having to choose one over the other.
0:12:27 And so, you know, that was the catalyst, right?
0:12:30 That was the rupture that then led
0:12:31 into the nine year divorce process.
0:12:34 And, you know, all of that contributes
0:12:36 to the lack of emotional safety,
0:12:38 psychological safety as well.
0:12:42 – So what drew me to your book is this focus on patterns,
0:12:45 patterns of thought, patterns of behavior.
0:12:47 Obviously those things are related.
0:12:49 And how we get stuck in them.
0:12:54 And one of the greatest frustrations in my life
0:12:59 at the moment is this feeling of being almost hostage
0:13:02 to extremely dumb impulses.
0:13:06 Like I can often see myself doing
0:13:09 or saying something in real time, often with my wife.
0:13:11 I know it’s stupid.
0:13:12 I know it’s kind of productive.
0:13:16 I know it can only escalate a situation.
0:13:19 And yet I plow ahead anyway.
0:13:21 And there’s this maddening feeling
0:13:26 of knowing what I should do and not doing it.
0:13:29 Maybe you’d call that self sabotage.
0:13:31 Maybe you’d call it being a dumb ass.
0:13:32 I don’t know, like those obviously
0:13:33 aren’t mutually exclusive.
0:13:37 What do you tell people when they experience
0:13:38 some version of this?
0:13:41 Like when they just can’t quite overcome
0:13:43 what they know are terrible impulses.
0:13:46 – Yeah, so self sabotage,
0:13:51 I’d reframe it as something that is self protective.
0:13:54 What does it serve to do the thing that you do
0:13:57 even though you know you ought not do it?
0:13:59 Like I said before, our systems are brilliant.
0:14:03 And so we’re constantly working in a way
0:14:06 to protect ourselves from something.
0:14:08 Now, unfortunately, a lot of times
0:14:10 that’s an old operating system, right?
0:14:11 It’s protecting us from something
0:14:13 that’s unresolved, unhealed, right?
0:14:16 As opposed to protecting us in the sense
0:14:20 that it’s supporting and working us towards our goals
0:14:23 and our healing and connection.
0:14:25 I wonder if you and I have some similarities.
0:14:28 It sounds like maybe you didn’t get too specific with that,
0:14:30 but it makes me think about a story
0:14:33 when I was first dating my now husband.
0:14:34 We were in a conflict,
0:14:36 no idea what the conflict was about,
0:14:40 but I remember acutely that I could not stop proving my point.
0:14:43 And I just kept going.
0:14:45 I doubled down, I tripled down,
0:14:47 and I was having this out of body experience
0:14:50 where I was like, “Vienna, shut up.”
0:14:53 Just like, “Stop, can you take it back?”
0:14:55 There was a lot of shame and embarrassment there.
0:14:57 I was like, I could see this part of me
0:14:58 that just like needed to be right,
0:15:00 needed to prove my point,
0:15:03 and yet I couldn’t stop myself from it.
0:15:08 And I realized like, okay, what does point proving serve?
0:15:12 What does the need to be right protect me from?
0:15:17 And I grew up with a father who was really manipulative.
0:15:23 He gaslit my mom and he was really quick with his words.
0:15:27 You know, he was really, really good at it.
0:15:30 And as a tiny human, I watched this
0:15:33 and I saw the impact that it had on my mother.
0:15:36 It was quite literally crazy making.
0:15:39 And so I started to understand that my need to be right
0:15:43 was my way of protecting myself.
0:15:46 That being wrong was quite dangerous for me, right?
0:15:47 That’s what I had learned, right?
0:15:50 That being wrong meant that I would be manipulated,
0:15:52 that I would be taken advantage of, right?
0:15:55 And so being right was safety for me.
0:15:58 Proving my point was the way in which I safeguarded myself
0:16:00 from the things from the past.
0:16:02 That was such an important revelation for me
0:16:05 because I needed to understand that,
0:16:08 okay, yes, as a little girl, that made a lot of sense.
0:16:10 But if I kept at this, right?
0:16:12 If I didn’t start to pay attention
0:16:15 to that unresolved pain of what I saw growing up,
0:16:18 then I would continue to loop into that.
0:16:21 And I needed to find a way to process
0:16:24 and witness that and grieve the pain from the past
0:16:26 so that I could make a new choice
0:16:29 in this current relationship, right?
0:16:32 Because I did not have a partner who was manipulative.
0:16:36 I have a very honest, kind, loving, open partner.
0:16:39 And if I did not change that,
0:16:43 you run the risk of having relationships end, right?
0:16:46 Like that’s the consequence to all of this.
0:16:48 – Yeah, well, you know,
0:16:50 I don’t know where it comes from with being,
0:16:53 maybe this will come out
0:16:55 in the context of this conversation.
0:16:58 For me, it really does feel like this impulse to behave
0:17:01 in ways I know are unhealthy is so strong
0:17:04 that it can feel like almost a nervous system sort of thing.
0:17:05 And I don’t want to accept that
0:17:09 because I don’t want to rob myself of agency to do otherwise.
0:17:11 But it really does feel like that sometimes.
0:17:12 And I don’t know if part of it
0:17:16 is me almost thriving on conflict, right?
0:17:18 Where like I’m choosing conflict
0:17:20 because that almost feels more familiar and safe
0:17:22 than actually just choosing to interpret a situation
0:17:25 differently that would push in the opposite direction.
0:17:26 – Absolutely, right?
0:17:29 I mean, I think we go in the direction of familiarity,
0:17:32 but like where does it lead you?
0:17:36 When you engage in whatever the destructive behavior is,
0:17:38 where do you get to?
0:17:40 – With acting that way?
0:17:41 Escalation.
0:17:43 – Conflict.
0:17:45 And then how do you feel
0:17:48 when you’re in that escalation and conflict?
0:17:52 – In an almost perverse way,
0:17:53 I feel almost more comfortable
0:17:56 because I’m very much at ease when my guard is up.
0:17:59 Like I’m very comfortable fighting.
0:18:00 I’m very comfortable arguing.
0:18:04 I’m very comfortable attacking and deflecting.
0:18:07 It’s almost a safer space than being vulnerable, right?
0:18:09 And so I just naturally retreat to that.
0:18:10 – Yeah, right.
0:18:13 So, okay, one, where did you learn that from?
0:18:16 Two, what does that protect you from?
0:18:19 Three, what story does that wind up
0:18:21 ultimately supporting for you?
