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Teaching Our Kids (and our inner-child) Emotional Intelligence · The Virtual Couch

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Music.
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Hey everybody, welcome to episode 370 of the Virtual Couch. I'm your host Tony Overbay.
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I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and just go to the show notes.
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Sign up for my newsletter, plain and simple. My wonderful social... my wonderful
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So let's go on a little bit of a train of thought that leads to today's topic,
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which I am very excited to talk about because it has to do with everything from being a parent to parenting
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to how to teach your kids empathy and emotional resilience
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to even maybe doing a little bit of healing that inner child.
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So from time to time, I'll be interviewed by somebody as part of a psychological evaluation or a profile,
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for a client or clients I've been working with for things like, I don't know,
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everything from child custody arrangements, that sort of thing.
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And I don't actually do the psych evaluations.
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That's reserved for the likes of a clinical psychologist.
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And so my role in these evaluations is pretty minor. I'm just typically interviewed
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and ask my thoughts on some things. It's not typically about the,
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well, it isn't about the kids. it's about the parents and maybe some of the observations that I will see.
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But on occasion, I also get the opportunity to read the evaluations and they're pretty fascinating.
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And something that will stand out is the way that the parents will show up in these evaluations.
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And my goal is never to throw shade or trying to shame anybody listening.
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This is just my observation.
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And as I've been talking a little bit in the, as of late about observation and judgment
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off of Marshall Rosenberg's concepts around nonviolent communication,
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I'm gonna take ownership that I will observe something, a behavior, and it's pretty natural
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to make a judgment, but I'm trying to recognize more and more that that is just my judgment
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of something that I'm observing.
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So I may see the way that a parent interacts with a kid in line at Walmart and just make that judgment
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of, oh man, they must be very frustrated or they must not be a very good parent.
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And then I have to catch myself and say, okay, or I'm observing a parent that appears
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to be frustrated and I don't really have context about that at all.
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Back to these observations.
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But in these psych evaluations, and I'm reading these, it's almost like you learn that you're having,
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this incredibly important test, maybe as a parent,
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one that is gonna not only be, there's like a written portion,
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which might be truly a personality test or a profile.
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But then you also learn that you are going to have an oral portion where you're gonna be quizzed
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by somebody that you find out happens to be an expert at their craft, and there can be some pressure
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in this interview as well.
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And you only have a few days to study and you're not even sure what to study.
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And this particular class has been one that is forged more by participation.
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So not only are you not sure what to study, but you're not even sure how to show up with this,
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evaluator. Actually, let me see if this example will work. I'm going to just kind of spitball
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this one. So in this world of examples, let me take you back to the height of my ultra running
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career. I was put in a lot of miles. I was doing at the very least about a marathon distance,
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20 to 25, 26 miles on a Saturday and then running throughout the week.
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And that would be every Saturday and every week. And I was running a race of 32 miles or more or a 50K once a month with a couple
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of 50 mile races peppered in there, try to get in a hundred K or a 62 mile race,
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at least one of those.
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And then I liked having a hundred miler on the calendar every year as well,
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something in the summer.
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And I was also running around the track for 24 hours in my town to raise money
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for local schools. And that was every spring.
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So on occasion, then I would run into somebody and they would also claim to be a runner, which is great.
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But on more than one occasion, I would have somebody come up to me and they would just
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start telling me what it is like being an ultra runner.
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And almost as if they are wanting validation for the amount that they run, which it wasn't
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a contest or a competition per se, but they would just start telling me the things that
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I'm sure that we were on the same page about.
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And instead of being more curious, because I remember one time in particular,
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this person was just talking to me a little bit about what we both knew about how the body works
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when you run long distances.
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And it was pretty obvious that this person didn't know what they didn't know,
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that they didn't have their own body science down to the amount of calories
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that they needed to ingest hourly to offset how many calories their gut could actually,
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take in and process without spilling their contents,
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while figuring the amount of salt tablets necessary to balance the need for electrolytes
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knowing what propensity they had to basically sweat on my heavy sweater versus just water
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so you don't experience the fatal condition of hyponatremia. Even better examples, on one
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occasion somebody wanted to go on a run with me, they also claimed to be an ultra runner. They
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later went on to in essence challenge me to a 50 mile run even though they had not run since high school.
