Latest / The Virtual Couch / Childhood Survival Skills That Sabotage Your Adult Relationships - Part 2: The Path to Emotional Maturity - The Climb Out

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Childhood Survival Skills That Sabotage Your Adult Relationships - Part 2: The Path to Emotional Maturity - The Climb Out · The Virtual Couch

• 0:01
  Welcome to the virtual couch Lease.
• 0:04
  Stick a seat.
• 0:05
  Four pillars, emotional maturity.
• 0:08
  Bear your self worth run so deep.
• 0:11
  You are not broken.
• 0:13
  You are a human.
• 0:15
  So check that out.
• 0:16
  You the know No what you don't know.
• 0:22
  Hey everybody.
• 0:22
  Welcome to another episode of the Virtual Couch.
• 0:25
  I am your host, Tony Obba.
• 0:26
  I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a
• 0:28
  certified mindful habit coach.
• 0:29
  And welcome to part two of my podcast about emotional immaturity.
• 0:34
  And thank you for your feedback from part one.
• 0:36
  I think that's the most feedback that I have received.
• 0:38
  So much of it was, okay, great.
• 0:41
  Now we've identified, established that that emotional maturity
• 0:45
  I'm saying is it's an epidemic, but now what do we do with it?
• 0:48
  So I did leave that part out.
• 0:50
  First, we have to be aware of it if we're gonna do anything about
• 0:53
  it, and we'll talk about that more as this episode goes along.
• 0:56
  Reach out to me, tony obba.com.
• 0:58
  Sign up for the newsletter.
• 0:59
  We've got an updated round of the magnetic marriage courses coming.
• 1:03
  You can find me on Patreon at patreon.com/virtual couch on
• 1:06
  Instagram at virtual dot couch at TikTok at virtual couch.
• 1:10
  Let's get to today's episode, and if you haven't heard it, please pause.
• 1:14
  Go back and listen to part one because this concept around emotional
• 1:19
  immaturity is it's a game changer.
• 1:20
  You can't unsee it once you see it.
• 1:23
  Let me tell you a story about a guy that I will call Tyler,
• 1:26
  and that is not his real name.
• 1:27
  If you are someone that is working with me and you think that this
• 1:30
  is about you, I think the great Carly Simon said it herself.
• 1:34
  You're so vain if you think this, this song is about you, and if
• 1:37
  you don't know that reference.
• 1:39
  That probably sounded like I was pretty rude.
• 1:40
  So give that one to Google.
• 1:42
  But I think that we will all see parts of us in Tyler, or maybe even parts
• 1:46
  of people that you know, maybe people that you are in a relationship with.
• 1:50
  Tyler had a lot going on in a good way.
• 1:53
  When he was growing up, he was popular, he was smart, he was athletic, and
• 1:56
  he always knew how to read a room.
• 1:58
  He could make people laugh, he would say the right thing.
• 2:01
  He ended up being a class officer and then eventually his student body president,
• 2:06
  he was captain of his soccer team.
• 2:07
  He was the guy that teachers would say would go far and at home.
• 2:13
  That was kind of different emotions were not really welcome, but I don't know if
• 2:17
  they were welcome in many people's homes, especially in the time that Tyler grew up.
• 2:22
  His dad did not say, I love you, unless it was followed by, but you
• 2:27
  know, you really need to do better.
• 2:28
  His mom was continually worried.
• 2:30
  She was distracted.
• 2:32
  So Tyler learned that attention and praise and admiration
• 2:36
  were essentially the currency.
• 2:38
  Of connection.
• 2:39
  If you did these things well enough, then you may get acknowledgement or connection,
• 2:44
  and that worked in his life until things came crashing down and it didn't.
• 2:50
  Fast forward 20 years or so, Tyler was sitting on my couch, frustrated,
• 2:55
  feeling pretty alone in his relationship.
• 2:58
  And at first he honestly felt like the world's biggest victim.
• 3:02
  He said that he had absolutely no idea why he was there talking with
• 3:05
  me, but his wife told him that he was definitely the problem.
• 3:08
  She had been saying that for a long time, and she was at her wit's end.
• 3:12
  He said that he felt like nobody appreciated him.
• 3:15
  He was a walking paycheck, and the harder he tried to be seen,
• 3:18
  he said the worst that things got.
• 3:20
  His wife began calling him arrogant and even eventually
• 3:23
  started calling him a narcissist.
• 3:25
  His coworkers.
• 3:26
  Had a bit of an intervention with him.
• 3:28
  He said that today felt like he was always one-upping them.
• 3:31
  You know, I wanna make a joke right now and say, and he said, oh yeah,
• 3:35
  well I'm doing it better than you are.
• 3:36
  But that isn't true.
• 3:38
  But he started to feel like the very things that had made him likable were
• 3:41
  now keeping people at a distance.
• 3:43
  And he was confused what got Tyler to my office wasn't necessarily
• 3:48
  a, a crisis, but it was a very slow drip, a slow frustration.
• 3:54
  'cause he was beginning to shut down.
• 3:55
  And what I honestly thought that he wanted from me was for me
• 3:58
  to tell him that he was right.
• 4:00
  I. Everybody else was wrong.
• 4:02
  Now let's, he and I pick up some pitchforks and let's go
• 4:05
  find all these people that don't understand him and let's get 'em.
• 4:08
  Slight tangent.
• 4:09
  I've made no, no secret that my favorite band is called a JR,
• 4:13
  and they have a couple of very solid mental health related songs.
• 4:16
  As a matter of fact, I highly recommend Look Up a JR and Karma.
• 4:21
  That's one of my favorites that is talking about therapy.
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  But at this time, a song of theirs had blown up on TikTok.
• 4:29
  People were doing a particular dance to it.
• 4:31
  The song is called The World's Smallest Violin.
• 4:34
  And this is kind of funny.
• 4:35
  Tyler said that his wife actually sent him.
• 4:38
  That song and told them to listen to the lyrics and listen very carefully.
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  To which he said he was very honest with me about this.
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  He said his very first thought was that he would actually find a song that
• 4:50
  explained his thoughts better than the world's smallest violin than that one.
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  And for some reason, that actually was what helped him realize
• 5:00
  maybe he was a bit of a one-up.
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  But then he did listen to the song.
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  I was familiar with it, and it became a pretty recurring theme in therapy.
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  Here are the lyrics that hit him a little bit different.
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  So in the song they sing somewhere in the universe.
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  Somewhere.
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  Someone's got it worse.
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  I wish that made it easier.
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  I wish I didn't feel the hurt.
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  The world's smallest violin really needs an audience.
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  So if I do not find somebody soon, I'll blow up into smithereens and spew my
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  tiny symphony I'll up and down a city street while trying to put my mind
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  at ease, like finishing this melody.
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  This feels like a necessity.
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  So this could be the death of me or maybe just a better me.
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  And then it says, so let me play my violin for you.
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  But that part where it got to the point where he said, okay, I think
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  that this could be the death of me.
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  Then he had to acknowledge, okay, maybe this could be a better me, because he
• 5:54
  realized he was trying to find people to listen to him and tell him how
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  brave he is and tell him how amazing he is, and that his stories were
• 6:03
  better, that he could even take a one up position when he was being a victim.
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  But he said that he often felt like people dismissed his thoughts or his
• 6:11
  emotions, but he realized that those thoughts and emotions, the ones that
• 6:14
  people would dismiss typically came after he was told something that he did
• 6:18
  that bothered somebody else, or that he had potentially done incorrectly.
• 6:24
  Or when he hadn't followed through on something that he had promised somebody.
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  But that person didn't understand that something else came up.
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  What was he supposed to do?
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  But then he got to that point, and I love this as a therapist, where
• 6:37
  there was a essentially this vibe of like, hold on, are these excuses.
• 6:42
  Then he realized, okay, maybe I did one up.
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  And then there, there was that beginning of his discovery
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  of his very own aha moment.
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  What we eventually explored in great detail was, so he gets to
• 6:55
  feel better after he explains that others actually are wrong about him.
• 6:59
  He gets to feel better after he explains that somebody else.
• 7:03
  Well, they did exactly what they're accusing him of too.
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  He gets to feel better when somebody tells him a story and then actually he
• 7:09
  can come back with an even better story because maybe that they will think that,
• 7:13
  boy, he really has lived an amazing life.
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  He gets to feel better when he does more, when he goes bigger
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  and when he proves he's right.
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  And what about the other person?
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  Now, all of a sudden, they aren't praising him.
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  They aren't telling him that that's a crazy story.
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  They aren't in awe of how brave he was to suddenly find himself in
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  the middle of fixing someone else's problem instead of following through
• 7:35
  on what he committed to earlier.
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  So then I asked him.
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  When you were a kid, what was your relationship like with your parents?
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  And he said that it was, it was great.
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  How come?
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  And I asked him, were they curious about your experiences or did you get
• 7:50
  asked a lot of questions as a kid?
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  And the more he thought about it, he said, well, yeah, like, why
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  didn't you get a better grade?
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  Or Didn't you remember that you were supposed to stop by the neighbors and
• 8:00
  take out their trash or feed their dog?
• 8:02
  So actually, no, those weren't curious questions.
• 8:05
  They were questions, but they were questions that meant that he was in
• 8:08
  trouble or questions pointing out that he had done something wrong.
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  So I asked him, did you like that feeling?
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  What was that like for you?
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  And he said, no, I didn't like that feeling.
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  I constantly felt like I was in trouble.
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  So then I asked him, well, what would you do to get out of it?
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  And he said that he would tell a larger story, that he would make up an
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  excuse that he would put it back on the person who was asking him the question.
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  We never said that.
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  I thought that you said this little gaslighting.
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  It is a childhood defense mechanism, and you could see it so
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  clearly in the story with Tyler.
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  I said, it sounds like you got out of a lot of jams and then you could
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  actually go play with your friends.
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  So thank you little Tyler, inner Tyler, inner child Tyler, because he used
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  that tool to survive, but now it is leaving him feeling alone and feeling
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  isolated and like he is again in trouble.
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  What used to work, what worked for him in childhood, no longer works.
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  He was still using the only emotional tool that he had of
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  seeking external validation.
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  He needed somebody else to help him feel better, even if it was
• 9:17
  to their own detriment or to the cost of the relationship.
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  Because to him, everything was temporary.
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  And what did he need to do to get outta that moment, get outta that discomfort.
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  But now it was backfiring.
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  Every attempt that he made to impress every joke, to cover up an insecurity
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  every larger than life story to try and get the person to openly praise him,
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  only made him feel less and less seen.
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  So this is where I got to introduce to him my very favorite acceptance and commitment
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  therapy metaphor, the man in the whole.
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  So picture this, you are in a vast field and you're blindfolded and you're
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  running and you've got a tool bag.
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  Then without any warning, you fall into a very deep hole.
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  And this hole, as we will discuss in detail later, represents a stage
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  of not knowing what you don't know.
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  It just is happening to you.
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  Or those areas of our self-awareness that remain unseen are blind spots.
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  Now you feel stuck.
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  You're, you're trapped, and you're desperate for a way outta this hole.
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  So naturally, you're gonna turn to the only tool that you have in your bag,
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  and it happens to be a shovel, and you start digging furiously digging.
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  Because you believe that this is the solution, but here's the
• 10:29
  deeper layer to your situation.
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  The very act of digging the very tools and strategies that you've
• 10:35
  been employing up to this point in your life now aren't helping.
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  Now, they might have worked in other situations, but in this hole,
• 10:42
  they're only making things worse.
• 10:43
  It's like you go to therapy or you're seeking help, or you're reading self-help
• 10:47
  books or podcasts, and you're hoping that somebody is going to give you this
• 10:52
  gold-plated steam shovel, because our brain naturally goes to this place of
• 10:56
  thinking that a bigger or a fancier tool, that's probably the answer because I
• 11:00
  know this is a good tool, but the problem isn't the tool itself, it's the context.
• 11:04
  It's the situation that you're using it in.
• 11:07
  So then you might wonder, well, how on earth do I get outta this hole?
• 11:10
  But that's where a paradigm shift becomes essential because it's not necessarily
• 11:15
  about figuring out how to escape.
• 11:17
  At least not now, not immediately.
• 11:19
  That would just be a way to, to just get outta this discomfort.
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  It's more about accepting, okay, I am in a hole.
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  In the first place.
• 11:27
  Imagine being handed a ladder while you're still hanging onto the shovel.
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  Somebody lowers it down into the hole.
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  What you probably do is you would take that ladder and you would
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  try to dig with the ladder, but ladders make really crummy shovels.
• 11:41
  So the real challenge is to let go of the shovel, let go of the digging
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  that you would do with that shovel.
• 11:48
  And I need to be open to a new approach.
• 11:51
  I need to be open to a new tool.
• 11:54
  We're gonna tie this back to your journey of self discovery.
• 11:57
  We have to acknowledge, take in self, confront, recognize and
• 12:02
  admit where there might be some blind spots, a flaw, a limitation.