0:18:26 – You know, the story ultimately ends up supporting
0:18:29 is that everything is fucked.
0:18:30 And what I mean by that, right?
0:18:32 Look, if I was on your therapist couch
0:18:34 and I kind of am right now and you asked me,
0:18:37 what’s the one habit or the one part of my personality
0:18:38 that I most want to change?
0:18:43 What I would tell you is that I’m a catastrophizer very often.
0:18:45 And this is something that I,
0:18:47 how should I put this?
0:18:50 It’s not great for me or my relationships, right?
0:18:52 And for anyone unfamiliar with that term,
0:18:54 like what I mean is there is this instinct
0:18:58 to almost pre-prepare for disaster
0:19:01 by not just imagining all the way something could go wrong,
0:19:04 but actually conjuring reasons to blow it up
0:19:06 before it goes wrong.
0:19:09 And so anytime I sniff conflict,
0:19:11 my mind will immediately go to, oh yeah, of course, right?
0:19:13 Because things are messed up and we’re broken.
0:19:15 And of course, this is just validation of all of that.
0:19:18 And it becomes self-fulfilling.
0:19:20 And it’s totally delugional often.
0:19:23 – Well, but you’re describing a hypervigilance, right?
0:19:23 – What does that mean?
0:19:24 That sounds right, but-
0:19:26 – Like the part of you that’s constantly scanning
0:19:30 and pre-preparing for something to go wrong
0:19:34 and the inquiry would be, what’s familiar about that?
0:19:36 When did you have to prepare?
0:19:40 Why did you need to look out for things going wrong?
0:19:43 Why did you need to look out for things going south?
0:19:45 It’s not to put you on the spot,
0:19:49 but I imagine that there is some history in your life
0:19:54 where you learned that there’s a need for hypervigilance.
0:19:57 – And I think fear probably has a lot to do with it.
0:19:58 Fear of what exactly?
0:20:01 I can’t say, maybe you would call it a safety wound
0:20:05 that stems from my being an only child,
0:20:08 from a broken home with very young parents
0:20:10 who were trying to figure out how to be parents
0:20:14 before they were probably ready to be parents.
0:20:18 And so part of it feels very much like a defense mechanism.
0:20:19 – Certainly.
0:20:22 To have young parents who are figuring it out
0:20:24 often creates an environment
0:20:28 where a child has to do some figuring out themselves.
0:20:29 I don’t know if that resonates for you,
0:20:33 but they don’t necessarily know what to be thinking of next
0:20:36 or because there’s an immaturity
0:20:37 that might have been there.
0:20:40 Then you have to become the observer,
0:20:43 the hypervigilant one, or just vigilant one to say,
0:20:45 well, hey, my needs over here,
0:20:46 or hey, we’ve got to look out for this,
0:20:50 or hey, what about that if they’re not as attuned or aware?
0:20:55 Which can happen when we have adults stepping into a role
0:20:57 that maybe is slightly premature for them.
0:20:59 It reminds me of this one story
0:21:01 that I share in the book about Natasha,
0:21:02 and she’s coming into therapy
0:21:03 and she’s trying to figure out whether or not
0:21:05 she should stay in the relationship with Clyde,
0:21:07 who is this wonderful man,
0:21:10 but she keeps thinking that the other shoe is going to drop
0:21:11 and she doesn’t know why.
0:21:13 And at first she doesn’t want to talk about her family,
0:21:14 past it all.
0:21:16 She’s like, no, like I’m here to figure out
0:21:18 if I should stay with him or not,
0:21:20 we’re about to get engaged and I need this answer.
0:21:22 And a little bit into our therapy,
0:21:24 I learned that when she was a teenager,
0:21:26 she stumbled upon an email
0:21:28 that was open on her father’s computer
0:21:32 and it was between her father and a woman who wasn’t her mother.
0:21:34 He walks in on her, he sees her crying,
0:21:36 he says, please don’t tell your mother or sister,
0:21:37 I promise I’ll cut it off.
0:21:40 And she holds that secret for him forever.
0:21:42 It was the first time that she had spoken
0:21:44 that out loud to anyone, right?
0:21:47 Was to me in that session, decades later,
0:21:49 she had absorbed it in such a way
0:21:51 and then had to go on pretending
0:21:52 like nothing had ever happened,
0:21:54 which makes sense as to why she said,
0:21:56 I have a great family and great childhood,
0:21:58 that it didn’t strike her
0:22:02 that the other shoe dropping came from this origin story.
0:22:06 And she was going through life in her romantic relationships,
0:22:08 waiting for the other shoe to drop,
0:22:11 exiting those relationships early for really no reason,
0:22:13 but just because of the anticipation
0:22:15 of something could go wrong,
0:22:18 you cannot trust people even if they present
0:22:20 like they are phenomenal humans, right?
0:22:22 And that was such an opener for us
0:22:25 because it brought us to the part of her
0:22:28 that needed to process the origin pain,
0:22:31 that needed to witness this teenager
0:22:33 who was asked to hold a secret
0:22:35 who did and what that did to her
0:22:38 and then to grieve the emotions that were there
0:22:42 so that she could then choose to be committed
0:22:45 and move forward with a partner
0:22:48 who was actually a great fit and really aligned for her.
0:22:50 And so you can see how sometimes
0:22:52 when we don’t have that awareness,
0:22:56 the past unresolved or untouched pain
0:23:01 can create and maintain these behaviors and these patterns
0:23:03 and so for you or for anybody who’s listening
0:23:07 who resonates with this or like, that’s the inquiry.
0:23:08 – Well, I’m glad you brought up that story.
0:23:10 It’s about trust, you know, lack of trust
0:23:14 and that’s a very common problem in relationships
0:23:17 and it’s easy to understand in certain situations
0:23:19 like infidelity or something.
0:23:21 That’s an obvious breach of trust.
0:23:22 That’s very hard to get back.
0:23:26 But I think a lack of trust often shows up
0:23:28 in much quieter, deeper ways for a lot of us
0:23:30 and that is harder to diagnose
0:23:32 but every bit is consequential.
0:23:33 – That’s right.
0:23:34 – Like for example, like maybe, you know,
0:23:36 we don’t open ourselves up to someone
0:23:38 because we’re worried about being judged
0:23:40 or even more insidious.
0:23:43 We assume the worst intentions from our partner
0:23:46 for perhaps lots of reasons that have nothing to do with them
0:23:47 that predate them.