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And so they, I can only imagine that they Googled something maybe a day or two before we were going to go out on this long run with a group of other ultra runners and they must have seen something about vitamins or nutrition in their water.
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So right before the run, they popped a multivitamin in the bottom of their store bought water bottle, just one water bottle.
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While the rest of us there, we had our handheld water bottles or our camelback hydration systems
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along with our gels and our salt tabs and glide to rub on certain parts and pieces of
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the body that would chafe as you ran for hours, as well as SPF and these, even these things
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at the time called gaiters that covered your shoes because you're going to be running on
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the trails and they covered your shoelaces so you didn't get pokey, stickery things in,
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your socks or shoelaces as you ran. So this guy ended up chafed to the point of seeing
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those two round circles of blood in the front of their shirt. Their nipples were rubbed
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raw and they were sunburned and they ended up having blisters on their feet from the
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thick cotton socks and not the type of socks that were made for ultra running. And they.
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Were cramping from dehydration and that men's Centrum multivitamin was still solid as could
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be in the bottom of that water bottle that he clutched in a death grip as we neared the
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halfway point of our run, which was an out and back. So thankfully that was at a particular
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town that we had run to, he still had so far to go. So we ended up calling it quits halfway
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and had somebody come pick him up. But my point is you can't cram for the tests of the
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long run or the parenting evaluation. If you haven't already done the work and reading
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an evaluation or two in my day, it's clear when one parent just shows up with the kids.
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And has things that they normally have with them and the kids do the things they essentially
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or normally do with that parent. And then if a parent has been less involved, and I'm
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not talking about one of the parents works and the other parent doesn't, because even
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if you're gone and you work, there are still ways to be intentional about building your
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relationship and a bond with your kids so that you have a more genuine, authentic relationship
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with them. So in those reports, it's almost as if the parent who cannot cram for this
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test thinks, well, what would a good dad or a good mom do when they're going to be in
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front of an evaluator so that they look their best? So that evaluator will think the best
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of the parent. So they go out and they buy coloring books and they buy these fruit snacks
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and they give them to the kids during the evaluation. And then the kid says out loud,
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did you get me a coloring book for a five-year-old when I'm eight?" Or they say, they hold up
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the fruit snacks and say, what are these? And then the parent is saying, oh, you know,
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to the evaluator, you love fruit snacks, kids. And then they look awkwardly at the evaluator
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saying, you know, kids, they're just so nervous around strangers, not knowing what they don't
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know. Not knowing that when their spouse was viewed, interacting with the kids and the
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evaluator a couple of days earlier, the son's waving a foot long beef stick around like
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it's a lightsaber. And the parent just looks over at the evaluator and said, give him a
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He has to defeat the evil Emperor Zurg before he eats that bad boy in five bites.
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No, not four, not six, but five.
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So hopefully you see my point. I want to help you start learning how to create that attachment, that bond with your kids.
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Not so that you can be more prepared if you eventually go through divorce and you'll know the right beef stick to bring to the psyche, Val.
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But so that you won't feel like you're ever in a position to be cramming for this parenting evaluation of life.
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And what comes with that, thank goodness, is an actual relationship with your kids.
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And they start to develop more emotional resilience. Or they might even learn
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concepts around empathy and you're starting to learn some things yourself.
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Maybe starting to even heal that inner child wound of your own. So my muse today
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is an article. It's a pretty short read but it's a really good article by,
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Jonas Webb who is a licensed psychologist and author of two books Running on Empty, Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect and Running on Empty
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No More, Transform Your Relationships with Your Partner, Your Parents and Your
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children and I have a link to both of those in the show notes and and I'm familiar with them I can be honest and say that I have not read them I do not
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own them but I have been told that these are wonderful books when it comes to,
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talking about ways to heal the emotional neglect or abandonment from your childhood and so Janice's article this is from psychology today and I will be
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reading and commenting on this is why emotional neglect can feel like abandonment.