• 12:07
  And doing so can be scary.
• 12:09
  It can be really daunting.
• 12:10
  'cause we go back to that inner child in us that thinks, oh no, I'm in trouble.
• 12:13
  I'm doing it wrong.
• 12:15
  You're just going through life for the very first time as you, but you are
• 12:18
  carrying around a shovel with you, most likely holding onto our usual methods
• 12:23
  even when they aren't serving us.
• 12:25
  That's a natural human instinct.
• 12:26
  It's the familiar, it's what we know because it feels too scary
• 12:31
  and risky to abandon the only tools that we've ever known.
• 12:33
  I might have to actually ask somebody for help.
• 12:35
  I might have to say, I didn't know.
• 12:38
  Those are some powerful words that can be so liberating, but for some reason they're
• 12:43
  so difficult for some people to say, to acknowledge that they didn't know, or
• 12:48
  that this is what they thought would work.
• 12:51
  But your pain, your discomfort, and then the realization that nothing
• 12:55
  maybe has worked for a little while, those might be your most significant
• 13:01
  allies because those are the things that can motivate you to let go.
• 13:06
  To make space for new tools, new perspectives, and new strategies to be
• 13:11
  able to say, this ladder looks familiar.
• 13:14
  I know you can't walk underneath them.
• 13:15
  Especially if a black cat's falling you around, that's bad luck.
• 13:18
  And if you're carrying a mirror at the time, forget it.
• 13:22
  I need somebody to really help me understand.
• 13:24
  I might think I know what to do, but I could also not know what I'm doing.
• 13:29
  So are you ready?
• 13:30
  Are you ready to give up on the old ways that are now
• 13:33
  most likely keeping you stuck?
• 13:35
  I think it helps from part one of this podcast to recognize that
• 13:38
  those were adaptive strategies that kept us alive in childhood.
• 13:43
  Now a lot of 'em are maladaptive now.
• 13:46
  They are what is keeping us stuck.
• 13:48
  It's time to, to embrace a new direction, and it won't be easy, but it's a pivotal
• 13:54
  step in this journey toward genuine.
• 13:57
  Self-awareness, self-love understanding.
• 14:00
  So here's where this act metaphor comes into your journey, because the first
• 14:04
  step to getting out of the hole again is recognizing and accepting where you are.
• 14:08
  It's not about frantically digging, taking whatever tool that you
• 14:12
  have and just doing the same thing with it over and over again.
• 14:15
  It's more about learning how to take a pause, acknowledge the
• 14:18
  situation, and look for different perspectives or a different approach.
• 14:22
  Acknowledge the fact that I may not actually know what I'm
• 14:24
  doing now, and that's okay.
• 14:27
  Because your quest for genuine understanding and self-awareness,
• 14:30
  it is like seeking new tools are strategies to climb out of this hole.
• 14:34
  Part of the exciting thing is that once you embrace that, okay, there
• 14:38
  are so many things that I don't know.
• 14:40
  That I don't know that once I start learning new things, you
• 14:44
  get pretty excited about, okay, this is, this feels awesome.
• 14:46
  I'm making more sense of my own existence.
• 14:48
  The things that I'm now learning about myself are gonna equip me
• 14:51
  to be the best version of myself for me and in my relationships.
• 14:55
  And I promise you, at some point it will click that.
• 14:59
  Okay, so what else don't I know?
• 15:01
  Because now I'm open, I'm gonna still operate from this place of, I'm okay.
• 15:04
  I'm gonna figure this out.
• 15:06
  Because at times it will feel overwhelming, but you know that
• 15:09
  you are going to figure things out.
• 15:11
  And it's not by just digging furiously in this hole with a shovel.
• 15:16
  This journey from not knowing what you didn't know to getting to now
• 15:20
  this place of self-awareness, not about digging deeper, not about
• 15:23
  working harder with the old tools.
• 15:26
  It's about realizing that sometimes we need to stop.
• 15:28
  We're gonna reassess and we're gonna find new ways to navigate our challenges.
• 15:31
  And with time and reflection, and it feels natural to say faith and trust and
• 15:35
  pixie dust and seek guidance, you'll find ways to understand yourself more deeply
• 15:40
  and climb outta this metaphorical hole.
• 15:43
  I feel like there needs to be something powerful next toward
• 15:45
  the light of understanding.
• 15:46
  Let me just do a very brief recap of a couple of the concepts that
• 15:50
  I covered in the first episode.
• 15:52
  I talked about why we actually do need to tell us about your
• 15:56
  mom or your dad, in essence, your childhood, and why it matters.
• 16:00
  Because when we're talking about emotional immaturity, we're really talking about
• 16:04
  where emotional growth got paused.
• 16:06
  Not in a funny sitcom from the two thousands way, but in a real
• 16:09
  developmental sense because these pauses usually trace back to childhood,
• 16:14
  those early chapters where we picked up coping strategies to get through
• 16:18
  all kinds of tough environments.
• 16:20
  We mirrored what we saw in our caregivers.
• 16:23
  We built these fundamental beliefs about who we were and how the world works.
• 16:28
  And unless we're willing to go back and explore those origin stories, we will
• 16:34
  just keep addressing surface level issues without touching on the real source.
• 16:38
  And we will have some moments where we feel connection, but
• 16:42
  is it a real deep connection?
• 16:44
  Or we might feel a deeper connection on some issues.
• 16:47
  The ones that we just happen to be in absolute alignment with people on.
• 16:51
  But we're gonna slowly but surely not know what to do with
• 16:54
  the uncomfortable feelings.
• 16:56
  And we avoid discomfort like the plague, and we really, really crave certainty.
• 17:01
  Things that become certain are the easy things because
• 17:04
  they're also not uncomfortable.
• 17:06
  So we need to learn how to get to the source.
• 17:08
  It's kinda like putting lotion on a rash without ever finding
• 17:11
  out what you're allergic to.
• 17:13
  I see this often with my clients.
• 17:16
  And the first episode of In part one, I talked about a dad that disciplined his
• 17:20
  kids by making 'em stand in a corner, and it was not because he knew it worked.
• 17:24
  He absolutely couldn't stand doing it as a kid, but that was what was modeled for him
• 17:29
  and it was his time to break that pattern.
• 17:31
  But it was familiar.
• 17:32
  Another person that I worked with repeated a punishment that he
• 17:35
  received growing up using hot sauce.
• 17:37
  Not outta malice when, but it was when he said a bad word, and it was because
• 17:41
  that script was embedded in his system.
• 17:43
  It was familiar.
• 17:44
  He didn't question it because nobody ever really told him
• 17:47
  that there was another way.
• 17:49
  It's fascinating because the thing is these aren't clear, logical memories
• 17:52
  that our brain keeps stored on a shelf.
• 17:54
  They live in us as emotional blueprints.
• 17:57
  That younger version of you isn't replaying a punishment
• 18:00
  scene to guide your parenting.
• 18:02
  It's holding onto it because it's unresolved.
• 18:04
  It's waiting for you, the adult to say, no, this thing wasn't okay, and
• 18:09
  you didn't have a voice as a kid.
• 18:10
  So can we.
• 18:12
  Clear that up.
• 18:13
  Now can we take care of that and not do that with your kid?
• 18:16
  But our body often is just thinking, okay, I remember this.
• 18:20
  This is familiar.
• 18:21
  We need the adult then to say That wasn't okay, you, you actually deserve better.
• 18:27
  And it's the moments that we start to examine these scripts that become
• 18:30
  these moments that we start to take the wheel in our own lives.
• 18:34
  So instead of blindly repeating what was done to us, we get to choose a
• 18:38
  different path, but we can't rewrite the story until we're willing to go in
• 18:43
  and read the early chapters of the book.
• 18:46
  This is why I have really grown to appreciate the power
• 18:48
  of the old therapy cliche.
• 18:50
  Tell me about your childhood.
• 18:52
  Not as a way to blame, which so many people often think that that is what it
• 18:56
  is and it's not as a way to stay stuck in childhood, but it's a tool to uncover
• 19:02
  these invisible blueprints that we've been using to build and shape our adult lives.
• 19:07
  'cause the real parenting breakthrough that happens when
• 19:10
  we start parenting ourselves.
• 19:13
  The concept of re-parenting.
• 19:15
  We're finally giving that younger version of us the care, the validation, and the
• 19:19
  healthy responses that we didn't get.
• 19:21
  That's when we start to become free to offer something new and healthier to the
• 19:25
  next generation, to our kids, to change the course for our grandkids as well.
• 19:30
  This is where the idea of reparenting comes into the picture.
• 19:33
  It's stepping in to give yourself the kindness, the guidance,
• 19:36
  the validation that you didn't receive when you needed it most.
• 19:39
  But I want, I wanna pause here because there's something that I notice
• 19:42
  so often in in the therapy office, that when we start talking about
• 19:46
  childhood experiences, it does feel like we're doing something wrong.
• 19:50
  Often if we're talking about how we could have been parented better,
• 19:55
  it's as if we just feel like we shouldn't be criticizing our parents.
• 19:59
  There's this subtle, but this persistent fear that if we say, my parents didn't
• 20:03
  really get this part right, that it means we're throwing 'em under the bus.
• 20:06
  It's an all or nothing black or white statement that, that we're
• 20:10
  being ungrateful, that we're blaming.
• 20:12
  And I want to gently challenge that because first, I do say that in my office,
• 20:15
  if you start with a bless their heart, then you do have my permission to have
• 20:18
  your own feelings and your own opinions and your own thoughts about your parents.
• 20:22
  And that's okay.
• 20:23
  It's actually very helpful and liberating because here's what
• 20:26
  I believe with my whole heart.
• 20:27
  Our parents did do the best that they could with tools, with the awareness, the
• 20:31
  information that they had at the time.
• 20:33
  I don't think that they were waking up thinking, how can I mess up my kid today?
• 20:37
  But you're learning things now that they didn't know.
• 20:39
  Then you are waking up to patterns in your own behavior and in the family
• 20:44
  dynamic, you're questioning how you show up as a partner, as a parent, as
• 20:48
  a person, and you're likely starting to realize that your reactions, your fears
• 20:53
  or struggles aren't about being broken.
• 20:56
  You're not broken, but they're about being shaped and how you were
• 21:00
  shaped, what became the familiar.
• 21:02
  We are, I think, in so many ways the first generation with constant access
• 21:07
  to real time evolving information.
• 21:10
  That's one of the truly beautiful things about the internet at its best,
• 21:13
  puts knowledge at your fingertips the moment that you're ready to receive it.
• 21:16
  Of course, it also has its dark sides.
• 21:18
  It puts knowledge at your fingertips.
• 21:20
  The very moment you're ready to receive it, you can find confirmation for anything
• 21:24
  you wanna believe, but the principle still holds seek and you shall find if
• 21:28
  you are looking to grow, to heal, to break cycles, then you can find those
• 21:32
  tools that'll help you do exactly that.
• 21:34
  But if you're also looking for reasons to make your partner into a horrible human,
• 21:40
  you could probably find those as well.
• 21:42
  And I'm talking about the versions of those where that spouse does not
• 21:46
  deserve that label of horrible human.
• 21:49
  Our parents did not have access to information constantly.
• 21:54
  They had to go to libraries, they had to use encyclopedias.
• 21:58
  They used things called micro fish.
• 22:01
  Which have nothing to do with seafood.
• 22:03
  And if you were a kid of the seventies, the eighties, or even early nineties,
• 22:07
  you know that a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica is, it wasn't just information,
• 22:12
  it was a darn near a status symbol.
• 22:14
  Family spent thousands of dollars.
• 22:16
  What would now be the equivalent of four to 12 grand on a
• 22:19
  single set of encyclopedia?
• 22:21
  That thing was sacred.
• 22:22
  It got passed on through generations.
• 22:24
  Now think about that.
• 22:26
  You didn't toss it out when new science came along.
• 22:30
  You kept it, maybe you dusted it.
• 22:32
  Uh, that would be a thing.
• 22:33
  So just imagine you're staying at your grandparents' house for a week
• 22:37
  while your parents are outta town.
• 22:38
  Uh, you've got a book report due.
• 22:40
  So you, you had nowhere to go.
• 22:43
  There was no internet.
• 22:43
  So you pull out their pristine set of encyclopedia and you flip to the
• 22:48
  letter P and you write a stellar report on Pluto, the ninth planet, except
• 22:54
  by the time you're presenting it in class, Pluto is not a planet anymore.
• 22:58
  My bad, but you were doing the best with the outdated information that you had.
• 23:03
  So that's what our parents were working with.
• 23:05
  Static Knowledge, no updates unless you bought the annual yearbook at a extra cost
• 23:10
  that a lot of families didn't spring for.
• 23:12
  So a lot of what they passed down they did.