0:23:50 But seeing someone through that filter of suspicion
0:23:52 is such a poison pill for a relationship
0:23:54 and it does kind of boil down to trust.
0:23:57 And I guess, you know, if you dig deep enough
0:23:59 into the source of all of that,
0:24:02 you end up landing in childhood.
0:24:04 Not always, but I suspect often.
0:24:05 – Yeah, right, not always.
0:24:08 And of course, I recognize that not every wound of ours
0:24:10 gets created in childhood.
0:24:13 It’s just the framework that I use when I’m doing my work.
0:24:16 But yeah, the breach of trust is so brutal
0:24:18 because we all know that it’s so hard
0:24:20 to work our way back from it.
0:24:21 And you’re right.
0:24:22 We have the big ones, right?
0:24:24 The obvious ones and infidelity.
0:24:27 Somebody gambling away your education fund
0:24:29 or something like that.
0:24:31 But then we also have the things like parents
0:24:34 who make promises that they don’t follow through on.
0:24:36 And it might feel small,
0:24:40 but that’s something that starts to teach a child
0:24:43 whether or not they can trust another person
0:24:45 to follow through on what they’re saying.
0:24:47 I think when it’s our parents or the adults
0:24:49 who are in our parental roles,
0:24:53 who teach us that we are not worthy,
0:24:55 who communicate to us that we are not a priority
0:24:57 or that you can’t trust other people
0:24:59 or that you’re not safe in the world,
0:25:01 it’s a really hard thing to come back from
0:25:04 because as kids, we look to our parents,
0:25:06 to the adults as truth.
0:25:11 We don’t have the capacity to process properly, right?
0:25:14 If I’m not worthy in the eyes of my parent,
0:25:15 then there’s no way that I’m worthy
0:25:17 in the eyes of anybody else.
0:25:19 If I can’t trust the people who are supposed to love me,
0:25:21 protect me, nurture me, guide me,
0:25:24 then what do you mean I’m supposed to trust other people?
0:25:27 That’s a real conundrum for a lot of folks.
0:25:30 (upbeat music)
0:25:40 – How do you draw the line between self-love
0:25:41 and self-indulgence?
0:25:44 I’ll ask Vianna after a short break.
0:25:46 (upbeat music)
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0:28:41 (gentle music)
0:28:51 – You know, I’ll be honest.
0:28:54 Like one of the things I’ve always found sort of off-putting
0:28:58 about the world of wellness literature
0:29:03 is a kind of obsession with self-care and self-fulfillment.
0:29:04 You know, taken too far.
0:29:06 I do think that can become self-indulgent
0:29:09 when often I think what we really need in order to be happy
0:29:11 is to be less self-involved.
0:29:14 But I think you make a pretty compelling case
0:29:19 that the absence of self-love manifest
0:29:22 in some pretty toxic ways in our relationships.
0:29:25 And maybe you could just say a bit about that.
0:29:28 – Yeah, I mean, I think the absence of self-love
0:29:32 really intersects with these wounds
0:29:36 when you don’t feel deserving or good enough
0:29:39 that there were conditions for love, right?
0:29:41 I needed to perform, be perfect, be a people pleaser,
0:29:44 be the comic relief, whatever it is in order to get connection,
0:29:47 attention, love, presence, et cetera, right?
0:29:49 And maybe I should just name worthiness,
0:29:52 belonging, prioritization, trust and safety
0:29:54 are the five wounds that I go over.
0:29:57 What we’ll see is that those things strip away
0:29:58 at our confidence.
0:30:00 They strip away at the self, right?
0:30:04 This belief that I belong as I am.
0:30:05 So with a belonging wound,
0:30:07 a lot of times families have this narrative,
0:30:11 like this is what it looks like to be a part of this family.
0:30:13 This is what we believe, this is what we do.
0:30:15 This is how we show up in the world.
0:30:17 And some of that is beautiful, right?
0:30:19 The traditions that we have with a family
0:30:21 that might be lovely, but other parts of that
0:30:23 are where we’re asked to trade our authenticity
0:30:24 for attachment.
0:30:27 Dr. Gabbler-Matte talks about that being our two lifelines,
0:30:29 attachment and authenticity.
0:30:32 But when attachment is threatened,
0:30:36 a child will trade authenticity in an instant
0:30:39 in order to survive.
0:30:42 And so we start to see how all of these things
0:30:47 strip away from our capacity to hold ourselves
0:30:50 in high regard, or even just regard,
0:30:54 to pick ourselves up and believe that we are deserving of,
0:30:57 to believe that we can just be ourselves
0:30:58 and that that is enough,
0:31:00 to believe that we are important in the world,
0:31:02 to believe that there are people in this world
0:31:03 who we can trust,
0:31:06 or to believe that there is care and concern
0:31:08 for our overall well-being.
0:31:12 And so self-love to me is not, you know,
0:31:14 sure you wanna throw in some bubble baths
0:31:17 and yeah, those are great things for us from time to time.
0:31:20 But I talk about self-love as the intersection
0:31:24 of grace and compassion for the self,
0:31:27 as well as accountability and ownership.
0:31:29 And we have to see ourselves
0:31:32 as a part of the human experience,
0:31:35 but we also need to take accountability and ownership.
0:31:38 And when we don’t do that, we’re stuck.
0:31:42 The self-critic is totally turned up, right?
0:31:45 That inner voice that just has a lot to say
0:31:47 about who we are and what we’re doing
0:31:50 and doesn’t seem to have any problems letting us know.
0:31:52 And so like we stay stuck in that space
0:31:56 instead of moving to a place of agency,
0:31:59 like I think you said before, yeah.
0:32:02 – The question of authenticity about how as children
0:32:05 we often trade our authenticity for attachment,
0:32:08 we start contorting ourselves very early.
0:32:11 I certainly did for way longer than I should have
0:32:15 for other people because that is the straightest line
0:32:20 to acceptance, but that strategy does not work in the long run.
0:32:23 And I think you’re right that it becomes a problem
0:32:24 in our relationships, right?
0:32:27 I mean, there are many different versions of this.
0:32:30 I have my own, did not make this all about me.
0:32:32 There’s a case in the book.
0:32:34 It’s the gay man from West Virginia
0:32:38 who is closeted for years and he moves to New York City
0:32:41 and finds himself in a relationship with someone
0:32:43 who’s wrapped up in a party scene
0:32:46 and he’s playing along, but it’s not really what he wants.