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So prior to getting into the meat of the article, she has some key points.
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She says emotional abandonment can happen silently, and it's not always easy to see,
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because it's something that's happening internal to the child.
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But ultimately, childhood emotional neglect teaches you as a child,
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not only to abandon your emotions, but also abandoning yourself.
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And she says that many emotionally abandoned adults describe feeling alone,
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or flawed, or different from others.
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And as I'm getting more into helping people through trauma, it is pretty fascinating to see that you can have somebody start to feel. Where do they feel their emotions? This tightness in their chest or this just churning in their stomach?
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And if you really stop and say, okay, when have you felt that before? Often you will recognize that, man, I had that feeling when I was a kid. And you work through what that memory was about in childhood.
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And you'll find out that, oh, wow, yeah, my body has been again, my body's been keeping that score my entire life.
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And so now I ignored that feeling as a child, that gut tummy twisting feeling when I didn't feel like I was heard or seen or when I felt like I had to be less than or play small.
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And now here I am in my adult relationships and oh, yeah, that one's familiar because it's something that hasn't been worked through.
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And I know it's not as simple as then just having this aha moment where you say,
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oh, okay, so I didn't have the support I needed as a kid.
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And so my body is telling me, hey, this is still an issue.
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So if I'm seeing that come up in my adult relationship, what an opportunity to work through that.
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So self-confront and then be able to realize, oh, okay, those feelings made me feel unsafe when I was a kid,
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but I'm actually an adult now.
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So if I can get myself into this present moment and know that it's okay to have my own feelings
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and my emotions, well, let the healing begin.
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So Janice gives an example about abandonment, and I really like this.
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She says, a run-down building or an old car on the side of the road.
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Or a father who hasn't seen his child in years. These are the things that typically come to mind when we think of the word abandonment.
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But emotional abandonment is very different because it's not noticeable like a run-down building.
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She said to understand what emotional abandonment feels like,
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we have to first talk about the inner workings of emotional neglect.
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So childhood emotional neglect is far more common than you might think,
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and it happens when parents fail to respond enough to their child's emotional needs.
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And this is where I just so want right now if you are a parent and you're thinking, oh, this one doesn't feel very good.
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This is why I say that we all don't know what we don't know.
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So rule number one for me is please give yourself grace.
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Because we don't know what we don't know. And so then how could you possibly know what you don't know, you know?
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And when you don't know what you don't know, the next thing that you can do from there to grow
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is now you start to find out things that you didn't know, and that feels uncomfortable,
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and we are so conditioned to get rid of that discomfort.
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I don't wanna think this.
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So I need to hurry up and create a quick narrative of that no, this isn't happening in my family,
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or well, certainly my kids don't feel that way, or well, my parents were good and nice
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and everybody liked them, so they couldn't have been bad parents.
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And that's where I'm not talking about bad or good or anything like that right now.
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We're just talking about, hey, let's get this information out there,
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let's start to think about it.
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And then as we think about things and we start to become more aware,
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we can start to take action on things.
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So she said that even though it happens in a real simple way, it's not very simple to see.
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Childhood emotional neglect goes easily undetected. So an outsider might see a kid living in a nice home,
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attending a nice school, maybe they dress nice, their parents look the part.
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But what they don't see is an emotional void creeping through every encounter and experience
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that a child might have with their parents, or I'll add their caregivers, or their teachers,
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or anybody that they're interacting with.
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So she said, even though your emotions may be invisible, they are no less important than your basic needs
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for food and shelter.
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In fact, emotional connection is a basic human need. Everybody requires this to thrive in the world,
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and children need enough emotional response and emotional validation and emotional education
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to grow into fulfilled adults.
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And I like where she goes next. She says that emotions are the biological essence of who you are.
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Your emotions send you important messages about what to do, when to do it, and why.
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They engage you, they motivate you, they connect you, and they guide you to live your life
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aligned with who you are and what you value.
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And I think one of the biggest challenges, in my opinion, is that we form these emotions
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based off of these experiences that we have in our childhood.