• 23:15
  So with confidence, this is what I know, even though some of it no
• 23:18
  longer applies, but yet so many of us are still using those old emotional
• 23:23
  encyclopedias in our relationships with our spouses, with our kids.
• 23:27
  We're still parenting the way that we were parented.
• 23:29
  We still believe the things about ourselves that were, we'll
• 23:32
  say air quote, true only in the context of a five-year-old trying
• 23:35
  to make sense out of your world.
• 23:37
  So when we talk about.
• 23:40
  Reparenting ourselves.
• 23:41
  We're not blaming anybody.
• 23:42
  We're just recognizing that some of the tools that we were handed are outdated.
• 23:46
  It's like we were just handed a whole bunch of shovels and
• 23:48
  we're all in a bunch of holes.
• 23:50
  But that's, it's okay.
• 23:51
  It's necessary to then update the system.
• 23:55
  Reparenting means that you have to notice the moments when your
• 23:58
  internal system wants to scold.
• 24:00
  Shut down people please overachieve or numb out, and then ask, is this the
• 24:05
  voice that I want guiding me right now?
• 24:07
  It's my inner child.
• 24:09
  It's choosing to respond to yourself with warmth and structure and
• 24:13
  compassion that you wish that somebody had offered you that is gonna help.
• 24:17
  Now, unfortunately, that adult in you is also gonna wanna say,
• 24:21
  eat vegetables, save your money.
• 24:23
  So there's some things like that that won't be as fun as when the
• 24:27
  inner child is running the show.
• 24:28
  Maybe you can let him drive sometimes on the weekends, but the
• 24:32
  more you are re-parenting yourself as your grownup adult version.
• 24:37
  Your inner child is gonna just thank you.
• 24:39
  It, it's no longer waiting for somebody to show up for you because now you are
• 24:43
  showing up for you that five-year-old version of you who was scared or
• 24:48
  misunderstood or just trying to be good.
• 24:50
  So nobody would get mad.
• 24:52
  They don't need to run the show anymore.
• 24:54
  They did an amazing job, but they do need to be heard.
• 24:59
  Re-parenting is listening to that voice and saying, I see
• 25:02
  you let the big kid take over.
• 25:03
  Now I've got you.
• 25:05
  I want to share some examples I think illustrate what the re-parenting
• 25:09
  yourself can look like in these everyday situations and, and they're each gonna be
• 25:13
  rooted in an aspect of what I discussed in pretty good detail in episode one.
• 25:19
  In part one, all the names.
• 25:22
  Have been changed.
• 25:22
  The situations are very much based off of real stories.
• 25:26
  A person, we will call her Jenna, messes up an important work presentation now.
• 25:29
  Her old pattern, her inner voice says, you, I screw things up.
• 25:33
  Why can't you just get it right?
• 25:34
  When you start to reparent yourself, there's a shift.
• 25:37
  Now she's gonna pause.
• 25:38
  She's gonna take a breath and say to herself, well, that was hard,
• 25:41
  but hey, you're doing your best.
• 25:42
  You don't know what you don't know.
• 25:43
  It's okay to be a human.
• 25:45
  So let's look at what we can learn from this.
• 25:47
  This is the beginning of self-compassion in action, offering
• 25:51
  herself the kind of support that a kind parent might have given.
• 25:55
  Let's talk about giving yourself permission to feel instead
• 25:57
  of suppress your emotions.
• 25:59
  A picture, a guy named Marcus.
• 26:01
  Marcus feels, uh, unexpectedly sad after he has a really difficult
• 26:05
  conversation with his brother.
• 26:06
  Now, the old pattern, he pushes the feeling down.
• 26:09
  He distracts himself with work, and he just thinks, you know,
• 26:10
  there's no reason to feel this way.
• 26:12
  I just need to stop thinking this.
• 26:13
  I just need to toughen up again.
• 26:15
  Good luck with that.
• 26:16
  Stop thinking about the green polar bear right now on a unicycle reparenting shift.
• 26:22
  He instead says, okay, wow.
• 26:24
  Check that out.
• 26:24
  That stirred up something in me.
• 26:26
  Lemme just sit with this for a little bit.
• 26:27
  Let me let my emotions, let him breathe.
• 26:30
  Maybe there's something that younger me is reacting to.
• 26:33
  He might even journal what came up, and he realizes that the
• 26:36
  conversation really echoed these childhood feelings of being left out.
• 26:40
  He's used to being left out by his brother and he didn't know
• 26:43
  how to speak up for himself.
• 26:45
  So in this scenario, he's giving emotional space to that younger
• 26:49
  version of himself who wasn't allowed to feel or express emotions safely.
• 26:53
  Let's talk about good old boundaries, creating safety through boundaries.
• 26:58
  Amy's mom calls, starts criticizing her parenting again, old pattern.
• 27:03
  Amy stays on the phone.
• 27:04
  She's fawning, she's explaining herself.
• 27:06
  I. She's feeling small and she's frustrated afterward,
• 27:09
  and she even beats herself up, introduces some good old shame.
• 27:12
  What's, I'm so bad at this reparenting shift, Amy gently says, mom, I love
• 27:17
  you, but I, I need to hang up now.
• 27:20
  If you are gonna speak to me like this, then I'm gonna,
• 27:23
  I'm gonna jump off the call.
• 27:25
  I need to fill my life with respectful conversations, there's the adult
• 27:29
  Amy stepping in to protect younger Amy who never felt safe enough to
• 27:32
  say no or to stand up for herself.
• 27:35
  One that we don't talk about enough in the world of reparenting is
• 27:38
  making room for joy and playing.
• 27:40
  Trevor always felt like he had to be the responsible and growing up.
• 27:43
  Now all he does is work nonstop.
• 27:46
  He never wanted to be a workaholic old pattern.
• 27:49
  He says no to downtime.
• 27:51
  That is selfish.
• 27:52
  That is lazy.
• 27:53
  I need to always be on the go, gotta be doing stuff.
• 27:55
  Re-parenting shift.
• 27:57
  He intentionally books a weekend, hiking trip with friends.
• 28:00
  He reminds himself fun and rest are just as important as productivity.
• 28:04
  I'm allowed to enjoy my life, raised my emotional baseline.
• 28:08
  This is Trevor, who is giving his inner child what he missed.
• 28:11
  It's freedom to play and to explore, and not to always have
• 28:15
  to be on, not a human doing.
• 28:19
  He's a human being.
• 28:20
  Me.
• 28:20
  Do another one.
• 28:21
  Repairing emotional neglect.
• 28:22
  Here's the scenario.
• 28:24
  Call Vanessa feels overwhelmed, but doesn't want to bother
• 28:28
  anybody with her feelings.
• 28:29
  Doesn't wanna feel like she's too much, doesn't wanna put anybody out.
• 28:32
  So the old pattern, she'll isolate, she'll numb out, stay on her phone
• 28:37
  and tell herself, here's too much.
• 28:40
  Just handle it alone.
• 28:41
  You'll figure it out.
• 28:42
  You don't wanna bother anybody.
• 28:43
  Re-parenting shift.
• 28:44
  She reaches out to a trusted friend and says, I don't need you to fix anything,
• 28:47
  but I'm feeling overwhelmed and I just, I just need somebody to listen.
• 28:50
  I need to vent.
• 28:51
  She's starting to learn to let others support her the way a good caregiver would
• 28:55
  have done so in her childhood and showing herself she's worth being cared for.
• 29:01
  So I would say that by far, in part one of the podcast on emotional
• 29:05
  immaturity that I received the most feedback on was the section where
• 29:08
  I gave examples of what emotional immaturity looks like in childhood,
• 29:11
  and then how those same behaviors show up in our adult relationships.
• 29:15
  And I created a, a cheat sheet that I've been sharing with my clients for that.
• 29:19
  I would like to tell you that by the time you listen to this, you
• 29:22
  can go find it on my website and that actually might be the case.
• 29:26
  But in the interim, if you would like this cheat sheet, email me at
• 29:31
  through my website@tonyoverbay.com.
• 29:33
  That would probably be the easiest way.
• 29:34
  And just say, I would like the emotional immaturity cheat sheet.
• 29:37
  And then also I would, if you're taking that time to do that, I
• 29:40
  would love any thoughts, questions, feedback, examples that came to you
• 29:44
  as you were listening to this as well.
• 29:45
  But in this cheat sheet, I go through a lot of the different examples
• 29:49
  because I think hearing these concrete examples, I know it helped myself and
• 29:53
  it's helped a lot of people connect the dots between their past and patterns
• 29:56
  that they're seeing in their present.
• 29:58
  So I wanna go back and revisit each one of these emotionally immature traits.
• 30:01
  I'll try to do it quickly 'cause then we've got more content to get to.
• 30:04
  But I'll define each one of them again briefly.
• 30:06
  I'll add a couple of more real life examples that I've seen in therapy, in,
• 30:10
  in the room, or through listener feedback.
• 30:12
  Of course, it has been keeping people's anonymity in play, but I think it will
• 30:16
  help flesh these things out even more.
• 30:19
  Let's start with good old black and white thinking, because this
• 30:22
  is a tendency to see people or situations as all good or all bad.
• 30:26
  There's no nuance.
• 30:27
  There's no gray area, no middle ground, and it's rooted in this binary
• 30:31
  thinking of childhood when things needed to be simple to feel safe.
• 30:34
  That person's good, that person's bad.
• 30:36
  I feel happy.
• 30:37
  I feel sad.
• 30:38
  Oh, I think I'm channeling a little Dr. Seuss here.
• 30:41
  Why that is still so easy to fall into that trap is because
• 30:45
  it does take less emotional work.
• 30:48
  You're burning less emotional calories If that person does something all
• 30:52
  of a sudden, oh, that, that was bad.
• 30:53
  Therefore, they are bad because the concept of whole object relations
• 30:57
  or viewing a person, a situation, organization as an entire object,
• 31:01
  there are things I can still like about that person, but there are also things
• 31:05
  that are frustrating and that might be a little more difficult to navigate
• 31:08
  because I really do like when I interact with this person for these reasons,
• 31:12
  but they're also a real challenge to me, especially in certain situations.
• 31:16
  It's a lot easier just to say, you know what, forget it.
• 31:19
  I don't even wanna talk to them.
• 31:20
  Or, okay, I do want to talk to 'em, but I'll just, I have to ignore,
• 31:23
  shove my feelings down if there are things that I don't like.
• 31:26
  Again, childhood need simplicity.
• 31:29
  And then, boy, we want certainty.
• 31:31
  And in what is a pretty complex world to the adult, trying to now
• 31:36
  drive the ship, embrace nuance while still trying to maintain clarity
• 31:42
  or hold on to your sense of self.
• 31:45
  So the kid version of this is, you either love me or you hate me.
• 31:47
  That is good, or it is bad to the adult.
• 31:50
  I would love to start encouraging you to look at things like, I notice
• 31:55
  that I'm feeling insecure about where I stand with you or this person.
• 31:58
  Now I value clarity in a relationship.
• 32:01
  But also authenticity.
• 32:03
  So I would love to check in about how you are feeling.
• 32:06
  Here's how I am feeling, and it is not a judgment.
• 32:11
  Now you may feel like you are being judged and I want to have that
• 32:14
  conversation too because you can see it can get a little bit messy
• 32:17
  there in the middle or in the gray.
• 32:20
  Now, when you feel yourself sliding into all or nothing thinking, try this
• 32:23
  phrase, actually both things can be true.
• 32:25
  That can be really difficult for people.
• 32:27
  And I did an episode a little while ago on the concept around absolute truth
• 32:31
  and some people want desperately to hang onto this idea that there is a right, a
• 32:37
  very, very distinct right and a wrong.
• 32:39
  And while there may be in some situations, I, I would maintain that in
• 32:43
  most things, it's not that cut and dry.
• 32:46
  'cause your partner can both love you deeply and be pretty
• 32:49
  frustrated with you in this moment.
• 32:51
  And you can do the same.
• 32:53
  A couple of other examples, think of a person who ends a close friendship over
• 32:56
  a disagreement and they said, you know, I should have known that they were fake
• 32:59
  from the very start, all or nothing.
• 33:01
  Despite years of connection, one moment can undo it all because it's
• 33:06
  as if deep inside of us, we don't want to have to do the mental work to
• 33:11
  acknowledge why is what they're saying.
• 33:13
  Now, why is it hard for me to hear and why can't I hang on to the things that
• 33:19
  I really appreciate about this person?
• 33:20
  Or I see it so often when a parent has a bad day with their
• 33:23
  kid and they immediately think, I have failed them completely.
• 33:26
  I'm a terrible parent because if we go right to there, there's no room for grace
• 33:31
  and there's not a lot of room for growth.
• 33:32
  Because when you go to that place of shame, it's as if you
• 33:36
  subconsciously or even consciously want someone else to say, it's okay.
• 33:39
  You're gonna be okay.
• 33:40
  That might alleviate my discomfort, but am I really gonna grow?