0:32:50 He wants a quieter life, but he’s stuck performing this role
0:32:53 because he thinks he has to in order to be accepted
0:32:56 by his partner and probably by his social circle,
0:32:59 but no one can maintain that kind of pose forever, right?
0:33:02 Like we gotta be who we are for the people we love
0:33:03 or they won’t be able to love us
0:33:06 and we won’t be able to love ourselves.
0:33:07 – Yeah, that’s right.
0:33:09 All of this stuff is the band-aid.
0:33:11 It can take us to a certain point.
0:33:12 We can fake it.
0:33:15 Okay, I’ll be perfect and I can fake it for a little bit
0:33:17 or yeah, I’ll trade authenticity
0:33:19 and do what I need to do to fit in.
0:33:20 Okay, we can fake it for a little bit
0:33:22 and it might give us the outcome that we want.
0:33:24 Maybe people give us validation
0:33:25 or they might give us attention
0:33:27 or they might want to spend time with us,
0:33:28 but it ends.
0:33:31 We cannot keep that up forever.
0:33:33 And that’s why I say it’s so important for us
0:33:35 to go into the origin pain.
0:33:38 So for the man you’re describing,
0:33:42 he needed to spend time witnessing the pain
0:33:45 about his family rejecting him.
0:33:47 There were constraints there.
0:33:49 His sexuality was something
0:33:53 that they could not really comprehend from the South,
0:33:55 very religious family.
0:33:56 And so there were a lot of constraints there
0:33:59 and he overheard his mom after he had come out
0:34:01 to say like, why is he ruining my life?
0:34:03 You know, those like daggers
0:34:06 that really, really hurt him and tore him apart.
0:34:09 And when we just scurry by that, right?
0:34:11 When we just brute force our way through,
0:34:13 when we white-knuckle it,
0:34:15 when we’re just like, okay, I’m just gonna keep on going
0:34:16 and not try to tend to the pain,
0:34:18 what winds up happening is we maintain
0:34:20 that I’m not worthy, that I’m not lovable,
0:34:23 that I’m not a priority, that I do not fit in,
0:34:25 that I don’t belong, that I’m not safe,
0:34:27 that there is nobody to trust in the world.
0:34:29 Those things just keep circulating
0:34:32 and maintaining the pain.
0:34:37 It was so important for people to come back into contact
0:34:39 with the original pain
0:34:41 that set all of these patterns in motion.
0:34:48 – We’re both parents and having a kid
0:34:53 is such a transformative event in the life of a couple.
0:34:54 Everyone more or less understands that.
0:34:56 But do you think we still underestimate
0:35:01 just how much becoming a parent changes our relationships?
0:35:03 – Yeah, probably.
0:35:04 I mean, I think you’re right in theory
0:35:06 where like, of course it does,
0:35:08 but until you’re in it,
0:35:12 you know, we don’t necessarily understand the strain
0:35:13 that it has on you.
0:35:16 Obviously, we know that there are such beautiful parts to it,
0:35:18 such expansive parts,
0:35:21 and there’s also really hard stuff that presents itself.
0:35:25 And yeah, I think we probably do underestimate.
0:35:26 Listen, I’m, and I know you too,
0:35:30 we’re still in the early part of parenthood.
0:35:35 I can tell how easy it is for resentment
0:35:40 to present very early on when you step into parenthood.
0:35:42 And I don’t know if you experienced that too,
0:35:47 but I think my husband and I, we have such a great team.
0:35:49 And that was still there.
0:35:52 That piece of, are we doing things equally
0:35:55 and who’s contributing what and, you know,
0:36:00 how quick it is for resentment to start to creep in.
0:36:03 And the expectations, you know,
0:36:06 when we’re doing this type of healing work too,
0:36:10 seeing yourself as parent and what that brings forward
0:36:13 for you in terms of your relationship with your own,
0:36:16 or, you know, thinking back to when you were a tiny human
0:36:19 and how you want to offer a very different experience
0:36:22 for them or a similar experience, right?
0:36:23 If you had a really great one.
0:36:27 There’s so many layers that start to reveal themselves.
0:36:29 And until you’re in the thick of it,
0:36:32 I think it’s hard to fully know
0:36:33 what’s going to show up there.
0:36:36 – Yeah, I think it really is true on some level
0:36:38 that every couple is a story
0:36:41 that they sort of believe together.
0:36:44 And that story changes, it has to change.
0:36:47 And it certainly changes when you become parents, you know,
0:36:50 and I, again, I can only speak from personal experience,
0:36:53 but what has happened for us is
0:36:56 there’s this kind of gradual evolution
0:37:00 from being friends who sort of share life together.
0:37:02 And if you’re not very careful,
0:37:05 what you find yourself becoming is less that
0:37:10 and more co-managers of a household.
0:37:13 And all your energy and all your bandwidth
0:37:17 and all your patience gets used up on this child,
0:37:19 you know, especially when they’re really young.
0:37:22 You know, again, we have a three and a half year old.
0:37:25 And that means there’s nothing left for each other.
0:37:30 And so you become more reactive and more irritable
0:37:33 and you start dumping some of those frustrations
0:37:35 onto each other because there’s nowhere else for it
0:37:38 to go and that has been one of the hardest things
0:37:42 to reckon with and try to transcend.
0:37:44 And there are good days and there are bad days,
0:37:46 but the bad days are hard.
0:37:47 – They’re hard.
0:37:49 And I think it’s interesting too,
0:37:53 because depending on what type of wounds you might have,
0:37:56 there’s certain things that might activate us even more.
0:37:59 So for example, if you’re a parent
0:38:01 who has a prioritization wound,
0:38:04 meaning you didn’t feel important growing up,
0:38:07 maybe you had a parent who was a workaholic
0:38:09 or maybe there were mental health challenges
0:38:10 in the family system that took up the space
0:38:12 or addiction that took up the space.
0:38:16 If that’s the wound and then you have this third party
0:38:19 come into the equation and then all of a sudden
0:38:22 the other partner is spending a lot of time
0:38:24 with that third party baby.
0:38:27 And all of that love and connection is going there.
0:38:29 All of a sudden, even though we can rationalize it
0:38:32 and say, of course it’s a baby, this is what we do,
0:38:34 yada, yada, yada, it doesn’t mean
0:38:36 that the wound isn’t getting activated, right?
0:38:39 All of a sudden I am deprioritized now.