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And I like the concepts in acceptance and commitment therapy that are saying, in essence, things just happen.
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So you could be really, really good parents and your child is having their own experience.
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And it isn't just based off of the things that you say or do, although that plays such a major role.
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But they're also, this is where I go into, it's their birth order.
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It's their own DNA, their genetic makeup.
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It's the places that you live. It's the sounds that they hear.
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It's the people that they interact with. It's the friends that they have.
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It's the school that they go to. It's so much goes into making you who you are.
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Again, that concept around implicit memory or what it feels like to be you is based off
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of the slow residue of lived experience.
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And those lived experiences are happening every second that you are alive.
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And so they are making an imprint on what it feels like to be you.
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So these emotions, especially as a kid, are there to guide us, but so often we stuff those
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emotions and we're teaching ourselves that I can't express my emotions.
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And as a matter of fact, I need to start managing the emotions of other people.
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So if I'm a kid and I grew up in a little bit of a chaotic home, or one or both of my
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my parents are really struggling with their own mental health or financial issues or faith journeys or crises
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or job loss and any of these things,
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then they're putting out an energy or a vibe in the air.
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And so when a kid is wanting to play and to explore and to grow and to just be, oftentimes that might be,
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for lack of a better word, might come across as somewhat annoying to a parent
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that is going through something in that moment.
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And so instead of turning to that kid and saying, man, here's my chance to give them the external validation they need so that
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they know that I'm a safe, secure place.
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The parent might not be aware of what they're not aware of, and they might be withdrawn or shut down.
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And then the kid comes to them and says, in essence, do you see me?
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And if the parent says, Hey, not right now, champ, then it's, it's not a stretch
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to think that the kid may start to feel small or less than, or like, okay, well,
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I need to figure out when am I allowed to show my emotion and when am I not?
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Or this is the part where sometimes if we as parents think that we're doing the right thing, we could actually be telling our kids that, hey, suppress that emotion of yours. Why don't you?
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So if a kid is angry or frustrated about something at work, at work, if a kid is frustrated about something that they've experienced at school, they come home and they're angry.
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And the parent just says, man, not right now. I've got enough on my plate.
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So, you know, you need to, you just need to get over it.
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Or you need to think of others. Or you need to realize that that anger is going to get you nowhere.
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And you just need to not worry about things.
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So many of those things that we say somewhat impulsively when we're not as aware as we need to be,
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are basically communicating to a kid, hey, stuff those emotions.
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And again, those emotions are there naturally as a guide.
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So then if we grow up and we're stuffing those emotions and we're questioning those emotions
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and we're trying to figure out how to manage other people's emotions,
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then it can lead to things like not being able to set boundaries
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or not being able to just stand up for oneself.
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And we find ourselves often just caught up in these emotionally immature relationships
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because we don't feel like we can be ourselves or we don't want to make anybody else uncomfortable.
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So back to the article from Janice, she said, and again I'll repeat this,
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emotions are the biological essence of who you are and they send you important messages
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about what to do, when to do it, and why. So she said, when you experience emotional neglect as a
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child you are kept in the dark from this rich and engaging emotional world. You,
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incorrectly learn that your feelings aren't important. So let's start even looking at you in the present day as an adult. Then have you experienced this
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emotional neglect whether it's in your childhood or whether it's in your relationship right now? Because if so, then if you are trying to manage your
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spouse's emotions or you're the person that has to just control the environment,
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you're missing out on what she says is this rich and engaging emotional world.
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When you can really embrace your emotions, listen to your body, let your body not just keep the score but trust your gut, let your body guide, then what
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it starts to feel like to be you is somebody who takes action on things that
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matter because you start to figure out what matters because you are the only
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version of you. So what matters to you is actually what matters to you.
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So she says, ultimately, childhood emotional neglect teaches you to not only abandon your emotions, but also abandon yourself.
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She said, three emotional needs of every child and adult. First, an emotional response.
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And I love this one. In the nurtured heart approach, my parenting approach of choice, I feel like this is the concept they call active recognition.
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If one of my kids walks in the room, it's as simple as saying, Jake, or Sid, hey, what's up? Mac, Alex, what's going on?