• 33:44
  Am I really going to take in what I need to from a self confrontational place?
• 33:50
  And then do the work that I need to do that.
• 33:52
  That is what my body's trying to communicate to me.
• 33:55
  Now, the second one that I talked about is probably my favorite because
• 33:58
  I've realized how often I do this.
• 34:01
  It's the old magical thinking.
• 34:03
  This is that belief that simply thinking or hoping something will make it happen,
• 34:07
  or that avoiding a problem means it doesn't actually exist, and it is rooted
• 34:11
  in the way that children believe their thoughts essentially control the world.
• 34:15
  And it really does cause us to feel pretty special.
• 34:19
  So I was listening recently to one of my favorite podcasts.
• 34:22
  I would love to have this person on my podcast, Derek Thompson
• 34:26
  from The Ringer Network, and his podcast is called Plain English.
• 34:29
  It was in a slightly different context, but he was talking about this very
• 34:33
  thing and acknowledging that when he was in his twenties, he still had this,
• 34:37
  what I would call magical thinking, that if he wore a certain sock, then
• 34:42
  his day was gonna be better or worse.
• 34:44
  Because I think it, we do this, we're humans, we're adults that still
• 34:48
  have some of this, this childhood magical thinking we were supposed to.
• 34:53
  Outgrow this as we had more of a relationship with cause
• 34:57
  and effect in the world.
• 34:59
  As I still struggle at times to open up my mail, I am recognizing that if I do not
• 35:04
  open it, I will not know what is in mail.
• 35:07
  There could be bills that need to be paid, car registrations that
• 35:10
  are expired for several months.
• 35:13
  There could be several things, hypothetically, and that is magical
• 35:16
  thinking to just think, ah, it just, it won't, it'll just go away.
• 35:20
  The childhood need here is a sense of basically personal power.
• 35:23
  Again, in a, an overwhelming world as a kid, and now to adults, we can
• 35:27
  translate that as a balanced agency with these realistic expectations.
• 35:32
  So to the child, if I don't mention the problem, it will
• 35:34
  disappear to the very young child.
• 35:37
  If I cover my eyes, I have disappeared.
• 35:40
  To the adult, I notice that I'm avoiding the issue.
• 35:43
  And while I cannot control everything, I can take specific steps today
• 35:47
  that move me toward a solution.
• 35:48
  I can actually look at my bank account.
• 35:50
  I can open my mail.
• 35:52
  And what can be really difficult is this happens in relationships.
• 35:57
  I, if I don't have this conversation, it may get better or, well, we talked about
• 36:03
  having a conversation today when we were in the heat of the moment last night,
• 36:07
  but my wife hasn't mentioned anything today, so she probably forgot about it.
• 36:11
  But in reality, it's my magical thinking.
• 36:14
  So the mature version of magical thinking is setting intention.
• 36:19
  And also taking action.
• 36:21
  I will tell myself, I'm gonna, I'm gonna budget, I'm gonna open my mail later
• 36:26
  Sunday evening before the week starts.
• 36:28
  And that makes me feel better on a Saturday afternoon when
• 36:31
  I wanna be doing other things.
• 36:32
  But then when Sunday evening comes along, then do I. It's not a good time.
• 36:36
  Magic happens not when we wish, but actually when we
• 36:39
  combine vision with effort.
• 36:41
  When I actually do open my mail and deal with my problems, while I can
• 36:45
  feel frustrated about a late bill that I could have paid had I opened
• 36:49
  my mail sooner, I can also feel a sense of relief and empowerment
• 36:54
  because now I'm doing something.
• 36:56
  Some of the examples that you see in adulthood, somebody doesn't communicate
• 36:59
  their needs in a relationship, but they believe they really love me.
• 37:02
  They would just know if you were convinced that if I just stay positive,
• 37:06
  then all my problems will go away if I can just choose to be happy.
• 37:09
  While that sounds amazing, that's a little bit magical thinking
• 37:12
  that I can just positive my way through difficult situations
• 37:17
  without dealing with the situation.
• 37:20
  With just, I believe the phrase at times is toxic positivity.
• 37:24
  I would even may maybe put in there when I talk about pathological
• 37:27
  kindness, where kindness, when it's pathological is to your detriment.
• 37:30
  I think that I would put into this category.
• 37:32
  Pathological positivity also has a nice alliterative ring to it.
• 37:36
  I am noticing now that I want to say this one also is my favorite because these are
• 37:41
  fascinating when you really look at 'em.
• 37:43
  The next one is emotional reasoning.
• 37:44
  Now, the definition, this is when somebody believes that because they
• 37:47
  feel something, it must be true.
• 37:48
  I feel rejected, so you are rejecting me.
• 37:50
  Even if that's not the case, this can be quite a setup for
• 37:55
  insanity in a relationship.
• 37:57
  I may feel that you are rejecting me or let's use a, maybe even a simpler one.
• 38:02
  I don't think you care about me in the relationship I. I feel that
• 38:06
  way, therefore it must be true.
• 38:08
  So therefore you don't care about me.
• 38:10
  Now, you now must prove to me that you care about me.
• 38:13
  And the more I'm bringing up this emotional reasoning in my office,
• 38:17
  in couples relationships, is the person bringing that it's obvious
• 38:21
  that he doesn't care about me.
• 38:23
  Now, I can frame this, okay, that's a bit of a, an emotionally
• 38:26
  immature response because I feel it.
• 38:29
  Therefore, it must be true.
• 38:30
  That worked in childhood.
• 38:31
  It really did.
• 38:32
  And it would get us some of the validation, the recognition,
• 38:35
  acknowledgement to the attention.
• 38:36
  But now, as an adult, I can notice that and I can really,
• 38:39
  I can believe that to me.
• 38:41
  But as I convey that to my partner, I'm feeling like you don't care Now.
• 38:47
  In the immature version of this, it's, it is.
• 38:50
  So now you need to start dancing and show me that you do care.
• 38:53
  But here's the part that I like to bring up now, in therapy, the person saying,
• 38:57
  you don't care if I turn to them and say, okay, what do you need right now to feel
• 39:02
  cared about, to feel more of a connection?
• 39:05
  Like they care.
• 39:06
  And most of the time I won't go all or nothing statements.
• 39:09
  Most of the time the person then says, I don't know.
• 39:11
  I just, it's a, I feel like that they don't, I don't think they do
• 39:14
  care 'cause it just feels that way.
• 39:17
  So then I can frame that, okay, you feel this.
• 39:20
  You're not even sure what would make you feel better.
• 39:22
  And you're now telling him, now he's said, I think I do care.
• 39:26
  But now you're saying, I don't think you do make me feel cared
• 39:29
  for, even though I don't even know what that's gonna look like again.
• 39:33
  So start dancing now.
• 39:34
  If for some reason then he can't.
• 39:36
  Make that happen, which is more, more likely than not because you can see all
• 39:40
  the ambiguity and the uncertainty here.
• 39:42
  Then you get to say, see, told you he doesn't care and he's gonna think, I do.
• 39:47
  I do.
• 39:47
  I, I sure feel like I care.
• 39:49
  And then you get to internalize too, that maybe I'm not even lovable.
• 39:54
  This comes from this childhood need of the recognition and
• 39:57
  validation of intense feelings.
• 39:59
  The feeling can be there.
• 39:59
  Look at this.
• 40:00
  I'm noticing that.
• 40:00
  I feel uncared for now.
• 40:02
  If we can talk about it in a mature way, then I can bring that up to you.
• 40:06
  You're using my beloved four pillars of a connected conversation.
• 40:08
  Alright?
• 40:09
  I'll assume good intentions.
• 40:10
  You're not trying to hurt me with that.
• 40:11
  I'm not gonna tell you that's ridiculous or you're wrong.
• 40:13
  Even if I don't agree, which leads to my pillar three.
• 40:16
  I'm gonna ask questions before I make my own comments.
• 40:19
  Tell me more about that.
• 40:20
  Help me understand.
• 40:21
  Help me see my blind spots.
• 40:22
  What am I missing?
• 40:23
  When do you feel this way?
• 40:24
  How long have you felt that way?
• 40:25
  Have you tried to bring this up to me in the past?
• 40:27
  What have I done with that?
• 40:28
  When you have, because I can imagine that would be really difficult.
• 40:31
  Pillar four then is I'm, I can't go into a victim mindset and say, you're right.
• 40:35
  I'm a just a big old piece of garbage.
• 40:37
  I guess I don't really care.
• 40:38
  You're right.
• 40:38
  Because then if I go give that victim energy, now the person that actually
• 40:42
  is the one saying, I don't feel like you care now I have to go rescue you.
• 40:47
  Well, my, I'm sorry I, you do, that's me.
• 40:49
  I shouldn't even brought it up.
• 40:50
  Honoring your emotions without being ruled by them.
• 40:54
  It's this childhood need to recognize and validate our intense feelings.
• 40:57
  But we weren't even, we weren't even really modeled a healthy way to handle our
• 41:01
  own feelings or our emotions as a child.
• 41:05
  This was really coming from a place of, I feel terrified, so
• 41:08
  this situation is dangerous.
• 41:11
  The adult version, I'm noticing, I'm feeling terrified.
• 41:13
  My feelings are giving me important information.
• 41:15
  My feelings are telling me this might be something we need to pay attention to.
• 41:19
  But as an adult, I will check the evidence before deciding how to respond.
• 41:23
  Uh, maybe you can try the phrase, I am having the feeling that, or I'm
• 41:27
  noticing that rather than it is, it seems simple, but this little tiny
• 41:32
  language shift can start to create space between you and the emotion.
• 41:35
  It goes back to that concept of instead of, I'm angry, it's okay, check this out.
• 41:41
  I'm noticing that I'm feeling angry.
• 41:42
  'cause then I can take just enough of a step back from it to say, what
• 41:46
  is it about this situation that is causing me to feel anger, because then
• 41:50
  I can look at it with more curiosity.
• 41:53
  A couple of other examples that come to mind.
• 41:54
  Somebody feels anxious before a family gathering and then they assume that
• 41:56
  means something bad is gonna happen.
• 41:58
  Even if they've had good experiences in the past.
• 42:01
  I am not saying to doubt your intuition or to not trust your gut.
• 42:05
  As a matter of fact, I think that is some of the worst advice.
• 42:08
  The best advice is to take in your experience, notice your intuition, listen
• 42:14
  to your gut because it is trying to tell you something, and most likely it's been
• 42:18
  trying to tell you that since childhood, but we've been suppressing that.
• 42:21
  But having a healthy relationship with your emotions and your feelings and
• 42:24
  being able to allow them to be and to look at them and thank them and
• 42:27
  say, what are you trying to tell me?
• 42:29
  Because thank you, I have shoved you down for far too long.
• 42:32
  Think of a person that to sends a text and does not get an immediate response.
• 42:37
  This is such a common thing now.
• 42:39
  Somebody then thinks to themselves, okay, they must be mad at me.
• 42:42
  Then they spiral emotionally without really checking in with
• 42:45
  themselves or the other person.
• 42:47
  So next we have the dependence on external validation.
• 42:51
  This shows up as needing others to constantly affirm your worth,
• 42:55
  to tell you that you are okay.
• 42:57
  If nobody is clapping for you, you may not feel like you matter, and
• 43:00
  it doesn't have to be that dramatic.
• 43:02
  It comes from a childhood need of this confirmation that you belong, that you
• 43:07
  are worthy, that you have value, that you matter, and we get our sense of self.
• 43:13
  When we're children from external validation.
• 43:15
  So it is, it is wired into us.
• 43:17
  And I often find that people, when they're learning about differentiation
• 43:21
  or they're learning more about the ways they show up emotionally immature will
• 43:25
  say things like, I know I need to not need external validation, which I think
• 43:29
  goes back to, that sounds pretty black or white to me, because it is still
• 43:33
  something that does feel good at times.
• 43:36
  And it is the long game to get to this place where you no longer
• 43:41
  require it to know that you matter, but that it can be okay, or I, I
• 43:47
  can appreciate it when it comes in.
• 43:50
  So to the adult, this is differentiation.
• 43:52
  This is about trying to maintain or hold onto my autonomy while maintaining
• 43:57
  a connection with another human.
• 44:00
  And those are two of our most basic inherent and also difficult needs
• 44:05
  that we're trying to, to balance, to manage in our relationships.
• 44:08
  So the kid version, it's the kid saying, am I okay?
• 44:12
  Did I do that right?
• 44:13
  Do you still like me?
• 44:14
  What can I do better?
• 44:15
  So that you will like me?
• 44:17
  I, I will have adults come into my office.
• 44:20
  Regularly and say, I just want people to tell me what they don't like
• 44:24
  about me because then I can fix it.
• 44:26
  But that is a, a need, or we get our whole sense of self as an adult, then still
• 44:31
  from what others think or others feel.
• 44:34
  And that's where it was necessary as a kid, a childhood
• 44:37
  adaptation that kept you alive.