0:38:41 Or if we have a worthiness wound,
0:38:45 and so unless I am showing up as a perfect parent,
0:38:46 because that’s what I learned,
0:38:50 that in order to be loved, I needed to be perfect.
0:38:52 And now here I am in this new role where,
0:38:55 oh my gosh, I have no idea what I’m doing.
0:38:57 I feel nervous, I’m a little scared,
0:38:59 I’m not sure I trust myself, all the things, right?
0:39:01 Then it activates that peace.
0:39:04 And so obviously every parent’s journey is different, right?
0:39:07 And the things that activate us within that space.
0:39:09 And I’m not just saying in relation to the child,
0:39:12 within the couple ship too.
0:39:13 You’ll start to see like,
0:39:17 what are the things that make me most reactive here?
0:39:19 Our reactivity, when we have strong reactions,
0:39:23 it’s a neon sign that directs us back to our wounds.
0:39:26 I’m pissed that I’m not getting time with my partner.
0:39:29 I feel like you’re prioritizing our child over me.
0:39:32 Just noticing what’s showing up
0:39:34 is gonna remind us and tell us
0:39:37 where we need to go spend more time.
0:39:40 – The worthiness wound prompted a bit of tough reflection.
0:39:43 You know, again, I was an only child.
0:39:44 There weren’t any siblings around.
0:39:47 And I think part of the way I responded to that was,
0:39:51 this feeling of not quite having a tribe, you know,
0:39:53 and having parents who were young and not always available.
0:39:57 And so I think the way that ended up manifesting for me
0:39:59 is I became very sort of chameleonic.
0:40:00 You know what I mean?
0:40:03 Like I became very good at trying to fit in.
0:40:04 – Shapeshifting.
0:40:06 – Yeah, with as many different people as I could
0:40:08 in order to, I don’t know, get validation
0:40:11 or just feel like I was part of a tribe.
0:40:13 And you do that long enough.
0:40:14 And eventually you realize,
0:40:17 oh, I never really actually settled my identity.
0:40:19 I just kept playing with new ones
0:40:22 in order to fit with the circumstances
0:40:24 in which I found myself.
0:40:26 That was a big revelation for me.
0:40:28 – And I think when you start your own family
0:40:32 for the first time, do I belong here?
0:40:35 Can I be a part of something here?
0:40:37 Even when it’s partnership, right?
0:40:38 There’s that sense.
0:40:39 And then you bring somebody else into the mix
0:40:42 and you’re like, wow, okay, what I had
0:40:44 and you’ve got the same equation now.
0:40:47 Right now your child is an only child.
0:40:50 And to think about what that reflects back to you
0:40:52 and what am I creating, but also can I make space
0:40:55 to feel a part of something here as well?
0:40:59 Can I receive that or am I finding ways to block that?
0:41:05 – So if you were someone who is finding themselves stuck
0:41:08 in some of these patterns of reactivity
0:41:11 and you want to disrupt that pattern,
0:41:16 is there any other concrete advice
0:41:19 you can give people a practice or a tool
0:41:22 that they can draw on when they find themselves
0:41:24 slipping into another one of these patterns
0:41:28 and just kind of doing the same dance over and over again?
0:41:29 – Mm-hmm, yeah.
0:41:33 I love the question and I think I said it earlier.
0:41:36 What does this pattern serve?
0:41:38 – Do you mean literally like pausing
0:41:40 and kind of posing the question to yourself?
0:41:43 – Yeah, and you might not be able to do it in the moment.
0:41:45 I think a lot of times when we’re hot,
0:41:46 there’s not a lot of cooling down
0:41:48 that can happen right away.
0:41:50 So in a moment of reflection,
0:41:53 whether that’s a few hours later, the next day,
0:41:54 the next week, or right now,
0:41:56 before something even happens, right?
0:41:58 To notice like, what are the things
0:42:00 that make me the most reactive?
0:42:02 What do the patterns in my life,
0:42:04 the things that I want to change?
0:42:06 What does this serve?
0:42:09 Now, we’re gonna say it doesn’t serve anything.
0:42:11 All it does is cause problems.
0:42:13 All it does is cause disconnection.
0:42:17 All it does is cause dysfunction in my relationships.
0:42:20 But it still serves something.
0:42:23 And my example that I shared before was
0:42:26 it served my need to protect myself.
0:42:29 It served my need that being right
0:42:31 meant that I was safe.
0:42:34 And so whatever it is that you’re doing
0:42:37 that you can’t stand, that you’re trying to change,
0:42:41 it’s doing something that your system thinks is for you.
0:42:42 Does that make sense?
0:42:43 – It does.
0:42:44 One thing I started doing,
0:42:47 and you could tell me if this is stupid,
0:42:48 and I’m working on this,
0:42:50 but I kind of came to the conclusion,
0:42:54 all right, look, I can’t quite break these patterns
0:42:57 in the sense of I can’t quite do exactly what I want to do,
0:42:58 what I know I should do.
0:43:01 So until or unless I can do that,
0:43:03 what I will do is as soon as I can observe that,
0:43:07 okay, we’re on the brink of an interaction
0:43:11 going sideways here, and I’m up in my head about it.
0:43:14 I just said, you know what, I’m just gonna walk away.
0:43:18 What I’m not gonna do is escalate, right?
0:43:20 I can’t quite resolve this,
0:43:23 but I’m gonna just put a bow on this whole exchange,
0:43:26 walk away, and then we could circle back later,
0:43:29 but I can see that if I’m gonna keep participating
0:43:30 in what’s happening here,
0:43:31 I’m gonna do it in a way
0:43:33 that’s gonna make this worse, not better.
0:43:36 So I’m just gonna, that’s it, I’m gonna end it.
0:43:39 Is that, obviously it’s not a solution
0:43:41 to any of these fundamental problems, but is it?
0:43:42 – It’s a pause.
0:43:43 – I mean, is that better
0:43:46 than just continuing on with the pattern?
0:43:48 – Well, remember earlier on in this chat,
0:43:51 we talked about that it’s not just about us,
0:43:56 it’s about the other person that is in the equation with us,
0:43:57 right, that they also have a history,
0:43:59 that they also have wounds.
0:44:03 And so, yes, individually, this is a pause
0:44:05 and probably a pretty good one.
0:44:07 You know that it’s gonna escalate, that never ends well,
0:44:09 and so I’d rather not escalate.
0:44:11 But what we’re missing is whether or not
0:44:15 you stepping away activates something in the other person.