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And because you're literally just sending this message of I see you.
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And that leads to even deeper emotional response. Because if all of a sudden you don't even acknowledge your kid, but then you out of the blue say,
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Hey I noticed you got quiet, are you sad?
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All of a sudden it feels like, ooh I'm being interrogated, the spotlight's on me.
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Hey why do you care old man? You know, you don't even know I exist half the time.
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So that act of recognition, that emotional response, I see you is so important.
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To get to that point where, hey, I noticed you got quiet right now. What's going on?
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Tell me more. Are you sad? Because you're trying to start to develop this secure
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attachment with your kid where they really can open up or feel safe enough to share. Because again, we so often as parents say, hey, you know you can come
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and talk to me about anything because that feels good for me to say that. Boy,
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that alleviates my discomfort. I'm already filling out my application for dad of the year after that one. But if they show up late for curfew or they
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they caught stealing something or they get a ticket or they're smoking pot or something like that.
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And then they wanna talk to you about it and you're like, oh, really?
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Do you know how disappointed I am?
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So what a mixed message I just sent there. Hopefully now we're ripping up my day out of the year application.
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Being able to say or provide that secure attachment and that emotional safety
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starts with that emotional response. I see you, I see you're disappointed.
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Man, I can see that you're angry right now.
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John says it's crucial that parents notice what their child is feeling and communicating it to them.
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This teaches a child that their emotions are important and that other people see them and notice them.
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Responding to a child's emotions sends the message that their feelings are real and they deserve attention,
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and this sets a precedent for how your child responds to their own feelings in the future.
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Now, I wanna take a quick side note here and talk about what do we do with our discomfort.
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So when our kids are sad or when our kids are angry or frustrated,
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even if we are not experiencing some traumatic event in that moment.
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We often don't want to get rid of our own discomfort. We might not even be aware that it's discomfort by saying something very motivational.
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Hey, bud, you know what? Things are going to happen in your life. You just need to learn how to deal with them.
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While that may sound like sound solid advice, what we're saying is, hey, bud, stuff those emotions and feelings down.
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It only come to me when you're saying things that make me feel better.
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When you're saying things that make me go, that's my boy, instead of things that where you say, oh, man, tell me more about that.
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So that leads to number two, she says, this is again, emotional, three emotional needs of every child and adult, emotional validation.
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Saying things like, that makes so much sense that you're sad, I can see that and I'm here for you while you're feeling this.
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Or, man, I would feel disappointed too. Of course you're feeling disappointed, it's a bummer when things don't work out the way that we want them to.
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Now, did you hear that I didn't then say, but you just need to know, no, that's it, that is a bummer.
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Or I can, I feel like I can, I hear you. I feel like I can understand why you're angry.
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Um, tell me more about that. And boy, yeah, that doesn't sound very fair that that happened to you.
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And that doesn't mean that now cue up my old high school story of where things weren't fair for me either.
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Because this is a moment that we're not going to make it about us.
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We're going to sit there with that discomfort and sit in that pain and that
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emotion and those big emotions with our kids, I'm here with you, I'm here beside
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you. And it may feel just natural to say, let me guide you out of this. And there
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might be a time for that after the person feels heard and understood.
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John has said that children need to know that their feelings make sense and that
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they're valid. Again, a kid gets their sense of self from external validation,
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not from being told what to do, how to think, and what your experience was.
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So they need to know that they exist, that their emotions are valid.
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So when you affirm a child's emotional experience, you let them know that what they're experiencing makes some sense.
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It's understandable. I can understand.
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And this is a little bit, I get that this is a little contrary to when I talk about adults and emotional relationships,
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where we may say I know exactly what you're going through and you don't and it can feel very invalidating.
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When you're starting to teach a kid emotional validation and that their feelings matter,
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then that's when we where we are going to be a little bit more of a guide in that sense and say,
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man, I hear you and that makes a lot of sense. I appreciate you sharing that. And so that would be
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hard. So again, she says, when you affirm a child's emotional experience, you let them know
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that what they're experiencing is understandable to others. Because she says, since emotions are
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the deepest, most personal expression of who a child is, validating their emotions confirms that
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that they are there to guide,
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that you are there to guide them.