• 44:39
  But as an adult, it is where you, you lack a true or solid sense of self.
• 44:45
  And you can be swayed by how someone is feeling that day.
• 44:50
  And I think it's interesting if I'm saying, well, I just wanna know
• 44:53
  what you think about me or what you think I should do in this situation.
• 44:57
  While it may sound like you are seeking connection, it really
• 45:01
  is though seeking validation.
• 45:03
  And in that scenario, you're asking this person that doesn't know what
• 45:07
  it feels like to be you, to weigh in on what you should do with your life.
• 45:11
  If you really just look at it that way, and I want to wanna take you back, I won't
• 45:15
  out this person, this is someone in my, in my distant family, but they were around
• 45:20
  me, my wife and a couple of my daughters.
• 45:22
  And they said, Hey, what do you guys think about me going to Turkey
• 45:26
  and getting hair transplants?
• 45:28
  And at that point, my wife and daughter said, oh no, you,
• 45:30
  you, you don't want do that.
• 45:32
  And I stopped and felt like I pulled my therapist card out and I said,
• 45:35
  Hey, so it sounds like you are, you are ready to go get hair transplants,
• 45:38
  but you're wanting validation.
• 45:40
  You want people to say, I think it's a great idea, but in reality Well, and I
• 45:44
  didn't just jump right to there, I said, how much have you researched about it?
• 45:47
  And they said, plenty.
• 45:49
  And I said, do you already know the cost?
• 45:50
  Yes.
• 45:51
  Do you know where you would go to get it done?
• 45:53
  Yes.
• 45:53
  Have you watched countless amounts of YouTube videos and tiktoks
• 45:57
  and Instagram reels about it?
• 45:59
  Yes.
• 46:00
  Has it, has it flooded your, your for you pages and your algorithm
• 46:04
  is presenting with nothing but.
• 46:06
  Videos about hair transplants and they said yes.
• 46:09
  So then I said, it sounds like you're gonna get hair transplants, but
• 46:11
  you're curious if anyone has heard of it or, but you're, you're basically
• 46:15
  saying, let me provide you with this thing that you're not even aware of.
• 46:17
  You definitely don't know what it feels like to be me, but then I wanna know
• 46:20
  what you think about it and I'm gonna base my, uh, decisions or my inherent
• 46:24
  worth on your reaction or your response.
• 46:26
  And then it was funny because he did say, yeah, I guess, I guess I, I just need to
• 46:31
  say, Hey, I'm gonna do this like that.
• 46:33
  That's interesting.
• 46:34
  Now, side note then my algorithm for you pages on all app apps for
• 46:40
  a little while was showing me.
• 46:43
  Hair transplants.
• 46:44
  Now it is far too late for me to do that, but it was just, that was a,
• 46:47
  that was an interesting side note.
• 46:49
  But it goes from that childhood adaptation of, Hey, if you can tell me what you think
• 46:54
  I should do or how I can show up better for you, then you will still like me.
• 46:58
  I will feel like I matter and I exist.
• 47:00
  But then as we go about life, having our own experiences and starting to recognize
• 47:03
  the things that we actually want to do with our lives and relationships and
• 47:07
  careers, school, whatever that looks like, then it becomes this desire for
• 47:12
  autonomy for me to figure this out and I can, I can interact with others and
• 47:16
  ask them their opinion, but I need to recognize that as just their opinion.
• 47:19
  What would that look like for an adult?
• 47:20
  Hey, I notice I'm seeking reassurance.
• 47:22
  Let me check in with myself first.
• 47:24
  Let me, let me identify my values versus this choice in line with who I want to
• 47:27
  be regardless of other people's opinions.
• 47:30
  I can still ask somebody.
• 47:31
  They are, they are my muse.
• 47:32
  If they say, I think it's ridiculous, then I can realize I.
• 47:35
  Okay.
• 47:35
  Actually I don't, I could even be curious as to why they think it's ridiculous,
• 47:38
  which is a fair point because they don't know what it feels like to be me or the
• 47:42
  research that I've done in this scenario.
• 47:44
  External validation again, is not bad.
• 47:46
  The mature shift is from I need others' approval to feel okay to, I appreciate
• 47:51
  others' feedback as one data point, but I'm still maintaining my internal compass.
• 47:56
  Some additional examples of this are somebody who changes how they dress
• 47:59
  or how they speak or how they act depending on the group that they're
• 48:02
  with, even if it contradicts their own preferences or their own values.
• 48:06
  I did a live q and a with my daughter Mackey, and I think there's
• 48:09
  a clip out on social media now.
• 48:11
  We talked about the concept of a pick me girl, pick me, not pick me, which I think
• 48:15
  are smaller people, but a pick me girl is one that who says, you know, pick me.
• 48:21
  I'll do whatever it takes for you to pick me.
• 48:22
  And what that can look like in therapy is somebody that says, Hey, I'm, I'm
• 48:26
  really good at getting people to like me.
• 48:28
  I can be whoever they need me to be.
• 48:30
  But in the course of that, they often lack a solid sense of self.
• 48:34
  When somebody does have this in inherent or incessant need for external validation,
• 48:40
  then they often feel like something is wrong with them or lost or anxious when
• 48:44
  they get a response to a message that they don't like, or when that person sees
• 48:50
  them in a way that they don't really think that that's the person that they are.
• 48:54
  Okay.
• 48:54
  Now let's talk about difficulty with taking ownership or, or accountability.
• 48:59
  The definition would be instead of owning your own mistakes or acknowledging
• 49:05
  that your inconsistencies you deflect, you blame shift, you become
• 49:11
  defensive, you gaslight, gaslighting is a childhood defense mechanism.
• 49:16
  These are tools that were used to avoid punishment or blame because especially
• 49:21
  as children, we would typically devolve into shame and move from guilt.
• 49:27
  I feel bad to shame.
• 49:28
  I am bad.
• 49:29
  That is still at the core of this.
• 49:33
  Lack of taking ownership or accountability of things is that if
• 49:36
  I do, then this person will think I am all bad, or they will now kick
• 49:40
  me out of the family or the tribe.
• 49:43
  The childhood need here that was addressed by this behavior was protection
• 49:48
  from rejection and abandonment, because when you're a kid, we have
• 49:52
  these deep, deep inherent fears that if I can't get others to like me.
• 49:57
  Then they will leave me and it becomes a zero sum game.
• 50:01
  There is a right and a wrong, a good and a bad.
• 50:03
  I do not want to be the one that is wrong or bad, so I will do everything I can to
• 50:07
  deflect that blame or not take ownership or acknowledge to get outta that moment
• 50:12
  because then I survive now to the adult.
• 50:16
  It takes a lot of vulnerability to take ownership of things.
• 50:19
  It's actually a form of self-compassion to recognize I
• 50:23
  don't have to be perfect, that I am.
• 50:25
  I am okay as I am, and that I'm going through life for the first
• 50:28
  time and I am going to make mistakes.
• 50:30
  I'm going to be inconsistent, and I'm going to use those
• 50:33
  opportunities for growth.
• 50:36
  What the child says, it wasn't my fault, or you made me do
• 50:39
  it, or you never said that.
• 50:40
  The adult version.
• 50:41
  So I did contribute to this situation in ways that I'm, that probably
• 50:45
  weren't my best, that I wish I hadn't.
• 50:47
  I can take ownership of that without defining myself by
• 50:50
  the mistakes that I've made.
• 50:52
  As a matter of fact, I can use those as opportunities for growth.
• 50:55
  And I think it's important here to notice how shame often drives defensiveness.
• 51:00
  And the antidote to shame is not harsh criticism.
• 51:04
  It's connection.
• 51:04
  It's taking gentle ownership.
• 51:06
  It's love.
• 51:07
  Hey, I did that.
• 51:08
  I messed up, and I am still worthy of love and belonging because I'm not perfect.
• 51:14
  Some examples that have come up recently, somebody forgets an anniversary and
• 51:16
  says, well, you didn't remind me.
• 51:18
  Instead of simply apologizing, I, my bad, I forgot.
• 51:21
  I need to do a better job of, of writing things down.
• 51:25
  Or during an argument, I heard this one very recently, maybe even earlier
• 51:29
  today, where a spouse said to the other, you're just too sensitive.
• 51:33
  Instead of acknowledging that what they said may have been hurtful and
• 51:37
  we were able to explore that, is she too sensitive or did you come on
• 51:43
  too strong and you do now feel bad because you see how that impacted her.
• 51:49
  Another one of these emotionally immature concepts is mind reading.
• 51:54
  This is when somebody assumes that their partner or or somebody else
• 51:57
  should just know what they're thinking or feeling without expressing it.
• 52:02
  I hear some modifiers that go into this one often in the couple's communication
• 52:06
  world of, well, obviously, or everyone knows or, well, you would think that.
• 52:11
  And then when those things aren't reciprocated or acknowledged, then
• 52:14
  they feel hurt or angry because these unspoken expectations aren't met.
• 52:19
  And then mind reading, this emotionally immature behavior comes
• 52:23
  in of where now I'm, I'm hurt.
• 52:26
  You must not care about me because you didn't meet these unspoken expectations.
• 52:31
  I can kind of hide behind, but that everybody knows, so
• 52:33
  you should have known as well.
• 52:35
  And where this comes from in your childhood is an.
• 52:38
  Desire for predictability and relationships.
• 52:41
  It would be great if we all, well, I don't think it would, but I think
• 52:44
  our mind wants to say, it would be wonderful if we all operated from
• 52:46
  this, this just solid always on.
• 52:50
  These are the way that, that, this is the way that everybody
• 52:53
  shows up in relationships.
• 52:54
  Everyone knows this.
• 52:55
  So then if you are not doing this the exact way that I think that we all know,
• 52:59
  then that means you obviously don't care.
• 53:01
  And now I can make meaning of that and point that out to you.
• 53:05
  To the adult though, this really means we need to be more curious and
• 53:10
  have a clear communication curiosity.
• 53:13
  That is a challenge if, if you are still listening and you're here with me now,
• 53:18
  notice how often you lack curiosity.
• 53:21
  I'll be that bold.
• 53:22
  I do see it every day in my office where someone says, well, I think what he
• 53:26
  feels is, or what I think he's doing, or what I don't think he realizes is,
• 53:30
  and I will now routinely say, well ask him, do you think that you do this?
• 53:35
  Or are you, what do you think about?
• 53:37
  Or are you aware of this?
• 53:40
  And, and it is still very difficult, even under the trained eye of the
• 53:44
  therapist to have people genuinely be curious about their partner's experience.
• 53:48
  It's much easier to tell somebody how they think or feel and then say,
• 53:52
  okay, now you need to defend it.
• 53:53
  Versus this is what I think, but I'm gonna start with my questions
• 53:57
  before I make my comments.
• 54:00
  It's kids.
• 54:00
  It was just, you should know what I want without me saying it.
• 54:02
  And then since you didn't do that, then you obviously don't love me
• 54:05
  and I can try to make sense of that.
• 54:07
  But to the adult, it would, it would sound like I noticed.
• 54:10
  I'm expecting you to read my mind.
• 54:11
  I. Let me, let me use this as an opportunity to practice
• 54:14
  expressing my needs directly.
• 54:16
  I would love it if you would, but then I need you to be honest, and
• 54:20
  if that is something that you aren't able to do or you're curious why
• 54:23
  I would want that, then let's have a, an adult mature conversation.
• 54:28
  So when you catch yourself creating stories about other people's intentions,
• 54:32
  that is your chance to pivot.
• 54:33
  I don't actually know what they're thinking and I need to
• 54:36
  be curious and, and learn more.
• 54:38
  In my beloved four pillars of a connected conversation, I inserted a
• 54:41
  pre pillar before you get to assuming good intentions or there's a reason why
• 54:45
  people do or say the things they do.
• 54:47
  And it's taken from the work of Marshall Rosenberg and his book Nonviolent
• 54:49
  Communication, and that is to separate your observation from your judgment.
• 54:54
  Someone walks by and they don't say a word to me.
• 54:58
  That's my observation.
• 54:58
  My judgment is they, boy, they don't care about me, but I need to separate those.
• 55:03
  They walked by me and I'm noticing that I am thinking they don't care about me.
• 55:07
  When I can separate the observation from the judgment,
• 55:09
  now I can jump into the framework.
• 55:11
  Okay?
• 55:11
  I'm gonna assume that they weren't trying to hurt me with that,
• 55:14
  or, or if they didn't connect with me, there's a reason why.
• 55:17
  Could be because they were caught up in thought, or they didn't recognize or
• 55:20
  didn't notice me, which will then lead to the pillar two of I'm not gonna tell
• 55:25
  them what they're doing is wrong, or I don't believe whatever they tell me.
• 55:27
  And I'm even gonna jump into pillar three and be curious.
• 55:30
  I'm gonna ask questions before I make comments.
• 55:32
  Other examples recently, somebody made dinner.