0:44:17 And if we don’t talk about that, right,
0:44:18 if there isn’t an agreement,
0:44:20 then that’s something that can cause
0:44:21 a different type of a rupture.
0:44:26 So for example, if the other person has an abandonment wound,
0:44:29 or they feel like you stepping away
0:44:33 doesn’t honor their emotional safety, for example,
0:44:37 or they feel deprioritized when you say,
0:44:40 I’m out of here, I’m not gonna keep having this conversation.
0:44:43 And all of a sudden that activates a prioritization wound,
0:44:45 right, like that’s what’s so important
0:44:48 and that’s so relationship specific.
0:44:52 It’s to say, what’s gonna work for the two of you, right?
0:44:54 And how do you co-create that
0:44:57 with the idea and understanding of what’s at play
0:44:59 so that we can tend to,
0:45:02 and like care for the other person’s experience
0:45:03 while also caring for our own.
0:45:07 So yeah, it sounds like it’s a good pause for you,
0:45:09 but I would get curious about
0:45:12 whether it’s a good pause for the other person too.
0:45:17 Probably not, I’m working on it.
0:45:28 We’ve got to take one last quick break,
0:45:33 but when we come back, Vienna’s seen a lot of couples.
0:45:35 So what do people regret the most
0:45:37 when they look back on their relationships?
0:45:40 (gentle music)
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0:48:33 (gentle music)
0:48:44 – You counsel a lot of couples.
0:48:45 – Yes.
0:48:47 – Some of them figure it out and stay together.
0:48:49 Some of them don’t.
0:48:51 In your experience, what do you find
0:48:55 that people regret the most
0:48:57 when they reflect back on their relationships?
0:49:02 – Probably that they don’t come to it sooner.
0:49:05 You know, like that they don’t come to the awareness as sooner.
0:49:06 – That they don’t start working on the problem sooner.
0:49:07 You mean?
0:49:10 – Yeah, ’cause I think what’s important is that
0:49:12 we’re not so hard and difficult on ourselves.
0:49:14 Like a lot of times people come in and they’re like,
0:49:16 I know I’m starting way late.
0:49:18 And it’s like, no, like you’re, you know,
0:49:21 we’re stepping into something when we’re ready for it.
0:49:23 And I think it’s important, again,
0:49:25 to have that grace and compassion for ourselves
0:49:28 instead of like, oh, my life or my relationships
0:49:30 could have been so different 10 years ago.
0:49:32 And it’s like, sure, you know, that could have been true,
0:49:34 but here we are, you know,
0:49:36 that doesn’t really serve anything for us
0:49:39 to just think that way and blame ourselves.
0:49:40 But I think that’s one of the things
0:49:43 that people struggle with is, oh,
0:49:48 I wish that I had been readyer to confront this sooner
0:49:51 because the beauty of this work
0:49:53 is that we gain internal peace.
0:49:55 It changes our relationships
0:49:57 and the quality of our relationships, certainly.
0:49:59 But there is a beautiful internal peace
0:50:02 that happens when we do this work,
0:50:04 when people get a taste of that.
0:50:07 And they’re like, oh, I don’t have to be in suffering
0:50:08 all the time.
0:50:12 I understand why that regret can pop up.
0:50:18 – Every now and then, usually after some kind of stupid fight,
0:50:22 I’ll imagine, yeah, how would I feel
0:50:25 if my wife left right now, right?
0:50:28 We got in this fight and she just got in the car and left.
0:50:33 And something tragic happened, you know,
0:50:35 like a car accident or something.
0:50:38 I mean, my mother passed away about two and a half years ago
0:50:39 from a car accident very suddenly.
0:50:43 So that’s still very much on my mind, that possibility.
0:50:47 And I’m not trying to be dark here or too heavy.
0:50:48 I’m really not.
0:50:49 I guess I’m trying to make a point, you know,
0:50:54 like if that were to happen, what I know more than anything
0:50:56 I’ve ever known in my whole life
0:50:58 is that I would never forgive myself
0:51:01 for having wasted the time we had
0:51:05 on such ridiculous, trivial nonsense
0:51:08 that will appear so trivial and ridiculous,
0:51:10 less than 24 hours later.
0:51:15 – Yeah, but the trivial stuff is connected to our pain.
0:51:20 We don’t do stupid shit just because it’s fun.
0:51:24 You know, we don’t fight about the toothpaste cap
0:51:25 and the toilet, you know, just these stupid, you know,
0:51:28 examples that we’ve had for so long, right?
0:51:29 It’s like no one’s doing that
0:51:32 because we actually care about that.
0:51:32 – It’s never about that, right?
0:51:33 The thing you’re fighting about
0:51:35 is almost never the thing you’re fighting about.
0:51:38 – Right, so this trivial surface level stuff
0:51:43 is connected to legitimate pain that we carry.
0:51:47 You know, I’ve worked over 20,000 hours,
0:51:49 individuals, couples, families, and therapy.
0:51:53 And this is what I have seen over and over and over again.
0:51:55 My personal life, my professional life,
0:51:57 it points us to these wounds.
0:51:59 And when we can tend to those wounds,
0:52:02 then we can begin to create those changes.
0:52:04 You know, you said something before about
0:52:07 the change that you would like to see.
0:52:08 This is what I want it to look like.
0:52:10 And I think there’s an inquiry there
0:52:14 about what would you need to believe
0:52:16 in order for that to happen?
0:52:17 – Yeah.
0:52:21 – What do you need to believe about yourself
0:52:23 in order for that to actually happen?
0:52:28 There’s so much that can berth from that place.
0:52:29 – So if someone’s listening to this,
0:52:32 or they read your book and discover for themselves,
0:52:34 yeah, okay, I’ve got a worthiness wound
0:52:36 or I have a safety wound or whatever the deal is, right?
0:52:38 They start with a problem they’re having
0:52:40 and they can trace it back to their history.
0:52:43 Well, what do they do next?
0:52:44 What’s the next move?
0:52:45 Concretely, right?
0:52:46 Like, okay, you have this knowledge, right?
0:52:48 But knowing and doing are not the same thing.
0:52:49 – That’s right.
0:52:50 – So what’s the next move?
0:52:53 – So I walk the reader through a four-step process,
0:52:55 my origin healing practice,
0:52:57 where the first part is about naming
0:52:58 and identifying the wound.
0:53:01 Do not be surprised if you have multiple.