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And they should be listened to.
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So the third thing, the third need she talks about is that emotional education.
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You know, you seem sad. I can tell by that look on your face.
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So let's talk, because I want to understand what's going on.
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And who knows, you might even feel better after talking this out.
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Or saying things like, I know you had your hopes up and it can be really disappointing
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when things don't work out our way or work out the way that you want them to.
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So make sense. It's okay to feel this way right now.
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And I feel like these hard feelings will pass, but boy, you gotta give it some time.
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Or I know you're angry. I would be angry if that happened to me too.
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And here's where we can start to do that emotional education.
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I feel like anger often gives us energy to take action when something isn't right.
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Let's talk more about your anger, what your anger feels like,
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and I don't know, what do you wanna do? Take me on your train of thought.
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Let me understand what do you feel like doing when you're angry.
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Jonna says that children are not born understanding emotions and how they work. I would add to that, I don't feel like many adults really understand their own emotions either.
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So she said just like going to school and learning about anatomy or history, for example, we also need to learn about emotions.
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And she says while the school system can be a great way to increase a child's emotional knowledge, the best place for learning about emotional resiliency is in your own home.
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From the people that the kids interact with on a day-to-day basis, their best models and teachers, their parents.
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I threw in my notes that just referencing an article, Attachment Woes Between Anxious and Avoidant Partners by Darlene Lancer.
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This is a virtual couch episode I did quite a while ago, and it might seem like I'm just cramming this in there,
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but I think that if we just keep in mind what that, if we are telling our kids to stuff their emotions, how that can show up later in life.
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I'm going to read a couple paragraphs from this attachment woes between anxious and avoidant partners.
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Darlene said that attachment theories determined that the pursuer has an anxious attachment style and,
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that the more emotionally unavailable partner, which maybe we would call the withdrawer, has an avoidant style.
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Research suggests that these styles and intimacy problems originate in the relationship between the mother and infant.
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Babies and toddlers are dependent on their mother's empathy and regard for their needs and emotions in order to sense
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themselves or to feel whole. Now I would of course add that a dad plays a role in
25:54
this too. But to an infant or a toddler, physical or emotional abandonment,
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whether through neglect, and this is what I preach about this article, illness,
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divorce, or death threatens its existence because of its dependency on the mother for validation and development of wholeness. So later as
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an adult, being separated in intimate relationships, that's experienced as a
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painful reminder of this earlier loss in childhood. Darlene said that if the,
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mother is ill or depressed or lacks wholeness and self-esteem, then there are
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often no boundaries between her and her child. So rather than responding to her
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child, she projects and sees the child only as an extension of herself and as.
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An object to meet her own needs and feelings. And let me say that as a person
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who works in the world of emotional immaturity and narcissistic traits and tendencies all the way up to full-blown narcissistic personality disorder, I'm,
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gonna add I feel very strongly that the dad is playing quite a role in this as
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well. Because that line, if the rather than responding to the child, if the
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emotionally immature male then projects and sees the child as an extension of
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himself or as an object to meet his own needs and feelings.
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Then the kid can't value themselves as a separate self. The child's boundaries are violated and their autonomy, their feelings, their
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thoughts, their body are disrespected. So consequently the child does not develop a healthy sense of self and instead
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he or she discovers that love and approval come with meeting the mother or I'll add the father's needs. And they tune in to the parents'
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responses and expectations, again trying to manage the emotions of a parent.
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It's not fair for the kids. This also leads to shame and codependency because the child learns to please or perform or rebel, but in any case, gradually tunes out their own thoughts and their needs and their feelings.
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So then later, intimacy, emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, verbal intimacy, any of those may threaten that adult's sense of autonomy or identity,
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and they may feel invaded or engulfed, controlled, shamed, rejected.
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So the person might feel both abandoned if his or her feelings and needs are not being responded to, but at the same time engulfed by the needs of his or her partner.