• 55:34
  They are visibly upset when their partner doesn't say thank you or compliments the
• 55:37
  meal, but they have never been one that has communicated that they, they are
• 55:43
  noticing that they are looking forward to, to a compliment or looking forward
• 55:48
  to an acknowledgement that they made the meal, but they never communicated that.
• 55:52
  So they harbor this resentment deep inside and their partner doesn't even know it.
• 55:55
  This was based off of a conversation recently where when we finally
• 55:58
  dug into the deep waters of this concept, it was the husband who
• 56:02
  was not thanking the wife for, for.
• 56:06
  Cooking dinner on a regular basis, and, and then we dug in deep in
• 56:10
  his past and his, his mom didn't deal with compliments at all.
• 56:14
  As a matter of fact, she would turn it back around and say,
• 56:17
  who, who put you up to that?
• 56:19
  Why are you saying that?
• 56:19
  What do you need?
• 56:20
  What's your angle?
• 56:21
  What are your expectations?
• 56:22
  The guy had learned that, okay, I, I'm afraid to give a compliment because
• 56:26
  that's what I've seen mapped or modeled.
• 56:28
  So it was, it was a pretty good moment.
• 56:30
  Or another example is a person who felt very slighted when they
• 56:33
  weren't invited to an event with, with some friends from their church.
• 56:37
  They just assumed, well, those people don't, they don't value me.
• 56:40
  They don't like me, and they don't care about me.
• 56:42
  But they did not know the entire context of the event.
• 56:46
  Another is poor emotional boundaries.
• 56:48
  So this involves confusing where you end and where someone else begins emotionally.
• 56:53
  So you might take responsibility for somebody else's emotions or you
• 56:56
  might expect them to manage yours.
• 56:58
  And this comes from this, this childhood need to, to connect and belong through,
• 57:04
  through codependency, through enmeshment that I know we're okay if we, if we are
• 57:10
  enmeshed, if we are just on the exact same page with everything, even to the point
• 57:15
  where then again, I will, I will sacrifice my own sense of self or wellbeing in the
• 57:20
  name of the relationship to the adult.
• 57:23
  We think we are looking for intimacy, but we're still looking for validation.
• 57:29
  Instead of letting someone truly know who I am and my thoughts, my feelings, I'm
• 57:33
  trying to figure out a way to, to show up, to get this person to like me, because
• 57:38
  I'm worried I am managing their emotions.
• 57:40
  I'm worried they won't like it if I say a thing or if I do a thing.
• 57:44
  Now, that's also somebody that projects or, or hands over their
• 57:48
  emotional caretaking to someone else.
• 57:50
  Well, you know what happens when you use that tone with me?
• 57:54
  Or, well, I told you that I was already upset tonight and you are the one that
• 57:58
  still wanted to have a conversation.
• 58:00
  So it's, I'm putting that back over on you.
• 58:02
  So both of these are coming from an emotionally immature place.
• 58:05
  I think one of the difficulties here in particular is it can really feel like
• 58:11
  the, the relationship is changing, and at first it might not feel like in a,
• 58:15
  in a good way when one person begins to differentiate, when one person begins
• 58:19
  to recognize that I need to stop.
• 58:23
  Trying to manage someone else's emotions rather than, I'm worried
• 58:27
  this person will think this thing.
• 58:30
  Then I need to be able to have the courage to express the thing that
• 58:34
  I wanna express, and now have give that person an opportunity to have
• 58:38
  their own emotional experience.
• 58:39
  It it, and it can be a very connecting, intimate experience when we both can
• 58:45
  be open and honest about our thoughts, our feelings, and our emotions.
• 58:48
  But I hope you can see why, why it is so scary, because that is
• 58:52
  not how we survived as a kid.
• 58:54
  We, we absolutely played small or we manage other people's emotions, or we
• 58:59
  didn't deal with our own to the child.
• 59:02
  It felt like, well, your feelings are my responsibility or my feelings
• 59:05
  are actually your fault to the adult.
• 59:08
  Then I care deeply about your experience.
• 59:10
  But I recognize we are two separate people.
• 59:12
  Of course, we think and feel differently about things.
• 59:15
  So how can I support you while I'm still honoring my own needs or I'm, I'm
• 59:19
  holding onto my own autonomy because I promise you this is one of those
• 59:22
  things as, as a couple's therapist, that we don't know what we don't know.
• 59:26
  This is where if I could give someone some, some magic bean or pill
• 59:31
  that they could take and recognize what it really felt like to be.
• 59:34
  Intimately connected with another human and differentiated and being able to
• 59:39
  really love somebody for who they are entirely, and have someone love you
• 59:42
  for that, then I think we would all do everything we could to get to this place
• 59:47
  of, of authenticity and differentiation.
• 59:50
  Healthy boundaries are not walls because it often feels like such a, a
• 59:54
  negative thing, but a healthy boundary is a clear property line that shows
• 59:59
  where you end and where another begins.
• 1:00:01
  And the most connected relationships actually have very, very clear boundaries.
• 1:00:06
  People set boundaries because they want you in their life to a point because
• 1:00:10
  they're saying, I still want this connection, but if you handle situations
• 1:00:15
  in this way or if you talk this way to me, I can't be in this relationship.
• 1:00:19
  So I need to set the boundary hoping you'll respect it so we
• 1:00:22
  can still find a way to connect.
• 1:00:24
  So if a, a partner feels anxious and tells their spouse, you need to
• 1:00:27
  calm down, you're stressing me out.
• 1:00:29
  Break that down from managing emotions.
• 1:00:32
  I need you to calm down so I'll feel better.
• 1:00:34
  You are stressing me out, so I need you to stop it so I'll feel better.
• 1:00:37
  Instead of owning their reaction.
• 1:00:38
  Man, check it out.
• 1:00:39
  When you do this thing, I get all anxious.
• 1:00:41
  What, what is the story my brain is telling me?
• 1:00:43
  I guess I'm feeling, I'm feeling a little bit embarrassed because I grew up in a
• 1:00:46
  way that nobody, there were no performers, there was nobody that was out there,
• 1:00:51
  uh, going big or being an extrovert, it is super uncomfortable for me.
• 1:00:55
  Can you not do the thing that you think is okay to do to make me feel better?
• 1:01:00
  Or somebody hears the, a friend is struggling, they immediately cancel all
• 1:01:03
  their own plans to fix the situation even when their friend didn't ask for help.
• 1:01:08
  This one, it can be really difficult because you start to notice that
• 1:01:11
  if I really just want to vent or I want my partner to see me, to
• 1:01:16
  know me, to understand me, and so they say, how was your day?
• 1:01:19
  I share it, and then they say, oh man, I'm so sorry.
• 1:01:22
  It sounds right.
• 1:01:23
  Those are good words to say, but what do you do with that if you're the one
• 1:01:27
  that wants to feel heard and understood?
• 1:01:29
  Tell them o okay.
• 1:01:30
  I appreciate that.
• 1:01:31
  Uh, I'm, yeah.
• 1:01:32
  No, that's nice.
• 1:01:33
  I'm glad that you are, sorry.
• 1:01:34
  But then do we have more conversation from there?
• 1:01:38
  I alluded to the psychologist, Terry Real, and he has a type of therapy
• 1:01:42
  called Relational Life Therapy, and I've been going through the
• 1:01:45
  training and it's, it's so powerful.
• 1:01:48
  Terry Reel's work in relational life therapy.
• 1:01:50
  I think I'm recognizing offers one of the most compassionate frameworks
• 1:01:54
  that I've come across when it comes to things like emotional growth.
• 1:01:57
  He says something that I quote so often because it, it hits home and I want to use
• 1:02:02
  an all or nothing statement every time.
• 1:02:04
  What was adaptive in childhood becomes maladaptive in adulthood.
• 1:02:07
  That simple sentence is this massive shift from shame to self understanding
• 1:02:12
  because these patterns that we often beat ourselves up for today,
• 1:02:15
  they were never bad behaviors.
• 1:02:17
  They actually were these brilliant survival strategies.
• 1:02:20
  Let's talk about your inner child.
• 1:02:22
  It was the expert, strategist, picture your inner child not as broken, not
• 1:02:26
  as fragile, but as wildly resourceful.
• 1:02:29
  You weren't just absorbing emotional chaos or, or instability.
• 1:02:33
  You were adapting to it.
• 1:02:35
  You were finding ways to stay safe and to stay connected and to make sense of
• 1:02:39
  a world that didn't always make sense.
• 1:02:40
  The kid that was a people pleaser.
• 1:02:43
  They weren't weak.
• 1:02:44
  They were learning to manage danger through connection,
• 1:02:47
  however they needed to find it.
• 1:02:48
  The kid who went quiet and shut down emotionally, they, they weren't avoidant.
• 1:02:53
  They were trying to survive being emotionally overwhelmed.
• 1:02:56
  And what's heartbreaking, but also beautiful, is that
• 1:02:59
  these adaptations worked.
• 1:03:01
  They kept you afloat.
• 1:03:02
  They got you through, and now they're still showing up.
• 1:03:04
  But instead of keeping you safe, they might be causing you to feel stuck.
• 1:03:08
  And that is the paradox.
• 1:03:10
  The strategies that saved us as kids are often the ones that sabotage us as adults.
• 1:03:14
  And I think that's why emotional maturity is not about yelling
• 1:03:17
  at our inner child to grow up.
• 1:03:18
  It's not about beating ourselves up or shaming ourselves.
• 1:03:21
  It's about acknowledging how hard that little guy worked to protect us.
• 1:03:26
  It's saying, Hey, hey buddy.
• 1:03:27
  I see what you did there.
• 1:03:28
  It was actually kinda genius.
• 1:03:30
  Now not so much, so I need to let the big kid take over.
• 1:03:32
  But the irony there is, okay, what does the big kid do?
• 1:03:36
  Because I, I'm just now figuring this thing out.
• 1:03:39
  So I think there are these common childhood survival skills and they
• 1:03:42
  do become these adult roadblocks.
• 1:03:44
  Let me address some of these common childhood adaptations that really do
• 1:03:48
  turn into struggles and relationships.
• 1:03:49
  And it's not, again, so that we can judge 'em, but we want to, we wanna honor 'em,
• 1:03:52
  we wanna understand 'em, and we wanna learn new ways to show up in the present.
• 1:03:55
  And these are ones I haven't covered up to this point.
• 1:03:58
  So let's talk about hypervigilance as a kid.
• 1:04:00
  Hypervigilance meant scanning the emotional environment, constantly
• 1:04:04
  trying to read the room, reading facial expressions, tone of voice,
• 1:04:06
  body language, trying to predict when the next emotional shift would hit.
• 1:04:10
  And that is how so many kids survive in homes where moods are unpredictable, or
• 1:04:14
  where conflict is constantly bubbling.
• 1:04:16
  Just.
• 1:04:17
  Below the surface or right on the surface.
• 1:04:20
  This is the origin story of so many people that are highly sensitive.
• 1:04:23
  I've done episodes on highly sensitive person or HSP.
• 1:04:26
  Here's how it shows up.
• 1:04:27
  Now, as an adult, you walk into a room and immediately you can feel tension, and even
• 1:04:31
  if nobody has said a word, you're on high alert even when there's no real danger.
• 1:04:35
  Now your your partner size and you're already wondering, okay, what did
• 1:04:39
  I do wrong before they've even said a word and it, it is exhausting.
• 1:04:42
  It's emotionally overwhelming.
• 1:04:43
  You burn a lot of emotional calories and mental energy, and it can create
• 1:04:47
  anxiety and relationships where calm may actually reside, but you can't trust it.
• 1:04:52
  How could you, because that was your adaptation as a kid.
• 1:04:56
  One of the best things here is, as I go back to, I'm not
• 1:04:59
  saying don't trust your gut.
• 1:05:00
  I've had a, an amazing session or two with a very highly sensitive client of mine and
• 1:05:05
  we were talking about this and, and she said, it sounds to me like you're saying
• 1:05:09
  that, that this is all just my immaturity.
• 1:05:12
  And, and it's not that that actually is, I'm joking a little bit here,
• 1:05:16
  but that is a, that is an immature comment about immaturity because that's
• 1:05:19
  a black or white statement versus having some curiosity about it because
• 1:05:23
  it's actually your hyper vigilance.
• 1:05:26
  It is part of that HSP and now use that to then inform you and guide you and
• 1:05:32
  yes, you, you may be very hypervigilant now as an adult and there are times
• 1:05:36
  where that might be, you may say, I feel this way, therefore it is, but
• 1:05:40
  then having the courage and the maturity to be able to express that, to then
• 1:05:45
  have conversations, to recognize that there will be times where, yeah, you
• 1:05:49
  are reading the room really well.
• 1:05:50
  There might be times where that sense or that feeling of overwhelm is
• 1:05:53
  your, your emotional imprint that has been there since childhood that is
• 1:05:58
  saying, Hey, here's an opportunity.