0:53:04 So you’re naming what wound or wounds
0:53:07 you resonate with and identify with.
0:53:10 The second part of the practice is witnessing.
0:53:14 So yeah, the part of the self, again,
0:53:18 that just wants to move on, we don’t tend,
0:53:22 we don’t acknowledge and see ourselves very well.
0:53:24 And the witnessing step is about that.
0:53:27 Now, I’m a big believer in witnessing the self.
0:53:31 I’m also a big believer in having another human
0:53:33 whom we trust, who loves us,
0:53:37 somebody we’re safe with, do witnessing as well.
0:53:39 What’s really important for people to hear
0:53:41 is that the person or people who contributed
0:53:46 to the origin wound do not need to participate
0:53:48 in the witnessing of it now.
0:53:49 They don’t need to participate
0:53:51 in the healing of it in any way.
0:53:54 In fact, I would say probably more times than not,
0:53:59 I hear people say, “Yeah, my parent just can’t acknowledge it
0:54:01 “or they’re super defensive or all they do
0:54:04 “is explain why they did what they did.”
0:54:07 And people keep going there over and over and over again.
0:54:08 Well, maybe if I say it this way,
0:54:09 or maybe if I write them a letter
0:54:10 instead of speaking it to them,
0:54:12 or maybe if I’m really kind,
0:54:13 or maybe if I get really angry,
0:54:15 like what way will it get through?
0:54:18 And I think sometimes when we get caught in this space
0:54:21 of needing the person that we so badly want
0:54:25 to acknowledge it, to be the person who has to do it,
0:54:29 we get trapped in this cycle and can’t find a way forward.
0:54:32 And so oftentimes witnessing the younger self,
0:54:35 I remember when I was, gosh,
0:54:37 I must’ve been like seven or eight years old,
0:54:41 I would find these sneaky ways to pick up the telephone
0:54:43 and listen in on my parents’ conversations,
0:54:46 or I’d perched myself at the top of the steps.
0:54:47 And there was like a little opening
0:54:49 where I could listen in to the conversation
0:54:52 that my mom was having on the phone,
0:54:54 becoming this detective and trying to figure out
0:54:56 who’s telling the truth or what’s going on.
0:54:57 I needed that information.
0:54:59 And I remember the first time
0:55:01 that I really closed my eyes
0:55:05 and kind of transported myself as an adult,
0:55:08 witnessing from afar.
0:55:09 If you were seeing it on a movie screen,
0:55:12 it was maybe a few feet away from my seven,
0:55:15 eight-year-old self perched atop those stairs.
0:55:18 But I just got there and I was watching her,
0:55:23 watching her listen in, watching her absorb the fighting,
0:55:25 all of the conflict, all the anger, the yelling,
0:55:27 and just seeing her, you know?
0:55:30 Again, I didn’t have siblings,
0:55:31 neither of my parents ever remarried.
0:55:34 There were no step-parents or anybody else.
0:55:36 There’s just no validation, right?
0:55:38 And so there was something really important
0:55:42 about being able to witness what I had gone through
0:55:46 through my adult, clear lenses today.
0:55:49 And so that was so important for me to do,
0:55:51 and it’s been really important for people I work with
0:55:54 to do that witnessing or to have a loving partner
0:55:55 do that as well.
0:55:58 The third part is grieving.
0:56:01 Oof, people are like, “Oh, I don’t want to.”
0:56:03 When in doubt, grieve more.
0:56:05 When stuck, grieve more.
0:56:07 – But that will sound to a lot of people like wallowing,
0:56:09 right, what’s the difference?
0:56:11 ‘Cause wallowing seems unproductive,
0:56:14 but grieving in the sense you mean it is the opposite.
0:56:16 – Yeah, right, it’s very intentional.
0:56:20 This is never about us wallowing, getting stuck,
0:56:22 being in some type of victim position.
0:56:25 This is about feeling what needs to be felt.
0:56:27 And sometimes I think when we have an aversion
0:56:29 to wallowing or feeling, we’re like,
0:56:30 “Nope, I don’t need to.
0:56:31 “I’m just gonna, again,
0:56:33 “white-knuckle my way through something.”
0:56:38 And what we find is that grieving is so important
0:56:41 for us to allow ourselves to come into contact
0:56:45 with the emotion that is there, what was lost,
0:56:47 the sadness that is held around
0:56:50 what those experiences might have been like,
0:56:53 and to allow ourselves to come into contact with the pain.
0:56:57 And then the fourth step is pivoting.
0:56:58 I don’t believe that we pivot
0:57:01 before we witness and grieve.
0:57:03 I think that the pivot, which is about,
0:57:07 I don’t know if you’ve ever done cross-country skiing.
0:57:10 – I tried, and I took them off after 10 minutes,
0:57:11 threw them away, and grabbed my snowboard.
0:57:13 – Yeah, makes sense.
0:57:18 But you know the idea of, if a track is already laid,
0:57:19 it’s so much easier.
0:57:20 I mean, it’s hard anyway,
0:57:24 but it’s easier than when you are in fresh powder.
0:57:26 And the pivot is really about,
0:57:30 okay, I’m jumping off the thing that is so familiar,
0:57:32 the pattern, right?
0:57:35 And when I have witnessed and grieved the pause
0:57:37 between stimulus and response, right?
0:57:40 There’s more space for us to connect with that.
0:57:43 We see, we are aware of things,
0:57:45 and then it’s in that moment
0:57:50 that we can make a decision about staying in the loop
0:57:53 or exiting and trying something different.
0:57:54 – I love that, it’s so important.
0:57:59 That pause between stimulus and response,
0:58:01 that is the worst feeling for me.
0:58:03 And even what you said a second ago about,
0:58:05 it’s not about feeling yourself to be some kind of victim.
0:58:06 Like I’m really sensitive to that.
0:58:08 And I reflect back in,
0:58:10 I had this problem as a kid,
0:58:12 and my parents were emotionally available in this way
0:58:14 and that way and whatever.
0:58:16 And boy, I don’t want to get trapped in this narrative
0:58:21 that strips me of my ability to do better, to do otherwise.
0:58:23 But you still have to reckon with these things.
0:58:24 You have to face them.
0:58:26 Again, the cliche, the only way out is through.
0:58:28 – Right, it is.
0:58:30 – It is the pathway to our freedom, right?
0:58:33 And there’s such truth to that.
0:58:35 And certain cliches are cliches
0:58:36 ’cause there’s truth to them, right?