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That's the part I thought was so deep where we can grow up saying, no, of course I want to be heard. Of course I want to be seen and known and I want people to be curious about me.
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But if we didn't have that relationship with our parents growing up, all of a sudden, if our partner does turn their eyes toward us and starts to become very curious, it can feel overwhelming.
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Darlene said in codependent relationships where there aren't two separate but whole people coming together.
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This is where I love saying that we are trying to become two interdependent, differentiated people with our own styles and our own experiences.
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And now we can come together in a way of being curious about each other's experience.
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But that isn't a all or nothing, either or, right or wrong sense.
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It's two people that have their own experiences in life.
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Because again, she says in codependent relationships where there aren't two separate whole people coming together, true intimacy is not possible because the fear of non-existence and disillusion is so strong.
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So back to Janice's comments in her article, talking about emotional abandonment. So how exactly does childhood emotional neglect feel like abandonment?
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She said that many folks who have experienced childhood emotional neglect say, but I had everything as a kid.
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They describe having things like a home and food, a desk and school supplies, but even the latest toys, or perhaps a bike and eventually a car to drive.
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So their physical needs were met, and they might have been met well.
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In this world of emotional immaturity or narcissism, I find out so often of why the physical things, and in particular money, hold such value.
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You know, if you leave, you know you'll never have another truck like this, or you won't have a home like this, or you won't be able to afford the life that you want.
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That you want because to that person growing up, those physical needs were met.
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So those physical needs sometimes are in the same frame as love.
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So to the emotionally immature person, that's how they then start to communicate,
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I love you is providing the gifts, the money, the physical things.
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I find myself doing this as I wake up to my own emotional immaturity where when I am just feeling like,
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oh my gosh, I just love these kids so much, I might even express it,
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but I still find myself going to my wallet almost to say, here, here's what love looks like.
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So, John has said though, but did your parents meet your emotional needs?
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Did they teach you how to identify, name, respond to, validate and express your emotion?
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Were emotions talked about? Many times, the emotionally neglected people
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that describe their physical needs as being well met,
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have trouble remembering deep and meaningful memories from their childhood.
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They describe feeling alone or different from others as adults, even if they had positive childhood experiences.
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So parents may be fine at fulfilling the physical needs of their children, but sometimes without even knowing it,
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they may fail to fulfill the emotional needs that are necessary for life.
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Let me go through this quickly. She talks about why emotional neglect can feel like abandonment.
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She said, number one, lack of response.
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Children experience their emotions in an unfiltered, raw, and sometimes overwhelming sort of way,
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and that's because they are new to developing their relationships with their feelings.
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They don't understand what their feelings are there to tell them, or what they want, or what they need,
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and that those are essential tools for life.
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So when parents don't respond to the emotions enough, their lack of response can start to feel like abandonment.
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The kid starts to put themselves out there over and over again,
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and then if the parent is just inconsistent in the way they show up or if they show up at all,
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then as a kid, you're left feeling alone and confused, and you don't really have this chance
31:15
to develop a healthy relationship with your emotions because you're not sure if they're okay to have or not.
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The second thing she says is lack of validation. The children need their experiences normalized.
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When your child grows bigger, they receive confirmation from others around them.
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Oh, your kids are getting so big. Pretty soon you'll be a big girl in middle school.
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So this child then understands, oh, it's okay to grow. That's to be expected.
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I love how she, I love Janice's example here.
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But if parents don't communicate to their children that their feelings are normal and okay,
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then it might be okay to grow in size, but it's not okay to express your feelings and emotions.
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So then the children start to assume that their feelings don't make sense and I hear that every day in my practice.
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Where people will say, I don't know if that makes any sense, I don't know how to express this, I don't know if this makes any sense at all if you're understanding what I'm saying.
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And that's where I just often will say, oh hey don't invalidate yourself. This is how you feel. This is the way you're expressing it.
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Often the kids without validation just hold this belief that their feelings are bad or perhaps that you're bad for having the feelings.
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And the feelings, and that sets you up to feel inferior to others, income shame, that I am a bad person.