• 1:05:59
  We probably need to be more aware.
• 1:06:01
  So I will be, I will be more aware.
• 1:06:04
  Here's what I haven't talked about a lot.
• 1:06:05
  Emotional containment.
• 1:06:07
  It's that childhood message that so many of us got of, don't be too much.
• 1:06:11
  Don't rock the boat.
• 1:06:13
  It's telling you that your emotions aren't safe here.
• 1:06:16
  So you learn to stuff your emotions down, hide your needs.
• 1:06:20
  And just stay very easy to be around, very agreeable, and this
• 1:06:24
  might even be a little bit you.
• 1:06:26
  You might show a bit of a performance every now and again, but it's to let
• 1:06:29
  everybody know everything's okay.
• 1:06:31
  You're easy in the relationship, but you often find yourself as having been lost
• 1:06:37
  as a kid in the relationship as well.
• 1:06:39
  Here's how it starts to show up as an adult.
• 1:06:42
  I'm good even if you're not, because expressing your needs, you feel
• 1:06:45
  like you are burdening someone.
• 1:06:47
  You go along with plans or you stay silent during conflict because you're afraid that
• 1:06:52
  being honest is gonna make you unlovable and you are again, you, you're too much.
• 1:06:56
  Here's the thing though, being agreeable is not the same as being known.
• 1:07:02
  Emotional containment protected your relationships from short
• 1:07:05
  term friction, but it is at the cost of longer term intimacy with
• 1:07:10
  a, a partner, a true connection.
• 1:07:12
  Next up is perfectionism, and I hope you can see at this point we could
• 1:07:16
  go on an entire episode on each one of these adaptive strategies
• 1:07:21
  that have now become maladaptive.
• 1:07:23
  Because perfectionism is something that, I think it's one of those that people don't
• 1:07:27
  even recognize what that looks like, and they, they, they will often say, okay,
• 1:07:31
  no, I don't struggle from perfectionism because I'm obviously not perfect, but
• 1:07:34
  it's, it's that desire to become perfect or belief that there is something that
• 1:07:39
  I can achieve, that if I can just get there and be somewhat perfect, then
• 1:07:43
  all of my problems will disappear.
• 1:07:45
  Because where that comes from is, in childhood perfectionism was typically
• 1:07:48
  about staying one step ahead of criticism.
• 1:07:51
  If you can be flawless, then maybe you would be safe.
• 1:07:54
  Maybe you would earn love or you would avoid punishment or
• 1:07:56
  finally feel like you are enough.
• 1:07:58
  One of the areas of therapy that I'm doing more exploration with is internal family
• 1:08:03
  systems, and one of the first concepts that I learned about at a training was.
• 1:08:08
  And the concept there is beautiful.
• 1:08:10
  You are a sum of all of your parts.
• 1:08:12
  When you say, part of me feels this way, part of me feels that way, you are not
• 1:08:16
  having a dissociative identity disorder.
• 1:08:18
  It's the part of you that that maybe felt unlovable or the part of you that
• 1:08:22
  was trying to protect another emotion.
• 1:08:25
  And I remember at this training, the trainer, the therapist said that
• 1:08:29
  they had worked with someone who was struggling with perfectionism.
• 1:08:33
  And when they really dug deep, there was a part of them that as a child,
• 1:08:37
  their mom and dad had both told them.
• 1:08:39
  And it's funny, this was a bad word in my home growing up, but how stupid they were.
• 1:08:43
  It was the S word, but they were just continually told how stupid they were.
• 1:08:46
  So at some point that the poor inner child, that piece became
• 1:08:52
  exiled and here came this protector, which was perfectionism.
• 1:08:56
  So if I can be perfect, I will never be called stupid again.
• 1:09:00
  But that is this endless pursuit of perfectionism.
• 1:09:04
  So that I will not have to go through what that felt like as a
• 1:09:07
  kid to be told that you're stupid.
• 1:09:10
  So what does this look like in adults?
• 1:09:12
  It often will even be things like procrastination because you'll
• 1:09:15
  procrastinate on projects because if it's not perfect, it's not worth doing.
• 1:09:19
  Or you'll hang on to a project and keep going over it and over it.
• 1:09:24
  Where someone that you, maybe someone close to you is
• 1:09:27
  saying, Hey, just turn it in.
• 1:09:29
  It's not worth your mental health at this point.
• 1:09:32
  But you tie your worth often to your performance, feeling like a failure
• 1:09:36
  if you're not overachieving or if you're not impressing everybody.
• 1:09:39
  And it is a trap because perfectionism isn't love.
• 1:09:43
  Perfectionism is an armor and it keeps people from seeing the messy,
• 1:09:47
  but the real, the real authentic or lovable you that's underneath.
• 1:09:51
  And it is often from this place of, and it is from this place of, I was
• 1:09:56
  about to say emotional immaturity.
• 1:09:57
  What about that?
• 1:09:57
  We are literally talking about that on the podcast today, but emotionally
• 1:10:01
  immature because I'm afraid to be open and vulnerable and allow
• 1:10:04
  people to see the messy parts of me.
• 1:10:07
  Let's talk about control.
• 1:10:09
  When your childhood world felt unpredictable or unsafe,
• 1:10:12
  control became the anchor.
• 1:10:14
  What can I control?
• 1:10:16
  So you create order where there was chaos, whether that was controlling
• 1:10:20
  your environment, controlling your body.
• 1:10:22
  This is where a lot of people that struggle with things like disordered
• 1:10:24
  eating may come from, or controlling your emotions and learning how
• 1:10:28
  to just stuff them emotions.
• 1:10:30
  You are not welcome here and and adults, you may find yourself micromanaging
• 1:10:35
  your partner or your kids because unpredictability is uncomfortable and
• 1:10:40
  it makes you feel panic, not playful.
• 1:10:43
  So you may struggle to delegate because it's easier for you to take care of
• 1:10:47
  it, or you may struggle to relax.
• 1:10:50
  Because if you relax, then someone might think that you don't care or that you
• 1:10:55
  are lazy or they'll be very judgmental.
• 1:10:57
  Or you just need to keep doing things so that you can keep the house in order.
• 1:11:01
  So you can make sure that the yard is in order or your car is in order, or your
• 1:11:06
  clothes are in order, or whatever that is.
• 1:11:08
  'cause it will.
• 1:11:08
  Help you feel like you have some semblance of control, and you're
• 1:11:12
  also worried that if I delegate, then somebody else won't do it.
• 1:11:15
  Right?
• 1:11:15
  And now we're back to that all or nothing, black or white thinking
• 1:11:18
  that there's a right way to do it.
• 1:11:19
  This is the way you vacuum.
• 1:11:21
  This is the way you iron.
• 1:11:22
  This is the way that you put food on a plate because control
• 1:11:26
  creates this illusion of safety.
• 1:11:28
  But it will drive disconnection, it will drive anxiety.
• 1:11:32
  It can keep you from leaning into vulnerability, from spontaneity or from
• 1:11:36
  shared responsibility, shared experiences.
• 1:11:39
  Because to really let go of this control is putting yourself in
• 1:11:44
  the hands of someone else, and then there will be discomfort,
• 1:11:48
  and that takes a lot of courage.
• 1:11:50
  Let's talk about integration, because we're not trying to erase these
• 1:11:53
  characteristics or these traits.
• 1:11:55
  The goal is not to get rid of these parts of you.
• 1:11:58
  It is to integrate them.
• 1:12:00
  It's to recognize this wisdom, this internal wisdom in their
• 1:12:03
  origin, and then the limits though of their usefulness in adulthood.
• 1:12:07
  So when you feel yourself controlling or people pleasing or shutting
• 1:12:10
  down or chasing perfection, then you can say, I, this makes sense.
• 1:12:16
  Thank you inner child.
• 1:12:18
  Thank you body.
• 1:12:19
  This is how I kept myself safe, but I'm not that scared kid anymore
• 1:12:24
  or I'm noticing that that scared kid is still on board and I'm
• 1:12:28
  gonna acknowledge that scared kid.
• 1:12:30
  I'm allowed to start trying things different now because there isn't
• 1:12:34
  a necessarily a wrong or right way to do my life, and I need to
• 1:12:38
  start having the courage to do and invite all of these feelings, all
• 1:12:42
  these things to come along with me.
• 1:12:44
  That is emotional maturity.
• 1:12:46
  That is this part the, I think I started a little while ago
• 1:12:48
  talking about re-parenting.
• 1:12:50
  That's this path where you go from, I was doing this to survive,
• 1:12:53
  to now I am doing this to thrive and to live boundary setting.
• 1:12:58
  I think this is something that needs to be talked about as well, and.
• 1:13:02
  The boundary versus the ultimatum becomes important.
• 1:13:05
  We're not talking about ultimatums that are in disguise because setting healthy
• 1:13:09
  boundaries is one of the clearest signs of emotional maturity, but it, I think
• 1:13:12
  it's also one of the most misunderstood.
• 1:13:14
  A, A boundary is a me thing.
• 1:13:16
  It's not about controlling the other person.
• 1:13:18
  It's about taking responsibility for what you will do to take care of your
• 1:13:22
  emotional and physical wellbeing.
• 1:13:23
  So what is that difference between a boundary and ultimatum?
• 1:13:26
  A boundary says if you continue yelling, I am going to leave the room
• 1:13:29
  essentially to take care of myself.
• 1:13:31
  An ultimatum says, you need to stop yelling, and you can't keep doing
• 1:13:36
  this because to the emotionally immature, they see that as a challenge.
• 1:13:40
  They're saying, oh, really?
• 1:13:41
  I do.
• 1:13:41
  I, well, that's, now I know that button works with you.
• 1:13:45
  So hopefully you can see the shift boundaries done.
• 1:13:48
  I wanna say right, not right and wrong, but a, a healthy boundary
• 1:13:52
  is grounded in self-respect.
• 1:13:53
  They're proactive, they're not reactive, and they're about protecting your peace,
• 1:13:57
  not manipulating somebody else's behavior.
• 1:13:59
  So let's say that somebody says, Hey, I need to talk about something right
• 1:14:02
  now, it's okay for you to say if we need to talk about it right now.
• 1:14:07
  I'm not really in a good position, so I'm unable to, but I care about
• 1:14:11
  you and let's find a better time.
• 1:14:15
  That can be a boundary around timing, about emotional availability.
• 1:14:18
  There are people that have such a hard time saying no.
• 1:14:21
  That can be a boundary.
• 1:14:22
  If somebody has already committed to a quiet weekend, but now they've been
• 1:14:26
  invited to do something last minute and maybe spontaneity is not one of their
• 1:14:31
  values, and so they want this downtime, then it takes a lot of courage to say, if
• 1:14:36
  to myself, a personal boundary, if I have already committed to a quiet weekend, then
• 1:14:39
  I am gonna have to pass on the invite, even if I find myself or notice myself
• 1:14:44
  worrying what that other person may think.
• 1:14:46
  That could be looked at as a boundary around your energy.
• 1:14:48
  It's not a rejection of the other person.
• 1:14:50
  Boundaries say things like, this is what I need in order to show up well in my life.
• 1:14:54
  And spoiler, and this is something for a future episode,
• 1:14:58
  people who are used to you are.
• 1:15:01
  Not having boundaries.
• 1:15:02
  Might not love them at first, and that's okay.
• 1:15:05
  You are not building walls.
• 1:15:07
  You're building this foundation for real respectful connection.
• 1:15:10
  Again, you're doing it so that you can have connection with someone, but that
• 1:15:15
  shows you that if they don't respect the boundary, then that is a them thing.
• 1:15:19
  And now you may have to make a decision that this isn't a healthy relationship.
• 1:15:24
  So I think we can wrap today's episode up by, by talking about what growth or
• 1:15:30
  emotional maturity actually feels like.
• 1:15:32
  And a spoiler here, it's, it feels awkward, which makes it
• 1:15:35
  seem a little bit odd or weird.
• 1:15:37
  But don't be afraid of the unknown.
• 1:15:42
  Remember, hopefully by now, you definitely have recognized you didn't
• 1:15:46
  know what you didn't know, and now you're learning some new things and some
• 1:15:49
  of it is gonna resonate and land and other parts of it you may disagree with.
• 1:15:53
  And that's, that's okay.
• 1:15:55
  I wanna give you three or four examples of I. Situations and people,
• 1:15:59
  I've changed the names that have happened in the last couple of weeks
• 1:16:02
  as people in my office have woken up to their own emotional immaturity and
• 1:16:06
  have become more emotionally mature.
• 1:16:08
  We'll call the first person Stacy.
• 1:16:10
  Stacy was a fixer.
• 1:16:11
  She would fix everybody's problems and do so Immediately we'd identified.
• 1:16:14
  That's how she felt useful growing up.
• 1:16:16
  That was her adaptive coping mechanism, which is maladaptive now
• 1:16:19
  as an adult because people weren't asking her to fix their issues.