0:58:38 Like the only way out is through.
0:58:42 And I think when we build up these muscles of awareness
0:58:45 of what’s happening in this moment
0:58:47 is not just about this moment.
0:58:50 What’s happening in this moment is every moment
0:58:51 that predates this moment
0:58:55 that is familiar to what’s playing out here.
0:58:57 When we tend to that pain,
0:58:59 then pain is like, okay,
0:59:02 like almost as if you could make pain or your wounds
0:59:04 a different entity, externalize it,
0:59:06 put it outside of you for a moment.
0:59:09 Pain is not out to destroy us.
0:59:12 They’re not like, I can’t wait to fuck your life.
0:59:15 You know, it’s like, that’s not what it’s trying to do.
0:59:17 It’s there to be tended to.
0:59:19 It wants acknowledgement.
0:59:21 It wants to be seen.
0:59:22 It wants to be heard.
0:59:24 It wants to be honored.
0:59:25 And that’s not what we do.
0:59:28 We just try to go on with our lives,
0:59:30 skip over it, or we don’t tend to it properly.
0:59:34 And that’s the beauty is that once we do,
0:59:37 then pain is able to say, okay,
0:59:39 I don’t need to keep bringing you back into this.
0:59:41 That’s why we wind up in the same patterns
0:59:42 over and over again.
0:59:44 Pain’s like, I have to find clever ways
0:59:47 to keep bringing you back into contact with this thing.
0:59:50 So I’m gonna find ways to do that.
0:59:53 There is something so profound about watching it play out
0:59:57 and having people care for the pain and remember it.
0:59:59 You know, like it doesn’t just go out of sight
1:00:01 and it doesn’t mean that you come to some,
1:00:02 you know, completion place
1:00:06 or you never come into contact with the pain again.
1:00:09 We know that grief is an ongoing thing
1:00:13 and we will face it every time it presents itself.
1:00:17 And it’s more that the charge changes, right?
1:00:19 That the charge lessens.
1:00:22 And when the charge lessens, we have more control.
1:00:26 We have more agency as opposed to the pain
1:00:27 having more control.
1:00:31 This is an unfair, probably impossible question,
1:00:32 but I’m gonna ask it anyway
1:00:35 ’cause I’m annoying like that sometimes.
1:00:36 Okay.
1:00:39 How do we know when to walk away from a relationship?
1:00:44 Yeah, you know, that question in and of itself
1:00:47 outsources the answer.
1:00:48 What does that mean?
1:00:52 You are asking somebody outside of you
1:00:53 to make that decision.
1:00:58 And I know that you’re asking this for the general public,
1:01:00 but I think that that’s what people do, right?
1:01:05 As they say, how will I know instead of going inwards
1:01:10 and spending time with all of the parts and the pieces
1:01:14 that are specific to that individual and that relationship?
1:01:18 Because how one person knows is entirely different
1:01:20 than how another person knows.
1:01:23 And I think a lot of times it’s so hard
1:01:26 to be responsible for that decision.
1:01:29 There’s something nice about somebody else telling us
1:01:32 that like, yeah, well, if they do X, Y, and Z,
1:01:34 then you should definitely leave
1:01:39 to actually own the decision based on what is true
1:01:42 about your life and what’s true about what’s playing out
1:01:44 in your relationship.
1:01:47 It’s not a cop out, my answer, it’s not a cop out,
1:01:51 I promise, but that’s where I would turn somebody
1:01:53 for us to then begin to have the conversations
1:01:56 of what is happening in that person’s internal world
1:01:57 and story.
1:02:00 – I mean, look, probably if nothing else,
1:02:03 a relationship is a dynamic between two people,
1:02:06 but simply doing the work to figure out
1:02:10 what your problems are, what’s coming from you
1:02:14 and discerning that from just the shit you’re projecting
1:02:17 onto your partner is very helpful.
1:02:20 At least then you can have maybe a clearer view
1:02:24 of not just what’s wrong, but what’s solvable.
1:02:25 – Absolutely.
1:02:28 I get a lot of questions about what if a partner
1:02:31 doesn’t want to look at their origin wounds
1:02:34 or they definitely don’t want to talk about their family.
1:02:38 And in the best case scenario, we have people who do.
1:02:40 That’s our best case scenario is that people are like,
1:02:44 give me this book, pull up my sleeves, let’s get into it.
1:02:47 But we can affect a lot on our own, right?
1:02:50 You can never make the horse drink from the well.
1:02:52 You cannot force a person into this space
1:02:54 and I would not recommend that.
1:02:57 But what I would recommend is doing your own.
1:02:58 Sometimes we start living by examples.
1:03:00 Sometimes we start revealing, oh my gosh,
1:03:04 I just had this aha and what this revealed to me
1:03:05 is X, Y and Z.
1:03:08 Those things can sometimes shift a system
1:03:10 in pretty significant ways.
1:03:12 And when you stay on your own path,
1:03:14 there’s clarity that will come from that.
1:03:18 – This conversation and the book,
1:03:21 it really did hit me at an opportune time.
1:03:24 And I read it very, very closely and took it on board.
1:03:26 So thanks.
1:03:27 – Thank you.
1:03:30 – The book is, once again, the origins of you,
1:03:32 how breaking family patterns
1:03:35 can liberate the way we live and love.
1:03:38 Vienna Farron, thanks so much for being here.
1:03:39 – Thank you for having me.
1:03:42 (upbeat music)
1:03:51 – I told Vienna before we actually started recording
1:03:53 that I had to be a little personal
1:03:55 and speak from my own experiences
1:03:57 because that’s all I know.
1:04:00 Obviously my experiences are my own
1:04:04 and we’re all living our own particular circumstances,
1:04:06 but there are common threads.
1:04:08 Most of us are trying to navigate relationships.
1:04:10 A lot of us are trying to be parents.
1:04:13 A lot of us are struggling with our own
1:04:16 unhelpful counterproductive patterns.
1:04:18 And maybe some of this helped.
1:04:23 As always, tell me what you think of the episode.
1:04:27 You can drop us a line at the gray area at vox.com.
1:04:29 And if you don’t have time to do that,
1:04:31 just rate, review, subscribe.
1:04:34 This episode was originally produced
1:04:37 by Eric Janikis and A.M. Hall.
1:04:39 And it was engineered by Patrick Boyd.
1:04:42 The gray area is edited by Jorge Just
1:04:44 and Alex Overington wrote our theme music.
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