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The last thing she says is lack of emotional education. And I feel like this is the thing
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that we just don't do well at all, but it's because I don't think we know what we don't know.
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She said, children aren't born with emotional knowledge. They need help understanding where their feelings come from
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and what they mean, how to identify them in their bodies, where they are in their bodies,
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how to interpret and express them to others.
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So without education and guidance from parents, they aren't equipped with emotional intelligence.
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Again, I go back to, I don't think most parents have emotional intelligence.
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So emotional intelligence is something that can help you build healthy relationships
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with yourself and others in adulthood.
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The world of emotions to the emotionally neglected feels foreign and absolutely unsafe.
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So we may try to get our emotions out there in little bits and pieces,
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but especially if you're in an emotionally immature relationship when somebody responds with even just
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a furrow of their brow or a sigh or an eye roll, Okay, no, I'm not gonna express that.
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Looks apparently like that's wrong.
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So she says, what do you do from here? If you're identifying with childhood emotional neglect
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and you recognize these feelings of emotional abandonment, you are absolutely not alone.
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And this is where she's saying it, and as a therapist, I will say it,
33:27
recovery is possible, get help.
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Go talk to somebody that can help you sort through these things.
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Start paying attention to your feelings. When you listen, you'll soon hear that your feelings
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send you messages from your deepest self,
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messages that are incredibly useful. And oftentimes when we're trying to just
33:43
express those as an adult and they come out of nowhere and our partner is not
33:47
somebody that we necessarily feel safe with and if they say, whoa, that's crazy. I never knew you felt that way. Then we don't know that we... I want
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somebody to say, oh well, you just said that feels crazy but that feels crazy to you, I'm expressing my emotions. So yeah, I do feel this way.
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So remembering that these messages, these emotions, these feelings, they inform you about your likes and dislikes, your strengths and weaknesses, your ability to make decisions, what you want and need, what makes you happy or what hurts you.
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And that is how you feel. And that is okay. So when somebody else says, you know, you don't actually think that way, you don't really mean that. Because I know you better than you know yourself.
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That's a load of crap. I don't know if that's a psychological term or not. That is not helpful. We'll put it that way.
34:32
So even though it might be scary when you turn your focus inward to your emotional world, your feelings of abandonment will diminish.
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You'll no longer need to ignore or discredit yourself.
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When, uh, Jonah says, when you choose your feelings, you choose yourself and you won't regret it.
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So I hope something resonated here and that this wasn't, uh, leaving you feeling like I'm a horrible parent or person,
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because give yourself grace. Again, we don't know what we don't know and the only thing that you, not the only thing, sounds so dramatic,
34:58
but something powerful that you can do is start to be aware.
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Even if you don't feel like you know how to take action yet and validate your kids and say, tell me more and sit with that discomfort, you're aware.
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And don't, I hope you won't look at that as, man, I don't know what I'm not doing.
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I'm not being consistent because we go from we don't know what we don't know to now we know, but we don't really do a lot about it.
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That's normal. And eventually we do more about it than we don't do.
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And finally, we just become, we become this better person. We become somebody who expresses our emotions.
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We become somebody that can sit with their own discomfort and validate what's going on in our children's lives.
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And sometimes people even have to get out of unhealthy relationships in order to be able to breathe and to be able to express themselves and feel like it's okay to be them.
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And that's okay because this is your life. This is your world. This is your experience.
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And as we get out of these enmeshed codependent relationships, that's part of the emotional maturation process.
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That's part of, I feel like, why we're here on Earth, to grow and learn and become and do and be and let our light so shine so that others around us won't feel small, but they'll also have the, they feel like they have the right, I guess, to be able to express themselves as well.
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We have that opportunity to model that to people around us, if we can find that from within ourselves.
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Have an amazing week. Let me know if you have questions, thoughts. I'm grateful, as always, for those who are continuing to listen, however many seven years later.
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Taking us out per usual and this is so so appropriate for today. The wonderful,
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the talented Aurora Florence with her song It's Wonderful because man when you,
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start to tap into all this stuff it really can be pretty wonderful. Have a week we'll see you next week on The Virtual Catch.
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Music.