• 1:16:23
  Especially her husband, when her husband would share something very,
• 1:16:26
  very vulnerable and she would say, here's what I think you should do.
• 1:16:29
  He would pull back.
• 1:16:30
  This had happened over a couple of decades as we communicated in couples therapy.
• 1:16:34
  She would acknowledge that's what she wanted to do.
• 1:16:37
  She would pause and often apologize and then ask, Hey, what are, what
• 1:16:41
  are you looking for right now?
• 1:16:41
  And how can I show up for you?
• 1:16:43
  Do you want me to just sit with you or are you looking for solutions
• 1:16:48
  or for me to fix your problems?
• 1:16:50
  And the reason I chuckle is because she usually could answer that one herself.
• 1:16:53
  Although once her husband felt heard, he was definitely open to her feedback.
• 1:16:58
  And it was awkward, but it also connected them, or we'll call him Matt.
• 1:17:04
  Matt had always, always used humor to deflect some of the one-on-one sessions
• 1:17:07
  I would have with Matt, felt like we were just exchanging comedy bits.
• 1:17:11
  But you could see underneath the surface of that, and I would often joke that if
• 1:17:15
  people were listening in, they would think that we were speaking in riddles or code,
• 1:17:18
  but humor had become his primary emotion.
• 1:17:22
  Those around him had started to pull away from him, and he had finally had
• 1:17:26
  someone very close to him say that they felt like he had been a bit distant.
• 1:17:31
  That was one of the things that had brought him into therapy.
• 1:17:33
  And so now instead of joking it off, he, it was sharing an experience
• 1:17:37
  with me where he had opened up and said, honestly, I have realized
• 1:17:40
  I, I hide, I hide behind my humor.
• 1:17:43
  And when he did that, he said it was this proverbial record scratch
• 1:17:47
  moment at a party that he was at where he felt like everybody went
• 1:17:51
  quiet and everything slowed down.
• 1:17:54
  But as awkward as it felt, he said.
• 1:17:57
  The room was quiet.
• 1:17:58
  Then he said it almost felt like it got warm.
• 1:18:01
  Nobody laughed and everybody leaned in and he said he felt
• 1:18:04
  like he was in a real life movie.
• 1:18:06
  Kara spent years saying yes to everything out of fear that she wouldn't be liked,
• 1:18:11
  even to the point where her husband would say, I don't even believe you when you
• 1:18:16
  say that you are that agreeable, or that you are okay with whatever it is that
• 1:18:20
  I wanna do, or what the kids wanna do.
• 1:18:22
  And it started to drive a real wedge in the relationship.
• 1:18:25
  So her sister had reached out to her and asked if she could host Thanksgiving.
• 1:18:29
  She wanted to say yes so bad, but she also knew that they already
• 1:18:34
  had plans for Thanksgiving.
• 1:18:35
  She said that when she finally responded to her sister, her hands were shaking.
• 1:18:39
  She said that she couldn't host Thanksgiving, and she said it.
• 1:18:43
  It wasn't a Disney moment.
• 1:18:45
  It wasn't a moment where her sister said, thank you so much.
• 1:18:48
  I'm so proud of you.
• 1:18:49
  You're so brave.
• 1:18:50
  No.
• 1:18:50
  Her sister said, oh, great.
• 1:18:51
  Now what am I supposed to do?
• 1:18:53
  Her sister was clearly disappointed, but Kara sat in the silence and she
• 1:18:58
  said that was the area where in the past if there was silence, she would
• 1:19:01
  fill it with a, I will take care of it.
• 1:19:02
  I will do it.
• 1:19:03
  You are right.
• 1:19:04
  I am wrong.
• 1:19:05
  But she held that silence and kept her boundary, and she and her husband,
• 1:19:11
  I. Grew closer because of that.
• 1:19:13
  And finally, Eric, he used to go silent anytime his partner
• 1:19:17
  brought up any concern.
• 1:19:19
  But one night he just said, honestly, when I am going silent like this, it's
• 1:19:24
  because I don't know what to say, but I really want to understand you and I stop
• 1:19:28
  paying attention to you because I'm so worried about saying the wrong thing.
• 1:19:33
  And he identified that he realized there isn't necessarily a wrong
• 1:19:37
  thing, I just need to be able to express the thing that I am thinking.
• 1:19:41
  He started asking for a few minutes to collect his thoughts.
• 1:19:43
  And when that had previously been a way for him to get out of a
• 1:19:46
  conversation altogether, now he needed to go back to the conversation
• 1:19:50
  and he did and he didn't flee.
• 1:19:51
  And that was new.
• 1:19:53
  Growth takes time, and it is not linear.
• 1:19:56
  It isn't just a simple checklist of 1, 2, 3, 4, A, B, C, D, although I'm
• 1:20:00
  literally about to give you four steps.
• 1:20:02
  These steps are not exactly linear.
• 1:20:04
  You'll go back and forth between them.
• 1:20:06
  In Rick Hansen's book, Buddhist Brain, he lays out four stages of learning.
• 1:20:10
  He calls them unconscious incompetence, and that's what I call the, you
• 1:20:14
  don't know what you don't know.
• 1:20:16
  He said, you don't even know what you're doing, and you don't even know what
• 1:20:19
  you're doing isn't working because you don't know unconscious incompetence.
• 1:20:24
  The second step is conscious incompetence, which, so now you're
• 1:20:27
  conscious of your incompetence.
• 1:20:29
  You realize it's not working, but you keep doing it anyway.
• 1:20:33
  You try.
• 1:20:34
  It's not working.
• 1:20:35
  You're aware that you could be doing something different, but you continue
• 1:20:38
  to do the thing that is not working, and this is the hardest stage, and
• 1:20:42
  it's most likely the stage that people will stay in the longest.
• 1:20:46
  But you'll start to dip your toe over into stage three,
• 1:20:50
  which is conscious competence.
• 1:20:52
  Now you're aware and you are starting to become competent.
• 1:20:55
  You start doing it differently, but it does take work effort,
• 1:21:00
  consistency, forgiveness, grace to yourself when you may not remember
• 1:21:04
  what you are gonna do, what you're supposed to do in those situations.
• 1:21:09
  So it takes work and it's gonna feel clunky, and you'll probably dip
• 1:21:12
  between that two and three conscious incompetence and conscious competence
• 1:21:19
  back and forth for quite a while.
• 1:21:21
  And then remembering that unconscious incompetence, the stuff I don't even
• 1:21:24
  know that I don't know is still there because I don't know what they are.
• 1:21:27
  Because I don't know what it is.
• 1:21:29
  And finally, you move into his fourth stage of enlightenment or
• 1:21:33
  growth, unconscious competence.
• 1:21:36
  You're just doing it.
• 1:21:37
  It is who you are.
• 1:21:38
  You have become, you are.
• 1:21:39
  It is just part of your doing and being.
• 1:21:42
  This path takes time.
• 1:21:44
  But like what Rick Hanson says, it's a lot of little moments of practice
• 1:21:47
  will replace the poisons of suffering with happiness, love, and wisdom.
• 1:21:51
  Each time that you show up differently, you're literally rewiring your
• 1:21:55
  brain, the good old concept of neuroplasticity, and you're becoming
• 1:21:58
  the adult that your inner child always needed and hoped you would be.
• 1:22:01
  And that isn't just growth.
• 1:22:03
  That's actually healing as well.
• 1:22:05
  You're healing your own trauma, have grace for the journey.
• 1:22:10
  As you continue to explore the concepts of emotional maturity and you're
• 1:22:14
  recognizing and naming the places where you might be emotionally immature or even
• 1:22:18
  those around you, I want to emphasize something really, really crucial.
• 1:22:22
  The goal is progress.
• 1:22:23
  It's not perfection.
• 1:22:25
  If you think that you will just figure this out overnight, it's
• 1:22:28
  actually immature because that is the black or white thinking.
• 1:22:31
  The most emotionally immature belief you could possibly hold is that you'll
• 1:22:35
  never be emotionally immature Again.
• 1:22:38
  It's like thinking that once you climb outta one hole,
• 1:22:40
  you'll never fall into another.
• 1:22:41
  Life just doesn't work that way, but now you're gonna know that, do I have
• 1:22:46
  the right tool when I'm in that hole?
• 1:22:48
  Because that will be the first time that you'll actually be in that hole.
• 1:22:52
  In that very moment.
• 1:22:53
  So there will still be these new variables, but you'll start to
• 1:22:57
  have confidence in how you show up.
• 1:22:59
  The emotionally mature person isn't somebody who never
• 1:23:01
  reacts from their inner child.
• 1:23:03
  It's somebody who can recognize when they've fallen back down into
• 1:23:06
  this hole and they know now how to put down the shovel and reach
• 1:23:09
  for the ladder, and it's somebody who can say, okay, check that out.
• 1:23:12
  There I go again.
• 1:23:13
  I'm mind reading what my partner is thinking, or, oh, I am noticing my magical
• 1:23:17
  thinking as I look at that pile of mail once again, because I have been better
• 1:23:22
  about opening my own mail, but I know that there's gonna be a time where I'm,
• 1:23:26
  my, my brain is gonna say, okay, check.
• 1:23:28
  Got it.
• 1:23:28
  I open my mail now until I don't.
• 1:23:31
  I'm gonna have to be very, very consistent and intentional about
• 1:23:33
  that, or people recognizing a lot in my office of, oh, I'm actually
• 1:23:38
  realizing I'm, I'm seeking external validation, or, I need you to know this
• 1:23:42
  because that'll make me feel better.
• 1:23:43
  Your inner child deserves a tremendous amount of grace and love and
• 1:23:47
  kindness and support and empathy.
• 1:23:51
  Those adaptive strategies from everything from black and white thinking to
• 1:23:54
  mind reading, to external validation seeking, were not character flaws.
• 1:23:57
  They were brilliant survival mechanisms that got you to where you are today.
• 1:24:00
  Listening to the podcast right now.
• 1:24:02
  And that child, that inner child, that part of you deserves the standing
• 1:24:06
  ovation, actually, not criticism.
• 1:24:08
  Thank you.
• 1:24:08
  You did great.
• 1:24:10
  So the journey of emotional maturity is more about expanding your
• 1:24:13
  repertoire, not rejecting your past.
• 1:24:15
  It happened.
• 1:24:16
  It's about having more choices now in how you respond.
• 1:24:19
  Really thinking the past because that's what got you here.
• 1:24:23
  And it's not about eliminating all of your childhood responses.
• 1:24:25
  Some days you'll gracefully climb the ladder outta the hole, and other
• 1:24:28
  days you'll find yourself digging and you didn't even realize you were.
• 1:24:31
  And that is not failure.
• 1:24:32
  That's being a human.
• 1:24:34
  What matters isn't that you never fall into holes.
• 1:24:36
  What matters is that you'll increasingly recognize when you're in one,
• 1:24:40
  you'll have compassion for yourself when you reach for the shovel out
• 1:24:42
  of habit and gently, persistently practice using that awkward ladder.
• 1:24:47
  Sometimes it might be a rope ladder, and those are really hard to climb.
• 1:24:51
  Remember, your maturity isn't measured by never making mistakes.
• 1:24:54
  It's measured by how you respond when you do.
• 1:24:57
  Can you offer the same compassion you would offer a
• 1:24:58
  child learning something new?
• 1:24:59
  That would be really helpful.
• 1:25:01
  Can you celebrate small steps rather than demanding instant perfection?
• 1:25:04
  That's more of a true mark of emotional maturity, not an absence
• 1:25:07
  of childlike moments, but a growing capacity for awareness and choice and
• 1:25:11
  self-compassion in the face of them.
• 1:25:13
  So as we park today, I invite you to put down the shovel of perfectionism.
• 1:25:17
  Pick up a ladder of self-acceptance.
• 1:25:18
  Your inner child's been working so hard to protect you, so now your adult self
• 1:25:22
  can take their hand gently, show 'em.
• 1:25:24
  There's a whole world outside of that hole, and that's a world where you can
• 1:25:27
  both actually be vulnerable and safe and imperfect and worthy, and always growing
• 1:25:32
  and always enough, exactly as you are.
• 1:25:34
  Thanks for joining me.
• 1:25:35
  I'd love to hear your feedback.
• 1:25:36
  Share this with somebody if you think it'll help.
• 1:25:38
  Taking us out, per usual is the wonderful, the talented.
• 1:25:41
  Aurora Florence with her song.
• 1:25:42
  It's wonderful.
• 1:25:43
  Have a great week and we'll see you next time on the Virtual Catch.
• 1:25:46
  Compress Motions, flying Past, heads Out the Other and the
• 1:25:52
  pressures of the Daily Grind.
• 1:25:54
  It's Wonder,
• 1:25:58
  elastic, waist, and Rub.
• 1:26:01
  I'm floating past the midnight hour.
• 1:26:04
  They push aside the things that.